Assembling a feature from a series of shorts?

DeadChannel

DeadChannel

I wasn't sure where to put this, so if you think I've made a mistake let me know.

At the moment, I lack the resources to put out a full length feature film. However, I do have the resources to put out shorts for next to no money. A while ago, I saw Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes. This film is a series of unrelated short films that follow some thematic ties. It struck me that doing a feature this way would help to break down the workload, and let me focus on a better end product. A feature might be too much to bite off, but I'm perfectly confident with making, say, a short per month.

These shorts would be self contained. You could watch them perfectly fine on their own. However, when assembled into a whole, new meaning would be added by the links between the individual components. I'm not interested in going the structure-less route of Coffee and Cigarettes, though, so I'd like the components to be assembled into some sort of (perhaps untraditional) fragmented, overarching narrative.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Do you think it would work well, or is it destined to be some sort of epic fail? Thanks!
 
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I like Horror anthologies, like CREEPSHOW, TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE, TALES FROM THE CRYPT (original 1972 movie with short stories) or TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. This generation sees stuff like VHS or ABCs OF DEATH, which are obviously popular enough to spawn sequels. I think the key is to have a common theme, so that the shorts can be marketed as a whole.
 
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As Scoopicman says, there are lots of films that are anthologies of unrelated stories. But there is usually a scene in between, as well as at the beginning and end, which tie those stories together.
 
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Scoopicman said:
I like Horror anthologies, like CREEPSHOW, TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE, TALES FROM THE CRYPT (original 1972 movie with short stories) or TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. This generation sees stuff like VHS or ABCs OF DEATH, which are obviously popular enough to spawn sequels. I think the key is to have a common theme, so that the shorts can be marketed as a whole.
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Yeah, I'll have to check some of those out. Personally, I'm more or less looking at building narrative links rather than thematic between the shorts to make them more coherent as a whole.

sfoster said:
My favorite kirosawa film is a collection of shorts.
It's called Dreams.
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Big fan of Kurosawa, but I've not seen that one. I'll have to check it out.

Cryogenic said:
I have thought of doing this where a character from one short would tie into the next short etc.
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Me too.

Aspiring Mogul said:
As Scoopicman says, there are lots of films that are anthologies of unrelated stories. But there is usually a scene in between, as well as at the beginning and end, which tie those stories together.
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I want them to all be structurally dependent while still working as independent pieces.

directorik said:
I think it's a great idea.

One ten minute short a month for eight or nine months seems very
doable. Have you written anything yet?
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I've written this first two shorts, but I have a quite a few more plotted out. We'll see where it goes.
 
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DeadChannel said:
Personally, I'm more or less looking at building narrative links rather than thematic between the shorts to make them more coherent as a whole.
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JACKIE BROWN and PULP FICTION come to mind. Each of those is essentially a series of shorts that are each character's point of view. Together they form the whole. I'm also reminded of 4 ROOMS, where each room in a hotel has a different situation.
 
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Lots of examples. I saw a series of French shorts brought together into a feature film that worked exceptionally well. It is in French but I saw it on Netflix and absolutely loved it. Just superb.

Unfortunately, the material wouldn't lend itself well to the US but the principle is there. Utterly brilliant film making pushing the boundaries and working very well.
 
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Scoopicman said:
JACKIE BROWN and PULP FICTION come to mind. Each of those is essentially a series of shorts that are each character's point of view. Together they form the whole. I'm also reminded of 4 ROOMS, where each room in a hotel has a different situation.
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Pulp Fiction didn't immediately come to mind, but I see what you mean. Good movie.

4 rooms is also an example, but with the exception of the Robert Rodiguez segment, I fucking hated that movie.

gorillaonabike said:
Lots of examples. I saw a series of French shorts brought together into a feature film that worked exceptionally well. It is in French but I saw it on Netflix and absolutely loved it. Just superb.
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Might you be thinking of Vivre sa Vie or Paris, Je T'aime? Both come to mind.

Unfortunately, the material wouldn't lend itself well to the US but the principle is there.
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Good thing I'm not in the US.

Utterly brilliant film making pushing the boundaries and working very well.
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Agree, there are a lot of good examples.
 
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One of my favorite films, It's Such A Beautiful Day is actually made up of three shorts that tell a continued story.

But yeah, personally I love the idea. Artistically, it's also great practice working on a bunch of separate projects that follow a connected thread. Seems like a great way to really explore something that interests you really in-depth from a lot of different angles. I'd watch it.
 
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