Short Films Research

A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film, it's any film that has a duration longer than one minute and shorter than 15 minutes. Short films are often screened at local, national, or international film festivals. Short films are often made by independent filmmakers for non profit, either with a low budget, no budget at all, and in rare cases big budgets. Short films are usually funded by film grants, non profit organizations, sponsor, or out of pocket funds. These films are used by indie filmmakers to prove their talent in order to gain funding for future films from private investors, entertainment companies, or film studios.

The genre of films can go from animation, comedy, drama, documentary to experimental, horror, romance and sci-fi/fantasy. Longer films and shorter films coexisted with near enough the same popularity throughout the early days of film. However, comedy short films were produced in large numbers compared to lengthy features. By the 1920s, short comedies were especially popular, an example is the many outings of Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy that eventually moved from short films to features.