Short films crowd our world wide web and there are many outlets in which you can find them on. The difficulty comes in finding well produced short films that don’t look like they were created using a camera phone. Although you can admire people for trying to imitate their favourite films or directors, there is a lot of extremely amateur attempts unsettling to sit through. Amongst all these, however, are some amazing pieces of short cinema that you can find through sites such as Youtube and Vimeo, those being the most accepted places for some professional and amateur film-makers to unleash their creativity online. There is a small industry for shorts but it’s hardly a lifetime career path for film-makers. Essentially, it’s a starting point for aspiring film-makers to prove to themselves and their peers they’re ready to move on to bigger projects and even feature length films as well as a place many independent online competitions like you to upload to. Check out some competitions that are on the internet. There are plenty such as the annual London Sci-Fi Film Festival in which Rob Savage, who we interviewed, got his short film ‘Sit in Silence’ to second place in.
For those unaware, there are plenty of available short films at the click of a button; a google search button that is. Just by searching “short films” you’ll be presented with some great sites in which you can watch some for free. Alternatively, some of the bigger players such as BBC have their own film network where they put some brilliant productions online, free to watch. In fact it’s where Boolean Flix discovered ‘Goodbye Mr.Pink‘ and ‘Keel‘; two fantastic shorts that we’ve reviewed in the past year. As mentioned before, Youtube and Vimeo are great places to explore, but unless you know the name of a film or director that you specifically want, it can be troublesome to find them amongst the lolcats and Justin Beiber fangirl videos…
Social networking such as Twitter can also be a brilliant way to discover unheard talent. A simple search for short film can produce pages of results of directors and fan pages which often provide follow through links to sites such as Vimeo. This isn’t the most effective, nor the quickest way, to find such content, but for you Twitter obsessives out there it’s a great exploration tool!
iTunes’ front page for their Short Film section.
Where to find the bigger budgeted short films you ask? Well you can purchase them for very little money. You won’t find them in your local DvD outlet, but who goes to them anymore…right? Okay I still go, but let’s face it, the digital world is rapidly growing, so look no further than Apple’s iTunes. Surprisingly, they show a welcome amount of support for shorts and even have a designated section, though I highly doubt much attention is given to it. It was only a couple of days ago they were trying to sell me a 2004 short film that won an Academy Award which I’m sure is excellent, but it’s a prime example of how this art form will never get the mainstream exposure it deserves, which is extremely saddening to see.
Lastly, you can see short films right here on Boolean Flix! Our focus on shorts continues to grow and this week is not only aiming to strive towards bringing these films to a larger audience, but acting as a starting point to bring far more of this content to you in the future.
So now you know where to go out and find all this great free entertainment you best get browsing! We hope this helps and be sure to check out the shorts section to your left for our reviews on all our favourites!
