Short Film Websites Presentation

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Short film websites

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Who hosts short film websites? Who goes on short film websites? Who’s short films can go on these websites? How can the internet benefit short film directors? How many short film websites are there? How easily accessible are the sites? What sort of quality are the films? What else do the websites provide? Who signs up to these sites?

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www. shortfilms .com

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On www.shortfilms.com you can sign up and upload your own short videos. It’s like YouTube except it’s especially made for short films. It includes Most Viewed, Top Rated and Most Discussed sections for audiences and even categorises its films.

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You can also visit the profile pages of people who upload films. From looking at their pages I found out about the kind of people who make short films and of the 30 profiles I looked at 27 of them were male, they all lived in different parts of the world including Ukraine, England, The United States, South Africa, Bolivia, Egypt, Canada and India. The youngest up-loader was 17 and the oldest was 41, although the majority was between 21 and 27. This suggests that a majority of people using short film websites to present their own videos are relatively young and come from all over the world. One thing over 75% of them had in common though was that they were all studying some form of media or drama at university.

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From looking at the profile pages of shortfilms.com members I discovered that a lot of them had either their own YouTube channels where they’ve also uploaded their short films or they had their own websites which even included biographies of themselves.

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So it seems as though many people who dream of being a filmmaker are using the site to get their films seen and by having small profiles about themselves people can then be diverted to websites that they have created themselves which hold more information.

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- YouTube isn’t a website for short films, however many people still use it to get their short films out there. Almost any kind of video can go on YouTube so and seeing as YouTube currently the 3 rd most popular site, it’s a guarantee that somebody will see it.

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So, even though there are websites specifically created for showing short films YouTube is a good choice to upload your too because of the number of hits it gets every day, and the fact that there is always someone on it. You can find short films on YouTube from successful directors like Tim Burton, short films from the late 1800s/early 1900s and ones created and uploaded by YouTube members who decide to make one for their own reasons.

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www.FILMSshort.com

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www.filmsshort.com includes some of the most famous short films from 1929 to present. The site was set up in dedication of the person’s father and has an A-Z of short films such as The Little Terrorist and Undressing My Mother. FILMSshort only hosts professionally made short films unlike shortfilms.com. ‘Short films be distributed via the Internet. Certain websites which encourage the submission of user-created short films, such as YouTube and Vimeo have attracted large communities of artists and viewers. Sites like FILMSshort and the BBC Film Network focus on showcasing curated shorts.’

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Culture Unplugged - “Online showcase of documentary and short films focusing on issues of human rights, social awareness, the environment, and spirituality” – this is the first short film website I found that focuses on one specific theme or genre in its films. www.cultureunplugged.com

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“Culture Unplugged offers an insight into the volume and skill of filmmakers working independently. Having recently announced the award winners of their 2010 Film Festival, the website at the moment is especially bountiful, with movies ranging in style from documentary to experimental and in length from less than 2 minutes to nearly feature-length.” The site makes it very easy to find specific types of short film your looking for as the Search system is very exact. (Genres, regions, popularity, duration, categories) Culture Unplugged seems to use a lot of short films from festivals, helping to promote both the director/crew of a short film and the festivals themselves.

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The Smalls “ The Smalls is a showcase for short films and music. The site aims to create an opportunity for filmmakers and musicians to get their work commissioned.” When you register with The Smalls you are then free to participate in the site by uploading your own ‘smalls’, rating other members’ smalls and posting comments. So this site also allows anybody to get their own short films onto the internet for people to see, along with music videos also.

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From watching the videos it is clear that some of the up-loaders have very poor equipment. The cameras are always handheld, the cuts are badly timed etc. There are videos which are made clearly as a joke just to mess around, they aren’t to be taken seriously but there are still others on there which are very professionally done and are part of The Smalls Film Fest. I even found a 30-second chronophotographic short film telling the story of Moby Dick through drawings.

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It’s understandable why people chose to use thesmalls.com as a place to get their films out there as it’s a site which clearly understands the difficulties people face when trying to get into the film industry and actually wants to help them. “The Smalls is an online showcase for non-commercial creative work. We are here to inspire and to offer a medium where emerging talent can display work not only to fellow members of the contemporary creative community, but also to our subscription members in the broadcast, film and advertising industry.” ‘Mentors’ are even available, through easy contact, on the site to help people with advice and suggestions

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How easy are the sites to access? Very easy. From just typing in ‘Short film websites’ on Google you can find plenty available, and from looking at them you find links to others and almost all of them are available for anyone to go on. Well, as we discovered people use YouTube as a site to upload their short films. Since 2006 YouTube has been owned by Google, so we can see that some are owned by large companies. However, sites like The Smalls are hosted by independent people with a keen interest in filmmaking and want to help others: “I have been a Non Executive Director of The Smalls since its launch in 2006.” Who signs up to these sites? Who hosts short film websites? On the sites I have looked at a majority of people seem to join in order to upload their own short films and get feedback from other potential filmmakers. It’s a chance for people to get their name out there even if only a small amount of people hear it. Other people sign up because certain sites don’t let you comment/rate/upload/view etc. unless you are a member, so audiences may join in order to get their opinions across. I did find that the majority of members on all of these sites were under the age of 40 and those of which who put information about their education mostly said they were studying drama, performing arts, media, film and television or something similar. Who’s short films can go on these websites? Some websites, like YouTube and shortfilms.com allow anybody to sign up and upload almost any kind of short film they want. You don’t need to be a professional. You don’t need to have a specific reason. You don’t need to be a certain age or live in a certain country. Whereas, filmsshort.com is hosted by an individual who only uploads professionally done, and quite well known, short films by professional directors/filmmakers.