How are Short Films consumed?

Short films are created all over the world, and not necessarily by famous directors. Many short films are created by people who are just interested in creating them as a hobby. With technology like the internet and particular websites like YouTube and Vimeo, these films are available for many people to watch, rather than only having them screened at film festivals.

The extremely popular short films (namely PIXAR animations) are available to the public by showing them at the cinema alongside the feature length film. They are then featured on the DVD as an extra so they can be watched at home. In late 2007 Pixar released a DVD (Pixar Short Films Collection – Volume 1)  full of their short films so people could have them readily available in their DVD collections.

Another way audiences can view short films is on the internet. As stated above, sites like YouTube and Vimeo encourage submission of short films. These sites have attracted a large community of viewers, as well as sites such as BBC Film Network an FILMSshort are sites who's main aim is to showcase short films created by anyone who's anyone. There are a number of competitions that I have come across on sites such as Vimeo that are somewhat themed. For example, there was one to promote a Nokia phone, and the film could only be recorded using the camera on the phone and no other way. There were some really good entries.

The main way for peoples' short films to get noticed by enthusiastes is to have them screened at film festivals. There are film festivals all over the world that screen films of all genres, but there are specific Short Film Festivals that films can be submitted to. For example, in England alone there is; the London Short Film Festival, Encounters Short Film Festival, Sefton Short Film Festival, Strawberry Shorts, amongst others. These are the festivals specifically for short films, there are many others all over England that screen shorts as well as feature-length films.

There are many opportunities for short films to be consumed by an audience, the problem is that audiences need to dig around more for them as they simply aren't as popular as feature-length films and because of this they seem to have to take a backseat.