How long should a short film be?

The length of a short film is a much debated question. Screener's for film festivals often say that a short film can never be too short.

If you want to play by the numbers, keep it under 10 minutes and you will fit into a lot more festivals since many festivals require their shorts to be under ten minutes long.

Are there good "long" shorts? Definitely, but for a long short to get accepted into a festival it must be better than several shorter shorts. Here's an example: If you have a 30 minute short, then it must be better than any six 5-minute shorts the screener has to choose from. Because if a festival director is going to put a 30 minute short into his shorts program, that means that six 5-minute shorts can't be shown. One festival director even told me that if even one of the six 5-minutes shorts is better he will reject the 30 minute short because he would rather have one really good short and then 5 average shorts since he will fill more seats by having a larger list of films.

A couple of really good long-shorts are "The Accountant" (by Ray McKinnon) and "Petunia" (written and directed by John Levy and produced by Linda Burns). Both of these shorts are in the 35 to 45 minutes length, but both are excellent shorts and have won numerous awards. "The Accountant" went on to win an Academy Award.

The best advice is to let the film dictate the length but be brutal in the edit and cut-cut-cut.

More advice for filmmakers can be found at: www.indiehelp.com

A cheap meal for craft services

HOT DOGS

If you want to serve hotdogs as a cheap meal, have a crock-pot with chili and a side of slaw. You will please a lot more people if they can have a choice of hot dogs, chil dogs, or slaw dogs.

Here is how to prepared them. At your home boiled a big tub of hot dogs. Then open a pack of 8 buns and put the hotdogs into the buns and put the buns right back into same plastic bag. The whole pack should then go into a warm cooler. By the time they arrive at set they will still be hot.

If available, put them into a hot chaffing dish and it will looke great. Sometimes it's how the food is presented.

This is a very inexpensive catering idea for a film shoot.