Film Courage: What are the top five mistakes you see people make with short films?
Kim Adelman, Author/Filmmaker/Instructor: There's a lot of things that are kind of cliché like one
of the clichés that people always talk about is the short film or any film really that starts with
the alarm clock going off and somebody hits their hand on it and that's how you start the the film
and the day of the character and it makes sense it's the official start but it's a very cliché
kind of thing that we've seen that so there's like actual scenes that are kind of cliché that
we're like oh no not doing that it used to be like vomiting too that there was everybody had vomiting
in their films that was a little too cliché -ish and you can do it cheap too so it isn't like we
can't afford to do vomiting just as good as the feature films but it is kind of cliché and people
don't want to see it anymore the biggest mistakes that specifically for shorts are too long the
shortest too long well they'll always say that the short is too long quite often music people
will put in a short film music that they don't own because they you can get away with anything with
a short film but legitimately you should not have music in it that you don't own the rights to so it
feels so much better when you put in this Beatles song all of a sudden the production value seems
to go up and it's just exactly what you wanted and it's a short you're telling me and with my short I
should do exactly what I want so why can't I put the Beatles song in but if you try to put that
up on YouTube that YouTube will immediately their little algorithms or whatever know that you have
that song in it and you don't have permission for it and then film festivals you're supposed
to sign something saying I have the rights for everything in my short that I am sending in so in
theory again they'll know you didn't you didn't pay for a Beatles song that was shot in your
apartment for five cents how did that come to be and then if in some miracle somebody wants to do
something with your film that involves money later on like they want to show on an airplane there's
very few opportunities for short films to make money but if you were lucky enough that it does
there's a film called Thunder Road it's a famous example of it that he uses the song Thunder Road
in it they play Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road he is singing along to it there's no way you're
going to cut around Thunder Road and there's no way you can later substitute in another song when
there's interest in it so he did it as a like kind of like a calling card for his talent this short
film and he sent it into Sundance just for the hell of it and got into Sundance where he didn't
have the rights to it and then he won Sundance for the short film and he didn't have the rights
to it and so people wanted to do all the stuff with it and he didn't have the rights to the
song Thunder Road so he and everyone always says don't do this he wrote an open letter to Bruce
Springsteen and so they made a private deal to allow him to show Thunder Road is on Vimeo no
charge so he's not making money off of it and we can all see it and but he did still have to
pay Springsteen some money for it so don't put money you don't own it and don't have people
sing especially the songs you don't have rights to and then if you do SAG screen after skilled
actors There are rules about how that has to be done so a lot of people make that mistake if they
they don't think about that they're going to have sack actors and they realize they want it and then
they're too late in doing their paperwork for SAG or they don't realize what it means to have SAG
actors because there's a lot of rules about that so that's a mistake people often make with their
short film and not understanding what it means to have SAG actors [Screen Actors Guild] and then a
lot of times people have bad acting because they're short films they don't have access
to Great actors and they think it'll be fine and then the acting is just terrible the two things
that ruin both short films and low budget features but actually all features bad acting and bad sound
so don't have bad acting and then don't have bad sound pay to have really good sound and
put a little money in post-production for sound too it'll make the world a difference
so was that five I'm not sure if I hit five but close enough well and then
we can always add in the bonus one which we've talked about throughout the walking
but it's actually it's a great point yeah yeah have the person already there exactly start as
late as possible and have them actually there what do you think about monologues and short films well
I think it can totally be great as a short film as a monologue is there is there a reason that
you are doing that and does that monologue have a beginning middle and end and what are you showing
are we just having somebody talk or is there some other visuals happening beyond the monologue
there is a short film that showed at Sundance I for a new wire I used to pick like the best short
films at Sundance so it was always a delight to get to see all the films that we're playing
and then pick which ones were interesting and different so there's one called I think it's
called Dear Mr Shakespeare that was a monologue but he had all this other activity going on beyond
the monologue it's something close to Dear Mr Shakespeare and that's a fabulous example of a
monologue kind of film Thunder Road I want to keep on harping about Thunder Road but Thunder
Road is eulogy so I think that's like basically a monologue and that's a super interesting film as
well so there you go already gave you two examples of a monologue that worked really well I'm just
sorry to go back if someone's singing even if there's no music and it's just the actor singing
and the actor SAG and everything's taken care of the paperwork but they don't own the rights to
that song and it's not under fair use or something so so happy birthday used to be the thing that
tripped everybody up but now it's not now happy birthday is back to being public domain so you
go ahead and use happy birthday as much as you want but you used to see in older films because
people didn't want to pay for happy birthday that their birthday song they would sing when
people pull something in was not our traditional happy birthday but some made-up song that nobody
in the right mind sings but it is they made it up and it's a brand new song so there you go
so yeah you don't want people actively singing a song that already exists even though it's not the
actual recording you have to get the sync license for that song So wow and now I would assume that's
much cheaper than the actual rights to the music well I can go into a whole thing about music but
basically if you license a song you have to get the sync rights and the master license rights and
traditionally what they do is they make them the same so if you whatever you pay the sink
you would pay the master so for example if you and also you can get Festival licenses for films that
way too so that you're only paying for rights to use that song on the festival circuit and
again you're not making money off of it so it's a smaller amount but if somebody later wants to use
the film commercially put it on a DVD anyone does that anymore but put it on TV or put it
on airplanes then you have to have the rights completely tied up so music rights is a whole
headache for both short films and a little bit of future right and what I always try to say is
there's so many composers out there who would be thrilled to write their own song for you and then
you can do the legal paperwork properly and make agreements and it should be done for hopefully you
can pay that composer a little bit of money too but it should be much more inexpensive and it's
a great opportunity for everybody the composer gets to write a song or compose the music for
your short film gets a credit you get something that's unique to your film everybody wins
what do you think 99 of filmmakers get wrong with their short films well it's not fair to say 99
percent of filmmakers get wrong because there's no wrong or writing short films and who am I to
say what's right or wrong that's the great thing nobody gets to decide what is good for films so
there is nothing but I will say length is always the problem like hey talk always harp about length
but I think what people get wrong is they do too long of films or the film that they have made a
five minute film that is somehow eight minutes but really should be cut down being five minutes
and who is the one that sort of decides that like I'm sure so many filmmakers think well no I need
this one scene in here though yes I've helped critique films the work in progress where I
will try to talk forever to convince them that that scene is not necessary and the filmmaker
insist it is and it's you're making that film you get to do whatever you want to do so I can try to
push you this way or that way but it's your film you should stick by with what you think
it is and maybe that scene means everything to you and it really is the whole reason you made
the film and that's why you want it in and I can talk myself blue in the face try to convince you
it isn't necessary we've already done that point if you take it out No One's Gonna Miss it but
ultimately that's where you as the filmmaker get to be the final arbitrator with a short
film Nobody Else is paying for it or making it a commercial man quite often if you're doing in a
school situation sometimes you have to do what the professor wants you to do but then you can
re-cut it on your own and make it what you want it to be and use that one as the film you show people
it's your piece you're making it expresses you you should do whatever you want to do
what makes people stop watching a short film let's say one minute in
so with with anything short film or feature the viewer gets to decide what they want we only have
so much time in our lives so if you start watching it and in a minute in you have no interest in it
and you think it's terrible nobody's gonna put a gun to your head and say you must keep on watching
it if you're in a festival situation and you paid a ticket to go see a program of short films you
are kind of stuck in the theater and you have to watch the whole entire pieces they go on but
the viewer can decide whether they want to keep on watching or not the unfair part is and this is
someone who has been a screener for festivals or has been a screener for various contests because
shorts sometimes have a major change at the end it switches everything out and makes you think
differently of everything that happened at the beginning sometimes it's weird or incomprehensible
or something's happening at the beginning that you don't understand yet because you haven't put
the time in to hear the rest of the short and see how it switches at the end so truthfully because
we're going to give you the benefit of the doubt people should watch this short film to the entire
day because it really could have a twist ending that makes it all what you saw previously now
make complete sense and also what we said earlier about how sort of the cliché s of the alarm clock
or or vomiting yeah maybe we'll do a pass on the vomiting I don't know but but we can always make
exceptions like how many great short films do start with the stupid alarm clock so what we're
going to say they did the alarm clock shot we're turning this off we're not going to watch this you
you have to forgive it and there's also only so many ways you can tell film stories too so
I I say this is a unique voice that has put something out there that's special and unique
it hasn't had a million people put their thumbs on it and and give criticism or Tibetan it has
certain things to be commercial so who's to say what this is going to be or or what it
is so I would never I would not recommend judging a short film like one minute in
again maybe it's horrible and cheap and the sound is terrible but there's a reason for that then
we're going to pull back and realize this is a film within a film or something like that.