Film Courage: What is the story structure of a short film?
Kim Adelman, Author/Filmmaker/Instructor: Because short films can do anything or say anything and
they should be unexpected and you can do your ending at the beginning and you're beginning
at the end, there is no structure. But I do think simplicity helps a lot. I don't think you should
have a hundred different characters with a hundred different plots going on and A, B lines. It's not
like screenwriting. When people take a short film screenwriting course I'm always kind of like what
could you be talking about because there aren't the same kind of rules as there are for features.
It really depends on what story you want to tell and then I just think it's a lot about
simplification and really bringing it down to a simple idea. One thing I love about short films
because I'm known for short films right. People always say to me oh I saw this really great
short film and then they'll tell me the short film that they saw so I haven't visually seen
it but I've heard someone tell me to and I'll be like that sounds like a great short film
and I kind of feel like I've seen it because they were able to tell me the whole plot of what it was
so your short story your short film should work in that way that people can tell you what it is
but a lot of them are like just visual one of my favorite kinds of short films
are dialogue free short films where there's absolutely no dialogue but it is all told
it's not like an old-fashioned running pushing piano up the hill and having a
fall down laurel and hardy kind of thing but just you can tell a story with visuals
the actual old-fashioned visual filmmaking way and it's great and so many and those I'll also say the
short films with no dialogue translate very well translate very well for different countries people
love films with no dialogue because it's universal it's going to be a universal story of something
that is told through cinema it's a very cinematic way of telling a story but anyway so yeah nothing
you can do anything you want to do and I could try to talk you out of like don't do like traditional
structure but you can do traditional structure if that's what your story needs and is to be told
endings are really important in short films beginnings are really important to short films
and middles are very important in short films I do think every scene in your short film should
also you got to look at it and say beginning and ending are we lingering too long can we get out
and do that before you shoot it because again every moment counts and if you're going to have
a longer shoot if you have a bunch of stuff in it that later you're going to cut out in editing
the value ever seen look at the does it start as late as it can does it end as early as it possibly
can and then do you really need it what is the scene actually about and have we already done that
I hate short films where it just takes forever to get to the story line or they
they have a big opening credit sequence of somebody driving in a car with beautiful
scenery going on and the credits say costumes buy and dp buy and it's like no for feature
films contractually you have to do that they have to have full screen credits for short film there's
no thing like that we have no opening credit sequence people don't want to sit through that we
don't want to see that start right away with what your story is and you don't everything it should
be what needs to be nothing superfluous nothing that is just there because it may entertains you
you can have a super chatty film too but just make sure everything that's in there in chatty
needs to be in there so so I say probably the biggest thing about the structure
is just make sure it starts good make sure it ends good make sure everything in there needs to be in
there has to be in there and as tight as possible and that you're happy with it it sounds like you
said earlier if someone's walking to go somewhere have them be already there exactly and then for
the ending don't have it abrupt have some type of a payoff sometimes abrupt dating is fine too but
they haven't work in some way okay the other thing I should say too is another huge pet peeve is too
long of credits because on the festival world your short film will quite often be put in a program of
short films so the audience watches one short film has to sit through like two minutes of credits and
then now they're ready to see the other short film and running time really counts for short
films so if your film is like a seven minute short film but two minutes of that are credits
no no no no fast fast fast for those credits shove them up on the screen sometimes people kickstarter
or one of those kind of things and they promise credits on the screen make them almost unreadable
and have them go there if you're putting your film online you can have long credits at the end
because nobody's sticking around for that either as soon as they see the film is over they just
stop watching it nobody in features nobody wants to see credits nobody wants to see
credits but don't have long credits on your film and have that be part of your running time that
hamper you for because again running time counts sure I mean theoretically you could always have
a website that has that mentions the backers but I realize it's not the same as as being in
the credits but and there isn't necessarily one version of your film maybe you have the festival
version of your film that doesn't have those long credits in it and then you have the web version
that does have all those long credits in it so there are ways to deal with it in that way too
how many different story structures are there for short films short films can be anything so there
could be as many different story structures as you want it to be but I don't think there's like
an a plot and a b plot and a c plot like you would have in like a tv show or something like that you
really just want to have the a plot there might be a little teeny bit of a runner but doubtful
in that way and that's the thing about short films it's not the same we don't have like there's gonna
be a gangster film so these are the rules for a gangster film there is this is my personal opinion
some people might feel that there should be more structure in that way but I say anything goes
whatever you want to do do can a short film be a series of images without a protagonist
and no structure so what do you well how do you define what a short film is and there's
experimental shorts that are very famous and are very interesting to watch but there's no
story line whatsoever it's just images that are happening and that's fine again know who's to
define what a short film is and if you say your film is experimental and that's what
you want to do with it then go for it if that's what your vision is and sometimes people love
that because it's like okay we're gonna program this one film that is like a Tarantino wannabe
kind of film and we're gonna program this one short film that's like a horror film and then
we need to do something different we can't do another horror film or another coming of age
so let's put in the weird artsy thing that just delights us there's also like dance films where
people just film a dance performance or music videos there's a lot of music videos that people
consider a short film or who's to safe is it just a music video or is it cinematic enough to make
who decides these things there's again there's no short film board that says you are a short
you are music video you are a commercial you are just track I have no idea what you are
you as the filmmaker get to find what it is so if you're not a narrative storyteller and
you just want to make these beautiful things then that's fabulous now that's not the person that's
going to be hired to direct the next star wars film and so if that's your goal you should make
something that makes you more obviously the person who's going to direct the next star wars film
but you that maybe that shows you have such a unique artistic point of view and people think
this person might be really interesting to make a different kind of spider-man film or something
like that they have such a unique eye and thinking and if that's who you are then be who you are in
your short film work short film format just do it so something that doesn't really have much
of a story line that might be more geared toward let's say contemporary art museum there are museum
pieces but I have also we've seen museum pieces play in film festivals so yeah an example of a
museum piece the museum decides is this something that is worthy of being in our halls now they also
may be completely wrong too and they're like it just seems like a bunch of drips on canvas
who's this Jackson Pollock after all who's to say who's right or wrong and because short filmmakers
on the front lines of doing something unique and different people might not understand their film
right away and then in five years time you look back and you're like oh look at this crazy thing
Christopher Nolan was doing five years ago I saw a short film that just did that exactly
we sometimes are too ahead of the curve and are doing really special and unique stuff that is not
what people are used to and that's great too we don't want to see the same old same old we want
to see something really different and unique right just to go back and watch Cindy Sherman like old,
old videos online yeah and it's like wow this is this was ahead of its time yeah so cool isn't that
sunny and so like in short films too they don't really age that much really terrific short films I
mock like the Laurel and Hardy short films the one reelers but people still go back and look at those
and love those and think they're fabulous if you go back and watch the Oscar winners for animation
from years ago whoa these things are amazing and still seem really special and unique nowadays
and same thing for live action there are some live action short films that just blow you it's also
really fun to go back and see like the short films of filmmakers like Christopher Nolan or whatever
and go back and see his short film and you say oh so George Lucas when he was at USC did a lot
of short films and some of them are incredibly boring but still you see what that what he was
interested in and there was all these sound things you could tell he was very interested in sound
and and we can see them now because USC owns those films and shows those films but so it's super
interesting to see famous filmmakers now what they were doing in short films and you can see
I see their voice in it and that's those are special filmmakers obviously but yeah that's
why it's really worthwhile going back and seeing their short films.