The Biggest Problem With Short Films, And How You Can Fix It

Is it necessary to have a professional education to make your short films? What are the tools for creating documentaries? Where to show it then? How to be a filmmaker?

What to watch for people who want to make documentaries?

Take a close look at life. Pull out the headphones. Read more: fiction, journalism – everything where there is a nerve in life. Surround yourself with a community of those who are interested in the same. And only then – watch a lot of short film distribution platforms. There are master classes at world film festivals — covid has moved everything online.

There is a well-known way to learn how to make short films is to watch films. The more you watch, the more chances you have to make your film. There is such a slang term in the cinema – watching. This is a key quality. It is desirable, of course, to watch good, high-quality, interesting films, but this is not necessary. If you suddenly watch a lot of bad films, this will also be beneficial: it will be clearer what not to do.

Bad and good films are subjective, but there are two signs by which one can be distinguished from the other. In a bad documentary, there is a voice-over of the announcer and pathos music. This does not mean that all films with voiceovers and bombastic music are bad. But we advise you to do this only as a last resort.

Free short movies

Watching free short movies is an experience : the people who made it, or the people who are shown in it. Other people’s experience can become our experience through editing. This is almost the first thing you can pay attention to – how the pieces of this experience are connected. Not only frames, but also episodes, characters, actions. If it is of poor quality or not interestingly mounted, it means that not enough energy was spent on the process of transferring experience to the viewer.

You need to understand what kind of documentary you want to make – how acutely social, how ready you are for difficult psychological things.

It is important to watch as many films as possible every day – both documentaries and fiction. The documentary film works according to the same canons as the game film. It’s just that in feature films, you can prescribe in the script how the hero changes. And in a documentary, you have to shoot for years to see the character change. It doesn’t happen in a short amount of time. If it’s a bad movie, that’s good too: then you can think about how you could rearrange it to make a good movie. This then helps in practice.

If a person has a need to make a movie, then there should be an impetus to the search. First ask yourself: what attracts you to this? And, proceeding from these criteria, would begin to search. We advise you to make a viewing diary and analyze what attracts you: special topics, a special method, a special style, etc. Then you can move on.

It is necessary not only to watch, but also to read: interviews with the director, reviews of critics – and try to formulate your opinion. Because sometimes the reflection on the film gives more than the film itself.

Where and how to learn the skill?

Now everyone who is connected to the Internet has no problem getting self-education. And this is the best education. Perhaps for someone this will not be enough and something else is needed.

Mastery can only be achieved through one’s own path, search and labor. If you watch any master of documentaries, you will see that each of them had their own path. The main thing is to understand what you want. If you think of it as a specialty or profession, this is one way. And if you think of it as a vocation and a way of life and understand that you cannot live without filming, this is completely different. In case you know, it will help you.

Technology is one thing, and craftsmanship and the author’s voice are another. No school will find your voice, your author’s position. Understand what education means to you. Because now there is a very consumer approach to it.

How to search for topics for future work?

Ideas, stories and heroes / heroines come at the moment when you are ready / ready for it. A documentary happens when both you and your character need it equally.

If you’re looking for a movie theme, it means you’re doing something wrong. That is, some topic should initially bother you – and then you can already make a film. Much less likely to do something interesting if you move like this. Life bombards us with different themes and situations, which, perhaps, are worthy of becoming the plot of a film. Therefore, the main thing is not to seek, but to find.