Cook from Piperdreamz, a video game by Messhof
Mike Plante, Short Film Programmer
Welcome to “Short Order,” a new bi-weekly feature, where we’ll serve up recomendations for the most interesting and innovative short films available on the web every other week. Many of our selections will be timed to a news or cultural event. But we are most interested in providing an entertaining and edifying cinematic diversion on alternate Friday afternoons, often delivered with a dose of context about the filmmaker and information about what’s going on in the short filmmaking community.
But before we get to this week’s selections, we want to provide a clear view of the process for submitting your own shorts to the Sundance Film Festival. Now that our film submission door is open for the 2013 Festival, it’s a good time to go over some of the guidelines and frequently asked questions for the Short Film section of the Festival. And let’s do some myth-busting. You can make a short film about UFOs and Sasquatch, but it doesn’t need to be a premiere for us to show it. To be clear, these are a few notes about SHORT films – there are entirely different rules for feature films. But quite often, we see some confusion between the two sections. I’ll keep the word SHORT in caps so we keep it clean.
- Premiere status: For SHORT films, we have no premiere requirement. A SHORT can play at other festivals and be on the Internet. That kind of exclusivity (and pressure) doesn’t make sense for SHORTS. They need all the help they can get.
- Rough cuts: Most of the films we see are still being worked on. We understand that the color and sound are going to be improved; and that’s ok. We hope that the edit submitted is close to what the final cut will be. But we also understand it may need to be tightened.
- Materials: We make our decisions based specifically on the film itself and do not look at any materials. So save the dough and send us the film only. No film will be programmed based on its poster.
- Will anyone actually watch the thing?: Yes, we watch the film all the way through to the end. We love our jobs and every film has a chance to get in to the Festival.
- What are you looking for?: We can’t tell you, because we don’t have an agenda. We put each short film on and watch it. I don’t care who made it, where they are from, what type of film its going to be, or how long it is. I just want to see the film as a fresh audience would see it.
Submissions are taken right here – where you’ll also find our deep FAQ about how to submit both feature and short films.
You could see any kind of short film at the Festival, from a wide variety of filmmakers. Some may go on to making features like Wes Anderson, and some filmmakers make short films year after year like Lilli Carre. Now it’s time to dig into Short Order’s main course, the films themselves. We’d like to encourage you to weigh in with your thoughts on this week’s selections. And feel free to offer up your own tips for stellar short form storytelling by new and emerging filmmakers. If we’re passionate about anything, it’s discovering and discussing new talent.
Wes Anderson’s short film version of Bottle Rocket
Lilli Carre’s animated short How She Slept at Night
http://lillicarre.com/films#/i/1
