Its a sad truth, but few forms of art are as sorely under-appreciated as the short film. They have a hard time booking theater runs, and rarely get the publicity or attention that features do. For all the creativity and promise they offer, theyre more often than not very hard to hear about for those not actively seeking them out. One place where shorts do get prime billing though is film festivals, where they can be packaged with others into feature-length bunches. The Independent Film Festival Boston is no exception, as many short film directors here hope to share their work and gain an audience for themselves and their features. Of the many shorts featured at IFFBoston, I was able to speak with the directors of Better People, Jesus Fish, and Black Metal, three very interesting and very different short films (all of which coincidentally ran during the same block when they played the festival). These films and what went into making them shows how the short film is simultaneously a liberating and constricting format, which still offers budding filmmakers opportunities to boost their profile, audience, and skill set. I think shorts are infinitely more difficult to pull off than a feature film. Being able to tell a full and layered story in such a short amount of time is tricky. Kat Candler, director of Black Metal, would know, as shes made successful shorts before, but also has experience putting together features (her first is currently in development). In Black Metal, the lead singer of an intense black metal band must consider the impact his music has after one of the bands fans commits a heinous crime and leaves clues that the music may have influenced him. Its a heavy subject to take on in just 8 minutes of film, but Candler plays it perfectly to make us examine our own beliefs about the distance between art and the artists that create it, along with the impact that art has. Candler, however, says that working in a shorter format didnt make the discussion of these topics any easier or harder; rather, she approached the film the same way she would any other project. All the mechanics of a feature script apply, Candler says, Ill spend 10 drafts on a short just like I would a feature script. Bryce McGuire, director of Jesus Fish, doesnt know any other way. His film, Jesus Fish, is one of the longer shorts at the festival, running a bit over 20 minutes. Its structured almost like a feature," McGuire says, "theres almost three acts. Jesus fish tells a story about two brothers, one old and one young, in a deeply religious southern community. When the older brother steals money from the church and takes off, he places the burden of keeping his secret on his eager-to-please younger brother. Wed always kind of intended to tell a little bit of a bigger story, McGuire says, as opposed to shorts that try to capture a specific moment or event. One short that does focus on a single event - a chance encounter that could lead to romance - is Mark OBriens Better People. OBrien originally had envisioned the film as part of a larger feature, but then decided to let the short have its own life. I quickly realized that in doing that I would be dampening the short film itself. I realized that it should exist as its own thing. This push and pull between small stories and big ones is at the heart of the origin of many short films. Candler had an experience similar to OBriens, noting that the idea for Black Metal initially came from a feature length script that she was working on about the same ideas and themes. With the short, Candler says, I took the first act of the feature script and crammed it into thirteen pages. She also adds that exploring these ideas is much easier in the scope of a feature length script. You have so much more time and space to dig deep. Though McGuire acknowledges that Jesus Fish was always intended to be a short film (even if it did turn into a long short), he agrees that the confines of a short film did place a limit on the level of depth that his story was able to go into. Speaking about the opportunity to delve deeper into the religious issues at play in Jesus Fish in a longer feature, he says that its hard to compare because I havent written anything or directed anything of a longer length, but adds, I would love to have more time to kind of explore some of the textures and subtleties of that subculture...for a short film you just kind of have to do what you can do, basically. That of course brings up the issues of how funding, budget, and time constraints affect the production of short films. OBrien says that Better People got some funding, but that he eventually ended up putting a lot of his own money into the film to allow it to meet his vision. We shot it in two days, OBrien says, which was a great exercise in being economical as a filmmaker and not shooting stuff you will never use. I realized its important to know the film in your head beforehand, instead of trying to find it in editing. McGuire says the Jesus Fish team made their film in the most backwards way possible. We did this in the worst...the opposite of how you normally should do it, he says, then explains that the story for Jesus Fish had been around for 3 to 4 years before the finished product came together. McGuire actually tried to make the film several times before hand, but never compromised the story to fit his budget or means. Jesus Fish has some tricky shots and special effects that would have been easy to cut or change to meet a budget, but McGuire never wavered in his vision of the film. In the end, even though it took longer, hes happy with the decision. Im glad that we didnt compromise some of those elements, because thats what I love about the movie. While all three films got a chance for exposure at IFFBoston, and make the rounds at several other festivals, the ever present question of what happens next is always hanging in the air. Short films, simply because of their form, never have as many opportunities to reach a large audience in theaters. So that means that in order to gain a following and gain wider exposure for their films, the filmmakers have to look elsewhere. OBriens Better People was recently sold to CBC (the largest television network in Canada) which means that it will be available to see on TV, as well as through several online mediums. OBrien also says the film will eventually be available on iTunes as well. Thats the goal, OBrien says, getting the film seen! For McGuire, Jesus Fish is still in its festival run, and has also been shown to some agents and managers as a portfolio builder. All in all, McGuire says he has pretty realistic expectations for the films run on the festival circuit. What I want to get out of it is to share the film with people, to go on this wild ride with them, and just to create a bigger network and hope that people are into it. Once Jesus Fish finishes its festival run, McGuire says the team behind it plans to eventually post it online in its entirety on the films website. Candlers Black Metal premiered at Sundance 2013, and got a boost by being released on the Sundance Screening Room on YouTube. The film has also been enjoying a healthy festival run ever since, including IFFBoston and Sundance London. Shorts have a fun life, Candler says, theyre kind of like a cassette tape that you pass around to people or you can only witness live like a rock show. Shorts live and breathe at film festivals and online. Like OBrien and McGuire, Candler says that later on - probably toward the end of the year - the film will be released online again. She also plans to go back and rework the feature length script that Black Metal was born from. These are, of course, only three of the many short films that played IFFBoston and are making the festival rounds at the moment, and all of them have different stories and experiences behind them. Even though they may never achieve the viewership or fame of some of the full length narratives and documentaries that played the festival, they offered up some of the most creative and impressive filmmaking at the event, and are all certainly worth seeking out. To follow the films mentioned in this article, visit the links below: Jesus Fish: Teaser Trailer - http://vimeo.com/35277886 Official Website - http://jesusfishthemovie.com Production Company Facebook Page (which will update followers on where they can see the film) - http://facebook.com/openlightpictures/Black Metal: Official Website - www.blackmetalthefilm.comBetter People: Trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uFxUiuKN1s
David Braga lives in Boston, MA, where he watches movies, football, and enjoys a healthy amount of beer. It's a tough life, but someone has to live it.
