Institutional Research

In this post i am going to be doing some institutional research on short films. I will be looking at how they get funding, how they get seen as well as some other points.

Production:

• Budget And Funding
• In the UK there are a few different ways short films can get funding:

1. BFI - Until recently the first place to look for funding on a national level was the Uk Film Council, but since the UKFC is now closed the BFI has taken over the majority of the responsibilities.
2. National And Regional Screen Agencies - Before the UKFC closed it had a model of 9 independent regional film bodies however there is now a new organisation called Creative England. They are composed of three regional hubs.
3. Local Councils - Local councils will often put money towards a short filmmaking initiative, especially if it deals with social exclusion or aids the local community in some way.
4. Charities - A number of charities fund short films. You usually need to have the right subject are of a film for it to get funded by a charity.
5. Production Schemes - From time to time, there are various schemes set up by broadcasters and other organisations that produce a series of shorts. For example BBC New Music Shorts.
6. Crowdfunding - These are sites where the user will put up an idea which they want to get funding from. Members will then donate to that idea if they want to see it happen

• Equipment 
• Short films are usually shot with DSLRs as opposed to high quality film cameras. This is because they will usually have very limited budgets. 
• Sound recorders are also used as they are easy to  obtain for quite a small price.
• In terms of CGI, very little will be used because it can be quite expensive and it is hard to balance it out in the budget.
• Crew
• Usually the film with have a skeleton crew of maybe a director, a gaffer/grip, a make up artist and a sound engineer. 
• Director
• Gaffer/Grip
• Make Up Artist
• Sound Engineer
• This is about how much a small short film could manage as they would only have a small budget.

Distribution:

• Marketing
• With large blockbuster films they have a huge amount of money to spend on distribution of their film as where as short films have a much smaller budget to spend on distribution.
• Due to the rise in social networks short films have an easier way to market their films to a wide audience.
• How are social networks used:
• Facebook - Film Page, Competitions, Giveaways e.t.c
• Twitter - Sponsored Tweets, Twitter feeds/pages for the film.
• Instagram - Instagram profile for the film also sponsored images/posts.
• It is important that the film producers keep these networks up to date so that they can constantly keep their potential audience engaged throughout.
• Another area which has come in to play in recent years is SEO, otherwise know as search engine optimisation or paid search. 
• Paid search is where you bid for certain keywords on a search network to become associated with your ad. 
• This is an area which larger films have more of a budget to tap into though so it is very hard for small films to do this unless they have a large budget for marketing.

• Prints
• Where do short films get shown:
• Short films will find it hard to get into big multiplexes with large audiences.
• Due to the increase in art house cinemas it allows short films to tap into an area where they find that there format/genre of film is more appreciated as a piece of art as opposed to something to make money.
• Another way which short films are distributing their films is VOD. This means instant access at any time to the film which means that there is an increased connivence for their audience.
• You can also submit your short film to film festivals as such as Sundance, if successful in your application your film will get shown in front of big conglomerate distributors. They can then provide with a big budget to distribute your film or even make your short film in to a full length media text, this for example is how the film Whiplash came about. Although the full length version only had a budget of around 3.3 million dollars it grossed around 33 million dollars.

Exhibition:

• How Do You See A Short Film:
• Theatrical - Normally in a cinema, this is when the film is screened to the public.
• Non-Theatrical - Usually it is when a film is screened to a membership group or other organisation. No admission charge will be used in this case.
• In recent times film days have started to pop-up where you can pay a fixed fee and go and watch short films for a day whilst enjoying snacks and a drink. This has brought in a newer audience into the film industry who are more interested in this kind of experience.
• Some Short films/low budget films will chose to go straight to DVD. Though this may seem like a cheap and easy way to go about it DVD's are are growing out of date due to the proliferation in the ways in which you can view films digitally over the internet.
• There are now a lot more ways in which you can view films without having to even go out of the house let alone get off of your sofa.

Target Audience:

• The short film industry has it's own target audience, being somewhat a genre of its own. 
• Although a lot of people may come across short films every now and again there is a nice audience of mostly film makers and fans of independent films who follow the industry. 
• With these points in mind short films do not cover a wide majority so the target audience is already reduced to those stereotyped as 'artsy' who enjoy the small films.