9. Conventions Of A Short Film

There a various conventions that most people tend to follow when producing a short film, these differ from other films due to the length of them. For example;

Characters
Due to the length of time of the films, it's difficult to establish characters and the relationships between them, along with their personalities. If there was a lot of characters it would be difficult for the audience to form a 'relationship' with them and understand what they're like. So, to deal with this, there is often only one, two or three main characters in most cases because there is no time to establish them.

Budget
When looking at short films, the majority maintain a low budget and are independent when funding and supporting their films, to do this, the majority stick to one location to keep costs at a low. Not only are their fewer characters due to not enough time to establish them, it allows the cost to remain low and some actors will work for little to nothing in these cases. If people have to fund it themselves they are more inclined to spend less and only spent the minimum they need to make it successful.

Twist
A twist is used to make the short film more interesting. Due to limited time obviously, it's hard to make the story interesting and to fit everything in, a twist grips the audience and leads to them keeping hooked and interesting. The story-lines are seen as boring otherwise due to the length and people will be not want to watch it.

Length
The length of the film is obviously established in the name of the film in 'short film'. These films can vary in lengths of time, but are usually 5-10 minutes. It's critical to get the timing correct because if they drag on for too long, the audience can lose concentration and lose interest. The story line is vital to the length of time that the film runs for, if it's too complex, it will run too long.

Situation
The situation is usually something that occurs in everyday life so the audience can relate to it. However, these are often flipped or stirred up to allow the audience to maintain their interest in it and see what happens but also relate in a certain way and feel as if they're part of the situation.