The Future Of The Short Film Amid New Distribution Options

Before YouTube and pre-Vimeo, significantly less people watched short films that weren’t commercials. At best, we tuned into MTV to be wowed by music videos. But now, with trillions of views clocked, we have not only embraced the short, we’re more savvy to experimental content on the whole. Though much of YouTube remains to be "Animals-Actin-A-Fool", viral doesn't necessarily mean unworthy. It’s no longer unusual when an explosive YouTube video leads directly to a Hollywood-sized deal. But, as the quality bar for online videos has risen and and our short-film consumption grows more voracious, the way we explicitly value shorts has started to shift, often uncomfortably.

2013 Oscar-nominated short films

One perfect example of this discomfort, if not tension between the established world and the digital one, was written about by Ivan Kander at Short of The Week.

This year marked an interesting milestone for the Oscar nominated animated short films. For the first time in recent memory, people actually watched them. On January 29th, my Facebook feed blew up with posts about a short film—that’s right, a short film! Disney kicked off a decidedly unusual trend when it released its Oscar-nominated short Paperman online. Soon, others followed suit—Head Over Heels and Adam and Dog hit the internet within the week. Suddenly, an award category usually only visible by a very select few could be seen by the masses.

Then, abruptly, a few days before the big night, the shorts vanished. But, why?

To cut to the chase, Shorts International, the world’s leading distributor of short films who distributes the Oscar nominated shorts in theaters, sent a letter asking the filmmakers to take down their films, citing a desire to preserve the theatrical experience. If you’re interested in all the sundry details, check out Jen Yamto’s piece for Deadline.

The article became a spark retweeted and commented on by many connected to the world of short film.  The central question was: how might artists who make short films, make money? Even as convenient distribution technology emerges, will audiences open their wallets? Everyone is used to watching shorts on the internet for free—but also—very few were ever used to paying to watch short films in the first place.

Edison's kinetoscope

This wasn't always the case: when cinema started, it was not so different than how we experience YouTube. The first films were viewed solitarily via Edison's Kinetiscope. Their subject matter was often vaudevillian one-acts, where short and sweet was the rule, not the exception. As technology improved, filmmakers were able to make multi-reel films and entrepreneurs were able to justify building movie palaces to support a budding industry around this new form of entertainment. Feature films were generally seen to elevate cinema as an art form that could stand up to high-brow theater and opera.

MTV early branding

But technology, like television and the internet after it, reflected their traits back on the entertainment they served up, splicing what we watch into ever shorter bits and pieces. And like most other forms of entertainment, the democratized nature of the ‘net has clouded the obvious path for makers seeking to make a living from their craft.

If you made a short film a few years ago, the route forward was often singular. Entering a film into a festival or award show, despite high application costs, meant access to live audiences, but more importantly, to producing powers that could provide a future budget or a distribution deal engineered by expert marketers. There was, and still is, an assumption that short films were testing grounds for longer form works: either a feature or an episodic series. To be a successful music video director in the 1990s or 2000s often meant you were on a farm team of next-wave feature film directors. Think: Spike Jonze, David Fincher, Mike Mills, even Michael Bay. This isn't to say everyone who makes shorts has only seen them as a mere stepping stone. Plenty of filmmakers, past and present, particularly animators and fine artists, dedicate themselves to the short as an innovative art form unto itself. With internet audiences growing, it’s questionable if making a feature is the penultimate goal it used to be.

Today, when it comes to releasing a film into the wild (and attempting to recuperate any costs), buzzed about independent filmmakers choose between a third party that lends credibility but cuts into revenue—or a new wild-west of emerging DIY online tools. Short of the Week's Kander goes on to tease out the pros and cons of each side for short filmmakers. One conclusion is, despite the prestige a Shorts International stamp-of-approval provides, filmmakers saw little financial upside while having to sacrifice the option to put the work online, missing out on the exposure that YouTube hits and Vimeo staff picks bring. Kander's conclusion serves some tough-love:

As time passes, more and more high-caliber shorts will find their way online—and it’s going to happen more quickly and reach a wider audience than ever before. And, really, there’s going to be little that distributors like Shorts International will be able to do to stop them. In the end, they’ll be forced to do as all things must do in order to survive—evolve.

There are already plenty of players emerging to speed along that evolution process. This year the Sundance Festival announced their Artist Services initiative, calling varied partners to help filmmakers find opportunity in a changing, digital landscape. Their DIY online distribution partners include VHX (full disclosure, I’ve freelanced for them), ReelHouse and Vimeo—all of which can serve both features and shorts. Another site in the mix is Elevision, which focuses strictly on shorts. These services make it easy for filmmakers to flexibly post and charge for online access to a work. Getting films on iTunes requires more legwork and upfront costs, as most filmmakers use a third party aggregator to handle passing Apple’s application process. Last September, Vimeo also introduced TipJar, a button that lets any plus-member accept pay-what-you-want bucks, rooted in good will. Vimeo explains, “A tip is the ultimate expression of appreciation… you're not only telling a creator how important their work is to you, you're also giving them the resources to make more of it.”

VHX supported Indie Game: The Movie

There’s no doubt that all of these new tools are exciting steps in the right direction. While it’s fair to say that not every film that’s self-distributed will be a grand slam, cases like Louis CK’s online special and Indie Game The Movie prove that success is possible. For the most part though, short films face a different set of viewer expectations as audiences have a bottomless sea of awesome short content they’ve grown accustomed to accessing for free. That and, releasing short content that becomes viral is still key in building a loyal audience that will (hopefully) pay for work in the future. These new distribution tools don’t totally shift the paradigm short filmmakers face: restrict access and potentially sacrifice exposure or give revenue a chance. Though TipJar was an admirable first effort to balance this trade-off, IAC (the company that owns Vimeo) declined to comment on the feature’s success or adoption. At this stage, the TipJar button seems like an afterthought, as it is easily buried in menus and amongst other buttons and sadly not embeddable. Overall, a nice notion, but there has yet to be proof of its impact.

Vimeo TipJar

The problem doesn’t solely lie with the tools. There needs to be a cultural shift amongst audiences and filmmakers alike. Independent animator, Scott Benson, put it well: Support Your Scene. In a blog post, he writes,

When I buy something from [an artist I admire], I feel like I’m supporting their work, and it’s work that isn’t for everyone. But to the people it is for, it means a lot…. I like supporting people whose work I care about. I begin to care about them as people. I follow them on twitter and see them struggling or triumphing or whatever and I want to be a part of them doing well. I feel like they deserve it because their work has connected with me, and that’s something. And I feel like they deserve to have their rent or mortgage come a little easier because of it.

Though Benson goes on to say, “Kickstarter is a different thing altogether”, I think there’s much to be translated that’s inherent in Kickstarter’s DNA. Namely, that transactions aim to be personal. People give money on Kickstarter for different reasons but underlying the choice to fund is a want for another to succeed. Exposure to process—with all it’s hiccups and lessons—is built in, as many blog updates to backers via the project’s Kickstarter page. Bonus features have long been an incentive to buy DVDs. Now that extra features can be anything downloadable, filmmakers can be more creative with what that bonus content could entail. As it becomes ever easier for anyone to access and learn creative software, I think fans will place a premium on original files or tutorials that reveal how a creative hero works.

Of course, in this brave new world, artists shoulder more responsibility and potentially more risk. It also means that those who make have to be creative not only about their work, but also generate marketing that motivates people to pay. David OReilly, a lauded short filmmaker, said that there was “no market for short films,” adding “I believe short films are the most progressive form of filmmaking on earth, but they do not function well as a commodity because they are more of an unknown quantity to the viewer.” The internet has proven the appetitie for short film is there. The challenge moving forward is not to change the experimental inclination of the short, but rather, to create a market that values and spurs the progressive nature of the short even further.