Short film

• 1. Defining The Short Form

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  A film with a 30-minute running time titled Nefertiti y Aquenatos appeared in 1973. This work features Salah Zulfikar and Geraldine Chaplin standing together on screen. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits. Other organizations use different standards. The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television currently defines a short film as 45 minutes or less for documentaries. They define it as 59 minutes or less for scripted narrative films. In the United States, these works were generally termed short subjects from the 1920s into the 1970s. They were confined to two 35 mm reels or less during that era. Featurettes described a film of three or four reels. The term short was an abbreviation for either category.

• 2. The Silent Era And Serials

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  All films in the beginning of cinema ran only a minute or less. Thomas Edison presented the first set of films in 1894 through his device called a kinetoscope. It was made for individual viewing only. Films started to get longer than about ten minutes by the 1910s. Comedy short films were produced in large numbers compared to lengthy features such as D. W. Griffith's 1915 The Birth of a Nation. William Garwood starred in numerous short films, many of which were 20 minutes in length. A serial generally ran for 12 to 15 chapters, each lasting 15 to 20 minutes. Every episode ended with the hero or heroine trapped in a life-threatening situation. Audiences would have to return the following week to see the outcome. These chapter plays remained popular through the 1950s. Columbia and Republic Pictures made them as cheaply as possible by reusing action highlights from older serials. They connected these reused scenes with new footage showing identically dressed actors. Even after Republic quit making serials in 1955, faithful audiences supported them. Studios re-released older serials through the mid-1960s.

• 3. The Double Feature Decline

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  In the 1930s, the distribution system changed in many countries owing to the Great Depression. Instead of the cinema owner assembling a program of their own choice, studios sold a package centered on a main and supporting feature. With the rise of the double feature, two-reel shorts went into decline as a commercial category. The year 1938 proved to be a turning point in the history of film comedies. Hal Roach discontinued all short-subject production except Our Gang. He finally sold that series to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1938. The Vitaphone studio, owned by Warner Bros., discontinued its own line of two-reel comedies in 1938. Educational Pictures did as much that same year. Their president Earle W. Hammons unsuccessfully entered the feature-film field. Theater managers found it easier and more convenient to fit shorter one-reel subjects into their double-feature programs. Robert Benchley had been making short comedies since the dawn of sound. His various series for Fox, Vitaphone, MGM, and Paramount ran from 1928 to 1944. By and large, however, the movies' one-reel subject of choice was the animated cartoon.

• 4. Animation Survival And Television

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  Cartoon shorts had a longer life due to lower-cost limited animation techniques. The rise of television animation allowed shorts to have both theatrical runs and a syndication afterlife. Warner Bros. underwent several reorganizations in the 1960s before exiting the short film business in 1969. By that point, the shorts had been in televised reruns for years. MGM continued Tom and Jerry until 1967 with a series of poorly-received Eastern European shorts by Gene Deitch. They followed this with a better-received run by Warner Bros. alumnus Chuck Jones. Woody Woodpecker lasted to 1972. The creative team behind MGM's 1940s and 1950s cartoons formed Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1957. They focused mainly on television. The Pink Panther was the last regular theatrical cartoon short series. It began in 1964 and ended in 1980. By the 1960s, the market for animated shorts had largely shifted to television. Existing theatrical shorts were syndicated to television. Only The Three Stooges continued making two-reel comedies until their last release in 1959.

• 5. Digital Distribution And Festivals

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  A few animated shorts continue within mainstream commercial distribution. Pixar has screened a short along with each of its feature films during its initial theatrical run since 1995. They produced shorts permanently since 2001. Disney acquired Pixar in 2006 and produced animated shorts since 2007. They created the Goofy short How to Hook Up Your Home Theater. In 2009, the horror short film No Through Road was released and went viral. This work would spark three sequels, creating a web series. Shorts International and Magnolia Pictures organize an annual release of Academy Award-nominated short films in theatres across the US, UK, Canada and Mexico throughout February and March. Certain websites which encourage the submission of user-created short films have attracted large communities of artists and viewers. YouTube and Vimeo are examples of such platforms. Sites like Omeleto, FILMSshort, Short of the Week, and Short Films Matter showcase curated shorts. Tropfest claims to be the world's largest short film festival. It originated in 1993 and is often credited as being at least partially responsible for the recent popularity of short films internationally. Among the oldest film festivals dedicated to short films are Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in France since 1979.