Oscar Shorts

Last night I went to a screening of the Oscar nominated shorts. It was almost a private screening. A couple showed up toward the end of the first one, stayed for the second one, and left at the start of the third one. I think they just wanted to see Martin Freeman. I wanted to see the best of the genre, the thing I should be aspiring for. Here's what I learned: Even the best shorts are sometimes too long.

Often bad shorts are bad because they're trying to do too much, trying to fit too much story into a format that doesn't have room for it. Or dragging on with complications that don't forward the plot. To be clear, none of these had that problem. These are all very good. But when I went back and tried to rank them in my head while I walked home I realized that it's the shorter ones that I liked better. They made best use of the genre. They were lean and tight, they knew what they were trying to do, they got in, they did it, and they got out.

The three longer ones lingered in the telling of their stories. The Danish one, which I liked a lot, gave us time to fall in love with their characters so that at the end we would cry, which I did. It might have felt rushed if they'd picked up the pace or cut a few scenes. But still, when I was sorting them after, it wasn't winning and I think that's due to the length. And the French and Spanish ones were both long enough that I got restless and my mind wandered. They were well enough done, but if I were a voting member of the Academy I wouldn't vote for them. I'd have a hard time picking between the British one and the Finnish one. I keep asking myself if I'd like the British one as much if it had an equally talented, but unknown lead actor. It was well done, so maybe, but the Finnish one I liked just as much without the distraction of "oh look, it's Martin Freeman."

And do you notice? They're all European. Sometimes I wonder why the American Academy even has a category for shorts. There's no support for shorts. If you are a fan of the genre you'll only get to see any if your city has a film festival that programs them. If you're a maker of shorts, festivals are the only hope for a big screen audience. There is no support in the distribution of shorts and certainly no support in the production of shorts. A really successful short is something that goes viral on YouTube, or sells a bit on iTunes. That's great, but it's not the same as seeing something in a theater. The prevailing attitude in America seems to be that you only make shorts as a student, you make them as a calling card, you make them as a means to the end of making features. And so our shorts aren't as good as the European ones because as soon as you're a good filmmaker you stop making shorts. And while I will take my lessons learned from making shorts and apply them when I'm making features. I will also take the lessons learned while making features and apply them to making shorts. I really do aspire to making an Oscar nominated short. I love the format and I want to be that good at it.

In the meantime, have a picture of my car. I parked it there on February 2nd and haven't touched it since. We've had about 3 snows come through in that time, and it's snowing again now. I keep sort of hoping that I won't need to go anywhere before the pile up around my tires melts.