Why Making Shorts is a Waste Of Your Time (Most Of The Time)

First, let me say this: I love a good short. If you can knock my socks off with a short film I'm the first person to say, "Wow that was cool (or funny, or creepy, or... insert descriptor here)."

But I won't give you a dime for it and chances are after I log off of Youtube, atomfilms or ifilm I'll have already forgotten about your masterpiece. Let me also say, having lived in L.A. land of 10000 "film-makers" who have made 100,000 one-off shorts; I've heard of precious few of those shorts acting like a lightning rod of attention that launches a successful film/tv/web producer career. I guess what I'm saying is only once in a great while will the "Spirit Of Christmas" begat the career of Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

I think the key to success with a short, given the availability of DV film-making, Final Cut Pro, etc, is to follow it up with 10-12 episodic sequels of equal or better quality. Show folks that you can create a product they can sell and then the money will follow. But probably only after you've done it a bunch of times. When you make a one off short it doesn't really prove that you're a good writer or director. You could have just been lucky. Your average executive wants proof that you can produce good watchable (and therefore marketable) material over and over again.

That said, the market is changing thanks to the friendly neighborhood internet. There is a growing market for serialized short materials on the internet and companies like Comedy Central, IFC all the way to the major TV studios are starting to scour the world for cool stuff to put on their websites.

So when you plan and script "My Super Awesome Student Film" you might want to consider outlining "M.S.A.S.F Part 2,3,4" "M.S.A.S.F The Wrath of Project Greenlight", "M.S.A.S.F Navel Gazing No More", "M.S.A.S.F Ode to Gummo", and "M.S.A.S.F Scorcese Ain't Got Nothing On Me"

Now, when you've spent all that time planning and shooting all those shorts you could have made a feature. Feature films have 1 distinct advantage over shorts. There's a huge infrastructure of people who want to buy them. You may not make money on the first one but it's a lot easier to sell a feature film than a short because distributors know what to do with them.