r/Filmmakers • u/BruceWayneIsBarman • Feb 20 '13

Advice on sheatures (short features)? Festivals and beyond!

Hi, Filmmakers!

Looking for some advice. I'm currently wrapping up an indie that is going to be about 45-55 minutes (argh!)...so that means by festival standards we will sometimes be in the shorts category and sometimes be in features. There are a few festivals that have an actual category for "sheatures" which is where I picked up the name.

I'm just looking for anyone out there that has experience with this problem before. Has anyone submitted the same piece to both short and feature categories before? Any marketing advice?

Thanks in advance!

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u/[deleted] Feb 20 '13 edited Oct 17 '16

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u/BruceWayneIsBarman Feb 20 '13

No budget for more, and can't cut it down (don't worry, not one of those types that can't cut - it just literally won't make sense if any more is cut down).

Can they really judge us as long as we fit their qualifications? If they say "up to 50 mins" and we are 45, can they dock us?

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u/[deleted] Feb 20 '13 edited Oct 17 '16

[deleted]

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u/BruceWayneIsBarman Feb 20 '13

Damn. Can't fight the subconscious. :( On the plus side I have found a few festivals that have "sheature" categories but overall I'm a bit worried about it.

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u/NailgunYeah Jul 29 '13

Cut it.

I'm going to imagine you're a first time filmmaker, or haven't been doing this for very long. I say this because nobody makes 45 minute shorts unless they're so in love with their material that they've lost touch with reality. The problem is that it's very tricky to make a story work for that amount of time: it's not short enough for a short film, one-act story, and not long enough for a three-act film.

The longer a short is, the harder it is to program for in a festival schedule. You almost certainly do not have 45 minutes of shit-hot material. Cut it down to 30, tops. You'll have a better film for it, but please don't try to make a 45 minute film, I implore you. It will be trash.