Independent Short Film Blog

First Entry.

This blog is dedicated to the sharing and study of Independent Short Film. Hence, the title.

This topic fascinates me immensely. Questions flood my mind, like: How do you go about telling a compelling story as concisely as possible? What elements and techniques are often used? Are they perhaps overused? And which are powerfully effective but underused?

Filmmaking is in many ways similar to writing. There are a handful of authors who can get away with writing excessively long novels, most are praised for their brevity with words. In other words, works like James Joyce’s Ulysses (250,000 words), Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables (513,000 words), Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (460,000 words in the original; 560,000 words in English translation), Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (645,000 words), Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa (969,000 words) and lastly Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu–English title: Remembrance of Things Past/In Search of Lost Time–(1.5 million words published in 13 volumes) are the exception rather than the rule.

In the same way, some filmmakers use miles of film to tell a story (Gone with the Wind, a 418,053-word novel translated to almost 100 miles of film used, and the final edit is almost four miles long) or take a long time telling it (like the TV miniseries Stephen King’s The Stand, around 6 hours in duration). In some cases, the style and tone of the production make the films seem longer than they actually are, as is the case with Mia aioniotita kai mia mera–English title: Eternity and a Day which is a two hour film that feels like four hours when viewed.
My intention for this blog, Independent Short Film, is to engage in lively discussions, share links or embed video, host prize contests and otherwise create an online community devoted to Independent Short Film.

Please join me in this endeavor.

Until next time,
Chad

Add to Technorati Favorites Stumble it!