Producing : Shorts by Steven M. Cross

If you want to do that sort of stuff - do it yourself. I think you'll find that most of 'em are are what I like to call 'intros'; they are ways that beginning filmmakers try to get themselves noticed by the industry and they often serve as stepping stones.

Steven M. Cross Who produces them? Anyone and you can/should. But they are not new. They flourish on YouTube and other amateur platforms. When on networks, they are traditionally categorized "interstitial programming" or "ephemerals" and used to fill up air time between longer programs when schedules don't quite work out. In my opinion, as a the founder of a streaming service, audiences are less concerned about actual length of shows - they will accept things that don't fit into traditional 30 and 60 minutes TV slots - which usually only have 22 or 44 minutes of content. Quibi last year, supported by some big players, was founded on the idea that people had a shorter attention span these days, so looked to build a platform on the basis of short-shorts. Quibi tanked gloriously and very quickly. (The short attention span idea is quaintly old-fashioned, and has arisen every five or so years over the last 40 years or so, only to be proven wrong again and again. I guess it's one of those things which seems to sound interesting to corporate producers).

I think these short episodic has an audience. Several shows are crowdfunded, and then you are building an audience before you start to shoot.

Budgets on tv-series is to high for many indie producers, so they/ we are shooting shorter content, and sometimes these episodes can function as one episode for a tv-series, a pilot etc..

I have a short film (Bathtub by the sea), which is a stand alone short film. It will now be included in the next season of stand alone short films called "The Strowlers".

https://watch.thefantasy.network/tv-show/strowlers/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5095614/

One company that I know of, is Zombie Orpheous Entertainment who are focusing on fantasy-fans and geeks.

https://www.zombieorpheus.com/

Hey Steven - short form content is interesting We are seeing it on a daily basis here through Stage 32 as calling cards for creatives to get signed, find producers, find financing to create features, etc. As for short form episodic content, I think the industry leaned a lot with the massive failure of Quibi, I agree with Ole-André Rønneberg that there is an audience for it, but I think it is still getting shaken out.

Instead of "there's an APP for that", I think we should start "there's a Stage32 Webinar for that" LOL! We have one very popular webinar about how to finance short films: https://www.stage32.com/webinars/How-to-Finance-Your-Short-Film

And another webinar about how to monetize them: https://www.stage32.com/webinars/Is-There-A-Market-For-Your-Short-Film

For my two cents, I think it has less to do with the total run time of a short and more to do with the total run time of the over-arching story. If the short is proof of concept of a film or series, that is a different ball of wax than a short that lives and dies as a one-off.

I think from 0-20 years old, they are not used to linear tv at all. So, the format that we are used to is not in them. So the content can be from a couple of minutes to many hours. And as you say Amanda Toney , they are still getting shaken out. But they will come.

Who is watching a full feature on Youtube? (BTW. Great webinar yesterday!)

Thanks for the links Karen "Kay" Ross . Will look into them.

Amanda, as a Producer offering free tv exposure to some of the filmmakers here on Stage 32 all I can say is that I'd sure like to see more gumption by them here. Basically a little more action and a lot less talk.

Ole-André Rønneberg With respect, and with the perspective of 25+ years in the industry, I disagree entirely with the idea that younger people are not used to linear story telling. While the media and media delivery they are treated to may influence their social culture (which in itself is a controversial idea), there is no reason to suppose that they are in any way different from any other generation in the history of humanity in terms of their communication. For some reason, that idea keeps popping up in the industry every few years and it seems to sound good to someone. But it ignores both human psychology and empirical evidence (specifically, there is NO evidence for shorter attention spans or different brain architecture in young people today). It also leads to periodic degradation of watchable content created for that imagined difference, most of which is quickly and justifiably forgotten. Most recently the mistake caused the spectacular implosion of Quibi - which I pointed out at it's beginning was founded on a quaintly old fashioned idea masquerading as something new (ie. people today have shorter attention spans).

Thanks so much Ole-André Rønneberg! Chris is dynamite and we've been working on that for 4 months. I was thrilled to bring it to the community. It was cool to see all our Stage 32 educators, executives and mentors tune in, too. It's a real high getting to train the industry :)

Shadow Dragu-Mihai, Esq., Ipg Thanks for diasgree with me. I did not say linear story telling. I said linear tv. I mean a pre programmed tv where someone else is picking for you. With VOD it is entirely up to the viewer what he/ she wants to watch. And when smartphones and tablets was introduced, I think it is much easier to watch something for 5 minutes in stead of a feature film on 1,5- 2 hours. With having these screens available at all time, it is changing our habits. I am not saying that it is a good thing at all. It is vice versa.

(Just look at how quickly kids are getting bored)

I have watched my kids watching tv. When they are watching Paw patrol (or something similar), they are sitting like zombies, blank in their eyes and often no response to what is happening on the screen (they do laugh sometimes). When they are watching films from 70's, 80's etc. Like Astrid Lindgren, they are much more into the story. And they are filming flowers waving in the wind, and a child staring at the flower, and many other situations that takes time. But, the kids are much more present into the story, and they are really emotionally involved.

So I believe that there is a place for both. Shorter and longer content. What I think Quibi did wrong, was that it was a paid service for something people are used to get for free (Youtube, Vimeo). But, to include shorter content on a platform that people is already paying for with longer content is brilliant. In my opinion.

Amanda Toney I can tell, it was running so smooth, even with 30 000+ online! Again, thanks for hosting!

Ole-André Rønneberg I stand corrected on story telling. I am not attacking you here or saying there is no place for shorter content, but as a serious industry professional I think it is vital that we get to the bottom truth of some of these concepts, because misunderstanding them costs time, money and careers in our industry. Some people in content development have lost their minds and forgotten there is a pause icon on video players, and Quibi is a spectacular example of what happens when you run with that mistake. I must disagree that age or demographic has anything to do with preference for what you are calling linear TV versus on-demand programming. In fact, at Facet TV, a vod service, literally half our user demographic is above age 40. I think there is no one in any demographic who doesn't prefer vod. People regardless of age will use the pause button and come back to a show later, after having watched 15 or 20 minutes. I think Amazon and Netflix stats on audience retention agree (I have them somewhere, don't ask me to dig them out. But they are also freely available on a google search). Regarding Quibi, again, what they did wrong IMO was ascribing to the fundamental mistake that keeps getting repeated over and over since the early 1980s - the (absurd) assertion that the (then current) younger generation has a different attention span than previous generations. They originally called it "The MTV Generation" and a number of directors and editors started doing work for a shorter attention span - leading to many years of unwatchable action films and flash-cut content. Finally editors eventually rediscovered that it takes time for a viewer to adjust to a visual cut and if your eye misses it, you lose interest (regardless of age). Which means disengagement is due to lack of continuity and length, not a change in audience attention span or preferance. Your own examples illustrate this point, to my mind. The pause icon and the obvious ability to pick up where one left off - which has been around since the beginning of VOD/Youtube - obviates the need for "short-short" content (ie. just a few minutes). I say that anyone who thinks there's a large market of people hoping for something to watch while standing in a check out line at a grocery store is really unfamiliar with the technology and assumes the digital audience is not the same as the general audience. I take that example from Quibi's actual published business model. It's straight out of the old-white-guy-who-never-used-a-computer playbook. Which fairly describes the Quibi founders. The age demographics for viewership activities may have been sharply divided a decade ago, they are very close now. Now there are contrary examples, like TikTok video, but I rather think those are exceptions that prove my point; they are participatory ephemeral content, not produced content, and another thing entirely.

Shadow Dragu-Mihai, Esq., Ipg I don't feel attacked at all. I like the conversation, and I am glad that you are enlightening me with your view and your knowledge. I don't disagree with you. I prefer f.ex. Michael Man's Heat, over the "shake-cam wave" that came after Jason Bourne. I'll guess you are right. That there is not a huge market for shorter content, except for what is on Youtube, Tiktok, Facebook etc. But I think it would be nice to have short films on Netflix, like Disney have on Disney+. And I think more people would watch the content.

I am trying to move over to feature film and series myself, and it is because I think it is easier to sell it, and to tell a complete story, but I do also love shorts. Both to watch and to make. For the sake of the art, and the great story telling.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

Ole-André Rønneberg Well I think there is a place for shorts, but the challenge is at least partly financial. A traditional tv station has a premium on air time, so they need to focus on content that brings a return. Digital platforms have broadband costs, which are much lower, but the question there is similar: revenue per minutes/data transfer. On the other hand, consider that a half-hour series is short form content and that's been around since the advent of TV. And shorts are mostly produced by student filmmakers, so the acceptability to an audience, which is used to high production values, is comparatively low. They are of course popular at film festivals around the world. What kind of commercial utility is there for a short though, which is not anywhere near a standard length and is a one-off piece? The Cartoon network has often had a number of 15 minute series. The Simpsons started as a short installment on the Tracy Ulman Show. South Park started as a short series. But for the most part, these exceptions are not stand-alone pieces - being shorts yes but actually short series. At Facet TV we focus on series, and I have directed a number of short (ie. ~10min/episode) series. These all find an audience, but as one-offs I think they would not work.