Short Film (For Real This Time)

1895, cinema began and for its first twenty two years of existence it only consisted of short films. The first ever to be recorded was by the Lumière brothers, titled La Sortie de l'Usine. The film, however much ground breaking, isn't very interesting, as it just shows people rushing the doors of their work place to go home at the end of the day. This period was ground breaking for techniques, seeing the starts of edits by Edwin S Porter, and narrative telling by George Melies.

Voyage a travers l'impossible by George Melies (below) is however one of the most remarkable pieces of the period in which he mixes animation with reality and uses a very creative narrative. The film follows the characters journey to the sun in a flying train, where they have problems of being too hot and then cold when they get frozen in some sort of freezer, before parachuting back to earth. The film is way ahead of its time (being 1904) with the most amasing aspect of the picture being that every frame is tinted to make the film appear in full colour.



David lynch uses this mix of animation and reality in his work, namely in Grandmother, which is a short film. It uses a reoccurring theme of growth, and what is needed to nurture growth, and argues that more than the ability to create another life is needed. This is done by showing the child growing a grandmother that can show him love, as opposed to his parents who "created him" but act like 'dogs'. In the end the grandmother dies, leaving him on his own, however when he goes to sleep at the end a plant grows out of him (it is a mystery to me what this represents, has he grown? Has he died? Is it a metaphor for hope? Or pain? I have no idea!).

1995 and a group of directors are given the 1st ever camera used by the Lumière brother to make their own film. Notable directors involved were David Lynch, Spike Lee and Michael Haneke. Michael Haneke's film documents the world in 1995, and events that happened on the news exactly 100 years later, in my opinion it is an interesting idea for the purpose of documenting history, but not the most interesting film. Spike Lee's film is just a close up of a black baby, I think a black baby was used purposely to document the time, as one of the Lumieres films from 1895 is a baby being fed, and it is white (and Spike Lee is an civil rights activist). David Lynch's on the other hand has a narrative, telling a story about a murder with surreal intermissions. Out of the Three I think David Lynch's uses the strongest direction as like the others it is all done in one shot but rather than being static it passes through many sets and uses cuts by burning paper (well... what I think to be paper).



Animation shorts are very popular, over the years I have seen a heap of short animations and other than Pixar's shorts my favourite has to be Muzorama (above). I found this while back whilst browsing Vimeo, and the film has some very peculiar ideas put in to practice in a fiction world, which are fun and very pleasing to the eye. The fictional world idea is fairly similar to La Cravate the first short film by Alejandro Jodorowsky, however La Cravate sets up a narrative at the beginning, which is humorous, and explores the idea of going to change your entire head instead of a haircut. The film explores the morals of this, by following a man looking for love and eventually finds it when a woman has his original head on her mantelpiece.

Pixar shorts are almost all brilliant creations, whether using characters from existing films or otherwise they are always fun to watch. One of my favourites is Burn-E which interlinks with the plot of the feature length Wall-E, and actually appears in the film! the story like most shorts revolves around one idea. This being the joke that Burn-E the robot trying to fix a light on the spaceship, but every time he does it breaks again. The joke is set up well with the repetition of him doing something over and over again and us laughing at his frustration and misfortune.

Humour is the main component in the most successful short films, as they make good viral videos. Occupations by Lars Von Trier is very slow paced and relaxed, as one man brags about his job to the man next to him at an opera, who completely changes the scene and kills the man next to him in a black comedy way, as we hate the man next to him. Similarly, Terry Tate: Office Linebacker uses slapstick humour and the advantage of viral videos being a major part of an office lifestyle by setting it inside one, as he lays down the law on all problems that are faced in office environments. However, this particular film is an advertisement for Reebok, so are all other short films all adverts without product? Are short films just undeveloped ideas? Is every video on youtube a short film?



This for example, uses a perfect narrative. A man who tries to do something but suffers pain trying to do it successfully (like an extreme version of Burn-E). Or does it not fit into the bracket as it isn't planned?

Many questions but no real answers, this is just short film at a glance. I have to go now as I have an important call to make, but I shall leave you with my housemate Ciaran O'Briens award-winning film.