Purposes of a short film:

Short Films are usually made by film students that want to promote themselves who are on a budget and do this by entering into a film competition. Another reason is to build awareness around a certain topic that is close to them or to illustrate how a director feels about society, which a short film can do my sending a short but strong message across to those that watch it. For example the short film made by Tom Harper called ‘Cherries’ highlights the aggression between young males in contemporary British society and the idea of CCTV watching our every move, as Britain is the most watched country.

This shows how strongly the director feels about society in contrasts to mainstream full length films which are usually made for the audience’s enjoyment purposes as they can cover a lot more themes and the audience watching are going to want to enjoy the film whereas short films are usually designed to prove point. For example a recent film that just got realised is ‘planet of the apes’ the fiction storyline shows it doesn’t really have a meaning to the film it’s just there to entertain. Short and full length films have completely different motives, which is why the conventions would be different. However a full length film could go into depth of a short film and end up with the same effect whereas a short film would not be able to put in half the amount of information, time, production etc. to get the same effect as a full length film. Short films tend to cover real life situations and be non-fiction whereas full length films are more made up and fiction.