How to make a SHORT FILM?

                      Now-a-days, number of people are showing a vast interest in watching and making short films.. people are interested in exhibiting their creative talent to the public through social networking channels and by many other means. working hard for many days on a short film is not the only thing which is required. Any work without having any theoretical and practical knowledge cannot fetch us a desirable result. So, it is very important for the person to know the basic rules and regulations while stepping into practicality. 

Film making is a very vast subject. But, in order to make a short, few basic tips and steps are enough.

 3 steps of FILM MAKING  

The process of making any film involves 3 steps.

1. Pre Production
2. Production
3. Post Production

A best result can be achieved if all the 3 steps are performed properly. And now, let us know something about those.

 Pre Production 

Pre production is the theoretical process about the films. All the work done before entering into the field work (shooting of the film) is said to be the pre production work.

In this session, tasks like Story Writing, Screenplay, Dialogues, story board preparation, Cast and Crew recruitment etc. This is the blue print of the movie which has to be shot.

 Production 

This is the practical step of the film making process. All the pre production will be pictured as best as the team can do. There are number of works involved even in this process like directing, acting, cinematography, choreography and many other things. When coming to the short films, Cast, Direction and camera departments are almost sufficient as the additional assets like dance, fights etc. are rarely used. 

 Post Production 

This is the final and most important step. Once when the shooting part gets completed, the rushes(clips which were shot) will be sent for the post production team. Here, works like Editing, Titling, Animation, Color Correction, Music, Dubbing etc.

(Note: This is just the overview of the basic film making.)

       Key points to be kept in mind while making a short film       

   

• Film length should be less than 40 mins according to the academy of motion pictures and sciences.
• Feature films and high budget films will first think of a story and then estimate a budget for that. But, in the case of short films, it is suggested to first think of a budget according to one's capability and then prepare a subject according to that.
• It is really difficult for the makers to express the entire content in a narrow time duration. But that's the challenge to do it. So, the screenplay must be sharp and accurate. Any unwanted junk or lag in the film may finally gives a bad result.
• If the capital invested here is low, we can't expect the best technical values. But we must carefully use them to get as best as we can.
• Better to avoid the copy contents such as music and videos from other sources because it may lead to copyright issues. Powerful social networking sites like      YOU TUBE will sense the pirated content and that may cause some issues which shows a bad impact on the project.
• More care should be taken in both pre and post production works to get the best output.
• Care should be taken to avoid any shot duration to go beyond 14 seconds each. i.e; no shot must exceed the duration of 14 seconds. There is a scientific reason behind this. Human eye will blink for every 12 seconds on an average. So, if a shot last for more than that (14 secs. approx.), it causes monotony. Monotony means, a viewer will feel a bit bored by seeing a shot of same angle without any movement.