The short and the long of it.

0 Comments POSTED: September 7, 2007 14:17 | By: Alex Rogalski

This year?s Short Cuts Canada programme features (no pun intended) a number of filmmakers who are premiering short films at TIFF after successful forays with the longer format. Sean Garrity, Julia Kwan, Larry Kent, Peter Lynch, and Alanis Obomsawin have all created new short works that allow them to experiment with the cinematic form in exciting and diverse ways. A common misperception is that filmmakers always proceed from shorts to features (never to return). These filmmakers prove that shorter can be sweeter.

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After his success at TIFF with LUCID (05) and INerTia (01), which won best Canadian first Feature, Sean Garrity returns with REORDER, and a character who attempts to rebuild his world after a fall out with his fiancé. ?It would be very limiting to think that I could only pursue ideas that can fill 90 minutes. Sometimes I?ll get very excited by something that, once fully flushed out, is only 6 minutes long or ? in this case ? 14 minutes long. It would be heartbreaking to think that I?d have to abandon those projects now because I also make features.?

Julia Kwan?s film, SMILE, is also following on her success with her first feature EVE and the FIREHORSE (05), but SMILE came about in a different manner. ?I actually had the money to make the short before my feature film. In fact, it was a story that didn't make it into the feature and I intended it to be made into my ?calling card? film for my feature. However, my feature started to take off and I put the short aside. Also, I really like the short film format, much like I enjoy short stories vs. novels.?

Larry Kent, director of HASTINGS STREET, furthers the literary comparison of the short film. ?You can create more of a back story in a feature narrative?, says Kent, adding that the three-act structure of a feature becomes far more condensed and emphatic in a short. Kent had a similar journey to Kwan in bringing his short film about Vancouver to the screen, albeit a journey that took 45 years. HASTINGS STREET was shot in 1963, and was Kent?s first cinematic effort, but due to the difficulties of shooting with a 16mm Bolex that does not have sync sound, Kent shelved the project and completed a highly successful feature THE BITTER ASH (63) with synced dialogue that was recorded in post production. He had always planned to finish the short, and after recording the dialogue to sync with his cut version of Hastings Street in recent years with actor Nicholas Lea, his ?first? film is ready for an audience. For Kent, the short allows a more intense focus on a character, where you don?t have the liberties of developing a back story. ?In a short film, you can really only focus on one moment, and explore the possibilities within that.? As such, the short film allows for more cinematic experimentation, be it with narrative, visual style, or production, because, as Julia Kwan succinctly states, ?? the stakes are bit lower.?

Peter Lynch, the director of GRIZZLY MAN (96) and A WHALE OF A TALE (04) and this year?s A SHORT FILM ABOUT FALLING, adds ?Making shorts allows you to flex your creative muscles as well as try ideas which can later be used in your longer form work. Ultimately short films do not really have to be tied to any genre and can draw on all the communicative arts as a new mode of storytelling and expression.? With regards to making the switch between the long and short form of cinema, Lynch provides this: ?The temptation is to try to cram a feature into a short and this never works. A feature for example can offer you more time to develop a character. Where as with a short you have to go for brevity or find different metaphors or correlatives or be able to conjure different forms of expression to communicate your ideas. I think shorts are well suited to complex abstract ideas that may not have the narrative engine to drive a feature. It does afford you the chance to take one idea and really come at it in unusual ways.? This ability to take chances does not reflect an intention not to be clear. According to Kent, the short requires a precise discipline, ?You can?t meander through a short, it needs to have a clear point of view, and you have to get rid of extraneous matter.?

The exhibition of shorts and features offers a big difference as well, considering the distribution and economic models are completely different for the two forms. As directors rarely expect to see a financial return on investment from their short films, there is a freedom for the filmmaker to make a work that fulfills all of their ambitions, without the fear that it won?t be ?commercially viable? (more often a concern of producers than directors). The faster turn around time of completing a short film compared to a feature and the opportunity to try new things were key reasons for these directors to produce shorter works.

The final words are left to the directors who are appropriately concise when it comes to the benefit of working in the short form.

JULIA KWAN: With short films, it doesn't take years to cobble together the finances. The time from conception to execution is much shorter.

PETER LYNCH: The downside is you are unlikely to get paid! The upside is they generally don?t take as much time and money to make and there is something more immediate and there?s something fulfilling about that.

SEAN GARRITY: Fewer lawyers, no money designated for culture that ends up in the pockets of bankers, no bonder, less bullshit overall.