Speaker 1: Film Courage. Should you start a short film by writing a logline?

Speaker 2: I like writing a logline first to say what in the world is your short film. Even if you don't think you're going to have it written down, when you talk to people about having them be a part of your film, they're going to say what's your film about, right? So you should have a logline that can tell people what your film is and if you write it ahead of time and have it ready to spew and say easily then that is really a good thing. But ultimately you're going to have to tell people what your film is about whatsoever. When you finish your film and if you want to put it online or send it out in the festival circuit you have to write a logline that gets sent with that film and that logline they print verbatim. So one of the short films I produced was a film called I'm On Fire and it's about a guy who's on fire. We had special effects to put him on fire. So the filmmaker wrote the logline and we're like what in the hell is the logline going to be for this because before he comes out in theory you don't know he's going to be on fire and then he's on fire. The filmmaker came up with the logline with a very short film about a man on fire. Pretty much said what it was and it was like two minutes long. It's a very short film about a man on fire. So to this day I can easily quote that logline because it is what the film is about. But yeah, your logline is going to follow that film on IMDb everywhere in the world so you want to make sure you write it well. But also you don't want to write it so obscurely that people are like I have no idea because I'm On Fire could be a manifestation of love told in a unique way. And it's that film about the man on fire. That's what it is. The title is that. Speaking of loglines, titles are also super important for short films and I love a unique title because again marketing is going to be something you need to think about. And so are you going to hashtag it? Are you going to be a way that people can find it? But there are so many short films that just have a generic short title that means nothing and there are a hundred of those films and I have a friend that did a film called PIG and that's a good title and there are not that many films called PIG so we can find it easily in that way. But if you do a long title you can totally do a long title too. I always tell people a short film is never going to be on a marquee somewhere so you can do a super long title if you want although people will always kind of shorten it when they tell you what the version of it is. But I love a unique title. I think that also shows your creativity and the specialness of the film. It makes people interested. We also produced a short film called 78 and it was about a kid on a manhole cover jumping up and down and up and down and he keeps on saying 78, 78, 78. And so the film was called 78 and people would say to us on the festival circuit they'd see the filmmaker having watched the film before and they're like 78, 78, 78. It's like how nice. Look they're quoting the title and they remember that from the film and there you go. If your film is about a man on fire, I'm on Fire is not a bad title for it. People kind of know it. So writing a good logline totally counts and you should spend time into it. It's also if you write a really complicated logline that it's hard to follow or it's too obscure you can write it and they'll publicize it but nobody's going to call it that. Thunder Road is a terrific short film. People love Thunder Road. Interestingly enough also a very interesting title as is I'm on Fire. Oh yeah, that's true. Yeah. Thunder Road, when I looked at his official logline for it's about a cop who's giving a eulogy about his dead mother. So that's my logline for it. His logline is Officer Arnaud loves his mother. Okay, it doesn't mention funeral or eulogy which is a big part of that short film but that's the logline that he wrote for it. But when most people say about it they're like it's that one about the cop giving the eulogy about the mom. So your film boils down to what the essence is no matter how much you try to dress it up and do different things with it.

Speaker 1: Pig. Is that Nicolas Cage's movie, Pig?

Speaker 2: No, Pig is a terrific film. It's a genre of urban myths. So here I'll tell you the story of Pig. Often when people sell stories. So it's a woman in a Mercedes and she's super fancy and she's driving down this windy road and coming up from the opposite direction…no, she's coming up and he's going down. Coming down from the opposite direction is a really gross guy in a vest but he's picking his nose and he's like a pig, right? And so when she passes him she yells out of the window at him, Pig. When we've seen him doing specifically gross things and then we don't see it but we hear a crash and the moped falls over and a pig crosses the road. So she was warning him that there was going to be a pig and he did. It's terrific. People laugh and laugh and laugh. It's online too. You can see it online. They laugh and laugh and laugh. They were just not expecting to see an actual real pig and so the twist was she wasn't calling him a pig, she was warning him that there was a pig at the end of the road.

Speaker 1: Film Courage That's fascinating. So there's a payoff, a great payoff and we don't see her get…do we see her getting into a car or she's just already in it? Already driving. Okay, great. So we've kind of cut to the chase in that part and then I guess they call it muddy middles where we just kind of don't have enough that's clear cut in the middle.

Speaker 2: Does that happen with short films? It does. Beginning is so important, ending is so important. So then we're like what about the middle? The middle is so important too, isn't that terrible that every single part counts? But yeah, the middle is really tricky and sometimes people put too much in the middle and we've kind of lost the thread of what's going on or they don't put enough in the middle and it's kind of like you had a great beginning and a great end but there was no middle to make it really work. So the middle is where people fall apart too. Beginnings, middles and ends. All important. Does a short film have to have a hook? Feature films and short films benefit from having a hook and filmmakers hate to hear that. They're like I don't want to do something crass and commercial and something that has a hook. But hook just means is there's something we know what it is and the hook sometimes can be genre but it's so much easier if there is some kind of quick way that we can say what this piece is about without destroying what it is. Obviously you don't want to give it all away and that's where log lines are tricky. If the hook is something that is given away you have to craft around so that people don't know what that twist is going to be. But it really does help to have a hook and it also shows you have kind of a good storytelling sense and people like that and so they're like this person knows how to deliver something that really hooks the audience and is commercially kind of in that sense. In my world it's not a negative thing and I'm coming from someone who is from Hollywood. So maybe the NYU filmmakers or the Columbia filmmakers are like hook, no don't even talk about the world, hook. But to me hook is not a negative thing, it really gives you a hook for it. We made a short film called I'm on Fire, it was about a guy on fire, that's the hook. Now there's a story that happens there and I'm not telling you about that story but I say to you it's a film about a guy on fire, would you like to see a short film about a guy on fire? Hopefully people will say yes, yeah I'm interested to see what happens. Then what happens is what's going to…I've hooked you in to make you want to see it. But why you would like it and tell other people about it is because there's a story that you like in it.

Speaker 1: Film Courage What was pig, what's the hook?

Speaker 2: The hook is that you think he's a pig and the switch is that oh no, there's an actual pig at the end.

Speaker 1: Film Courage I see, okay, right, right. So the hook is like sort of diverting the audience's attention in a sense?

Speaker 2: Actually, I'll tell you the hook of that is kind of like it's an urban myth or it's a joke. So she's dramatized something that is an urban myth.

Speaker 1: I see, okay, so typical sort of Hollywood and disdain and then you find out oh no, there's an actual animal that's crossing, okay.

Speaker 2: Right. Well, THUNDER ROAD is a terrific short film and it's about a guy who's doing a eulogy for his mom. That's the hook I guess would be that he's doing a eulogy for his mom. The actual, not the short film for people, but he actually starts singing along to the song THUNDER ROAD. And so it's very heartfelt and yet tricky and weird and it's a delightful short film. But so is the hook that it's a eulogy? Is the hook that he actually does a dance and sings along to the song THUNDER ROAD? There's two hooks maybe. Also is a one-shot film too. So is that the hook that we've done a one-shot film? And with short films you can do these really weird things too like the hook is that it's all shot with security cameras. Or it's all shot with a drone. Or the hook could be we shot this in IMAX format. So sometimes it can be the format. It can also be like the hook is a vlog that is being dramatized. That's the hook for it. Sometimes it's the storyline that it is. Also a format I love is mockumentary. And so the hook there is that we're kind of faking you out to think it's like a real documentary but it's really a mockumentary. There's so many terrific hooks with short films primarily because they have to be about something. So there's a terrific documentary I love that was part of the New York Op-Docs called PICKLE. And so PICKLE is the world's worst title, right? PICKLE? Is it going to be about a pickle maker or whatever? It turns out PICKLE is the name of a fish and it's about this couple that have all these pets that have something wrong with them. And I can't remember what was wrong with PICKLE but maybe he couldn't swim or something like that. It's a very, very charming doc about this couple that have pets that have all these problems. So that's kind of the hook of what the film is. But it's so touching and so moving but yeah, PICKLE is a terrible name for it.

Speaker 1: Film Courage How much conflict do you need for a short film?

Speaker 2: Conflict and drama is everything in storytelling, right? So I think you have to have it in a short film as well. And by conflict I think it just means tension, right? You could have one person be in the entire film but as long as there's some kind of tension in what the storytelling or the situation is, you don't have to have two people battling or something like that when we mean conflict. I think it really just means tension or tight storytelling and that's what moves things along. So I think for feature films, boy, conflict is essential for everything. For a short film you can define what conflict means to you but we want it tight. And so sometimes why a film is 20 minutes long and you feel like there's nothing going on, let's tighten it and find where the conflict is in it, right? Let's just go for the parts that are dramatic and storytelling and leave out the stuff that seems to be extraneous and just character. But it gives them character, it's like we don't have time for character in this, what's the conflict here? What's going on here?

Speaker 1: Film Courage How much do antagonists factor to short films?

Speaker 2: So for a feature film it's like the protagonist and the antagonist. For a short it's great if you can do a protagonist and antagonist but there's no reason that you absolutely have to do that. That might not be the story that you're telling. I've seen a lot of great short films that have one person as the story. So where is your antagonist in there? The antagonist could be something like time or it doesn't have to be a person per se that is battling the protagonist. The protagonist has something that they are working through or whatever. So it's not like features that we need to have the protagonist and the antagonist and they have their low point and their high point and then the antagonist learns at the end and the protagonist learns and da-da-da-da. No for a short film you really don't need to do that. But I think it's more interesting if there is something that your hero is dealing with.

Speaker 1: Film Courage Do main characters in short films have goals?

Speaker 2: So in a feature film you definitely want to have a goal. That's always like what's their want and their need and what are they trying to do? For short films I do think quite often to follow along you kind of assume that you're going to…this person doesn't even need to be a person, right? It could be a dog or something like that is your lead character. But your lead character is trying to do something or something is happening to that person and then we'll feel satisfied at the end when it is complete. But it isn't like the Joseph Campbell's Myths or something like that. With a short film your short film could be two minutes long. It's pretty hard to do seven stages of the hero's journey or whatever in two minutes long and that should be a feature. If you're trying to do that, maybe move it on to the feature part of it. For this one let's just do the training sequence or something like that. So I think every character it's great to have some sort of goal and it might not be as complex of a goal or as deep as a goal. It could be totally just as much as trying to figure out what's going on here or whatever.

Speaker 1: Film Courage How much backstory should you write into the film?

Speaker 2: I think as much as the writer of a film you should put all your effort into it as many ways as you can, right? And actors want to know about all this backstory so nobody is going to stop you from doing all of that. But you don't necessarily need to put it into what we actually see on screen. It could be all this information that helps that character be unique when we see them on screen. So you know you could do backstory like he loves bowling so when I'm going to dress him I'm going to have him dress in a bowling shirt. But I don't need to see him in the bowling alley because this is a story about when he murdered his mother or whatever. So you want to…it's great to have all that backstory stuff in it but unlike a feature we don't have to see a lot of it actually manifesting on the screen. It could just be to make them…and that's what makes the character special and unique, right? It's not just another killer. It's a killer who loves bowling. So that sets yours up from a different one of like…hey do you want to see this film about a killer who is just wearing a suit and looks like a Quentin Tarantino rip-off or do you want to see one who is a bowling guy and is wearing a bowling shirt? It's like I'd rather watch the bowling shirt guy. That seems different. I haven't seen that before. And maybe the bowling ball will come in play later on or maybe it won't. Maybe it will just be a shirt he's wearing.

Speaker 1: Film Courage, right? And maybe he has like this bowling bag and you think it's his shoes and he's keeping them meticulous but it's really whatever it is he's hiding.

Speaker 2: We've just made a short film. Let's do it.

Speaker 1: Let's make it. Let's do it. Let's do it. But little tells. So you're saying we don't necessarily go into a long backstory of course because we don't have time but there will be little things that will signify.

Speaker 2: That could make it more rich, you know, and that's what we want too. We want things that are special and unique and have depth to it. And that's why I do think when you go back to see older short films, the ones that stand out have all those layers and have all this unique elements to it and are interesting and are not just generic, you know, we're crossing off these points to make this happen in seven minutes. Look, we did it. Okay, good. Congratulations. You did. And that's hard. I don't mean to dismiss that. It's hard to make a good story that works in seven minutes. But you know, we're not necessarily going to stand up and give you a round of applause just because you did it. 10,000 people submitted short films to the Sundance Film Festival last year. 10,000 people did it. It's not so much anymore like you get a ribbon because you did it. A lot of people are making short films. So you want to make something that's so special and unique and worth your time and worth your effort and worth your money and worth everybody else's effort of putting all this time into it. So put as much as you can. And also, you know, sometimes you're not ready to shoot yet. So now why not wait while you're waiting to get enough money to shoot or get the right people to shoot. Spend that time doing backstories and developing things more and, you know, figuring out to make a set more unique and, you know, put it all in there. Put everything you want to do into there, but just don't waste time on it and storytelling time.

Speaker 1: Film Courage Sure. And you had mentioned music videos previously. Do you think that storytelling currently with music videos has gotten better or worse?

Speaker 2: Well, for a long time, music videos were almost stories all the time, right, that they would either build something into it and then have the music video be just a little part of it and continue on. But like Beyonce, she does music stories that and they've shown her stuff in film festivals. And quite often there's a beginning, middle and end in the story that she's doing. And quite often her music videos are heavily influenced by other films that exist. So she's taken and, you know, she and her director, she doesn't direct them all, you know, synthesize all these elements that are her influence and put out visual albums and visual storytelling. And I used to program short films by women at the American Cinematheque and we would always like to include a music video because that's another way that directors direct the music videos. And it was often very easy to find a music video that actually had narrative storytelling in it. So they weren't like lip syncing along to the music, the music was kind of in the background. But, you know, they're very expensive music videos that are made that are literally short films and more power to them. It makes them interesting and not, you know, your standard performance, somebody's just standing on a stage and we've captured it.