Secondary Research into Short Films

'Short films come in all shapes and sizes, forms and formalities. Animation, documentary, narrative.'- Sundance.org 

This is Sundance's main definition of short film and it they keep it simple. As I have previously known, short films mainly come under narrative, documentary and animation. Narrative, meaning a fictional story is being told in the short film, is the form of short film I will be pursuing. Documentary, fairly straight forward means a short film being presented in the form of a documentary styled film. Lastly, animation style is also fairly obvious as to what style of short film it is. 

So what's the purpose of short films? 

'Fueled by artistic expression and limited only by their runtime, short films transcend traditional storytelling. They are a significant and popular way artists can connect with audiences. From documentary to animation, narrative to experimental, the abbreviated form is no longer just for the novice. Shorts have and will continue to be an important part of cinema, storytelling, and culture'. -Sundance.org

This is Sundance's official description and summary of short films. I think 'Fueled by artistic expression and limited only by their runtime' is a fantastic phrase to represent short films, because indeed, short films can be extremely expressive in ideas and emotion, despite the fact they are limited by minutes in runtime. In addition to this, 'They are a significant and popular way artists can connect with audiences.' I like this phrase too as many short films do have a respectably deep connection with certain audience types as the short film would explore ideas and feelings that many people in the audiences can relate to on a sentimental level. This is often why short films reach out to people the most and why certain short films really have an impact upon certain audiences. 'Shorts have and will continue to be an important part of cinema, storytelling, and culture.' Furthermore I think that this is a true statement as short films do definitely have an impact upon storytelling, due to their diversity and range of methods of storytelling. They also impact cinema in a way as such certain short films can set the standards in terms of storytelling and filmmaking, due to the large amount of creativity and thought behind them.