What makes an award winning short film

What types of short films receive Oscar nominations? How long are Oscar-nominated short films? What language are the films in? What are the films about? You can see choice selections of the most exciting moments here. He also created an online seminar in which he teaches each step he took in the making of the film. Comments 6 comments. May 14, at am. May 30, at pm.

Stephen Follows. June 1, at am. July 31, at pm. All the best Sune Wahl. Short Central. July 2, at pm. Indie Film Share. April 8, at pm. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Below is a short list of exceptional films that have that something special, with a unique concept, great visual storytelling and more:.

Why not check out our other guides on Film Industry Network to help you in your filmmaking careers? Self distribution for low budget films. Why short films can be more rewarding that first time features.

Do film festivals help indie filmmakers get distribution? How to motivate your actors. Get my short film into the Oscars By taking this step you are already 'Thinking Big' and are aiming for the highest goal humanly possible, and with the patience, the determination and the foresight to make it happen.

Amazing written concept Your story, your framework must be unique, original, clever, funny, socially intriguing, inspiring to a group of people, a social commentary that sheds light on humanity, a strong character piece, and much more.

Genius storytelling You have an incredible story that no one has ever heard, and the world must hear, but it has to be put into a screenplay, a plan of action, or a set of cards with instructions. Good acting Why not great acting? Strong cinematography Image is important, but not as important as sound.

Flawless editing There is no point making a film if you don't get it edited properly. A short film promotion budget Promotion? Make sure you have money to make DVD copies, and for festival fees to get your film out there. Don't give up after one film festival If you think you have made it big with your one festival screening think again.

Send your film to more than 5 festivals and Oscar qualifying festivals Sending your short film to 5 festivals will most likely get you 1 or 0 selections. Get buzz for your film Your film needs more than cold festival entries to ensure its success. The successful short filmmaker Your success is determined by how far you go to make things as good as possible. Short films that won awards Below is a short list of exceptional films that have that something special, with a unique concept, great visual storytelling and more: 'Cinnamon Chaser' - A superb music video that won the SXSW music festival and entered the Vimeo Awards short list.

Co-productions are not included in these figures. The countries at the top of the list and the share of prizes they win have remained remarkably consistent in recent years — and since even the order has stayed the same.

In terms of absolute numbers, though, it is notable that, after years of declining figures, German films have experienced something of a comeback of late winners in Of the total awards reported on the website, around half went to films from only nine countries.

Among the smaller countries population-wise was a banner year in particular for shorts from Poland and Belgium. Standout films occasionally catapult a country upward in the list for a brief time. This Magnificent Cake! The prominence of certain countries among the prize-winners reflects not only their short film production volume but also of course the number of festivals there. As films have better chances of winning awards on their home turf, more festivals in a particular country mean more wins for domestic productions.

Examples of this phenomenon are Germany, the USA, France and Spain, countries with a large number of short film festivals at which home-grown films normally have better chances of success than foreign rivals. Ignoring co-productions, the following picture emerges: films from France 99 awards , the UK 59 , Germany 50 and the USA 40 did best in foreign climes in As in , French films once again led the pack, while Belgian and Polish films did better abroad than they had in previous years.

Number of awards won abroad by the 5 most successful production countries. Looking at the countries that do not have a thriving short film festival scene comparable to those in France, Germany and Spain, it is noteworthy that films from the UK enjoyed disproportionate success abroad in Following a pattern established in prior years, films from Brazil, Italy and Spain won substantially more awards at home than abroad in This goes for Germany as well, which is however a special case in our statistics because our website lists the awards even at its smaller festivals with little international participation.

German short films received awards at home in and showed a decline abroad, with 50 prizes 53; If co-productions are counted, however, the number rises to 74 foreign awards.

The countries without a real short film festival scene, whose films thus receive awards almost exclusively abroad, include Russia, Romania and Iran. The foreign shorts taking home the most prizes from Germany in were made in Austria 19 awards and France Films from the European countries the Netherlands 8 , the UK 8 and Switzerland 6 also continued to impress juries in Germany, although the UK lagged behind its success of previous years somewhat.

US films, on the other hand, saw a bit of a resurgence 5 awards compared to 2 the previous year. New in the race, with six prizes, were short films from Belgium. Create an unexpected twist that will take the reader by surprise! A quick tip: Make sure it somehow relates and fits with the story as this can confuse the audience.

Writing great dialogue will be one of your main objectives, this will essential to your story. You will need concise, gripping dialogue to keep the audience wanting more. You want to stand out and win something with this film.

Writing safe dialogue will not give you the cutting edge, exciting dialogue with unexpected turns will! This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Skip to content Search for: Search Close.