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Together they formed Bloody Cuts, a
UK fi lm project dedicated to making
spooky shorts. A lot of their produc-
tions have everything you’d expect
from a major studio release with the
exception of an expensive cast and a
two-hour runtime. “We’ve been lucky,”
they say, “to have met a host of very
talented creative artists along the way
and we’ve built a fabulous crew largely
based on trust and a shared passion for
fi lmmaking over the years.”
Today, we’re going to look at a num-
ber of short fi lms — some classic and
expensive, some poorly produced and
infl uential, but all
with something
to teach us about
fi lmmaking.Must-see shorts
Georges Melies: A
Trip to the Moon
A monumental
moment in early
fi lmmaking his-
tory — French
director Georges
Melies spent
an enormous
amount of moneyOrson Welles often had great ideas for
movies, only to then spent years going
from studio to studio in Hollywood
trying to get someone interested, try-
ing to raise money and trying to get a
script. When you’re dealing with huge
amounts of cash in moviemaking,
there is no single point of contact —
everything is done by committee (For
more on this, read Keith Aiken’s four-
part blog post for scifi japan.com on
the diffi culties in getting Godzilla to
the screen starting in the mid 1990s.)
But if you don’t have money and you
don’t have Hollywood connections but
you do have a good idea, what are your
options? Well, the era of the short fi lm
is back. Once relegated to fi lm festivals
and late night public television, brilliant
short fi lms have now found an audience
on platforms like Youtube and Vimeo.
Filmmakers Anthony Melton and
Ben Franklin have made a splash
over the past decade in a genre where
short fi lms have exploded — horror.SHOOTING
Don’t let features films steal
all the glory. Whether you’re
looking for inspiration or just
entertainment, the short films
featured in this article are worth
seeking out.
by Kyle Cassidymaking an approximately 15 minute
(since the fi lm was hand cranked, the
speed varied by who was turning it)
movie sendup of Jules Verne’s “From
the Earth to the Moon” — a cannon
fi res a rocket to the moon, carrying six
scientists who explore the unknown,
fi ght monsters, see amazing sights and
pretty much do exactly what we’re do-
ing when we play virtual reality video
games today — speculate about what it
would be like to visit space.
See it because: Melies made a hun-
dred movies, this is the only one you
need to see to win points at your local
pub trivia game. The production values
are, no pun intended, through the roof.
These people were inventing movie-
making and were incredibly ambitious,
talented, and, ultimately, successful.Claude Lelouche:
C’était un rendez-vous
Claude Lelouche is a directing titan
from France. His 1976 classic “C’était
un rendez-vous” is a single POV shot
of an eight-minute breakneck race
through Paris at 5:30 in the morn-
ing — with no regard to red lights or
anybody’s safety — as a driver races
to a date to meet a woman on Mont-10 Shorts you need to see
martre. Watching it you’ll wonder that nobody
was killed. Claude claims that he placed only one
person on the course to warn the driver if pe-
destrians were in the street. He also claims that
he made it up to 200mph while fi lming, but nit-
pickers on the internet have carefully measured
the distances between objects and intersections
and shown that he was never going faster than
70mph — still disturbingly fast on city streets.
See it because: By watching this short, you
will always be able to have a conversation with
people wearing black berets and smoking Gaulo-
ises at the parties.Michael Jackson: Thriller
MTV was at the height of its popularity when
the King of Pop dropped his best selling album,
Thriller, which not only dominated the pop
charts, it forever changed music videos. Jackson
hired famed horror fi lmmaker John Landis to
direct a 13-minute short fi lm of the title track,
an homage to horror fi lms featuring werewolves,
classic cars and dancing zombies.
Watch it because: It’s important to realize that
you can blow up the envelope and push past what
everybody’s thought of as “good,” and that some-
times it requires getting someone from outside
your fi eld to mix what they do with what you do.Beyonce: Lemonade
Along with her fi fth studio album, Beyonce re-
leased a 65-minute series of short fi lms that are
among the most ambitious and successful bits
of fi lmmaking in recent history. She teamed up
with some of the best people in Hollywood. One
of the videos, “Formation” directed by Melina
Matsoukas, won the Grammy award for video of
the year. Matsoukas needed to fi nd some room
on the mantelpiece as she’d previously won a
Grammy for Rhianna’s “We Found Love.”
Watch because: No discussion of modern short
fi lms could skip over this ground-breaking work.Ben Franklin & Anthony Melton: The Birch
The Birch has some A-level effects in it, but it’s
also a very well crafted story. When asked about
it, Melton & Franklin agree that telling a good tale
is paramount. “It’s story fi rst, then technology.
Most people have a fairly decent camera sat in
their pocket so there’s honestly nothing stopping
people these days. Technology has democratized
indie fi lmmaking, meaning that it’s easier to cap-
ture and distribute on very small or no budget.”
Watch it because: Storytelling is at the center
Georges Melies: A Trip to the Moon of any successful production.384 C06 Shooting.indd 38 3/19/19 2:23 PMVIDEOMAKER >>> MAY 2019 39
SHOOTING
by Kyle Cassidymaking an approximately 15 minute
(since the fi lm was hand cranked, the
speed varied by who was turning it)
movie sendup of Jules Verne’s “From
the Earth to the Moon” — a cannon
fi res a rocket to the moon, carrying six
scientists who explore the unknown,
fi ght monsters, see amazing sights and
pretty much do exactly what we’re do-
ing when we play virtual reality video
games today — speculate about what it
would be like to visit space.
See it because: Melies made a hun-
dred movies, this is the only one you
need to see to win points at your local
pub trivia game. The production values
are, no pun intended, through the roof.
These people were inventing movie-
making and were incredibly ambitious,
talented, and, ultimately, successful.Claude Lelouche:
C’était un rendez-vous
Claude Lelouche is a directing titan
from France. His 1976 classic “C’était
un rendez-vous” is a single POV shot
of an eight-minute breakneck race
through Paris at 5:30 in the morn-
ing — with no regard to red lights or
anybody’s safety — as a driver races
to a date to meet a woman on Mont-10 Shorts you need to see
SHOOTING MAY 2019
martre. Watching it you’ll wonder that nobody
was killed. Claude claims that he placed only one
person on the course to warn the driver if pe-
destrians were in the street. He also claims that
he made it up to 200mph while fi lming, but nit-
pickers on the internet have carefully measured
the distances between objects and intersections
and shown that he was never going faster than
70mph — still disturbingly fast on city streets.
See it because: By watching this short, you
will always be able to have a conversation with
people wearing black berets and smoking Gaulo-
ises at the parties.Michael Jackson: Thriller
MTV was at the height of its popularity when
the King of Pop dropped his best selling album,
Thriller, which not only dominated the pop
charts, it forever changed music videos. Jackson
hired famed horror fi lmmaker John Landis to
direct a 13-minute short fi lm of the title track,
an homage to horror fi lms featuring werewolves,
classic cars and dancing zombies.
Watch it because: It’s important to realize that
you can blow up the envelope and push past what
everybody’s thought of as “good,” and that some-
times it requires getting someone from outside
your fi eld to mix what they do with what you do.Beyonce: Lemonade
Along with her fi fth studio album, Beyonce re-
leased a 65-minute series of short fi lms that are
among the most ambitious and successful bits
of fi lmmaking in recent history. She teamed up
with some of the best people in Hollywood. One
of the videos, “Formation” directed by Melina
Matsoukas, won the Grammy award for video of
the year. Matsoukas needed to fi nd some room
on the mantelpiece as she’d previously won a
Grammy for Rhianna’s “We Found Love.”
Watch because: No discussion of modern short
fi lms could skip over this ground-breaking work.Ben Franklin & Anthony Melton: The Birch
The Birch has some A-level effects in it, but it’s
also a very well crafted story. When asked about
it, Melton & Franklin agree that telling a good tale
is paramount. “It’s story fi rst, then technology.
Most people have a fairly decent camera sat in
their pocket so there’s honestly nothing stopping
people these days. Technology has democratized
indie fi lmmaking, meaning that it’s easier to cap-
ture and distribute on very small or no budget.”
Watch it because: Storytelling is at the center
of any successful production.Claude Lelouche: C’était un rendez-vousMichael Jackson: ThrillerBeyonce: LemonadeBen Franklin & Anthony Melton: The Birch384 C06 Shooting.indd 39 3/19/19 2:24 PM