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Sadie Benning
In 1988, at the age of 15, Sadie Benning was
given a $200 Fisher Price Pixelvision video cam-
era. The cameras were only made for a year and
recorded both audio and video on audio cassette
tapes. Benning sat in her room and made a series
of wildly infl uential short fi lms about growing up
gay and isolated. With nothing but teenage angst
and a burning need to tell a story, Sadie Ben-
ning created simple fi lms using dolls, handwrit-ten notes and things in her room. Her work was
quickly recognized by the art world and launched
a career that’s involved grants from nearly every
major arts organization. You can fi nd collections of
her work on the internet.
Watch her work because: Sadie Benning had
nothing but perspectiveWhen a short is not just a short
Lots of short fi lms are what is called proof of
concept it’s a way of saying “here’s my idea, here’s
how I can do it.” Back before video got so good
and so inexpensive, directors would pitch ideas
from storyboards. Now, with a small amount of
seed money and an eager talent pool, directors
can show rather than tell. But that doesn’t mean
that a short fi lm is always hoping to be remade as
a longer one. Frequently a movie with a good con-
cept fails when the fi lmmakers try and drag the
concept into something that fi lls two hours.
Since we’re no longer dependent on television
with its predictable chapter structure and rote
commercial breaks, consider making your next
fi lm as long as it needs to be rather than as long
as it’s supposed to be.Marcus Alqueres: The Flying Man
This one captivated me when I fi rst saw it — the
idea is a mysterious vigilante is fl ying above the
streets of Los Angels, 24 hours a day, occasion-
ally murdering people by picking them up and
dropping them back to the ground from a great
height. Is he a hero? Or a villain? Who knows
— but we might soon fi nd out. With 11 million
views on YouTube, his idea was picked up for de-
velopment by Sony/Columbia. In the meantime,
this a great short scifi fi lm.Nick Park: The Wrong Trousers
In 1993 The Wrong Trousers, a stop-motion
claymation movie about a man, Wallace, and his
dog, Gromit, thrust itself into the spotlight with
its clever writing, hilarious antics and loveable
characters. Though its running time of thirty
minutes puts it on the long end of short, it did
win the Academy Award that year for Best Ani-
mated Short Film.
See it because: It’s one of the funniest and
most endearing movies ever made.Michael Chance: Project Arbiter
This is a 2014 proof of concept science fi c-
tion fi lm by Michael Chance about some allied
soldiers who come across a German lab and
discover an armored super-soldier suit.You can comment on this article by going online:
http://www.videomaker.com/?p=72001745SHOOTING MAY 2019 SHOOTING
See it because: Project Arbiter has
great camera movement and Holly-
wood quality fi lmmaking, plus a better
plot than a lot of high budget movies.Frances Bodomo: Afronauts
In 2015, I got to host the Kickstarter
Film Festival in Philadelphia where
we screened movies made with mon-
ey raised through the crowdfunding
site. One of the movies they showed
was this amazing short sci-fi fi lm by
Frances Bodomo.
The cinematography was beautiful
and the story was gripping. Watch-
ing it reminded me of my really early
days of fi lmmaking when you’d show
up at someone’s house and sit on the
fl oor and screen two dozen shorts and
you’d discover things that seemed
secret and people who were geniuses.
Sitting on those fl oors, being a part
of that community, I really felt like a
fi lmmaker. In 2015, the Alfred P. Sloan
foundation gave Bodomo $100,000 to
make a feature of “Afronauts.”
See it because: It will inspire you to
make art, not just fi lm.Making a short fi lm
You’ve got everything you need to
make a short fi lm right now. You’ve
got a camera — even if it’s the one
on your phone — and you’ve got the
internet, which contains not only
these terrifi c examples of fi lmmaking
but also lots of stories in the public
domain if you can’t think of an idea.
How about making a short from a sto-
ry by Edgar Allan Poe? Or Zora Neale
Hurston? Check out Project Gutenberg
for more inspiration.
The world is your oyster — with
new and emerging opportunities for
distribution and discovery, there’s
never been a better time to jump into
the world of short fi lmmaking. When
you fi nish your short, please share it
with us on the Videomaker forums.Marcus Alqueres: The Flying ManMichael Chance: Project ArbiterFrances Bodomo: Afronauts384 C06 Shooting.indd 40 3/19/19 2:24 PMVIDEOMAKER >>> MAY 2019 41
Kyle Cassidy is a videomaker, photographer,
writer. Impulsively sneaks Bigfoot references
into articles.
You can comment on this article by going online:
http://www.videomaker.com/?p=72001745SHOOTING
See it because: Project Arbiter has
great camera movement and Holly-
wood quality filmmaking, plus a better
plot than a lot of high budget movies.Frances Bodomo: Afronauts
In 2015, I got to host the Kickstarter
Film Festival in Philadelphia where
we screened movies made with mon-
ey raised through the crowdfunding
site. One of the movies they showed
was this amazing short sci-fi film by
Frances Bodomo.
The cinematography was beautiful
and the story was gripping. Watch-
ing it reminded me of my really early
days of filmmaking when you’d show
up at someone’s house and sit on the
floor and screen two dozen shorts and
you’d discover things that seemed
secret and people who were geniuses.
Sitting on those floors, being a part
of that community, I really felt like a
filmmaker. In 2015, the Alfred P. Sloan
foundation gave Bodomo $100,000 to
make a feature of “Afronauts.”
See it because: It will inspire you to
make art, not just film.Making a short film
You’ve got everything you need to
make a short film right now. You’ve
got a camera — even if it’s the one
on your phone — and you’ve got the
internet, which contains not only
these terrific examples of filmmaking
but also lots of stories in the public
domain if you can’t think of an idea.
How about making a short from a sto-
ry by Edgar Allan Poe? Or Zora Neale
Hurston? Check out Project Gutenberg
for more inspiration.
The world is your oyster — with
new and emerging opportunities for
distribution and discovery, there’s
never been a better time to jump into
the world of short filmmaking. When
you finish your short, please share it
with us on the Videomaker forums.How Much
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384 C06 Shooting.indd 41373 VM Rate Calculator ad two-thirds.indd 48 3/19/19 2:24 PM4/19/18 2:53 PM