What Goes Into Making a Short Film

By Anna Cho

Atrio of girls jump on a trampoline, a pair of bikers rocket down a trail, a young couple glances into each other’s eyes. The emotion in each scene is palpable. A collage of five stories, distributed across age, gender, social class, and interest are revealed in Birds, a short film directed by Katherine Propper.

Short films can be anywhere from fifteen seconds to fifty minutes long. Some might perceive them as a pale imitation of a full-length work. However, less time does not discount the ability of short films to impart the creator’s imagination and purpose. They span a wide range of genres and types, and the emotional impact that a smaller-scale production can leave is incredible. There is no one-size-fits-all order to the process of making a short film, according to Propper.

“In Birds I had an idea, and then I casted first, and then wrote the script,” Propper said. “But for a lot of my other projects, I write a script first, then I cast, and then do preproduction and find locations and do the producing work and film the production, and then edit and post.”

Propper typically comes up with stories from her surroundings. In her opinion, compelling stories stem from compelling characters.

“It’s a mix of being inspired by my environment and the world around me, being an observer of life,” Propper said. “I like building films around a character. If I observe someone who seems intriguing, that is what inspires me to a certain degree.”

John M. Churchill, a composer for film, draws a lot of inspiration for his soundtracks from classical pieces. As a musician, it aligns with his playing style.

“I love classical,” Churchill said. “If I wanted to be more specific, because classical spans a lot of different genres, I am much more of a late Romantic era composer. It’s what I enjoy playing and what I enjoy writing from the perspective of. As a musician, you find your own voice.”

Coming up with a plot and the script is next. Propper usually keeps on editing the script until filming itself.

“It’s an iterative process, so I would say that I write a script and then I use it as a foundation and then I try to improve upon it, whatever that is weak or not working on it,” Propper said. “So whether that’s the dialogue or the story structure, I’m editing cumulatively in each round of edits.”

Propper usually conceives the plot by herself. The production that follows after that is done with many other people.

“When I’m in the early stages of writing, oftentimes I do that alone,” Propper said, “but during production, it’s an extremely collaborative process and I’m working with a team of people. Filmmaking is definitely not something you can do totally solo.”

Gathering people and resources is necessary to bring the project from a plan to reality, explained John M. Churchill, a film composer. Making films, even short ones, require lots of cooperation and time.

“If I’m doing something that is live, whether that is a documentary or something involving actual actors, there’s probably going to be rough scenes that I’ll be able to watch,” Churchill said. “I’m typically going to be meeting with the director ahead of time, scene by scene, to figure out what kind of feel they’re going to be wanting on any given scene.”

Coordination between the director and other members of the filmmaking team is crucial in order to make sure that everyone is on the same page of what the end result will be. This includes the musical and locations departments. According to Churchill, the music is decided by the genre of the film.

“If it’s something like a documentary or a live action film it’s a little bit more controlled scene to scene and by the dialogue on how the music’s going to go, what direction the music’s generally going to go in,” Churchill said. “I work a lot more often with animation. While working on animation you typically get something called an animatic, which is officially the rough drawing scene-to-scene of what the visuals are going to look like. Along with that you get a storyboard.”

Animatics and storyboards are instrumental to both animated and live action movies, as they provide a way to visualize the film without any actual footage. One aspect unique to live action is the location sector. Location manager David Brotsky said that locations is a highly versatile field and that they are required to communicate between every department.

“The locations department is responsible for securing all the space

The locations department always has an important responsibility: obtaining insurance. This is the key to prevent any outside complications, and it’s important even for short films.

“We’re making deals with everyonewith the cities, the towns, we have to get permission from everyone to do things on a big scale. Of course on a small student film it’s a microcosm of what a large film is, but still you will want to do things with permission and do things properly,” Brotsky said.

“When you’re talking to homeowners to bring a crew into the house, your production needs to have proper insurance and list the homeowners as additionally insured,” Brotsky said. “You have to have an insurance policy because God forbid someone gets hurt on set, or we do damage to a house. Accidents happen.”

Staying within the budget is also important to keep in mind. It sets a limit on what equipment can be used, but a smaller budget does not necessarily restrict the quality of the film.

“Whenever I’m creating something I’m actually using mostly synthesized sounds,” Churchill said. “They’re known as sound libraries, so if you wanna have a string orchestra, unless you’re working on a really high budget, they can’t afford to rent or hire an orchestra to play and they use synthesized instruments.”

Churchill works with online sound libraries to create massive orchestral works. Using this software can have many advantages.

“They’ve actually gotten really good, because the sound libraries they have now, these companies work for months recording different musicians playing,” Churchill said. “And so when they do that, even though you’re playing synthesized sounds, it’s a recording of an actual instrument.” Brotsky also includes the budget as one of three crucial factors to finding a successful location.

“I would say the most important factors are that it fits the aesthetic that we’re looking for, it’s within the budget, and it’s logistically feasible,” Brotsky said.

Members of the locations team should know the limitations of the production. Not only is it influenced by the budget, but also physical and logical barriers. “Let’s say they’re looking for a little girl’s room in a house, that’s like the perfect princess room, everything pink,” Brotsky said. And I could find the perfect room, but it’s up five flights of stairs, and I have a crew of 300 people. That’s why we have to think about accessibility and logistics. Because even if it’s the most perfect place, if it’s impossible to get to, and

Churchill gonna use up our whole day to get through it, I can’t present that as an option.”

Once all the necessary procedures are carried out in preparation for the film, shooting takes place. Propper’s favorite part of the filmmaking process is the filming itself.

“I think it’s the most dynamic and the most exciting,” Propper said. Brotsky recalled an observation he got from working on the set Sweet and Lowdown, a comedy drama directed by Woody Allen. He admires Allen’s directorial vision and the way it made everything go much smoother. “Woody Allen knew exactly what he wanted,” Brotsky said. “When you’re a creative person, the clearer your vision, whether it’s for your own personal goals or for your projects, the more detailed it is, and the more you have that vision, the more successful you’ll be, because Woody Allen knew exactly what he wanted from his actors. He knew exactly what he wanted from everything. And so it made the whole process very efficient.”

During the filming, directors should know exactly what they want from the actors in order to improve the cohesiveness of the production. In fact, conveying a specific vision to the team is important throughout the whole process. Otherwise, work may be put towards unnecessary projects.

“Oftentimes in the past it’s been a thing when I write something for a director to director. Churchill said it varies from person to person.

“Some projects you get a lot of creative freedom and some projects you’re essentially working with a director who knows nothing about making music, but you’re trying to make it exactly what they want it to sound like,” Churchill said.

Animated films and live action films also have differences during the production process. Churchill prefers to compose music for animated films.

“Animation is very fun- partially because the music plays such a key role,” Churchill said. “With animation, at least the animation that I’ve worked on, there’s a lot less dialogue and a lot more visuals, so the music and the visuals are really playing off of each other. So you get much more layered, thematic music throughout.” scene and get attached to the music only to find out it’s not what they’re looking for at all,” Churchill said. “And so that’s something that I’ve learned along the way in working with directors, is that you don’t want to compose another idea because if you do, you’ve spent a lot of time on a very particular piece of music that may not be what they want.”

According to Churchill, the music for documentaries and live action films has a major drawback that makes them less appealing to compose for- having to balance the relationship between the music and the dialogue.

Aligning one’s own musical ideas with the director’s vision can be challenging, although it varies from

“You have to find a balance of controlling the emotion of the scene without being distracting,” Churchill said.” Oftentimes you’ll have music that’s playing while there’s dialogue going on. And if you’re writing really interesting music while people are talking it’s going to be very distracting to the scene. To a certain degree, it’s like your job is to write borderline boring music. It wouldn’t be something you listen to on its own- it’s not interesting enough on its own.”

Short films foster collaboration of various creative minds, and they are manageable projects for people new to the industry to take on.

“I’m definitely really open and excited to do all kinds of filmmaking,” Propper said. “I think short films are a really great place to start from because they require less resources and the length makes it more palatable when you’re starting out.”