I reject the idea put by certain indie gurus and distribution strategists that one ought to think of one's short films as calling cards for feature films, or the more likely alternative, a creative or technical position in advertising.
I think of my short films as complete works. I submit them as works of art. That is to say, the skillful remnants of psychological and spiritual processes -- my own and those of my collaborators. Beyond the ranging subject matter of each film I've made, each one stands as an allegory for the drive to make subversive contact with the world. By saying "subversive" I don't mean aggressively troublesome. I mean it like a situation of working underground. It is exploring the status quo from underneath, searching some oddity or hasty patch job to push against and upset things on the surface, if only for a brief moment. The goal is that the viewer will experience a spell of unsettledness in his our her routine, a thrilling sort of disturbance, and will glimpse some crack in the fabric, an interruption through which new information shines.
I say with much emphasis that the "something new" isn't the film itself. I'm committed to this notion that, in addition to the images, stories, and poems that make up the subjects of these films, each film is an allegory for more ambitious drives. The "something new" is arrived at when the audience is hospitable to these drives and reads the film not only for its content but the stuff outside its content -- messages traveling outside the form, alerting the viewer's regulation instincts that something is pushing, pulling, trying to distort the status quo. And the effect of this displacing interruption is, if one is open to the experience, an interesting ride. Best result is when the trip arrives at delight, even though the passage might first pass through gritty places and haunted ones.
Is this big talk, or tough talk? I don't think so. Any literary or visual artist, no matter his or her level of skill, will cop to sending messages about the psychological, spiritual, and physical processes that travel on a layer just above the matter of the thing he or she has created. The inner drives of the individual or individuals working in collaboration are somehow present and interacting with the object, and this interaction is the messaging stuff that converts the object into art.
And so why are filmmakers judged on matters of distribution and revenue? It is a situation prolonged by many festivals, as often as not festivals that call for "truly independent" or "maverick" filmmakers. Too many short film programmers are wearing a coat of two colors -- clashing ones. The programmer shows one side of the coat to micro budget filmmakers (those truly independent types) to lure entry. More specifically, the entry fee. The second color is flashed once the program is set; it is a lure to audiences. The business of "truly independent" and "maverick" falls away in favor of shorts that model the filmmaker's feature-length film or advertising ambitions. The "unteachable" stuff of the artist, that is the way of examining foundational moods and drives with surprising images rather than all too familiar ones, unusual articulation, shot duration that doesn't fall in pace with established patterns -- all this gets overlooked for filmmakers rich enough to afford the vogue tools, such as the sepia or tobacco-toned filters employed on EVERY interior, not matter the mood, high contrast treatments added to any action sequence, even if it is just throwing a softball, and tri-toned coloring effects that can invest any film with the over-calculated quirkiness of a bank card commercial. Doesn't matter the banal storytelling, so long as it looks like something that might play for the bank ad or at the multiplex, and you're in.
I should immediately add that I participate in festivals and have done so for years. Many festivals do serve a civic purpose, and I identify with the ones that rate visionary aspects of motion pictures over commercial ones. Too often the trouble is that festivals want to expand. More venues, more sponsors, that sort of thing. I don't understand why growth of a festival is explicitly linked to the overly familiar interactions, editing beats, and "cinematic" looks of TV commercials. Why this idea that anyone making a short film aspires to an aesthetic status quo?
Someone looking for fresh ideas in movies is right in one's decision to survey short films. We've hardly come to the end of the line in ways to convert feelings into meanings though motion pictures. You'll probably see a more focused look at contemporary values and rigorous experimenting in a program of shorts than one of feature films. And the best place once can find this sort of thoughtfulness on display is at smaller festivals, or curated events at galleries or museums. Beware those large institutions that boast "truly independent" or "maverick" ambitions; more often than not the short films in those programs trot out the emotion levels and imagery out of commercials you by pass with DVR.
I realize I've been speaking in blanket terms and in a general way. But thanks to digital distribution and video-sharing sites, the reader may easily compare the latest short film winners at the institutional festivals with the inspired achievements of outsiders. I think the chief difference is that recent winners at institutional festivals work from a drive of earnestness, a feeling of wanting to belong - - and to be seen in that belonging. There is no strangeness in the vision, no play.
To play is the thing (If I may rework the phrase). Thomas Aquinas remarks that there are two kinds of act which have no ends outside themselves: contemplation and play. Most of us will agree that contemplation is essential but not gratifyingly cinematic. But play IS gratifyingly cinematic. I'm bored with the earnestness that gets laurels at festivals and want to see more play in shorts programming. The value of play doesn't depend on established traditions or even futurity. The sort of play I'm talking about here is intellectual play. Serious play. A sense of wonder that has a subversive relationship with customs and traditions. Again, I am not speaking of an aggressively troublesome temperament. Rather, a temperament that presses against exclusivity to make a hole. An interruption that lets more light in.
My rating for a good short film is one that stands fine on its own, not a feeling of a highlights reel. One that, like play, is its own sort of act. It is a complete work and not simply a calling card.
Anyone wanting to learn more about my projects, please visit the Tropic Pictures web site. Or find Tropic Pictures on Facebook.
