Ian's Rambles - SHORT Stories

Ok so in case you haven’t been following the drama, after much deliberation the plan is to have all second year students in our course at Southbank making a narrative this year. Even if it’s just a very short one that makes up a larger show reel.

I’m anticipating a hand full of students who are going to be determined to make an epic, so I have been scouring the internet for information about keeping short films short. Its something I can anticipate because it is one of the ever predictable, guaranteed student short film flaws. There is always at least one student who is going to be convinced to the point of total conviction that more is better, or that the 15 minute long story they have come up with is so perfect in its design (after just a few drafts and with no feedback from anyone else? Amazing!) that not a single shot can be cut from it. I hate to sound cynical, but it always happens, and I can relate. I remember coming up with story ideas that were way to long when I was a student. At one stage I even started writing a series of 30 min long TV episodes, and the major student film I ended up making was way to long. I think there were probably two scenes (that’s camera shots for any new 1st year students reading…hi!) in it that I was actually proud of because it was so rushed. You should be proud of every scene in you film, its obvious when you think about it.

Anyway, following a link on Cartoon Brew I found the blog of Kevin Koch (animator at Dreamworks and Animation Mentor Teacher), and after some rummaging around found this great post about just how much information you can convey in a single scene, and how many students try too hard to convey a characters setting and background. He even goes so far as to suggest that MAYBE the great Brad Bird over cooked the character backgrounds in the Incredibles, or at least that the film was just as enjoyable without them.

Here is one of my favourite quotes from his article, “The time required to set up your characters and situations is often far less than you imagine you need. Again, think of being clear and specific. Expect to do some hard work here. Hammer away at your ideas to come up with something so specific and definite that the audience understands immediately. This is why we find bad storytelling so annoying. It takes the creator so long to clue us in on the situation and character, or they keep inadvertently misleading us with useless information, that we disengage.”

All of this information is of course window dressing, before coming around to the idea of narratives for all students I knew it was only worth doing if we were going to keep the films short. I’m just highlighting the information in the hope of getting some to come around of their own accord instead of colliding with me head on. I’m afraid I do not accept that a longer story is necessarily a better story .

The bottom line is I won’t be letting second year students animate stories longer than 1 and a half minutes, and that’s that. I mean it, no excuse will make me budge. I wish someone had told me to slow down and make the best animation I could when I was a student and I think I owe it to my students to address the issue when I see it.

One of the comments posted by an anonymous student that helped to kick off the whole films V’s show reels discussion featured a quote about the student film being a “once in a lifetime opportunity”, well I can tell you that in my 12 or so years of commercial experience I have never again experience such a luxury of time to hone and finish a scene as is afforded to students. Once you’re in the industry you will have ample opportunities to have to rush through your scenes in order to get something finish on budget (on time), the “once in a lifetime opportunity” is to do the best possible animation you can achieve right now. I’m not going to let my students miss it.

Here is another point of view from Temple Of The Seven Golden Camels blog, run by veteran storyboard artist Mark Kennedy. He has a two part post entitled Advice for Students on his Blog that is all gold (part 1, part 2).

"Many students seem to want to make some sort of grand, epic statement and so they try to make a longer film with a lot of scale and heft to it. Every medium has it's own inherent strengths and weaknesses and a short student film is not the best form to make an epic sweeping drama. The most successful student films of all time are, for the most part, short and simple. "

Another post on Kevin’s blog that I just loved and had to highlight was this one about leading the eye from cut to cut. Great advice and also related to efficient story telling.