History of Short Film

When film first began, all films were short films.  It wasn’t until the 1910s that the term came to be applied when audience demand instigated film-makers to create the first features.  Film developed quickly from the first film in 1895, Sortie d'Usine.

In the early 1900s, improvements in technology for recording and editing allowed film-makers to produce longer, multi-shot films.  In 1903, Edwin S. Porter made The Great Train Robbery which was the first film to really use narrative and film language and is often celebrated to be the first Western.  Film-makers’ creativity began to blossom at this time and in 1904, George Méliès created Journey to the Moon which used trickery and is considered to be the first sci-fi film.

The length and narrative complexity of feature films meant that they were regarded as more respectable than shorts.  They were favourably linked with theatre and opera which allowed them to draw in a better-paying audience.  Even though feature films were the main attraction of the cinema, shorts prevailed and were shown alongside news reels and live acts.

After the 1930s, fewer shorts were made for theatrical release.  However, animated shorts from studios like Leon Schlesinger Productions/Warner Bros. Cartoons were produced by motion picture companies that either owned their own theatre chains, like Loews Theatres, or forced theatres to take their shorts by selling them as part of an unalterable package with their big-name feature.  By the end of the Sixties, commercial cinema seemed to have evicted short films from its programming, but, at the start of children's films, short cartoons continued to be shown until the late Eighties.

Since 1981, music videos have become a new outlet for short film-makers.  Even feature length film directors have and continue to direct short films and music videos (e.g. Michel Gondry).  With the arrival of the Nineties, independent short film-making surged due to lightweight, affordable recording equipment which was easy to operate.