“Tribeca: 7 Things You Need to Know About the Growth of Short Content”

Indiewire with this:

It’s no news that digital media has made filmmakers’ ability to create content much easier than it’s ever been before. But with more accessibility there inevitable come more obstacles throughout the process, not least of which is the increasing competition and the ever-elusive channels of distribution.

Fortunately, much light has been shed on the matter by the likes of Oscar-nominated documentarian Morgan Spurlock (“Super-Size Me”), Op-Docs producer and curator Jason Spingarn-Koff, ESPN Films’ Director of Development Dan Silver (“30 for 30”) and actress Gillian Jacobs (“Community,” “Life Partners”), all of whom sat down for a panel discussion moderated by General Manager of Audience Networks at Vimeo Greg Clayman at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.

Highlights:

Bigger is not always better. Morgan Spurlock asserted his claim that “there are stories that are made to be feature length movies, and there are stories that should be television projects — 45–60 minutes — and sometimes people try to stretch those into features and they shouldn’t. And then there are stories that are perfect or fantastic in a 3–5 minute segment, that’s where they should live. And one of the things that we try to do and one of the things that I believe in is that you need to explore that creative process. You shouldn’t stretch things longer than they should be.”

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Even celebrities love short form. Gillian Jacobs described her recent short form project with Ed Helms, telling the audience that “[Helms] came up with this concept about a tiny army commando and I was like ‘His Girl Friday’ and it was awesome because we got so many incredible guest stars, you see Nick Kroll and Rob Corddry and Thomas Lennon and all these people would come in ’cause it was just basically a day commitment for them. So I got to work with this whole wide group of people that I really admire.” Spurlock added that “now everyone has realized the value of creating short form content. Look at the stars that are now doing short form content. We’re getting A-list celebrities who are coming in saying ‘I wanna do this ’cause it’s cool. I get to flex my creative muscles.’

Five other points of discussion from the session:

Think about distribution from the get-go.

Networks won’t interfere.

Short form content is good for documentary filmmakers.

Content is king.

Best venues through which to get your stuff seen.

With filmmakers stretching the boundaries of storytelling — Can House of Cards be considered “TV”… Is True Detective a “TV Series” — seems like the first order of business would be to come up with a better reference than “Short Content”. Seems like a rather pejorative term.

That said in this fast-paced world where peoples’ attention spans seemed to be shrinking by the minute, there’s no reason why short form narratives shouldn’t emerge as yet another way for writers and filmmakers to tell stories… and eventually make money off them.

For the entire Indiewire article, go here.