ORGANISATIONS

BFI (British Film Insitute)

Lottery Funding Awards supports the BFI Film Fund which gives grants to UK Film. The have £26 million of lottery funds to help with development, production and distribution. This is supposed to rise to £30 million by 2017. They support films such as the work of Derek Jarman, who created alternative films like 'Blue'. They promote films with a message, for example from minority groups like the LGBT community. The BFI also holds a London FIlm Festival, where they have just announced a Short Film Award. 12 films will be shortlisted and they will be looking for (as stated on the BFI website) a 'distinctive cinematic style and a confident, original handling of chosen theme and content'. The BFI London Film Festival Director Clare Stewart says:

“The BFI London Film Festival has long valued the short film, a form in which filmmaking is often at it’s most original, daring and playful. We build on this commitment by creating a new platform to celebrate this essential facet of cinema, in line with our other competitive strands for fiction, documentary and debut features. We look forward to profiling more great filmmaking talent and presenting the boldest, brightest and most striking international short films at LFF in 2015.”

The other competitions are Official, First Feature and Documentary.

Film4

Film4 has a strong history of supporting alternative and independant media. A film they have supported is BAFTA winning short film Kingsland, but they have also supported more mainstream movies such as the Inbetweeners film and very successful films such as Trainspotting, which grossed £240 million worldwide. They aim to invest about £500,000 per film and product an average of around 20 films a year, of varying genres and sizes. Its parent company is Channel 4 who also owns More 4 and E4. Channel 4's broadcasting license prevents it from making any of its own programs so it commissions independant production companies to make them. Film 4 was started in 1982 as Channel 4 Films to challenge the mainstream and create diverse content.

BBC Films

From the BBC Films website:

'BBC Films is committed to finding and developing new talent, collaborating with some of the foremost writers and directors in the industry.'

They also have competitions as well as promoting other competitions and production schemes.

It co-produces about eight feature films a year. Some of its work is:

Original Drama Shorts
BBC Writers Room (helps finance)
BBC Academy

They have worked on films such as Nativity and Saving Mr Banks.

Sundance Institute - Short Film Award

The Sundance insitute helps to raise awareness and recognition of artists and films. They use internet platfroms to help films reach a larger audience using iTunes, Netflix, Xbox, GSM, and YouTube. Short Films are a huge category and can span from documentary to experimental stories to animation. The only condition that Sundance has is that it needs to be 49 minutes or less. They have discovered directors such as Wes Anderson, Todd Haynes and Spike Jonze. They also support artists by supplying things such as labs, grants and resources, as well as workshops.

The short films that won awards at that years Sundance Film Festival then go on to a tour where they are shown in different states in the USA and Canada. These are the awards from the 2015 festival:

Short Film Jury Award (Best of Fest): World of Tomorrow

Short Film Jury Prize: US Fiction: SMILF

Short Film Jury Prize: International Fiction: Oh Lucy!

Short Film Jury Prize: Non-Fiction: The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul

Short Film Jury Prize: Animation: Storm hits jacket

Short Film Special Jury Prize for Poetic Vision: Object

I needed to look at and assess the industry around short films. I wanted to see where short film creators got their funding or support from, as this in turn would affect what they are creating and who is creating it. I liked seeing the many organisations that supported specifically British filmmakers, this promotes British talent and would create more films that are different from the generic, out of Hollywood films. Another thing that I found that could affect the creation of a short film is the mode of exhibition, which I found to be predominantly film festivals, this could mean they are tailored to a specific category or try and promote a certain message.