Smash hit

Traditional short films, 10 or 15 minutes long, can seem like a closed shop. They are screened at film festivals and awarded prizes; occasionally one pops up in cinemas supporting a feature. But the emphasis often seems to be on the film-maker rather than the audience. The process of making a short film is seen as part of the film-maker’s learning curve, and the short becomes a calling card to gain access to the industry.

With short shorts, by contrast, the emphasis is on the audience. Thanks to a deal between the Irish Film Board and the various distributors, the films are guaranteed a cinema release alongside successful movies. They are not ghettoised or restricted to an Irish setting: the majority of short shorts are shown before mainstream Hollywood movies. Films such as The Banger Sisters, Stuart Little 2 and Shanghai Nights have already hosted short shorts. The Angelus, showing with Bruce Almighty, is currently on release, as is Hunted, showing with Veronica Guerin.

The idea for the series of short shorts came from Rod Stoneman, who leaves the board next month after 10 years in charge.

Of course, films less than three minutes long were already being made: there are even festivals devoted to the miniature form. What was new was the idea of using them, effectively, as adverts for Irish film. The purpose of the series of films was to help change the negative impression Irish audiences have of Irish-made films, to advertise a sensibility rather than a product.

It is an exercise in branding: an effort to convince the paying public that Irish films, generically, are similar to the movies they watch every week.

It’s risky. Short films are made on a small budget; short shorts are no exception. Despite the creativity of the film-makers, they cannot match the production values of Hollywood films. You can see the disparity in a film such as Hunted, a slice of urban paranoia currently showing with Veronica Guerin. Though shot, like Joel Schumacher’s feature, on the streets of Dublin, Hunted cannot successfully mimic the main feature’s glossy textures.

When surveyed about Irish films, domestic audiences don’t necessarily tell the truth. They may say that they find them slow, old-fashioned or introverted — which drives film-makers into the opposite corner in a bid to be fast, sexy and relevant.

But the factor that inhibits audiences may have nothing to do with content: it could just be an instinctive response to low production values. Whenever an Irish-themed film made in the Hollywood style comes along, it pulls in a wide audience: nobody complains that This Is My Father or Veronica Guerin is too introspective. Conversely, films such as Dead Bodies with contemporary subjects but smaller budgets tend to disappoint at the box office.

In advertising circles, they say that only half of all advertising works, and nobody knows which half. The short shorts may not be up to the task of rebranding Irish cinema: only a succession of successful features can achieve that. But, in the meantime, they get seen.

They implant ideas in the minds of the audience. Collectively, they convey the impression of an Irish film scene alive with ideas, brimming over with invention. This may not be entirely accurate: but advertising prizes impact over accuracy.

Constraints can be useful: poets who restrict themselves voluntarily to the sonnet form can conjure images that free verse never reaches. The three-minute cut off has a similar effect on film.

Ironically, the most original and artistically successful of the new short shorts is the one that makes the least effort to be zany or modern. Waterloo Dentures tackles a historical theme, in full costume: it engages its audience, despite the received wisdom which insists that audiences are bored with the past.

Audiences are not bored with the past or with Irish themes. But they are bored with a certain lacklustre way of presenting them. One of the merits of the three-minute form is that it is difficult to be boring, although it does demand discipline from the film-maker.

The medium is the message, as Marshall McLuhan observed. In this case, the three-minute form is its own message. Regardless of content, it appeals to a certain speeded-up sensibility; it addresses that part of us that grew up on videos and decodes advertising for pleasure.

Short shorts don’t have to have modern subjects to have a contemporary feel. This is the point where the advertising goes subliminal: where the film board, in addressing a media-literate audience, helps to create that audience. Every short short is a message that advertises a sensibility. Only time will tell whether they have the desired effect on the audience.