Short Film History

Short film has revolutionised the film industry with each new advancement in film there has been a short film that sparked it off, 1895 saw the first short film to be publicly exhibited "La sortie de l'usine", short due to technical restrictions. It wasn't until 1910 when films got longer that the term "short subjects" was coined.

Short subjects because quite popular amongst audiences because people could go to the cinema and see 3-4 short films rather than just 1. This was important at the time as there were just a few forms of entertainment for the masses.
In 1930's Hollywood block booking was introduced this was were big Hollywood studio's forced small production companies to sell their short films to them so they could make feature films. Supreme court of US declared block booking illegal but the damage to short film had already been done.

Feature films lasted 90 minutes or more and had a classic narrative, they were more profitable for film exhibitors there could be a 2 hour turn around of a film. The invention of TV was a mass medium and short films were aired right up until the late 1960's until they became unpopular.
The 1980's reinvented the short film however they were much darker and gritter, no longer about commerical success but about content and converging messages.


This still is from a short film from 1980 that used to play on nickelodeon in place of a group of commericals. We can see from this that its a cartoon comedy sketch aimed at children, after watching the video I can see it has no real message or understanding it's simply their for entertainment purposes.