Logo

Short Films Demand Sharp Choices

In a feature you have room to let an audience warm to someone. In a short film you have eight to fifteen minutes, and often less. A character has to arrive fully formed enough to be interesting and mysterious enough to be worth watching. The most common mistake in British short production is a character defined by situation rather than by desire. "A grieving mother" is a situation. "A grieving mother who has hidden her son's ashes in the biscuit tin because she cannot face the crematorium" is a character, because she wants something and the wanting has a shape.

Start with a Want You Can See

A playable want is concrete, urgent and achievable within the running time. "To be happy" is not a want, it is a mood. "To get through her sister's wedding without anyone mentioning the money" is a want. So is "to borrow forty quid before the meter runs out".

Three things make a want useful on screen:

• It has a deadline. The wedding is today. The landlord arrives at six. Pressure creates behaviour, and behaviour is character.
• It is slightly unworthy. Wanting to be proved right, wanting to be missed, wanting the last word — these are human and immediately playable.
• It clashes with another want. She wants to leave the party and she wants him to ask her to stay. Both are true, and the audience understands her instantly.

Flaws and Contradictions

A flaw only matters if it makes your character do something. Pride is a note in a notebook until it stops a man apologising in the one scene where apologising would fix everything. Write the flaw as an action, not an adjective.

Contradiction is the fastest route to memorability. The man who speaks tenderly about his late wife and checks his phone under the table. The nurse who is endlessly patient with strangers and vicious to her own brother. The teenager who wants to be taken seriously and behaves like a child whenever she is. Audiences read contradiction as truth, because that is how people actually are.

Be careful with quirk, though. Quirk is decoration; contradiction is structure. A character who only eats white food is memorable for five seconds. A character who insists on controlling everything and then, in the final beat, lets go, is memorable for the length of the film.

Show It Through Behaviour

Exposition about character is the enemy of short form. You rarely have the scene where someone explains who they are, and you do not need it. Props, costume and physical business carry more weight than a page of dialogue.

• A repeated action that changes meaning. She locks the door at the start; at the end she leaves it open.
• A prop she cannot put down. A phone, a set of keys, an unopened letter. Objects hold emotion so dialogue does not have to.
• Details that imply a life off-screen. Scuffed shoes, an oversized coat, a wedding ring worn on the wrong hand.
• Status games. Who sits, who stands, who pours the tea, who lets the other one wait.
• Something to do with their hands. Washing up, rolling a cigarette, folding a shirt. Busy hands free actors to be truthful.

If you can cut a line of dialogue and replace it with a piece of behaviour, cut it.

Dialogue That Does Two Jobs

Characters rarely say what they want, and when they do, they usually regret it. Write dialogue that carries information and concealment at once. Let a scene about a failing relationship play out over trying to fix a boiler. Let two people argue about whose turn it is to drive while actually arguing about whether one of them is leaving.

Aim for subtext in every exchange. Ask yourself what the character is not saying, then write the line that hides it. Give your actor a clear objective and a clear obstacle, and they will find the rest themselves.

Material That Actors Can Use

Actors respond to friction. Hand over a script where the want, the obstacle and at least one contradiction are visible on the page, and you will get choices back that surprise you.

A few practical habits help:

• Write a short private backstory — three or four lines — and share it in rehearsal rather than putting it on screen.
• Rehearse the moment before the scene begins. Ask your actor what their character was doing ninety seconds earlier, and use whatever they say.
• Let them argue with you. If an actor questions a line, they are usually protecting the character. Listen properly, then decide.
• On the day, shoot the scene clean first. Coverage is lovely, but the first honest take is often the one that makes the cut.

Do this and your short will not simply be well written. It will be well played, which is the only version an audience ever sees.