History of short films

There is debate that the first short film or first film for that matter was created by Thomas Edison the inventor of the light bulb who used a series of photographs in a device known as a kineticscope however the piece was never publicly displayed. Most class the lumiere brothers “la sortie d l’uise a lyon” as the first film, a piece created four years after Thomas Edison’s creation filmed with the worlds first video camera. The camera itself was created using highly sensitive photographic plates. La sortie d l’uise a lyon translated as the workers leaving the factory ran for 47 seconds and filmed a single static shot of literally workers leaving a factory, as basic as the piece sounds now at the time was a milestone in the history of media. The first collection of short films at the time where not classed as shorts until feature lengths were first created and the media industry saw the birth of Hollywood.

The birth of Hollywood saw feature length films become the centre o the film industry. The use of arranged sequences and having scenes put together proved to be very popular and as a market opened for films feature lengths were rapidly being produced and distributed and Hollywood grew with 5 major film companies growing with it, in result Hollywood created film genres, codes and conventions and studio systems. However this brought and ended to what was previously known as short film and from the 1930’s onward short film had rare activity until Hollywood brought short film back into the picture. Hollywood decided to use short film as a channel to experiment with narrative, shots, camera movement and sound with minimal financial budget and therefore far less risks. Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas were just two of the directors used for this specific work creating shorts such as the Big Shave by Martin Scorsese a piece the experimented with blood and gore as a man repeatedly shaves away at his face the same concept was mimicked by many classical films which if not for the experimentation of Martin Scorsese wouldn’t have been able to make, or not for a longer period anyway. Short film also underwent the taking to Avant Garde a phrase translated as art house film, these films where directed by people who couldn’t find there style fitting in with Hollywood or the mainstream and as artists they were full of creativity and artistic outlook and decided to use film to experiment with their concepts and ideas. One of the most famous case studies of Avant Garde film is a short titled “The Burning Horse” directed by Maya Deren.