How To Make A Short Film For Tropfest

Tropfest Sydney

So, you want to make a film for Tropfest (or another film festival), but don't know where to start?

Here we present an overview on how to make a short film and submit it to a film festival. Of course if you're not submitting to Tropfest, that's not a problem; just make sure you meet the requirements of whatever festival you are aiming for instead.

The ten (overview) steps to film festival fame and fortune are:

This is probably the hardest part of the entire process. What is it that you want this film to say? What style of film do you want to make? Comedy? Drama? Action? Art-house?

In a short film, you don't have much time for developing the story. For Tropfest, that's seven minutes including titles and credits. So you'll need to keep your idea simple. A single, simple theme or idea works best.

Who are the people in your film? What is their history? Their background? What are their goals? What do they want to achieve or stop from achieving?

In a short film, you should keep your cast down to a few characters that the audience can easily recognise. You simply don't have the screen time to introduce a cast of hundreds.

Where does the action in your film take place? Good locations are an important part of your story, but they don't need to destroy your budget.

Use locations that you know. Locations that belong to your friends or family are the cheapest. Otherwise, check that your locations allow filming. Some won't but it never hurts to ask.

Also, think about the lighting. Unless you have access to an arsenal of lights and filters, think about filming outdoors or inside where there is excellent natural light.

You don't have to follow a strict format, however sticking to script writing templates that are freely available on the web will show your cast and crew that you're serious about the project.

Keep in mind the background and history of a character when writing their lines. Would they really talk like that?

Describe the important action in the story. If there are specific props that are required, make sure you write them down.

If you already have a digital video camera that records good sound then you're set. Otherwise, use whatever you can get your hands on. Beg, borrow, steal (ok don't steal) or rent.

Your equipment doesn't need to be top of the line or expensive. You just need a digital video camera that can output to a computer. If it can record sound, that's great. Otherwise, you'll need a microphone and some form of audio recorder. Again, you can hire this stuff.