How to Write a Short Film: An Analysis

Last summer, a filmmaker friend asked me to write a short film for her to direct. Her only guidelines were that she wanted it to be filmable on a shoestring budget in a single weekend (one location, no more than 2-3 actors, no special effects or period costumes) and she wanted it to be no longer than about 8 minutes (because films under 10 minutes have a much greater chance of making it onto festival programs).

This turned out to be incredibly hard! Every idea I came up with either had too many characters or unusual locations or required complicated effects or was just too complex of a story to tell in eight minutes. I’d also never written a short film before and hadn’t even really watched that many, so I was really starting from zero.

I started by watching 40 or 50 successful short films that were under 10 minutes. I define “successful” here as getting into well-regarded festivals, making it onto “best of” lists, or achieving some level of viral popularity online. I took notes on how each film was structured and any similarities and differences I noted between them.

The short film I wrote is in post-production now and the screenplay placed in several contests and even won first place in one! I’ve written another short screenplay since then which also won and placed in a few contests and now I’m working on a third.

Elements Almost All Shorts Had in Common:

  1. A memorable ending. Pretty much all of the shorts I watched had a similar structure of being a fairly simple story with a surprising twist or “punchline” at the end. I’m actually not sure if I saw a single short film that didn’t end that way, even if the story overall had a pretty loose narrative. Maybe one or two.

    A good way of thinking about a short film ending is to ask yourself how an audience might expect your story to end and then ask yourself what would be the opposite of that. What would be an ironic ending given your setup? What would be a shocking ending? Is there an assumption the audience would likely have made that you can subvert?

  2. A distinct midpoint. Nearly every short I watched had a three-point structure of setup, midpoint escalation or reversal, and satisfying conclusion. The midpoint is especially worth thinking about. At pretty much the exact midpoint of nearly every short, there was some sort of major escalation or reversal that took the story in a new or more extreme direction.

    Even if your short doesn’t have a midpoint bisecting it, it’s useful to think in terms of reversals or escalations that divide the story into sections. This is useful because even eight minutes can feel interminably long without a sense of progress or surprise.

  3. A three-act structure. Beyond the midpoint, which is where the story often completely flips, most shorts I watched also had a more subtle reversal or escalation around the 25% and 75% mark. These points don’t need to land mathematically perfectly, but I was surprised how often they fell right around those timestamps.

    A loose structure that most shorts seemed to follow was about 25% setup (introduction of the characters and situation), then an introduction of a new problem around the 25% mark, then a major reversal around the midpoint, then a surprising twist introduced around the 75% mark.

    It’s better not to get too hung up on those exact timestamps because not every short followed that exactly, but that general structure was very common in these shorts and might be a good general map to try to hang your idea on. It’s probably less important that your reversals/escalations fall at those exact timestamps and more important that you have them built into your story somewhere.

    Without reversals or escalations or surprising reveals built into your story, even a 3-minute short can feel like it’s dragging on forever.

Elements That Varied Between Shorts:

  1. Diegetic sound vs. non-diegetic. Sound is one of the hardest things to get right in filmmaking and is probably the #1 thing that makes a film seem unprofessional or hard to watch. One way some filmmakers get around this is by not using diegetic sound! Diegetic sound means sound that originates from the story world of the film: dialogue, sound effects, ambient sound, etc.

    While many short films I watched had normal dialogue or recorded sound in the environment of the film, quite a few of them didn’t have any sound at all except for music or a recorded voiceover narration. This can be a really smart way of making your short look and sound more professional on a budget.

    A good example of a short with non-diegetic sound is “August” by Caitlyn Greene.

  2. Atmospheric vs. narrative. Most short films I watched had a very clearly structured story but there were a couple that were more atmospheric than rigidly structured. It’s tough to make an atmospheric short film work. Most filmmakers fall back on “atmospheric” shorts because they don’t want to put in the work to tell a great story and it ends up feeling boring and trite, but when shorts like this work they really work. The trick seems to be having very strong visuals and often an unusual setting or characters.

    A good example of a short I’d consider more atmospheric than rigidly structured is “The Masterchef” by Ritesh Batra.

  3. Visual vs. non-visual. Obviously film is a visual medium so you’d rightly expect most short films to take advantage of strong visuals, but I found a few shorts that were actually more dependent on dialogue than visuals. If you’re a strong writer and you have strong actors, this can be another way to cut down on costs.

    A good example of a short film that relied more on language than on complicated sets or cinematography is “Operator” by Yann Heckmann.

Ordered by length, here are some short films under 10 minutes that I thought were worth watching. The ones in bold were my favorites. Some of these are a bit “adult” in nature, so FYI if you’re watching in a public place, especially without headphones.

  1. FOURTEEN // 5.5 minutes: limited locations, a small story with a twist ending, no dialogue
  2. OPERATOR // 5.5 minutes: 2 actors but one is voice only, 1 location, lots of rapid fire dialogue, clear story with beginning/middle/end and a small twist
  3. HELLION // 6 minutes: short and simple story with a twist ending, a few characters, a few locations in and around one house
  4. CARGO // 6.5 minutes: clear story with beginning/middle/end, no dialogue, 6 actors including a baby, a few outside locations — this one was recently turned into a feature-length film on Netflix!
  5. QUEEN // 6.5 minutes: super short, cute, 4 characters, one location, very small and simple story
  6. A SONG FOR YOUR MIXTAPE // 6.5 minutes: long voiceover monologue like a poem but with a story with a protagonist and a twist at the end, 3 main characters + background, a few locations, no diegetic sound
  7. GOGURT // 6.5 minutes: a few locations, several characters, mostly sort of atmospheric with a little bit of story, not much structure to it
  8. NEVER HAPPENED // 7 minutes: 3 actors, 5 or 6 locations, very clear story with beginning/middle/end
  9. AUGUST // 7.5 minutes: long voiceover monologue like a poem but with a story with a protagonist and a midpoint and an arc, no dialogue
  10. EMILY // 7.5 minutes: one long monologue with a tiny scene at the end – one location, two actors – strong story but not visual at all, it’s all told through monologue
  11. MASTERCHEF // 7.5 minutes: 4 or 5 actors, a few locations, dialogue and diegetic sound, very small and simple story with only a subtle beginning/middle/end but beautiful details
  12. SNAKE BITE // 8 minutes: one long scene in one location with 4 child actors — crazy intense story with incredible tension and a very clear arc
  13. CRACKED SCREEN // 8 minutes: entirely filmed as snapchat stories on a phone – mostly just one actor with a few background actors and a few locations – VERY dramatic story with a clear arc, totally gripping and horrifying
  14. A REASONABLE REQUEST // 8 minutes: two characters, one location, very clear story structure
  15. THE TALK // 8.5 minutes: two characters, one location, very clear story structure
  16. MOTHERF*CKER // 8.5 minutes: 2 actors, 1 location, lots of rapid fire dialogue, all filmed in one shot, clear story with beginning/middle/end and midpoint
  17. PRONOUNS // 9 minutes: several speaking characters + background, 3 or 4 locations
  18. SPIDER // 9.5 minutes: a handful of characters, a few locations including driving in a car, very clear story structure, very tense

Thanks to Nathalie Sejean of Mentorless for sending me a few of these and for the great email conversation about short films!