The laser in question was the FLASH X-ray laser, with the researchers using ultra-fast X-ray pulses to make their molecular movie. The result of their efforts was a film that lasted just 0.00000000000005 seconds, or 50 femtoseconds, and was a micro-model of the Brandenburg Gate that was made up of just two frames.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits". However, the term is used by many as a catchall for anything less than 90 minutes in length.
According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the American Film Institute and the British Film Institute, a feature film runs for more than 40 minutes, while the Screen Actors Guild asserts that a feature's running time is 60 minutes or longer.
A short film has an average run time of 20–40 minutes. Short films have no limitation for how short they can be. For example, some might only be a few minutes, while others might be up to an hour long.
Depending on which definition you choose to follow, a film may qualify as a feature if it is 40 minutes, 50 minutes, 60 minutes, 75 minutes, or 80 minutes.
If you're worried that the short film you're making is too long, you're probably in the clear. The Academy allows a length of up to 40 minutes, including credits. But that doesn't mean it should be that long. Most shorts are anywhere between 5 and 25 minutes, with that sweet spot seeming to be between 7 and 16 minutes.
We have taken about 200 short films that have been selected and screened at the festival. We have divided these films into four groups by running time 0-7 minutes, 8-15, 16-30, and 31-45 minutes.
We are so used to watching feature films that sometimes this bleeds into how we write shorts. We include things that might play better in a story that has more time to breath. The average recommended time for a short is less then 10 minutes so 9-10 pages of script (roughly).
Here at Short of the Week, we define a short as a film that is under 40-minute in length (although we have broken that rule on a few occasions), a belief we share with most organisations (the Academy Awards, BAFTA) and festivals (SXSW, BFI London, Palm Springs ShortFest, Clermont-Ferrand, Encounters, Tribeca).
What on earth is a micro-short film? While I'm not sure if there's an official definition, for the purpose of this article, we'll say that a micro-short is anything less than 5 minutes in running time. To be even more specific, I'd say the sweet spot for micro-shorts is right in the 1–3 minute range.
The result of their efforts was a film that lasted just 0.00000000000005 seconds, or 50 femtoseconds, and was a micro-model of the Brandenburg Gate that was made up of just two frames. Indeed, if you wanted to watch the film, you would have watched the movie without ever realising you'd seen it at all.
How long is a scene? Most scenes in most films will last one to three minutes, or approximate three pages of your script. It's not a rigid number, because I've seen 20-minute scenes, but if your scene is extending past three pages, it may be time to take a closer look at why, and if it needs to be.
The average film runs between 90 and 120 minutes. The general rule of screenwriting is 1 page equals 1 minute of screen time, and the aimed for length is 90 minutes. Anything beyond that had better be well written enough to justify the extra run time.
A short film script is more focused than a feature film script. It usually runs between 5-40 pages, but most short film scripts are around 15-20 pages long.
A featurette is a film usually of three to four reels in length, or about 22–43 minutes in running time, thus longer than a two-reel short subject but shorter than a feature film.
A one-minute film is a micro movie that lasts exactly 60 seconds. Although it belongs to the microcinema constellation, it is distinct for being precisely timed.
Short films can also range dramatically in their runtimes, just as feature films do. To be considered “short” they have to be less than 40 minutes long (including credits), but otherwise they can be as short as 2 minutes, as long as 40 minutes, or anywhere in between.
At the Sundance Film Festival, the short film time can be no longer than 50 minutes. At many other film festivals, though, the short film time cap may be placed at 20 or 30 minutes.
Another golden rule to bear in mind is that every festival is different and they all have very different perceptions of the duration of a short film. Some perceive short films to run between 5-60 minutes, some up to 40, some up to 45, some up to 30 and some up to our favourite number – 15.
10 Minutes is a 2002 short film contrasting ten minutes in the life of a Japanese tourist in Rome with the bloody drama of a Bosnian family taking place at the same time less than an hour away in the besieged city of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War.
12 – 18 full pages in a standard 'screenplay format' will easily get you to a 15 minute run-time. (One page of screenplay used to roughly equal a minute of screen-time, but today the ratio is closer to 45 - 50 seconds because contemporary audiences take in information faster than they did back in olden times.)
