I asked BET’s Lens on Talent and Scene Stealers executive producer, Ralph Scott, everything I wanted to know about short films...
What’s the point of short films? To get known. If you make a short film and you put it in the film festival circuit, people get to recognize you for your talents. Another thing is that it’s a calling card to say, ‘Hey, this is how I like to tell stories. This is how I can do it.’
So lets say you don’t get into the festival circuit. When you meet with a manager or an agent or producer they’ll say, ‘Ok, what have you done?’ Instead of saying ‘What I’d like to do,’ you can say ‘I’ve done this.’
What makes a good short film? There’s not a standard formula. Basically you need to know your audience. For instance, lets say you make a gay themed film. You can’t just shop that story anywhere if you don’t know your audience. There are festivals that are open to different genres. You should know that before you get in there. If you don’t know and you go to the masculinefilmfestival.com they’re going to be like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’
You should know how long a film should be. You should know the quality of what a certain festival accepts. You can’t just shoot a film on a flip cam and send it in.
That leads me to my next question. How do you select the featured films for BET’s Lens on Talent – a Film Maker’s Challenge? It has to be under 20 minutes. That will take a certain amount of films out the loop. If it’s 30 minutes I can’t use it. When I first pop a film in, I look at quality. Is the sound so bad that I have to lean into the monitor? There’s picture quality. Is it muddy and gray and the composition all off? You can tell an amateurish look to a video. So those are the first things I look at.
What’s the most powerful short film you’ve seen while producing this challenge? There’s one that stands out. It’s called “I Promise Africa.” It’s under 3 minutes long. It’s kids singing into a camera. It didn’t cost much to make. [The filmmaker] just got a camera and kids and created a moment that will stick with you forever.
You worked at the William Morris Agency. Would you say the HBO series Entourage is an accurate depiction of the agency life? I didn’t watch Entourage.
What!? I’ve been in that experience. When I was at William Morris back in 98-99 the brother Charles King was 1 of maybe 3 black agents within the agency in their history. So I’m not a fan of watching [Entourage]. It reminds me of that.
It sounds like getting your film out there is a very long process. You know that phrase ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you?’ You just really have to keep that in mind. You can’t walk into an agency and say, ‘Oh, I want an agent. Sign me up.’ They’re not going to look for you until you’ve already done it.
Do you have any motivational advice you could offer to those who want to pursue a career in film? You need the passion first. You have to have passion for the craft.
What type of short films are you looking for? We’re looking for narratives.
When’s the submission deadline for the Lens on Talent challenge? July 31, 2010.
To learn more about BET’s Lens on Talent: Johnson & Johnson Presents A Filmmakers Challenge Short Film Competition, click here.