From 20 to 30-Minutes, International Television and Short Films
Shorts and the web may seem like the perfect match, and in many respects they are. But short subjects are a rather popular feature of Canadian television and an incredibly popular one throughout Asia and across Western and Eastern Europe, and scores of companies have cropped up to drop some serious coin on acquisitions.
The economics of turning a profit will be a bit more complicated, but more than worth the effort as well.
International cable channels such as Germany’s Premiere, IFM, Canal Plus, Channel 4, he BBC, Canada’s Movieola Channel and others will typically buy a one to three year exclusive license on a short film for. Depending on the contract, during that same period a film may be available for broadcast over the internet. In some cases, sellers may be free to license a short to an additional venue such as Frontier Airlines or Amtrak Europe.
According to Roger Gonin, director of France’s Clermont-Ferrand short film festival, "There are more opportunities in Europe than North America for short film makers because short films have a different status and have been recognized more years."
Essentially, you can expect a distributor such as Big Film Shorts or Apollo Cinema to work to sell your short and have it shown anywhere possible, worldwide. After the first license expires, the distributor can then take your film to regional programmers, where contracts usually aren’t so exclusive.
“Shorts can generate advertising revenue with product placement. And a new trend is their use in infotainment.” Said iFILM’s John Halecky.
He isn’t wrong. BMW’s high-powered campaign of short films as advertisements opened a door that other advertisers have practically been falling over themselves to get through. Ford, Amazon.com, Volkswagen and DKNY have all followed BMW’s lead and according to Forbes Magazine’s Melanie Wells more advertisers are on the way.
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