Short film ban
 

I saw that rules have been amended to ban all short films, regardless of quality. How are we defining short films though? The AMPAS standard is 40 minutes or less, including all credits. Can we just go with that?

With no real opinion one way or the other, what is the reason for banning short films? Just out of curiosity....

-z

I think from the wording it's primarily banning student-created short films.

How many short films can you name off the top of your head that have had widespread distribution?

There are too many student/amateur/self made & distributed short films to count, made every year. Not only in the U.S. but every country with a burgeoning film industry (or lots of kids who are film geeks ;) )

IMDFB isn't here to chronicle the weapons used in someone's backyard project. Heck, even I have several films I shot myself and you KNOW those had real guns (hahahaha) , but they weren't publicly distributed so they don't count.

The current LEGAL definition of a FEATURE is a mininum of 84 minutes prior to credits. This came from a legal case in the 1990s where indie films getting funds from pay channels like HBO and Cinemax were ripping off their investors by putting out movies with 60 minutes of film and 20 minutes of credits.....

Does anyone know how IMDb records running time then? It is total or without credits?

And that's a pretty big gap between short film and feature. I don't even know what it'd be called.

I looked up the short film threshold for various festivals (which you would think is where most people watch them), but it was not very helpful. Sundance allows up to 50 minutes, while Cannes caps it at 15.

It's called "you're not supposed to make something like that" hahaha. People in the industry routinely disparage projects that fall into the "neither fish nor fowl" category. It's ill advised. Either do a SHORT or do a FEATURE. but there is always those guys out there who have to push the envelope. thankfully they're rare.

Shorts are okay in festivals. In fact they are the only thing allowed in many festivals. But features is what we chronicle.

So if a film is on IMDB, it counts and we can make a page of it?

And if it meets the distribution requirements.

But even the IMDb requirement is a little dodgy because there's a lot of foreign stuff not on IMDb.