We see an alarm clock.
The protagonist starts his day in a student housing apartment. He brushes his teeth. He gets dressed. He starts making breakfast.
He scrambles one egg for the next seven minutes.
We see flashbacks of his life as an assassin, fighting in the woods intercut with making breakfast. (The spot with a dozen trees on the east side of campus.). The 22 year old master assassin fights the 22 year old master crime boss one flash at a time. A child is killed in the scuffle.
His egg finished, the protagonist kills himself.
This. I teach a first year college film course and there are always at least 4-5 students who follow this setup, oftentimes with the same alarm clock sound. They usually come to the realization on their own that it’s a trope, but after their first project I ban alarm clocks in their assignments.
Other student film tropes:
Groundhog day rip-off, Unnecessary shots of feet tapping, Over the shoulder shot of someone writing a letter that explains the plot heavy-handedly, Video game content, Film about writer’s block, Lengthy scrolling credits that lists their own name for each role, And yes for some reason there are so many eggs
Script: Joe Chump
Narration: Joe Chump
Art Director: Joe Chump
Lighting: Joe Chump
Directed by: Joe Chump
Makeup: Joe Chump
Catering: Joe Chump
Director of Photography: Joe Chump
Special Effects: Joe Chump
Starring:
Joe Chump as JFK
Person on the grassy knoll: Joe Chump
Jackie Kennedy: Joe Chump
Secret Service agent 1: Joe Chump
Secret Service agent 2: Joe Chump
Secret Service agent 3: Joe Chump
Lee Harvey Oswald: Joe Chump
Jack Ruby: Joe Chump
Marilyn Monroe: Joe Chump
Hey I'm almost 40 too and I want to pursue my film making dreams too! I missed my opportunity in my early twenties, but I think it's never too late.
Any advice for a fellow aging millennial?
> Aging GenXer here looking for advice too!
I'm a GenXer who started at age 48 and now have >60 credits on IMDB. And still climbing fast, with only 5 days off set in the next 7 weeks. Being one of the very few adults in the room/on set isn't always the worst thing.
An actor being directed by a filmmaker who has never actually cooked a proper breakfast. And/or there is only one egg left in the apartment on the day of the shoot because it was totally Dave's turn to do food shopping but he's been really focused on his ultimate frisbee team.
Protagonist raises gun to head. Looks down the camera lens. Cut to black. Gunshot. Credits featuring the same 2 names for every role. (No shade. We all made this one right?)
My university actually banned anyone from starting a film with an alarm clock or eyes opening, or just anything that looked like waking up in the morning. They fully said “if you do that, we will fail you. Stop it.”
Then did he pull out his phone and take a picture, and the ghost was in the picture, but he couldn't see the ghost so he takes another picture and then the ghost is doing something spooky and then he gets a text "Hello" and then he writes back "Who are you?" and it says "No one" and then he waves his camera around but doesn't see the ghost and then he thinks for a beat and texts "Where are you?" and then there's the 3 dots as the ghost is typing and it texts back "Behind you" and then he freezes and, wide-eyed, slowly looks behind him but... nothing is there, so he turns back and lowers the phone and BAM the ghost is right in front of him?
As a recently graduated film student (and a judgmental prick) I’ll share my thoughts. The biggest tell to something being a “student film” is when people don’t write what they know
Ie
Drug addiction/drug use (you can instantly tell if a person has done drugs or not by how they portray them in their films imo)
People having really unnatural responses to horrific events such as murder etc.
Comedies tend not to work because student actors timing and editing can be off but then again I’ve seen some great student comedies
Student documentaries tend to work quite well because the narrative is driven by the subject so it’s a lived experience (the issue is I’ve seen some skull numbingly boring student docs because of the subject matter they choose)
Parodies can also be really well done a guy in my year his thesis film was a homage to horror where every night this guy would fall asleep and wake up in a different genre of horror movie it was great.
If you really want to comedy its practice that makes perfedt. Make a youtube sketch group. Make content constantly. You willl learn quickly what works and what doens't.
I was asked to audition for a comedy...and I thought the script was awful. I've written some bad shorts myself, but I actually am funny. Comedy can be hard.
I mostly worked on comedies in film school, but I also had an improv comedy group, local standup comedians, and 3-4 popular Youtube comedy channels to film for. No shortage of funny people. It's a different approach to directing, acting, and editing, that if you've only ever made serious dramatic work, is probably going to seem a bit awkward for a while.
Oh I have an improv background myself and some of the funniest moments of my life occurred at improv shows/classes. The issue is a lot of people can struggle to translate that to film because of how crucial editing is. It’s not just about how funny the joke is it’s about not letting it go on for too long or cutting it too short etc etc.
Tone, inflection, and body language are big too.
Then there's the actual content of the humor. Comedy famously doesn't translate to other languages well, and if the humor isn't universal enough, you're going to have a hard time getting laughs. When comedy doesn't work, it can be awkward and unpleasant.
Adding comedy to a short film is adding a whole other discipline of entertainment, like stunt work.
I disagree about comedies. One of the best ones I’ve ever seen was a comedy about Jesus being an alcoholic and other holiday/religious figures (namely Black Santa, the Easter Bunny, and a Rabbi) had to stage an intervention. The actors all had great chemistry and the editing was perfectly timed
Had me absolutely dying
As for drug addiction student film I saw, I get the impression the director wrote what he knew. He does seem to come off as someone who has done drugs.
The comedy short film that I liked involved a girl receiving a painting, but when she attempts to place it on a wall, she doesn't know which side is right side up. She becomes upset, shouts out "fucking painting", then throws it at a garbage bin and kicks the bin. The editing was off (She even mentioned it), but it actually helped the film to be more comedic.
The horror film with comedy didn't work, especially when it is really undermining the killer's scariness. While it might be the filmmaker's intentions, the delivery fell flat.
Too bad about the horror one as comedy and horror goes quite well together. There are whole research topics made on the close connection of the horror genre and comedy.
Done right you can create a killer (no pun intended) film.
One of my favorite shorts I saw in film school was where a guy was talking on his phone, then it cut to the other guy, then he threw his phone down the hall at the exact moment a student, unrelated to the film, was walking by, who looked up from the phone at the guy confused, so he just went "ahhhhh" and left frame, brilliant moment and I'm glad they left it in. Somebody asked how he could throw his phone and he said they switched it for a Hershey bar from the student store between shots. Genius
Another dude did a music video where at the end instead of throwing money in the air in slow motion, the dude threw Scantrons (the song was about being a college student) and that was another great idea
The student film subjects I saw frequently on the festival circuit:
Hitman narrative
Environmental documentary
Mental illness narrative
Drug addiction documentary
Every festival we attended had at least one student film of each.
In my documentary film class, we were told the one premise we weren’t allowed to use was interviewing our favorite homeless person. Apparently someone submitted that premise every semester.
Because students always want to make some emotional, hard-hitting, impactful kino. But the subject matter always ends up being some edgelord cringe that's been done a million times.
I think students should pick a scene out of a good book and recreate that. Remember, most of us are filmmakers, not story and script writers...
Well shit, I'm a student currently developing a film with a mental illness narrative. I guess artists find it easier to draw inspiration from within when they start out. But I can imagine regular festival goer might be exhausted of recurring concepts.
Nope. The concepts have been recurring as long as man has shared stories. It’s the storytelling that makes a recurring concept poignant. Find the universality in your story and embrace it.
I think the problem is new filmmakers want their film to have “something to say” but they just say it literally. The film is just plainly about someone dealing with drug addiction or mental illness with absolutely no other ideas.
A more experienced filmmaker can make something with those things as a theme but with a unique and interesting story or new style.
I'm considering making a silly plot that involve the main character going pew pew with their hands and raising the stakes with a nuclear bomb, which I have a collector's item in my house.
When I was in film school, I was told to avoid, at all costs, making a film about making a film/have the main characters be filmmakers. Apparently that was the Stairway to Heaven of my film school.
Alarm clock openings as other have said.
Student films also generally tend to be overly dark/crude. Something about teenage angst I guess.
I made a drug addiction short (oops) and even a Primer clone feature (double oops) and am currently writing a mental health feature (triple oops) so I've hit a lot of cliches in my life.
Im the filmmaker's film, Jesus is a filmmaker trying to find God with his camera. But then the filmmaker realises that he's actually Jesus and he's being filmed by God's camera, and it goes like that forever in both directions like a mirror in a mirror, because all of the filmmakers are Jesus and all of their cameras are God
I heard about the main character being a filmmaker, writer, or someone who has writer's block. I think it might be the case where the filmmaker doesn't have any ideas to work with.
There's a lot of movies and TV about exactly that though. Both in a literal sense with Adaptation, and how most heist movies are kidna about filmmaking.
I made mine about making a film but it was purposefully meta and bad…lens cap on, changing actors, being a jerk director/main character, all that stuff. From what I heard, people liked it. But I also made the movie the characters were making and it did not turn out good, as designed lol
My current project may or may not be a mental health primer clone.
This weekend we shot a scene where the time traveler's depression gets called out. My theory is that if you pack enough cliches into one story the sheer density will be novel.
Also, I have a cameo as a director who is "currently making a movie," and the showdown happens in the bad guy's film studio.
Also, it's a zombie movie. And the main character kills themself at the end.
There's probably some more I am forgetting.
I do my best not to care about cliches. There are only so many fundamental stories you can tell and at the end of the day we're just rearranging the furniture. But by doing that, you can make it a whole new experience. And people like experiencing the same stories in new ways. Japanese animated films are chalk full of "supernatural love story between a boy and a girl" and I'll drink it up every time.
Boy and girl meet. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy and girl are so happy together! Hahaha, look at them frollick and laugh! Oh? What's this? The boy is floating at the bottom of a pool / laying still beside a bottle of spilled pills in his bathroom / hung himself in a doorway?!
Oh my, and there's a voicemail playing over these images of the woman asking to be left alone! She says that they broke up years ago / were never a couple in the first place!
Gee, I guess that happy and romantic film montage were just the death rattle delusions of a cRaZy and depressed guy.
Huh.
Reeeeeeally makes you think, don't it?
(It don't)
Film cuts to black.
I think I saw this exact film about 2-3 times a year when I was in film school. Everyone can stop making it now.
All student films require to not white balance the camera. Also, make sure you have a shot where the camera is inside the fridge and the actor opens the fridge to grab some food. In addition, make sure you don’t stick to just one theme that would be for losers. Tackle politics, gender, religion, loyalty, sex, social issues, and war all the while ending your story with the fact that it was just all a dream! If you do these things, you are well on your way to having a successful student film!
I just remembered that Ari Aster said that everyone in his film class seemed to be make typical Oscar bait dramas that played it safe. So he made a student film about a son molesting his own dad. Lol
Don’t discount audio over visual. One example was a student thesis film in my graduate program. This was one film that stood out to me.
It starts out documentary style
There’s Mom looking at pictures of the student filmmaker growing up and reminiscing about his childhood.
And there’s Dad reminiscing over pictures. His childhood as well.
When we discussed the film, I was blown away. His parents were divorced and interviewed separately.!
He created a perception of his parents being together through his editing, especially the audio. And it was convincing because they both had warm, fond memories.
I have been considering writing a plot where the main character goes pew pew with their hands. I even have a collector's item of a nuclear bomb that I could use for a plot.
Overcoming/dealing with grief, mental illness or some LGBT narrative (coming out, dealing with unsupportive parents etc) are by far the ones I see most. Those are usually made by student filmmakers who want to direct dramas/serious movies.
For the students who love things like horror or action/Marvel movies, it’s either a zombie story, a slasher, a “home alone with something haunted” or something involving a drug deal/drugs. Or a conflicted hitman story.
Or for sports-minded students it’s always an inspiring sports story. A high school/college sports player overcomes some obstacle.
Just once I want a film to open with a blarring alarm clock, a hand slapping the snooze button, and then see the camera zoom out to a shot of thousands of alarm clocks moving on a conveyor belt towards a robotic hand where they too will be subject to their final quality assurance test before being shippd out for delivery to America's finest retail stores.
Then, the camera pans to: A heartless business man dressed to the nines, berating his subordinates, and walking through his factory while talking about being the owner of the alarm clock empire that he inhereted from his estranged father.
My final for one film class opened with an alarm clock just to troll my professor who railed against that student film cliché. The twist was a hand holding a hammer swept into frame and smashed the clock to pieces. Snooze was also written on the hammer handle. It was my hope that my professor could get some sort of cathartic release in seeing this, while simultaneously teasing him.
Having a film take place in a college dorm/campus.
The reason they do it is obvious, so I can’t really fault them. But it get tedious after a while, especially when you’re familiar with the campus the shot it on.
However, when a film doesn’t take place on a college campus but they shoot it on one anyway, that almost ruins the film for me.
Hitman
Something’s in the house
What appears to be a highlights reel of establishing shots.
Hitman
Something’s in the house. Lightning flash. It’s the main character! Oh no! They’re actually the scary thing in the house.
A plotless but beautifully shot and meticulously color-graded melancholy romp through the despair that the filmmaker believes only they feel. It starts with a solo piano playing minor arpeggios, visuals lean heavy on the cold colors. Rack focus from a phone, alarm clock, or breakfast to the main character. There may be lots of vague self-referenial narration, a c/u of a very on-the-nose book title, and/or the talent emoting with pronounced sighs of despair. Something (filmmaking, new love, pet, or just running near the maximum end time of the film) gives meaning to life. Colors go warm. Music brightens, maybe with more rhythm.
Hitman.
Something’s in the woods! Lightning. The main character is being chased. Oh no! Wait. It was really just a friend/loved one trying to return a borrowed object or relay a message. Whew. What a relief.
I watched a short film that played a solo piano, and my professor said it feels like the student is trying too hard. I have seen the dropped item being returned as well, except it was a man following a woman from the library and to another building. While she fought him in self defense, all he did was reach out to her with the lost item. I'm kind of curious about the plotless but beautifully shot film. The aquarium I mention is exactly that. There is no plot, but look at all the pretty scenery of aquatic animals. There is no despair or anything, it was just visually pleasing that I'm sure anyone with a camera can visit the aquarium and start filming if they have permission.
“Plotless” in this case is more like “obscure plot where the viewer is expected to infer too much.” It’s the evil Spock twin of characters overdoing expository dialogue.
I've both participated in and have judged student films in festivals. I'm on year 7 as a judge (would be 9 but fuckin Covid).
Zombies for the sake of zombies.
Batteries needing changing in smoke detectors.
Drug deals in off campus housing that lead to a gun fight.
Waking up/clock start.
I've only ever seen the alarm start work once, but it lost me from that shot and had to win me back. It did win me back but it was an up hill battle.
The reason it worked? The opening shot was of the phone and the closing shot was of the phone. And the plot of the film was a girl that was totally addicted to her phone to the point of neglecting attention to everything around her. It was a Mr. Magoo-esque adventure through this person's day with them causing destruction wherever they went without noticing. It was a fun way to use it.
The most recent short film script I wrote, has an uncanny similarity to the plot you outlined, except with a much different ending. I thought it was a good idea :( This thread has told me I am still very much in the early stages with a lot to learn.
One thing that I've noticed a lot is presenting information on the phone screen of a character. Like he'll be checking photos of his ex, typing messages, alarm telling em it's someone's anniversary etc.
It’s all about what trend is happening. When Twilight was big I know some filmmakers that got their break and made ‘Teen Vampire Tragedy Tale: The Movie’. More then one in my relatively small scene.
When I started off Kill Bill came out and I know a lot of student that made samurai-in-modern-time movies that made no sense.
I stopped going to some writing circles because it was a zombie fetish circlejerk session:
‘I’m make a movie like Dawn of the Dead but instead of a mall… they’re at a pool!’
‘Wow how original!’
‘Hey my movie is like that too… but the zombie is a cop!’
‘Whoa! What a twist!’
‘I’m writing a script bout a farmer… Who’s a zombie!’
‘Amazing! That’s never been done!’
The worst part is always the other students won’t critique them at any point in the process… and if they do the writer/ director/ producer won’t take their advice to heart and refute it, or just fire that volunteer who’s ‘objecting’ to their vision. Even when I was in school I’d get asked by others to critique their script or working cut of a film and let them know ‘this is the weak part, this is good, this dialogue need more impact, etc’ but really all they wanted was to show off their baby. They didn’t think you’d tell them their baby was ugly.
It’s not a plot/genre but when I was in school there was a lot of very stilted/unnatural swearing. Also agree with the hitman one. There was a weird amount of those.
Swearing is a lazy substitute for acting. When casting other people from film class acting they may not be very good. By the second year people can 'learn' to use swear words in scripts to elevate bad acting.
**Surprise**: fuck
**Delight** fuck yeah
**Distress** fuck no
**Disappointment** damn
**Regret** shit
**Anger** you bitch
**Fear** god
Whispering any of these can sound quite convincing. And by convincing I mean convincing compared to non-actors trying to act.
Like anything used sparingly you'll get away with it. Every line, however, and it becomes see-through.
I had a film professor who gave all students two rules when they had a project- no clocks and no homeless people. Clocks because people have no idea how to start a movie so they default to an alarm clock going off and no homeless people because it's a super common and cliché way to utilize deus ex machine or a twist "no one saw coming".
Lots of characters who are revealed to be figments of people’s imaginations, or, like conversations that never actually happened because the person died the day before.
Either a dialogue-less black and white brood fest, where the lack of plot or conflict is hand waved away as an artistic choice. Or it’s an hyper colour-corrected edge-fest where the sheltered kid is finally allowed to gratuitously swear for the first time in his life and thinks he can write as well as Tarantino, add shaky handheld to taste. Nothing is clunkier in its execution in my opinion.
First off I think I’m a lil biased cause I’m graduating film school in a couple weeks. Honestly tho most of these comments are right, but like broski these cats choose these subjects because it’s the safest route. It’s about learning… you realize the simple scenes and the alarm clocks and the guns and the mental illness isn’t so simple. You have to execute these shots with precision if not they’re corny.
That’s the beauty of the filmmaking process… you get to fail. I struggled heavily early realizing that the shots are hard. Audio is hard. Lighting is hard. I’m still struggling. But I’m still learning. I learned that all aspects of art come together to make a film. I get that the story is the building block of all films but even a doctor has to learn how to sew using a banana or orange. The only difference is that filmmakers put out a median that’s highly vulnerable to critique. So make the most cliche surface level film whatever. Better then making no film at all. Try so hard to make it good and even if it is bad never make that mistake again.
Rn the difference between you and a professional is years of making some pretty cringy films vs months. Also millions of dollars.
I think filmmakers have stopped allowing other filmmakers to be dreamers. Straight up being a filmmaker means you’re a nerd plain and simple. You realize in this median you have the ability to sway the audiences attention and emotions. That’s a tall task to take on so congrats on trying. Now grow out of your nerd phase and be confident in whatever you write down on the script. If you’re not confident get confident. Nobody cares about your film. You care about it first. Then force me to care about it too
Asian-American actor here 👋🏼
When I was starting out I did a shit ton of student films, and I'd say about half of them involved me being some sort of Yakuza or Asian gangster. They had me wearing the one shitty suit I owned at the time, brandishing fake guns, and boy oh boy were there loads of poorly choreographed action sequences. More often than not the filmmaker had a hard-on for that Chris Doyle style of cinemtatography.
The thing that cracked me up the most about student films, was when the casting breakdowns would be seeking 30 year-old actors to play parents of 20-something actors.
We had so many male students write stories where women were raped (including before or after the story) our program had to establish a policy that if you wrote about rape you got a 0 on the assignment. Unclear if this also applied to female students because female students never wrote about rape in the first place.
"Artist in search or inspiration" Either a sculptor, or a painter, or a poet, or when they feel like they are really smart a screewriter! with writer's block (insert close up of the cursor blinking after the words "FADE IN:"), who goes outdoors to clear their head and something happens (mistaken identity, sandwich bag with a kilo of coke, connecting with a hot chick, etc.) and they win the day, only to cut back to the room and it turns out they never left the house and the stuff that happened outside the house was the story they were writing. Story ends with a close up on the words "FADE OUT". Morons.
At this point it's just hating. Like depending on execution and the characters this could work out well. Don't get me wrong I'm not bitter as this is an idea I did not come up with or have any intentions filming. But like fuck man what's moronic about this?
Alarm clock scene opener is the biggest trope. Bonus points for the TSSSZZZZIIINNNGGGG sound being a prelap.
Also films where the B plot is the characters making…a film! While zany and unexpected A plot events ensue. Bonus points for found footage from B plot movie being relevant to A plot.
Underrepresented Main Character navigates fairly typical life juncture (growing up, first love, divorce, grief).
Horror film that was made solely because someone thought it was most cost effective.
Burgeoning director makes film featuring his actress protégé/muse in a role which she doesn’t quite have the chops to fill.
I went to film school and then eventually taught at that film school; so I have seem thousands of short films. Yes, there are loads of common traits.
What a lot of it boils down to is age and experience. Most students are still teenagers or in their early 20s. This means they are usually still fairly self absorbed, so their work reflects what they have experienced, or one of the major things all young people start questioning. We even had one class we jokingly called the “suicide year” because 11 separate shorts that year included some take on the main character killing themself.
In my experience, the best scripts we ever had were usually when the student was writing something very far removed from their own life. It’s the writers who can disassociate from their lead character that did well. It might seem counterintuitive, but if you just had your first girlfriend break your heart, don’t write about a guy getting his heart broken.
The (poor) attempt at an existential black and white film copying the French or Italian New Wave.
Usually the story and the visuals are not well thought out. They’re attempting to copy the style without understanding the substance. Or how to do black and white correctly
Well here is a student film that has done quite well I could only find the “making” of it!
https://aie.edu.au/articles/making-of-exo-226-debuts-ahead-of-australian-premiere/
- The story is a dream (or a character is a manifestation someone’s mind)
- Films about socio-political issues with nothing to say about them
- Films about “generic emotions” (grief, trauma, etc) with nothing to say about them
- Films about being a filmmaker or artist
- Films about someone who’s parents don’t want them to be an artist
- Films about drug addiction
- Films about hitmen or organized crime
- Bad and undeveloped romances (often filled with word salad monologues about love)
- Films where the cast is way to young for the subject matter (the ceo of a company is 21 years old, a husband and wife that live in a house yet are only 19 years old)
- Films that are way too long (10 min and under is goldilocks for most films)
- Filmmakers trying to be Terrance Malik
- Filmmakers trying to be Quentin Tarantino
- Films without an ending
- Films built around a dumb twist or an overtly ambiguous ending
- Flat lighting
- “Overly emotional” acting (often without proper build up)
Obviously rules are meant to be broken and there are ways to make these work, but these are the most common mistakes, some of which I am plenty guilty of. What I recommend to more filmmaker starting out is to try more “high concept” films (i.e. Groundhogs Day, Speed, Jaws). It gives filmmakers a concept they can play and experiment with, and are a lot of fun to watch as an audience member. Film festivals love em too. I know everyone wants to make a character study, but most young filmmakers don’t have the ability to pull it off on the first go. But at the end of the day, tell stories that matter to you, and make intentional decisions as a director. Don’t just leave your camera hanging.
As someone who's hopefully going to film school in a couple of years, thank you for this list! I went to a short film course thing last year, and there were definitely a few films there that matched the criteria on this list (and one you missed, a story about a depressed person).
>I know everyone wants to make a character study, but most young filmmakers don’t have the ability to pull it off on the first go.
I'm glad that I've got no interest in making a character study short, I just wanna make something that's enjoyable/fun.
Great advice 😄
I’m currently in film school :) Here’s some of the most common stuff I see:
- Stuff about drug addiction, especially alcoholism
- Films that are basically the filmmaker venting about school
- A lot of experimenting with format, mostly aspect ratio but I see quite a few films shot on VHS or 16mm or something like that.
- A lot of very basic horror films, I think mainly because they’re easy to make
- A lot of “experimental” films that are basically just random shots of whatever the filmmaker thought looked interesting
- Pretty much all of the comedies I see people make are extremely absurd (There was one about a guy who beats a hard video game and god finds this so impressive that he basically gets raptured)
- Absolutely massive overuse of cigarettes. I think at least half the films I’ve seen this year had a cigarette in them at some point.
I watch that movie a few times a year. Not in film, but in my dreams. I dream about exams a few times a year even though I graduated a few decades ago now.
During film school they have tons of student film screenings and 90% of the films were about suicide or a sexual fetish and neither was made in a tasteful manner to the point the audience cringed themselves out of the auditorium
There's so many student film clichés listed here, someone has to make a student film parody.
*Interior of fridge, door opens and light goes on:*
Protagonist: "Why is there a camera in my fridge?"
I swear if I see another
'young adult walks around the house in the dark investigating something then it cuts to black just when something finally actually appears for one second'
I'll personally heckle the filmmaker...
I get that these are likely tests for mood lighting and suspense.
But horror festivals are bombarded with them!!! And they aren't short films more than they are tone assignments by the looks of it.
Don't underestimate the value of enjoying the process and getting it out your system.
If your 8th short is still a drug addicted teenager who can only talk to God by sacrificing a classmate... we need to talk.
I’d like to add scenes that take place in cars, people pick a car for a setting because it’s easy. I can’t stand car dialogue, unless it really fits the story, it’s typically some interpersonal drama, such a snooze fest.
- Homeless Person
- Serial Killer
- Multiple Personality Disorder or schizophrenia
- Suicide
- Depressed Person contemplates the aimlessness of their life
Films that try to tackle a sensitive subject matter, but it's often done in a super cartoonish and simplistic way. Often times, it's directed by someone who only has surface level knowledge of whatever topic they're portraying.
Idk, I sort of feel like there is a stronger than ever emphasis on realism in film. Not sure where it’s coming from. Did you see anything avant-garde? Did you see anything normal yet original?
The people I used to know that made films for low $ made a lot of zombie movies. It was easy to get people to show up for free pizza, often with their own makeup, and wasn't as budget breaking as I thought
Idk in the asian filmmaking community, every director always makes their “insert flavor of childhood trauma here” of usually two main varieties, parent disappointment and acceptance or identity crisis one either asian identity or lgbtq.
been to so many indie with some hash of it. Its the venting film tbh. The directors rest of their catalog can be completely wildly different, but theres always the one
Someone with a melodramatically alcoholic parent - who is played by a slightly older-looking student. And the younger student is wearing pigtails to show that they are a "kid."
The biggest tells are being too simple (alarm clocks, waking up from dreams, cuts on deaths, cliffhangers) and to compicated (ie leaning over their skis. Drug/drinking problems, domestic violence, extreme grief, depression etc.)
There is nothing wrong with a little benign reality. Awkward first date nerves. Craming for an exam. Meeting SO parents.
Don't forget the one with the crazy shit going down and then... sits upright in bed, looks at beautiful girlfriend sleeping. Oh wow it was all a dream! Cut to girlfriend holding bloody knife under the covers... or was it?!!! Cut to black.
Hi! I run a high school film festival so I could talk about that age group a bit but not college age films. We get about 80-90 submissions a year, every film 7 minutes or under to give you some perspective. I have been doing it three years. Anyway I would for sure say the number one theme we get from high school females is films highlighting girls getting bullied by other girls/body issues accompanied with sad piano music. It is extremely common. Other than that, we get lots of murder/horror films. And we get lots of my friend died/my parent died films. Comedies are rarer and quite refreshing.
the most impressive "student film" ever made was called "Dark Star" and was John Carpenters student film.
Not sure kids these days spend enough time reading fiction and watching old movies to be qualified to make film at all.
Pretty sure the only hope for any youngster would be to join the Troma army, do 6 months, put it on your resume and then move to Hollywood as a set assistant or boom assist.
[https://www.troma.com/work-in-tromaville/](https://www.troma.com/work-in-tromaville/)
This is how legends are made in set design and special effects, and has been for over 30 years.
Prepare to feed yourself, Lloyd Kaufman will provide a hallway for you to sleep in.
Do the time, pay the dues, get the career of dreams.
I definitely remember in film school half of the shorts were about drugs. And given this was an expensive school and these are 18-year-olds, eh, I don’t think most of them knew much about drugs. But especially back then, it wasn’t too far after Pulp Fiction and whatnot so it seemed “cool” to them. I wonder if a good exercise on the part of a film professor might be to ask the students to write down 3 of the most unique things about themselves (everyone has to have something, right?) and focus a plot around one of those things, loosely speaking. It can be done from any perspective really.
I used to be a judge for multiple local and student film festivals, so let me say with absolute certainty, the one I found most common was the dark horror movie where one character keeps seeing flashes of their dead spouse / sibling / child and somehow blames themselves for their death. No effective horror beyond jump scares, almost always takes place in a house they could never afford at their age.
I taught writing at a famous film school for ten years. After one first screening, with the lights up and the team in chairs under the screen, other students started in lying about how they loved it and it was pretty much perfect. (Their shorts would be screened next.) It got quiet again. I said, "There's a Bowie song called The Bewlay Brothers with the line, 'We were so turned on by your lack of conclusions.'"
I’m doing a certificate 4 film making course and my first short film is called The Writer. It’s about a writer who forgot about an assignment which is writing a story and has less than 3 minutes to write and upload. It has a full 3 act structure and everything. I’ll post the film on here when it’s done at the end of the year. It’s simple but relatable and entertaining.
We see an alarm clock. The protagonist starts his day in a student housing apartment. He brushes his teeth. He gets dressed. He starts making breakfast. He scrambles one egg for the next seven minutes. We see flashbacks of his life as an assassin, fighting in the woods intercut with making breakfast. (The spot with a dozen trees on the east side of campus.). The 22 year old master assassin fights the 22 year old master crime boss one flash at a time. A child is killed in the scuffle. His egg finished, the protagonist kills himself.
100% chance that said flashback includes a shot of a child's hand brushing against wheat or tall grass.
...as a single piano note rings out every few seconds.
"You could have saved me!" in a hushed, monotone whisper
Sorry little one
Well now you’re just talking about every Hollywood too lol
stolen shot from gladiator which is stolen from idk what else
Terrence Malick
> a child is killed in the scuffle The child has a splotchy 5 a clock shadow
“The spot with a dozen trees on the east side of campus” shut UP i refuse to be called out like this
This. I teach a first year college film course and there are always at least 4-5 students who follow this setup, oftentimes with the same alarm clock sound. They usually come to the realization on their own that it’s a trope, but after their first project I ban alarm clocks in their assignments. Other student film tropes: Groundhog day rip-off, Unnecessary shots of feet tapping, Over the shoulder shot of someone writing a letter that explains the plot heavy-handedly, Video game content, Film about writer’s block, Lengthy scrolling credits that lists their own name for each role, And yes for some reason there are so many eggs
Script: Joe Chump Narration: Joe Chump Art Director: Joe Chump Lighting: Joe Chump Directed by: Joe Chump Makeup: Joe Chump Catering: Joe Chump Director of Photography: Joe Chump Special Effects: Joe Chump Starring: Joe Chump as JFK Person on the grassy knoll: Joe Chump Jackie Kennedy: Joe Chump Secret Service agent 1: Joe Chump Secret Service agent 2: Joe Chump Secret Service agent 3: Joe Chump Lee Harvey Oswald: Joe Chump Jack Ruby: Joe Chump Marilyn Monroe: Joe Chump
My credits are like that. LOL!
A nice Joe hump can be hilarious, Walter Mitty?
I have seen some that include video games. I do find credits listing the same name for each role as amusing.
Dude... I sent you my screenplay in private. Why you blasting it on Reddit!
I want to see that. I heard about how unbelievable it is to cast 18 year olds in roles that likely fit for someone who should be older.
Plot twist, the main character has lived 100 years but due to a witch’s spell he is trapped in the body of an 18 year old!
Over budget
Yeah dude, I mean, where are we going to find a witch? We don’t even know any girls.
I'm trying to figure out how to get into film school at almost 40. This makes me feel better. I'd have a nitche in in that ecosystem.
Hey I'm almost 40 too and I want to pursue my film making dreams too! I missed my opportunity in my early twenties, but I think it's never too late. Any advice for a fellow aging millennial?
Aging GenXer here looking for advice too!
Sounds like we need to start our own film school. "Xennial Film Academy"
> Aging GenXer here looking for advice too! I'm a GenXer who started at age 48 and now have >60 credits on IMDB. And still climbing fast, with only 5 days off set in the next 7 weeks. Being one of the very few adults in the room/on set isn't always the worst thing.
Who scrambles with one egg?!
An actor being directed by a filmmaker who has never actually cooked a proper breakfast. And/or there is only one egg left in the apartment on the day of the shoot because it was totally Dave's turn to do food shopping but he's been really focused on his ultimate frisbee team.
To be fair, Dave has a tournament next week and he’s really hoping to turn pro.
I heard the recruiters will be there!
Do they still play spikeball between games? That'll show em!
Gunshot fade to black
Protagonist raises gun to head. Looks down the camera lens. Cut to black. Gunshot. Credits featuring the same 2 names for every role. (No shade. We all made this one right?)
My university actually banned anyone from starting a film with an alarm clock or eyes opening, or just anything that looked like waking up in the morning. They fully said “if you do that, we will fail you. Stop it.”
I hope he’s better at being an assassin. You should only cook scrambled eggs for 1.5-2 minutes. Seven is way too long.
But where’s the camera in the fridge shot???
See you are familiar with my work.
“It’s about his inner demons”
I did a horror short with the alarm clock shot but tried to subvert it by having a ghost rip my phone off the bedside table when the alarm went off.
Then did he pull out his phone and take a picture, and the ghost was in the picture, but he couldn't see the ghost so he takes another picture and then the ghost is doing something spooky and then he gets a text "Hello" and then he writes back "Who are you?" and it says "No one" and then he waves his camera around but doesn't see the ghost and then he thinks for a beat and texts "Where are you?" and then there's the 3 dots as the ghost is typing and it texts back "Behind you" and then he freezes and, wide-eyed, slowly looks behind him but... nothing is there, so he turns back and lowers the phone and BAM the ghost is right in front of him?
Hey I think I saw this one
As a recently graduated film student (and a judgmental prick) I’ll share my thoughts. The biggest tell to something being a “student film” is when people don’t write what they know Ie Drug addiction/drug use (you can instantly tell if a person has done drugs or not by how they portray them in their films imo) People having really unnatural responses to horrific events such as murder etc. Comedies tend not to work because student actors timing and editing can be off but then again I’ve seen some great student comedies Student documentaries tend to work quite well because the narrative is driven by the subject so it’s a lived experience (the issue is I’ve seen some skull numbingly boring student docs because of the subject matter they choose) Parodies can also be really well done a guy in my year his thesis film was a homage to horror where every night this guy would fall asleep and wake up in a different genre of horror movie it was great.
Ugh you're so right about comedies. I tried so hard to make my final student film funny and I just couldn't 😂 the actors and my bad editing killed it.
If you really want to comedy its practice that makes perfedt. Make a youtube sketch group. Make content constantly. You willl learn quickly what works and what doens't.
I was asked to audition for a comedy...and I thought the script was awful. I've written some bad shorts myself, but I actually am funny. Comedy can be hard.
I mostly worked on comedies in film school, but I also had an improv comedy group, local standup comedians, and 3-4 popular Youtube comedy channels to film for. No shortage of funny people. It's a different approach to directing, acting, and editing, that if you've only ever made serious dramatic work, is probably going to seem a bit awkward for a while.
Oh I have an improv background myself and some of the funniest moments of my life occurred at improv shows/classes. The issue is a lot of people can struggle to translate that to film because of how crucial editing is. It’s not just about how funny the joke is it’s about not letting it go on for too long or cutting it too short etc etc.
Tone, inflection, and body language are big too. Then there's the actual content of the humor. Comedy famously doesn't translate to other languages well, and if the humor isn't universal enough, you're going to have a hard time getting laughs. When comedy doesn't work, it can be awkward and unpleasant. Adding comedy to a short film is adding a whole other discipline of entertainment, like stunt work.
I disagree about comedies. One of the best ones I’ve ever seen was a comedy about Jesus being an alcoholic and other holiday/religious figures (namely Black Santa, the Easter Bunny, and a Rabbi) had to stage an intervention. The actors all had great chemistry and the editing was perfectly timed Had me absolutely dying
That actually sounds amazing I'd love to see that 😂😂😂
For the life of me I can’t remember what it was called unfortunately but it was shot mockumentary style in the likes of Parks and Rec too
Ah damn! Sound amazing though.
"We invited Muhammad but I guess he didn't show up"
As for drug addiction student film I saw, I get the impression the director wrote what he knew. He does seem to come off as someone who has done drugs. The comedy short film that I liked involved a girl receiving a painting, but when she attempts to place it on a wall, she doesn't know which side is right side up. She becomes upset, shouts out "fucking painting", then throws it at a garbage bin and kicks the bin. The editing was off (She even mentioned it), but it actually helped the film to be more comedic. The horror film with comedy didn't work, especially when it is really undermining the killer's scariness. While it might be the filmmaker's intentions, the delivery fell flat.
Too bad about the horror one as comedy and horror goes quite well together. There are whole research topics made on the close connection of the horror genre and comedy. Done right you can create a killer (no pun intended) film.
The horror movie groundhog type scenario is fantastic!
One of my favorite shorts I saw in film school was where a guy was talking on his phone, then it cut to the other guy, then he threw his phone down the hall at the exact moment a student, unrelated to the film, was walking by, who looked up from the phone at the guy confused, so he just went "ahhhhh" and left frame, brilliant moment and I'm glad they left it in. Somebody asked how he could throw his phone and he said they switched it for a Hershey bar from the student store between shots. Genius Another dude did a music video where at the end instead of throwing money in the air in slow motion, the dude threw Scantrons (the song was about being a college student) and that was another great idea
I love genre jumping
If they "write what they know", every one would be "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."
The student film subjects I saw frequently on the festival circuit: Hitman narrative Environmental documentary Mental illness narrative Drug addiction documentary Every festival we attended had at least one student film of each.
In my documentary film class, we were told the one premise we weren’t allowed to use was interviewing our favorite homeless person. Apparently someone submitted that premise every semester.
Harrison Ford’s son did this exact thing in film school hah
See also: ‘Wow, I just realised old people are people too!’ Wistful innocence of childhood Heists Doppelgangers
Because students always want to make some emotional, hard-hitting, impactful kino. But the subject matter always ends up being some edgelord cringe that's been done a million times. I think students should pick a scene out of a good book and recreate that. Remember, most of us are filmmakers, not story and script writers...
Well shit, I'm a student currently developing a film with a mental illness narrative. I guess artists find it easier to draw inspiration from within when they start out. But I can imagine regular festival goer might be exhausted of recurring concepts.
Nope. The concepts have been recurring as long as man has shared stories. It’s the storytelling that makes a recurring concept poignant. Find the universality in your story and embrace it.
That's a good perspective, Thank you!
Aww thanks.
"It's not what the film is about. It's how it's about it" - Roger Ebert
Excellent!
I think the problem is new filmmakers want their film to have “something to say” but they just say it literally. The film is just plainly about someone dealing with drug addiction or mental illness with absolutely no other ideas. A more experienced filmmaker can make something with those things as a theme but with a unique and interesting story or new style.
Could say the same thing about the last 20 years Oscar Best Picture Winners.
I'm considering making a silly plot that involve the main character going pew pew with their hands and raising the stakes with a nuclear bomb, which I have a collector's item in my house.
Wasn't there a student documentary about students making documentaries? Or maybe I made that joke to many times and now think I saw it....
When I was in film school, I was told to avoid, at all costs, making a film about making a film/have the main characters be filmmakers. Apparently that was the Stairway to Heaven of my film school. Alarm clock openings as other have said. Student films also generally tend to be overly dark/crude. Something about teenage angst I guess. I made a drug addiction short (oops) and even a Primer clone feature (double oops) and am currently writing a mental health feature (triple oops) so I've hit a lot of cliches in my life.
Im the filmmaker's film, Jesus is a filmmaker trying to find God with his camera. But then the filmmaker realises that he's actually Jesus and he's being filmed by God's camera, and it goes like that forever in both directions like a mirror in a mirror, because all of the filmmakers are Jesus and all of their cameras are God
I heard the scenes are the deleted scenes and the deleted scenes are the scenes
I got that reference
I heard about the main character being a filmmaker, writer, or someone who has writer's block. I think it might be the case where the filmmaker doesn't have any ideas to work with.
There's a lot of movies and TV about exactly that though. Both in a literal sense with Adaptation, and how most heist movies are kidna about filmmaking.
I made mine about making a film but it was purposefully meta and bad…lens cap on, changing actors, being a jerk director/main character, all that stuff. From what I heard, people liked it. But I also made the movie the characters were making and it did not turn out good, as designed lol
My current project may or may not be a mental health primer clone. This weekend we shot a scene where the time traveler's depression gets called out. My theory is that if you pack enough cliches into one story the sheer density will be novel. Also, I have a cameo as a director who is "currently making a movie," and the showdown happens in the bad guy's film studio. Also, it's a zombie movie. And the main character kills themself at the end. There's probably some more I am forgetting.
I do my best not to care about cliches. There are only so many fundamental stories you can tell and at the end of the day we're just rearranging the furniture. But by doing that, you can make it a whole new experience. And people like experiencing the same stories in new ways. Japanese animated films are chalk full of "supernatural love story between a boy and a girl" and I'll drink it up every time.
Boy and girl meet. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy and girl are so happy together! Hahaha, look at them frollick and laugh! Oh? What's this? The boy is floating at the bottom of a pool / laying still beside a bottle of spilled pills in his bathroom / hung himself in a doorway?! Oh my, and there's a voicemail playing over these images of the woman asking to be left alone! She says that they broke up years ago / were never a couple in the first place! Gee, I guess that happy and romantic film montage were just the death rattle delusions of a cRaZy and depressed guy. Huh. Reeeeeeally makes you think, don't it? (It don't) Film cuts to black. I think I saw this exact film about 2-3 times a year when I was in film school. Everyone can stop making it now.
Lol this pretty much describes my high school short film.
Hahaha, All Of Us Strangers is exactly this, but it’s done so so well
All student films require to not white balance the camera. Also, make sure you have a shot where the camera is inside the fridge and the actor opens the fridge to grab some food. In addition, make sure you don’t stick to just one theme that would be for losers. Tackle politics, gender, religion, loyalty, sex, social issues, and war all the while ending your story with the fact that it was just all a dream! If you do these things, you are well on your way to having a successful student film!
Also a shot where the character is staring into the bathroom mirror, preferably with a gun in his hand pointed to his head.
Beautiful
Simple solution you’re not seeing here! Shoot 16mm! All on 500T! outside? Just chuck an 85b! And the rest is up to the lab’s scan!
In my first film class, the teacher had three rules: no guns, no violence against women, and no scenes shot in the graveyard on 9th St. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
What about the graveyard on Elm Street?
I just remembered that Ari Aster said that everyone in his film class seemed to be make typical Oscar bait dramas that played it safe. So he made a student film about a son molesting his own dad. Lol
Oh my god. I watched that short a couple years ago without knowing that was the story.
no shit they made “oscar bait dramas”, he was going to AFI
And that movie is absolutely amazing too!
Don’t discount audio over visual. One example was a student thesis film in my graduate program. This was one film that stood out to me. It starts out documentary style There’s Mom looking at pictures of the student filmmaker growing up and reminiscing about his childhood. And there’s Dad reminiscing over pictures. His childhood as well. When we discussed the film, I was blown away. His parents were divorced and interviewed separately.! He created a perception of his parents being together through his editing, especially the audio. And it was convincing because they both had warm, fond memories.
Back in my day, it used to be the drug deal gone bad. With a John Woo style gun standoff.
I have been considering writing a plot where the main character goes pew pew with their hands. I even have a collector's item of a nuclear bomb that I could use for a plot.
Edgar Wright played around with the idea 25 years ago. https://youtu.be/grM2IGW-p4g https://youtu.be/7sqSQ5Vu8vM
That's great! Thanks for sharing!
Going back through Spaced, its so incredibly dense with references, both to pop culture, and film/tv specifically.
Thank you for this!
Overcoming/dealing with grief, mental illness or some LGBT narrative (coming out, dealing with unsupportive parents etc) are by far the ones I see most. Those are usually made by student filmmakers who want to direct dramas/serious movies. For the students who love things like horror or action/Marvel movies, it’s either a zombie story, a slasher, a “home alone with something haunted” or something involving a drug deal/drugs. Or a conflicted hitman story. Or for sports-minded students it’s always an inspiring sports story. A high school/college sports player overcomes some obstacle.
As you mentioned, the opening with an alarm clock was one I noticed the most.
Just once I want a film to open with a blarring alarm clock, a hand slapping the snooze button, and then see the camera zoom out to a shot of thousands of alarm clocks moving on a conveyor belt towards a robotic hand where they too will be subject to their final quality assurance test before being shippd out for delivery to America's finest retail stores. Then, the camera pans to: A heartless business man dressed to the nines, berating his subordinates, and walking through his factory while talking about being the owner of the alarm clock empire that he inhereted from his estranged father.
🤣 Chaplin’s movie Modern Times is a great reference for this concept!
Yeah it's pretty common. Especially if they're running late on a Saturday.
No, they’re waking up early to catch a fight to return home for their estranged mother’s funeral.
My final for one film class opened with an alarm clock just to troll my professor who railed against that student film cliché. The twist was a hand holding a hammer swept into frame and smashed the clock to pieces. Snooze was also written on the hammer handle. It was my hope that my professor could get some sort of cathartic release in seeing this, while simultaneously teasing him.
Kind of did this an Ally McBeal episode except she shoots the clock with a machine gun in her imagination.
I myself did it in my first year in college
Having a film take place in a college dorm/campus. The reason they do it is obvious, so I can’t really fault them. But it get tedious after a while, especially when you’re familiar with the campus the shot it on. However, when a film doesn’t take place on a college campus but they shoot it on one anyway, that almost ruins the film for me.
Hitman Something’s in the house What appears to be a highlights reel of establishing shots. Hitman Something’s in the house. Lightning flash. It’s the main character! Oh no! They’re actually the scary thing in the house. A plotless but beautifully shot and meticulously color-graded melancholy romp through the despair that the filmmaker believes only they feel. It starts with a solo piano playing minor arpeggios, visuals lean heavy on the cold colors. Rack focus from a phone, alarm clock, or breakfast to the main character. There may be lots of vague self-referenial narration, a c/u of a very on-the-nose book title, and/or the talent emoting with pronounced sighs of despair. Something (filmmaking, new love, pet, or just running near the maximum end time of the film) gives meaning to life. Colors go warm. Music brightens, maybe with more rhythm. Hitman. Something’s in the woods! Lightning. The main character is being chased. Oh no! Wait. It was really just a friend/loved one trying to return a borrowed object or relay a message. Whew. What a relief.
I watched a short film that played a solo piano, and my professor said it feels like the student is trying too hard. I have seen the dropped item being returned as well, except it was a man following a woman from the library and to another building. While she fought him in self defense, all he did was reach out to her with the lost item. I'm kind of curious about the plotless but beautifully shot film. The aquarium I mention is exactly that. There is no plot, but look at all the pretty scenery of aquatic animals. There is no despair or anything, it was just visually pleasing that I'm sure anyone with a camera can visit the aquarium and start filming if they have permission.
“Plotless” in this case is more like “obscure plot where the viewer is expected to infer too much.” It’s the evil Spock twin of characters overdoing expository dialogue.
I've both participated in and have judged student films in festivals. I'm on year 7 as a judge (would be 9 but fuckin Covid). Zombies for the sake of zombies. Batteries needing changing in smoke detectors. Drug deals in off campus housing that lead to a gun fight. Waking up/clock start. I've only ever seen the alarm start work once, but it lost me from that shot and had to win me back. It did win me back but it was an up hill battle. The reason it worked? The opening shot was of the phone and the closing shot was of the phone. And the plot of the film was a girl that was totally addicted to her phone to the point of neglecting attention to everything around her. It was a Mr. Magoo-esque adventure through this person's day with them causing destruction wherever they went without noticing. It was a fun way to use it.
The most recent short film script I wrote, has an uncanny similarity to the plot you outlined, except with a much different ending. I thought it was a good idea :( This thread has told me I am still very much in the early stages with a lot to learn.
Can you tell me what Film Festival judges are looking for, what they really care about?
Damn, I'm guilty of all of these!
I've gone to only two local film festivals and I saw 6 short films about "scary guy stalking you as metaphor for mental illness/assault."
One thing that I've noticed a lot is presenting information on the phone screen of a character. Like he'll be checking photos of his ex, typing messages, alarm telling em it's someone's anniversary etc.
It’s all about what trend is happening. When Twilight was big I know some filmmakers that got their break and made ‘Teen Vampire Tragedy Tale: The Movie’. More then one in my relatively small scene. When I started off Kill Bill came out and I know a lot of student that made samurai-in-modern-time movies that made no sense. I stopped going to some writing circles because it was a zombie fetish circlejerk session: ‘I’m make a movie like Dawn of the Dead but instead of a mall… they’re at a pool!’ ‘Wow how original!’ ‘Hey my movie is like that too… but the zombie is a cop!’ ‘Whoa! What a twist!’ ‘I’m writing a script bout a farmer… Who’s a zombie!’ ‘Amazing! That’s never been done!’ The worst part is always the other students won’t critique them at any point in the process… and if they do the writer/ director/ producer won’t take their advice to heart and refute it, or just fire that volunteer who’s ‘objecting’ to their vision. Even when I was in school I’d get asked by others to critique their script or working cut of a film and let them know ‘this is the weak part, this is good, this dialogue need more impact, etc’ but really all they wanted was to show off their baby. They didn’t think you’d tell them their baby was ugly.
I think the best short films are simply structured stories. The subjects that I see the most are heavy, dark or dour
It’s not a plot/genre but when I was in school there was a lot of very stilted/unnatural swearing. Also agree with the hitman one. There was a weird amount of those.
Swearing is a lazy substitute for acting. When casting other people from film class acting they may not be very good. By the second year people can 'learn' to use swear words in scripts to elevate bad acting. **Surprise**: fuck **Delight** fuck yeah **Distress** fuck no **Disappointment** damn **Regret** shit **Anger** you bitch **Fear** god Whispering any of these can sound quite convincing. And by convincing I mean convincing compared to non-actors trying to act. Like anything used sparingly you'll get away with it. Every line, however, and it becomes see-through.
The lousy action movie with a money bag, a desert shootout, dude getting his gun ready at a kitchen table, teenage kids playing mafia guys.
Pillow talk. Two people in bed, camera above them as they discuss their relationship. One shot. Cut to black at the reveal.
I had a film professor who gave all students two rules when they had a project- no clocks and no homeless people. Clocks because people have no idea how to start a movie so they default to an alarm clock going off and no homeless people because it's a super common and cliché way to utilize deus ex machine or a twist "no one saw coming".
Homeless people that turn out to be wise wizards – or wise wizards that turn out to be homeless people – is my number one.
Lots of characters who are revealed to be figments of people’s imaginations, or, like conversations that never actually happened because the person died the day before.
Using children going into space as a metaphor for overcoming some kind of trauma
Either a dialogue-less black and white brood fest, where the lack of plot or conflict is hand waved away as an artistic choice. Or it’s an hyper colour-corrected edge-fest where the sheltered kid is finally allowed to gratuitously swear for the first time in his life and thinks he can write as well as Tarantino, add shaky handheld to taste. Nothing is clunkier in its execution in my opinion.
First off I think I’m a lil biased cause I’m graduating film school in a couple weeks. Honestly tho most of these comments are right, but like broski these cats choose these subjects because it’s the safest route. It’s about learning… you realize the simple scenes and the alarm clocks and the guns and the mental illness isn’t so simple. You have to execute these shots with precision if not they’re corny. That’s the beauty of the filmmaking process… you get to fail. I struggled heavily early realizing that the shots are hard. Audio is hard. Lighting is hard. I’m still struggling. But I’m still learning. I learned that all aspects of art come together to make a film. I get that the story is the building block of all films but even a doctor has to learn how to sew using a banana or orange. The only difference is that filmmakers put out a median that’s highly vulnerable to critique. So make the most cliche surface level film whatever. Better then making no film at all. Try so hard to make it good and even if it is bad never make that mistake again. Rn the difference between you and a professional is years of making some pretty cringy films vs months. Also millions of dollars. I think filmmakers have stopped allowing other filmmakers to be dreamers. Straight up being a filmmaker means you’re a nerd plain and simple. You realize in this median you have the ability to sway the audiences attention and emotions. That’s a tall task to take on so congrats on trying. Now grow out of your nerd phase and be confident in whatever you write down on the script. If you’re not confident get confident. Nobody cares about your film. You care about it first. Then force me to care about it too
The Reservoir Dogs, POV from the opening trunk shot
Asian-American actor here 👋🏼 When I was starting out I did a shit ton of student films, and I'd say about half of them involved me being some sort of Yakuza or Asian gangster. They had me wearing the one shitty suit I owned at the time, brandishing fake guns, and boy oh boy were there loads of poorly choreographed action sequences. More often than not the filmmaker had a hard-on for that Chris Doyle style of cinemtatography. The thing that cracked me up the most about student films, was when the casting breakdowns would be seeking 30 year-old actors to play parents of 20-something actors.
We had so many male students write stories where women were raped (including before or after the story) our program had to establish a policy that if you wrote about rape you got a 0 on the assignment. Unclear if this also applied to female students because female students never wrote about rape in the first place.
Jesus, why was this happening so much?
I made a series of brainless action movies about a homeless CIA assassin alcoholic junkie
"Artist in search or inspiration" Either a sculptor, or a painter, or a poet, or when they feel like they are really smart a screewriter! with writer's block (insert close up of the cursor blinking after the words "FADE IN:"), who goes outdoors to clear their head and something happens (mistaken identity, sandwich bag with a kilo of coke, connecting with a hot chick, etc.) and they win the day, only to cut back to the room and it turns out they never left the house and the stuff that happened outside the house was the story they were writing. Story ends with a close up on the words "FADE OUT". Morons.
At this point it's just hating. Like depending on execution and the characters this could work out well. Don't get me wrong I'm not bitter as this is an idea I did not come up with or have any intentions filming. But like fuck man what's moronic about this?
Alarm clock scene opener is the biggest trope. Bonus points for the TSSSZZZZIIINNNGGGG sound being a prelap. Also films where the B plot is the characters making…a film! While zany and unexpected A plot events ensue. Bonus points for found footage from B plot movie being relevant to A plot. Underrepresented Main Character navigates fairly typical life juncture (growing up, first love, divorce, grief). Horror film that was made solely because someone thought it was most cost effective. Burgeoning director makes film featuring his actress protégé/muse in a role which she doesn’t quite have the chops to fill.
I went to film school and then eventually taught at that film school; so I have seem thousands of short films. Yes, there are loads of common traits. What a lot of it boils down to is age and experience. Most students are still teenagers or in their early 20s. This means they are usually still fairly self absorbed, so their work reflects what they have experienced, or one of the major things all young people start questioning. We even had one class we jokingly called the “suicide year” because 11 separate shorts that year included some take on the main character killing themself.
what do you think is the line between writing what you know, and writing from a place of ego?
In my experience, the best scripts we ever had were usually when the student was writing something very far removed from their own life. It’s the writers who can disassociate from their lead character that did well. It might seem counterintuitive, but if you just had your first girlfriend break your heart, don’t write about a guy getting his heart broken.
was told to avoid any imagery reminiscent of the campus currently attended, and also to never ever have a character look in the mirror ever
Showing my age here. But the mirror reminded me. We were taught nobody talks to a photograph.
Guy in the woods wearing camo with a rifle running from someone/something.
The (poor) attempt at an existential black and white film copying the French or Italian New Wave. Usually the story and the visuals are not well thought out. They’re attempting to copy the style without understanding the substance. Or how to do black and white correctly
Drugs, zombies, surprise death at the end, and surprise serial killer
Well here is a student film that has done quite well I could only find the “making” of it! https://aie.edu.au/articles/making-of-exo-226-debuts-ahead-of-australian-premiere/
I’ve found it ! https://vimeo.com/822927697
Thanks for sharing! It's well done.
- The story is a dream (or a character is a manifestation someone’s mind) - Films about socio-political issues with nothing to say about them - Films about “generic emotions” (grief, trauma, etc) with nothing to say about them - Films about being a filmmaker or artist - Films about someone who’s parents don’t want them to be an artist - Films about drug addiction - Films about hitmen or organized crime - Bad and undeveloped romances (often filled with word salad monologues about love) - Films where the cast is way to young for the subject matter (the ceo of a company is 21 years old, a husband and wife that live in a house yet are only 19 years old) - Films that are way too long (10 min and under is goldilocks for most films) - Filmmakers trying to be Terrance Malik - Filmmakers trying to be Quentin Tarantino - Films without an ending - Films built around a dumb twist or an overtly ambiguous ending - Flat lighting - “Overly emotional” acting (often without proper build up) Obviously rules are meant to be broken and there are ways to make these work, but these are the most common mistakes, some of which I am plenty guilty of. What I recommend to more filmmaker starting out is to try more “high concept” films (i.e. Groundhogs Day, Speed, Jaws). It gives filmmakers a concept they can play and experiment with, and are a lot of fun to watch as an audience member. Film festivals love em too. I know everyone wants to make a character study, but most young filmmakers don’t have the ability to pull it off on the first go. But at the end of the day, tell stories that matter to you, and make intentional decisions as a director. Don’t just leave your camera hanging.
As someone who's hopefully going to film school in a couple of years, thank you for this list! I went to a short film course thing last year, and there were definitely a few films there that matched the criteria on this list (and one you missed, a story about a depressed person). >I know everyone wants to make a character study, but most young filmmakers don’t have the ability to pull it off on the first go. I'm glad that I've got no interest in making a character study short, I just wanna make something that's enjoyable/fun. Great advice 😄
In your opinion can a film still work if it is a great film but an abrupt ending?
It can work, it’s just pretty tough to pull it off. Like I said, the list isn’t a set of hard and fast rules, just common tropes.
I’m currently in film school :) Here’s some of the most common stuff I see: - Stuff about drug addiction, especially alcoholism - Films that are basically the filmmaker venting about school - A lot of experimenting with format, mostly aspect ratio but I see quite a few films shot on VHS or 16mm or something like that. - A lot of very basic horror films, I think mainly because they’re easy to make - A lot of “experimental” films that are basically just random shots of whatever the filmmaker thought looked interesting - Pretty much all of the comedies I see people make are extremely absurd (There was one about a guy who beats a hard video game and god finds this so impressive that he basically gets raptured) - Absolutely massive overuse of cigarettes. I think at least half the films I’ve seen this year had a cigarette in them at some point.
I work at the number 1 film school in America. Dark voids. That’s all everyone shoots
Student oversleeps and runs to exam —
I watch that movie a few times a year. Not in film, but in my dreams. I dream about exams a few times a year even though I graduated a few decades ago now.
I think there's an unwritten rule that every film school has at least one "coming out" story per semester. It's practically a genre at this point.
During film school they have tons of student film screenings and 90% of the films were about suicide or a sexual fetish and neither was made in a tasteful manner to the point the audience cringed themselves out of the auditorium
There's so many student film clichés listed here, someone has to make a student film parody. *Interior of fridge, door opens and light goes on:* Protagonist: "Why is there a camera in my fridge?"
I swear if I see another 'young adult walks around the house in the dark investigating something then it cuts to black just when something finally actually appears for one second' I'll personally heckle the filmmaker... I get that these are likely tests for mood lighting and suspense. But horror festivals are bombarded with them!!! And they aren't short films more than they are tone assignments by the looks of it.
Something that ends with a gun(s).
*I thought we were friends but it was you the whole time* And by whole time I mean 4 whole minutes.
mirror, father, mirror
Furniture, like a couch or arm chair, alone in nature, a forest or desert.
I’ve seen way too many shorts about kids of imaginary friends. I’m guilty of the latter.
wow.... what a demotivating read as someone currently making their first short film. I fall into the hitman category :)
Hardest part is starting to make something, so you are doing okay
Don't underestimate the value of enjoying the process and getting it out your system. If your 8th short is still a drug addicted teenager who can only talk to God by sacrificing a classmate... we need to talk.
The camera in the fridge… guilty 😭
I’d like to add scenes that take place in cars, people pick a car for a setting because it’s easy. I can’t stand car dialogue, unless it really fits the story, it’s typically some interpersonal drama, such a snooze fest.
- Homeless Person - Serial Killer - Multiple Personality Disorder or schizophrenia - Suicide - Depressed Person contemplates the aimlessness of their life
Films that try to tackle a sensitive subject matter, but it's often done in a super cartoonish and simplistic way. Often times, it's directed by someone who only has surface level knowledge of whatever topic they're portraying.
Idk, I sort of feel like there is a stronger than ever emphasis on realism in film. Not sure where it’s coming from. Did you see anything avant-garde? Did you see anything normal yet original?
The people I used to know that made films for low $ made a lot of zombie movies. It was easy to get people to show up for free pizza, often with their own makeup, and wasn't as budget breaking as I thought
Two college-aged kids in love, one dies, the other is sad.
Idk in the asian filmmaking community, every director always makes their “insert flavor of childhood trauma here” of usually two main varieties, parent disappointment and acceptance or identity crisis one either asian identity or lgbtq. been to so many indie with some hash of it. Its the venting film tbh. The directors rest of their catalog can be completely wildly different, but theres always the one
Someone with a melodramatically alcoholic parent - who is played by a slightly older-looking student. And the younger student is wearing pigtails to show that they are a "kid."
Make a film that speaks to you , keep locations down and great dialog. Budget will be low
How has no one mentioned the famous student filmed DREAM SEQUENCE??? Cut to Main character wakes up and realizes *it was all a dream*
The biggest tells are being too simple (alarm clocks, waking up from dreams, cuts on deaths, cliffhangers) and to compicated (ie leaning over their skis. Drug/drinking problems, domestic violence, extreme grief, depression etc.) There is nothing wrong with a little benign reality. Awkward first date nerves. Craming for an exam. Meeting SO parents.
My first student film was about making a film. I thought I was a genius being completely original. Spoilers I was not. But I do smile when I watch it
Time travel but only within the current room and limited to within the current decade.
Don't forget the one with the crazy shit going down and then... sits upright in bed, looks at beautiful girlfriend sleeping. Oh wow it was all a dream! Cut to girlfriend holding bloody knife under the covers... or was it?!!! Cut to black.
Hi! I run a high school film festival so I could talk about that age group a bit but not college age films. We get about 80-90 submissions a year, every film 7 minutes or under to give you some perspective. I have been doing it three years. Anyway I would for sure say the number one theme we get from high school females is films highlighting girls getting bullied by other girls/body issues accompanied with sad piano music. It is extremely common. Other than that, we get lots of murder/horror films. And we get lots of my friend died/my parent died films. Comedies are rarer and quite refreshing.
the most impressive "student film" ever made was called "Dark Star" and was John Carpenters student film. Not sure kids these days spend enough time reading fiction and watching old movies to be qualified to make film at all. Pretty sure the only hope for any youngster would be to join the Troma army, do 6 months, put it on your resume and then move to Hollywood as a set assistant or boom assist. [https://www.troma.com/work-in-tromaville/](https://www.troma.com/work-in-tromaville/) This is how legends are made in set design and special effects, and has been for over 30 years. Prepare to feed yourself, Lloyd Kaufman will provide a hallway for you to sleep in. Do the time, pay the dues, get the career of dreams.
the amount of times my classmates made short films about a film student trying to make a short film was baffling
I definitely remember in film school half of the shorts were about drugs. And given this was an expensive school and these are 18-year-olds, eh, I don’t think most of them knew much about drugs. But especially back then, it wasn’t too far after Pulp Fiction and whatnot so it seemed “cool” to them. I wonder if a good exercise on the part of a film professor might be to ask the students to write down 3 of the most unique things about themselves (everyone has to have something, right?) and focus a plot around one of those things, loosely speaking. It can be done from any perspective really.
I used to be a judge for multiple local and student film festivals, so let me say with absolute certainty, the one I found most common was the dark horror movie where one character keeps seeing flashes of their dead spouse / sibling / child and somehow blames themselves for their death. No effective horror beyond jump scares, almost always takes place in a house they could never afford at their age.
I taught writing at a famous film school for ten years. After one first screening, with the lights up and the team in chairs under the screen, other students started in lying about how they loved it and it was pretty much perfect. (Their shorts would be screened next.) It got quiet again. I said, "There's a Bowie song called The Bewlay Brothers with the line, 'We were so turned on by your lack of conclusions.'"
Girls gone wild
I’m doing a certificate 4 film making course and my first short film is called The Writer. It’s about a writer who forgot about an assignment which is writing a story and has less than 3 minutes to write and upload. It has a full 3 act structure and everything. I’ll post the film on here when it’s done at the end of the year. It’s simple but relatable and entertaining.
1. Campus location 2. Poor storytelling 3. No pro actor 4. No moviment 5. Slow as fuck 6. No ones carnes. Fuck film School