Brevity is the buzzword as short films are increasingly making waves with positive reviews and a good run at the box-office. More and more cinema-loving people are watching these small-budget movies and critics are greeting this move by mainstream directors with a lot of appraisal and acclaim. Yes, popular directors like Imtiaz Ali (India Tomorrow and Window Seat in Kashmir), Sujoy Ghosh (Ahalya), Anurag Kashyap (That Day After Everyday), Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury (Devi), Neeraj Pandey (Ouch) and Shirish Kunder (Kriti) have already joined the bandwagon to announce that times are certainly changing.

Adhiraj Bose’s 12-minute project Interior Café Night starring cerebral actors Naseeruddin Shah and Shernaz Patel, is another bright feather in the promising short venture cap.

In a nutshell, short films possess the power to impact the collective consciousness with subaltern issues and stories about marginalised people in a crisp, concise fashion. Armed with shoestring-budget and minimal, affordable equipment as simple as a handycam, it can work wonders, provided the narrative is meaty enough to last long. Next is to circulate the movie and make it viral to raise and build up awareness around.

Right from the film fraternity to film institutes across the country, all underscore the emergence of short pictures as the future of cinema exhibition at large. No wonder they admit these mini-scale overtures to have come into their own and out of their confined shell to entertain and thoughtfully provoke the minds of the audiences in greater capacity.

Many feel, short is the latest form of amusement for either an intellectual film addict or ordinary masses, often deduced as the lowest common denominator. It’s like a One Day or T-20 cricket match, unlike the classic era of slow and patient test tournaments. The films nicely fit into their busy lifestyles and an ‘always on the toes’ schedule.

And thanks to speedy modern-day technology and our gadget-driven existence, such short movies are easily accessible through online platforms to grab a slice of our precious time.

“I prefer downloading or quickly watching a film on my tab or on my cellphone on the go, especially when am travelling or waiting at a doctor’s clinic with my ear-plugs connected to shut out the unwanted sounds in a silent zone. If it’s a long movie, then I save and store it for later consumption. Otherwise, short-capsules comprising just a couple of minutes are always welcome to tune in to at one go,” shares college student Priti Sachdev from Jamshedpur.

At the recent launch of 14th Kalpanirjhar International Short Fiction Film Fest at the Goethe-Institut/ Max Mueller Bhavan in Kolkata which screened an impressive package of 109 entries from 29 participatory countries, National Award winning director Goutam Ghose said in a media conference that shorts can effectively convey the message within a restricted time. Hence the genre would augur well for the times ahead as we live in a period where our conversations are tighter and terser.

We communicate at a rapid rate and quite frequently through sms-es, tweets and the WhatsApp with as much less characters as possible. So shorts are true representatives of the altering, fluid times.

“A good initial exposure to the documentaries or short films definitely helps a pupil to brace his fundamental groundwork in institutional training of the filmmaking craft,” endorses Professor Shabarni Basu, from the faculty of film studies at the Institute of Mass Communication Film & Television Studies, Kolkata. “Practical coaching is very important as the art of filmmaking is more about application than basic theoretical knowledge. One must successfully perform the concept, once it’s laid out on the paper. Otherwise it loses its core essence and value,” she asserts.

From how to handle the camera, lessons on shot-designing and choreographing, screenwriting, acting, disseminating the intended idea to specific social groups on the opposite end, all this and much more are carefully taught in classes by a faculty of exponents on several film school campuses across the world.

A beginner must pursue a habit of waiting and watching with a purpose set in future. Quoting ace American screen-auteur Stanley Kubrick that cinema is a vehicle for creative self-experiment, 28-year-old film-school graduate Swarnava Chakraborty strongly recommends “apprenticeship on the sets” to absorb what one sees and hears only to get a hang of the filmmaking art.

“At least be on the floor and assist. It pays off eventually. Be a keen observer and listener to assimilate the tasks well at hand for a satisfactory live experience. I agree, filmmaking is a total team effort. But the toughest challenge hits you hard when you face problems alone and still pull them off with a meagre crew and paucity of funds. A full-length feature film would always involve an ensemble starcast and a bigger unit, while a short outing would certainly put you on a sticky wicket where it is extremely difficult to cover up the obvious flaws which often fade out in joint duties and coordinating collaborations,” he explains.

Albeit a filmmaker introduces himself as an interesting storyteller, yet he has to optimally employ the audio-visual facets to his advantage and captivate innumerable minds for hours.

An alumnus of Roopkala Kendra (Kolkata), Chakraborty appreciates the necessity of diploma films usually canned during a film study course. With titles like Shekor: The Root (22 minutes) and Selfie (21 minutes) to his credit, he has now embarked himself upon shooting a feature film called The Dream Video Parlour.

With increase in smoother and more sophisticated communication, the technical knowhow of people is also on the ascent. For instance, a cameraman nowadays keeps a string of extra shots in reserve for the editor’s benefit to comfortably snip them off on his desk. Incidentally, the well-known film precinct of SRFTI (Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute) has rightly started off a programme on art-designing.

Economic feasibility is a big booster for these “little wonders” to sustain in the market. But how does one make it profitable? Cutting across long or short format, nowadays many audio-visual stories are told in an episodic pattern.

“Web-series (website series) is undoubtedly the latest craze on the internet to spread the movie fast and earn some easy bucks on the way. It is a continuous tale to be showcased in interesting parts or installments, either on weekly or a monthly basis. This is a lucrative proposition for any starter to find a toehold in the industry,” reveals self-trained budding filmmaker Krishna Shivkumar Yadav from Mumbai, who’s currently making a relationship-oriented youth flick.

Previously, he made a unique short public service ad film with objects (nailpolish-caps) portrayed as various personified parts in the film called Kuch Kahena Hai and another short non-fiction, The Dilemma of Ambabarva (Tiger Reserve Area).

The good news is that right now, a dozen web-series by a string of Indian filmmakers is stealing the show. A web-series wins mass publicity over time and the more views it registers online, the more money flows into its maker’s cash-box, who’s paid by the Youtube or other movie uploading sites.

“If there is a separate producer behind, then he or she gets the lion-chunk, and shares a fat percentage of the income with the respective director. Also different brands place ads during the movie’s entire screen-time for their products’ promotion and the producer/helmer can earn an extra moolah from there too!” he concludes.