The shortcut route
The short film industry is booming now, with many youngsters hoping to make a mark. But the challenge has been to reach the right audience at the right time. Identifying this difficulty, M Selvam, along with P Maharajan, has founded Shortfundly, which hopes to bridge this gap and nurture filmmaking talent.
Shortfundly aims to provide a platform for short filmmakers to spot suitable artistes and vice-versa, and stay connected. “Having worked with online video advertising, a bunch of my friends wanted me to promote their short films to reach the audience. That prompted me to create this space,” says Selvam, “Shortfundly can be the start for any short filmmaker who nurses dreams of getting his work to the big screen some day.”
The Shortfundly app serves a twin purpose — apart from pushing notifications, where the user gets immediate updates, it enables the functioning of screen casting on smart TV. The app also provides a chatbox that answers questions to the users, besides helping them find the right short film that they want to watch, with the least user text search. One can even browse for preferred short filmmakers and further increase their association. Shortfundly, which has more than 20,000 short films to choose from, also hopes to act as the ‘LinkedIn’ for budding short filmmakers.
The company constantly looks out for information of short film festivals in India and encourages artistes to register for such forums. The Shortfundly team subsequently gets connected with the partners of such events, to obtain information, such as registration fee, closing dates and categories, which is subsequently sent to directors and producers. Once the information is collected, Shortfundly sends an email campaign to its users to bring to light the opportunities available for them. “As of now, we are helping out for short film festivals in India only, but are looking at ways to get connected with festivals happening across the globe,” adds Selvam.
The application also seeks to provide details about released short films to help its makers analyse response to the movie and determine elements that will help in improvement.
For the future, Shortfundly is exploring the possibility of setting up an exclusive audition platform. “There are many people who miss out on opportunities since they aren’t aware of auditions,” he says, “We’re looking at a feature that will solve this challenge.”
Trick or treat
Trick films were short silent films designed to feature innovative special effects. The genre was developed by French director Georges Melies, whose films includeA NightmareandThe Bewitched Inn.