FADE IN
Bones is a microshort intentionally capped at a 3-minute runtime. This is a project I worked on with Ed at SubliminalEd Films as part of a larger conversation within a filmmaker’s group we both belong to.
FLASHBACK TO
I was part of the SubliminalEd Films team for the Summer 48hr Film Project that took place in July 2023. While the team was being built and we were preparing for an insane weekend of filmmaking, there was a larger conversation about submitting to film festivals and short film runtime. This was happening because a few of us just had our films (Blue was included) screened at the Blue Mouse Theater in Tacoma. We spoke about the importance of runtime for festival inclusion because Genre (a film by Nicky Smits) was having issues being included in festivals due to how long it was. I highly suggest watching Genre because it is amazing, but it does run over the pretty standard 10 minutes.
Anyway, long story longer, we were speaking with some people who run festivals and they told us that there is a specific need for microshorts–films that hit the 3 minute mark for runtime. This is why we decided to make Bones. We shot it in a long single day on the last weekend of August and then had all of September for post-production because our deadline for the first festival the director wanted to submit it to was October 1.
JUMP TO
Bones was in at three festivals and, through networking, was requested at an additional festival in Ohio. Since the director was travelling and would have very limited time to create the DCP and promotional materials, I decided to make a video for him.
The largest issue I encountered was I couldn’t approach this video like a trailer since the 3 minute runtime (including credits) of Bones didn’t give me enough space to do a standard trailer without stepping all over the story. Instead, I decided to create a super short social media marketing promo which wouldn’t (hopefully) give away the story.
I’m proud of the end result because I went with presenting a theme rather than showing a ton of clips from the film itself. Also, the promo is 14 seconds long, which is 12.5% of the length of the entire film, so I really pushed the “less is more” approach. Apparently the theater liked it because they are using my promo in their Facebook marketing of Bones.
Mission accomplished. Bones plays this weekend in Ohio in a slot immediately before Shaun of the Dead, and I’m very proud to have been on the team creating it.