Short films can be made by almost anyone

The argument

The barrier to making a film has always been money, and short films remove most of it. Because of their low budget and typically short shooting time, short films can be shot by nearly anybody: there is no crew to retain over months, no location to hold for weeks, and no financing to raise before a frame is exposed. A variety of cameras can be used too, including cell-phones, so even the equipment is not a threshold. The opportunities are endless in the straightforward sense that nothing bars entry. This is why the form is where filmmakers begin. The majority of college students and young filmmakers make short films when they are starting out — not as an apprenticeship imposed on them, but because it is what can actually be made with what they have. One source, in an article specifically for students, put the economics plainly: "You gotta admit it's pretty tricky to film an award winning masterpiece when you're still in college and can barely afford to buy yourself dinner, let alone manage a budget for a movie". That quotation sums it up perfectly. The obstacle is not talent or ambition but capital, and the short film is the one form that does not demand any. The consequence matters for audiences and not only for makers. If broke college students can express themselves through shorts, anyone can — which means short films are where voices appear that the feature industry, with its financing requirements and its gatekeepers, would never have heard from at all. That's why time should be taken to support them. Watching short films is not charity extended to beginners; it is access to work by people who have not yet been filtered out by who can afford to make a feature.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Not everyone can make short films, however. Some people don't have access to any form of camera, and some have no way to share their works. How are they to get their work out to people if they don't know about festivals, if they don't know anyone who will share their work for them?

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Low budgets and phone cameras lower the barrier to shooting. They do not lower the barrier to making something an audience would want to watch, which still takes time, skill and usually collaborators. [Rejecting P2] 'Nearly anyone' overstates it. Equipment, editing tools and above all a route to an audience are unevenly distributed, and someone who has no way of reaching a festival or a platform has not really been given the opportunity the premise describes. [Rejecting P3] Accessibility is a reason to value a medium, not a reason a particular work rewards attention. The premise argues for the democratic merit of the form and the conclusion is about how viewers should spend their time. [Rejecting C] The premises are entirely about ease of production, and the conclusion is about whether the results are worth watching. If anything, the ease the argument celebrates implies wide variation in quality, which is a reason for selectivity rather than blanket support.