Why Every Filmmaker Should Make Short Films [Podcast]
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Ever feel like you can't start your movie because you don't have the budget, the cast, or the connections? This one's for you. John and Danny sit down with new lighting (thanks, Tom) and a lot of enthusiasm to trace the real, scrappy origin stories behind some of your favorite films - how a five-minute scene got Whiplash into Sundance, how Saw built a franchise out of one tense proof-of-concept, and how Napoleon Dynamite started life as a short called Peluca before producers begged to fund the feature sight unseen.
Then things get even more hopeful: a teenager's senior-year short film catches Darren Aronofsky's eye, a film critic makes the leap from reviewing movies to directing one, and a group of friends with a camcorder accidentally invent an entire music genre. The through-line? Nobody was waiting for permission. They just made something.
So if you've got a phone, an idea, and a little bit of nerve, this episode is your excuse to stop waiting and go make it.
Full Transcript: Kinolime Podcast Episode 56: Why Every Filmmaker Should Make Short Films
Participants
John Schramm - Head of Development, Kinolime
Danny Murray - Creative Executive, Kinolime
John: Welcome, everyone, to the Kinolime Show. I always feel like one of these days we're going to actually get a proper name for the show. And I don't know if you've noticed, but we have new lighting, thanks to Tom. He changed things up a bit, wanted to add some dramatic flair, I guess. Tom, thank you so much. It feels atmospheric today.
Danny: You know, if we get a few more subscribers, I think what I'd love is an entire soundstage — like one of these brand-new ones out in New Jersey.
John: Oh my gosh, dude, incredible. We'll do a whole episode on that, because I'm really excited about productions coming to the Northeast — specifically in our backyard here.
Danny: Jersey's that way.
John: Super stoked you're here today, Danny, as always.
Danny: You have a choice.
John: I have no choice. Let's talk about films that started as shorts and became movies. I know you did some research — there are the obvious ones, but let's really dig in. Let's give everyone some hope that their short doesn't have to just stay a short. It can become something more.
Danny: Yeah, I was looking into this — what's the perfect example of using a short to propel yourself into a feature? For the competition we're doing, the most obvious one that came to mind was Whiplash.
The Whiplash Model
Danny: If anyone hasn't seen the Whiplash short, go watch it — it's incredible. As a short, it's fascinating because it's essentially just the most dramatic scene from the film. It's maybe five minutes of J.K. Simmons drilling the drummer.
John: (imitating the scene) One, two, three, four. Was I rushing, or was I dragging?
Danny: What ended up happening was Chazelle had a script — he was ghostwriting around Hollywood, and nobody believed a first-time director had the vision to command a film of that magnitude. He couldn't get funding, so he took a scene directly from the feature, shot it with J.K. Simmons, and took it to Sundance. He almost instantly got his financing.
Something really fascinating: once he'd proven himself with the short, they only had Miles Teller for about 18 days, and they needed to get the feature ready for Sundance the following year. So they ran 18-hour production days.
John: I kind of love that. I don't know — is that abusive to the cast and crew? But for that film, it's perfect, if everyone's up for it. I love long working days. They made the movie in 18 days?
Danny: Eighteen days, 18-hour days. There's the formula.
John: It's insane.
Danny: That's the fairy-tale version, though — disclaimer, they already had J.K. Simmons attached, so there was a recognizable face involved.
John: Wasn't the Miles Teller character — wasn't he a quarterback in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, or something? A known actor, from what I remember.
Danny: Right, so credit to them — they got it off the ground, and it became one of the best films around. But if you don't have a name actor and you want your movie to launch a franchise, follow the Saw blueprint.
The Saw Blueprint
Danny: Saw worked the same way — same model as Whiplash, except without big-name actors. They captured the unique tone of the story that eventually propelled it into a massive franchise. The premise — being trapped, having to solve a clue to survive — was brilliant on its own, even at short-film scale. James Wan shot a scene from the screenplay he was trying to get made, and that was enough.
John: And the rest is history. I don't even know how many Saw films there are now.
Danny: Too many.
John: Too many — that's how you know a franchise has made it. And it launched James Wan, who's now one of the biggest names in the business.
Danny: He's Australian, by the way.
John: I didn't know that. That's so cool.
Danny: We're not done talking about Australians — we'll get back to them shortly.
Comedy Shorts: Napoleon Dynamite
John: So we've got two models of short-to-feature that both pulled a scene straight from the eventual movie to convey the tone — not really full short films in the traditional sense, with a beginning, middle, and end. But one that is a proper short film and became a huge hit: one of my personal favorite comedies, Napoleon Dynamite.
Danny: If you don't have a whole feature under your belt but want to make a captivating short, watch the short it came from — Peluca.
John: (in character) "Well, guys, I gotta go to an FFA meeting right now. We have a competition in Milan next week, and we're taste-testing whole milk. What an excellent time with you guys today."
Danny: I forget the character's name in it, but it's the same actor, same director — he just goes by a different name in the short. You watch it, and the character is so engrossing and ridiculous that when they screened it at a festival, every comedy producer went up to them afterward and basically said, "I don't care if you don't have a feature script — go make it, and here's the money, because this is going to be killer."
John: I love, love, love that movie. So if you have an amazing character, lean into it — make it as big, engrossing, and bombastic as possible, especially in comedy. You might catch the attention of some producers.
Danny: And worth noting — Whiplash, Saw, and Napoleon Dynamite were all filmed around the 2000s, maybe Whiplash a little later. Times have changed a lot since then.
The YouTube Pipeline
John: With the evolution of platforms — YouTube, Vimeo, all the different outlets for getting shorts out there — let's talk about YouTube success stories and viral videos that launched filmmakers. I know you have some interesting insight there.
Danny: It's fascinating — I was about five when YouTube launched, so I've basically grown up alongside its entire evolution. Something interesting in the last few years is that some of the YouTubers we all grew up watching are now making the jump to features. From running film accounts and making shorts all over YouTube, they've become exactly what distributors and producers are looking for: even without name cast attached, you've got a built-in audience, a built-in P&A campaign, and a proven track record — a body of work that shows what you can do.
A good current example, though not exactly a short filmmaker: Shelby Oaks is in theaters now from Chris Stuckman, one of the biggest film critics on YouTube. People are going to see it partly to critique the critic.
John: I love that. Honestly, I'd do it too. Roger Ebert talked about the whole "those who can't do, teach" idea — he even tried making a movie himself, and it wasn't great — but I love that a film critic could actually pull it off. You could trace this back to French New Wave, really — my favorite film movement ever. It started because a group of critics at Cahiers du Cinéma in France got so frustrated with the films they were seeing that they created an entirely new genre of filmmaking to satisfy what they wanted to see.
Danny: So Stuckman's not exactly French New Wave —
John: No, but he made a good movie, apparently. Haven't seen it yet, but reviews are solid.
Nothing Except Everything, and Marcel the Shell
Danny: There's also — if you're a new filmmaker, a great example is this kid, Wesley Wang. He made a short film last year that went viral, called Nothing Except Everything. It's a coming-of-age story he made during his senior year of high school, about all the feelings you have when you turn that corner in your life. It really satisfies its title — it just feels like life. Darren Aronofsky watched it, bought the rights, and told him, "Kid, let's make this into a feature."
John: Take a swing. Take a big risk. You don't need a huge distribution model or producers — just get it out there. People are looking for real pieces of filmmaking. I hate to use the word "content" — they're looking for things that are actually made.
One of my favorite animated films of the last ten years, Marcel the Shell, started as a series of four-minute shorts on YouTube about a tiny shell who was alive and walking around — stop-motion. Someone loved it enough to greenlight it into a full feature, and it became something special.
Yacht Rock: Creating a Genre from Scratch
John: There's one more YouTube thing I want to bring up that I don't think you know about — the Yacht Rock YouTube series that came out in the late 2000s. Someone introduced it to me in the early 2010s. It traced the evolution and origins of Yacht Rock — a term these filmmakers actually coined themselves. Shot in a camcorder style, with friends narrating the origins of songs by Michael McDonald, the Doobie Brothers, Kenny Loggins, and other yacht rock greats, it became a viral series that literally created a genre. There was no term "yacht rock" before they made it.
Danny: I love that — the power of putting shorts out into the world and seeing what happens. They even made a documentary about it last year on HBO Max, and it was great.
John: Go listen to some yacht rock — it puts you in the best mood ever.
Danny: I'll try to get some yacht rock in my ears when I've got no other options.
John: No, dude, I'm making you a playlist and sending it over. We'll talk about it. But that's the power of short films — you can do this yourself. Get some friends, get your community, go make something. It doesn't need to be a fully fleshed-out narrative — it could be a scene, a moment, a feeling. You have no excuse anymore. You've got a phone, the best technology at your fingertips, and the ability to distribute it online instantly — and it's not just YouTube anymore. There are so many outlets to get your work seen.
Danny: My closing point too — what you always hear from aspiring filmmakers is "I don't have the money, I don't have this, I need that." But pretty much every independent producer wants to see what you can do on your own first. No one's going to hand you money if you haven't proven you can make something on zero budget, or shown the initiative to make a film on your own.
Closing Thoughts
John: Go out and make something. If it's bad, make something else. It's less about the finished product —
Danny: I do think they want to see: can you wrangle people together? Can you get something done and finished? I see this all the time with writers — they start a screenplay and never finish it. Give me a writer who finishes something, and we can work with their talent, as opposed to someone who's a genius but never finishes.
John: A hundred percent. Give me those people all day long. You can work with that — the muscle, the art, the talent evolves over time.
Danny: Make something with a clear, established voice. Both of us read for competitions, screen for festivals — what catches your eye isn't really about making something masterfully, or having the best color grade. It's about perspective. Do you have an amazing tone? Do you have a voice? Can you just go out and do it?
John: So go out and do it — make the next Napoleon Dynamite, the next Boogie Nights story. I would love that.
If there are any shorts-to-feature stories we missed, let us know in the comments or shoot us an email. We want to hear from you. But more importantly — go out and make something.
Danny: Maybe we should do a little contest — give the Kinolimers a week to make a film and offer some kind of prize.
John: That's a cool idea. I'll think it through, but we'll come back with something fun.
Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you soon. If you got something out of today's episode, please share it with your filmmaking and screenwriting community, and hit subscribe — it genuinely helps us keep making these. We need it, and we'll see you in the next one.
