Short films are often hosted on YouTube. As part of the research into our project, I searched for the most viewed short films. Each are rated and 'liked/disliked' as part of YouTube's setup so I have took note of these as I tried to find examples of the most popular shorts. Also I have looked into the typical conventions used and whether any of them share similar conventions.
1. Signs
Views: 5,713,486
Likes / Dislikes: 35,173 / 436
Conventions:
1. Little Dialogue
2. Less than 15 minutes in length
3. Romance-themed
4. Everyday life
5. Young Adult / Middle-aged Characters
2. What's Virgin Mean?
Views: 686,080
Likes / Dislikes: 4732 / 152
Conventions:
1. Less than 5 minutes in length
2. Everyday life situations
3. Average/everyday characters
4. Twist in the plot
5. Comedic features
3. Fallen Art
Views: 1,361,412
Likes / Dislikes: 8462 / 427
Conventions:
1. No Dialogue
2. Animated
3. Under 10 minutes in length
4. Eccentric/insane characters
5. Twist/strange plot
Overall, I have discovered that these short films share many conventions that we should definitely keep in mind whilst producing our own short, since our short film has to be similar to others and recognisable as a short film.
Here are some of the main conventions that these films share and that we should keep in mind.
Shared Conventions:
1. Little Dialogue
2. Under 10 minutes in length
3. Twist in the plot
4. Everyday Characters
