Northern Alliance - BFI

“Directors tend to like to have some familiar faces around them as they move from
film to film. Short films allow those collaborations and friendships to deepen and
prove themselves before they are tested by the challenges of feature film-making.
That was certainly the case with me.”
Meadows still alternates between short and feature length formats: Somers Town,
which gathered another four BIFA nominations, was originally conceived as a nine or
ten-minute short film. “The division between feature and short films is driven as
much by commercial as creative considerations. Obviously feature filmmaking is more
lucrative, but short films can be rewarding in other ways and you can explore ideas in
shorts that sometimes end up as features. I definitely wouldn‟t like to think that I‟ve
made my last short.” Meadows hopes to be shooting a feature length version of
King of the Gypsies in the near future.
Six Shooter
Eighteen months of marketing efforts yielded an Oscar® and television sales.
An interview with Mia Bays, producer of Six Shooter.
Six Shooter is a black and bloody Irish comedy. It won the US Academy Award® for
Best Live Action Short in 2006 to round out a string of other nominations and
awards (BAFTAs, BIFAs, Cork and Raindance). It was written and directed by Martin
McDonagh, who until then was an acclaimed playwright and subsequently went on
to write and direct the feature film In Bruges (2008). The experienced cast includes
Brendan Gleason as a recently widowed man who meets an oddly behaved youth,
Rúaidhrí Conroy, on a train bound for Dublin.
“Six Shooter was written by an established writer, made for £125,000 and featured a
well-known cast. Even then it took 18 months of hard work to get it visible; things
were not made easier by the fact that, at 27 minutes, the film was too long for most
short film programmes.
“We positioned the film more as a feature film than a short, and got a leading sales
agent, The Works, on board before the film was awarded the Academy Award®. The
film was, for example, later sold to Sundance Channel for a healthy five figure sum.
So there can definitely be some economic value in shorts, but I would say any money
made from shorts is a bonus, not the focus of short film activities.
“I knew very little about the shorts market place when the process started, but I did a
lot of research and put a lot of work in, and it paid off. Of course, my background in
features marketing helped, but the things one needs to do are actually quite simple,
it‟s much more about persistence and dedication than anything else.”
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