Due to the development of Vimeo in 2004 and You Tube in 2005, video hosting has germinated the internet, allowing aspiring directors to exhibit their work for free. The “bite-sizeness” of short subjects makes them idealistic for the internet as people at work, school, on their mobile phones or at home can divulge into a short piece of narrative to escape society for a short period of time.
The internet is also a great platform for directors wanting to reach new audiences. The message can be delivered to different cultures, generating new reactions and understandings of the short. This is far more exiting and intriguing to short film directors as some villages on islands with populations of a few hundred may not have access to the cinema, but most certainly have access to the internet.
Even top Hollywood directors are taking a shine to this new advancement in technology. Spike Jonze - director of “Where the Wild Things Are” recently launched his latest short film “I’m Here” on a purpose built website. This illustrates that even accredited directors believe this platform is the way forward in the short film industry, and more effective as metaphorically forcing cinema-goers to pay to see a film they might not enjoy. The argument is that short films should be about delivering a message, whether it is political are completely and utterly stupid, directors should not demand money from people to view a piece that is directly from their point of view.
The most popular video-hosting platforms are YouTube and Vimeo. Youtube receives over 200,000,000 viewers a day, so the possibility that someone somewhere will find your short film in the midst of all the video is very likely. Consequently, this makes it easier for a amateur director or actor to get noticed, for free. With 16,000 videos uploaded daily Vimeo also proves to be one of the top video hosting sites. Many directors prefer Vimeo as it has less adverts (come on, YouTube is owned by money mad Google now) and the HD videos tend to load quicker (also why us lovely BRIT school students use it).
One video that went viral-crazy in 2006 was “Kiwi!”. Created by an animation student it was simply uploaded to so that the creator could easily share it with family and friends by simply copying and pasting the link. Again, this illustrates how easy it is for directors to get spotted and accredited through the internet. Since then it has nearly 28,000,000 views on YouTube, so here is the link to it now:
Amazon Askville. http://askville.amazon.com/people-visit-site-youtube-day/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=24481260. Last accessed 4th October 2010.
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