Why Every Filmmaker Should Make Short Films | Kinolime Podcast Ep 56
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Hosted byDanny Murray, John Schramm
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Show Notes
The success of short films like Whiplash, Saw, Napoleon Dynamite, and Marcel the Shell has sparked a bigger question: Can a short film be your ticket to Hollywood?
In this episode of the Kinolime Podcast, John and Danny break down how filmmakers have used short films, individual scenes, and even YouTube videos to turn small ideas into major feature films and franchises.
From Whiplash and Saw to Napoleon Dynamite, Marcel the Shell, and viral YouTube shorts, the conversation explores how filmmakers can use short-form storytelling to prove their vision, build an audience, and get their work in front of producers and studios.
But you don't need a massive budget, famous actors, or Hollywood connections to get started. So what do producers actually want to see from new filmmakers? Is finishing something more important than making something perfect? And can a phone and a good idea really be enough to launch a filmmaking career?
The answer might be simpler than you think:
Go make something.
Because sometimes, your short film isn't just a short film. It could be the proof of concept that gets your feature made.
Speaking of proof of concept: In 2025, 2,000+ scripts were submitted to our own Frame by Frame Shorts Competition. The community voted, and Eduard Mitra won a $7,500 production grant to make PUSHING DAISY.
Submissions for the 2026 competition just closed, our team is reading every script now, and the Top 26 gets announced and voting begins September 7.
Full Transcript
[00:00]
Again, if you're just kind of like a new filmmaker, like, I think a great example is,
[00:06]
there's this kid Wesley Wang. He made this short film last year. It went viral. It's called
[00:12]
Nothing Except Everything. And it's just like this coming of age story, this kid made during
Read Full TranscriptCollapse Transcript
[00:18]
a senior high school about kind of like all the feelings you have as like you turned that corner
[00:25]
in your life. Sure. And it satisfies the title. It kind of just feels like life. And
[00:32]
Darren Arnowski watched it. And he, you know, bought the rights to it. And he said, kid, let's make
[00:38]
this into a feature. All right. Welcome everyone to the Keenalime Show. I always feel like,
[00:46]
again, we're going to get a name one of these days. We're going to get a name show. And I don't
[00:50]
know if you've noticed, but we have new lighting. Thanks, Tom. He changed it up a bit. I guess he
[00:55]
wanted to add some dramatic flair. I don't know, but Tom, thank you so much for changing up. It
[01:00]
feels atmospheric today. Yeah. You know, if we get a few more subscribers, I think what I would
[01:06]
love is we're just going to have an entire sound stage. Like, you know, these like brand new,
[01:11]
New Jersey soundstage. Oh my god, dude. We're going to put it right up all. Yeah. We'll do a whole
[01:15]
episode of that because I'm really excited about the productions coming to the Northeast,
[01:19]
specifically in our backyard here, Jersey's that way. But super stoked, Danny. Thank you for
[01:25]
joining today. It's always not the give a choice. I've noticed. Yeah. Let's talk about the films
[01:29]
that were shorts that became movies that we, you know, can talk about today. So I know you did
[01:34]
some research. There's the obvious ones. But let's like talk shorts to feet. Let's give everybody
[01:40]
some hope that their shorts don't just have to stay there. They can actually become some.
[01:44]
Yeah, I think I was looking into this like what is, you know, for the competition we're doing.
[01:50]
The perfect kind of example of how you can use a short to kind of propel yourself into a feature.
[01:56]
And, you know, the most obvious one that came to mind for me was Whiplash. Yeah.
[02:03]
Anyone has not seen that short, please go see it. It's incredible. As a short, it's really fascinating
[02:08]
because it's essentially you just plucked the most dramatic scene from the film. Yeah. And it's like
[02:15]
what, five minutes of just that scene of JK Simmons smacking Miles Teller, one, two, three, four.
[02:21]
But not Miles. It's the other actor. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.
[02:27]
Two, three, four. Was I rushing or was I dragging? What essentially ended up happening was, you know,
[02:33]
Shazal has a script. He's ghost writing in Hollywood. People don't really believe that this like first
[02:38]
time director has a vision to like command a film of this magnitude. He can't get funding.
[02:45]
Takes a scene directly from, you know, the feature shoots at with JK Simmons, takes it to Sundance,
[02:53]
and almost instantaneously gets his money. And they actually ended up something really fascinating
[02:58]
about it. Once, you know, he had kind of proved himself with this short, they only had Miles Teller
[03:04]
for like 18 days and they needed to get the film to Sundance the following year. Oh wow. So they had
[03:09]
18 hour production days on the feature. I kind of love that. I know it's, I don't know. I mean,
[03:14]
is that abusive to the cast of crew? But like, if they're into it, that's, if they're, everyone's up
[03:20]
for it, love that. I love long working days because like, what, you know, well, yeah, they did a movie
[03:25]
in 18, was it 18 days? I think it was 18 days. 18 hour 18 days. There's the formula. It's insane.
[03:31]
So that's obviously the, the fairy tale version. But again, disclaimer, they did have JK Simmons
[03:38]
in the role already. So you had a recognizable face in there. They, dude, the, who was the drummer,
[03:45]
the Miles Teller character, I believe he was, like, he was a quarterback, I think, in Perks of
[03:50]
Edon Wallflower reason, but kind of known actor from what I remember. But like, so that's kudos to
[03:55]
them. They got it off the ground. And obviously it's one of the best films. But if you don't have
[04:01]
a name actor and you want to get your movie into a franchise, dude, follow the blueprint for saw.
[04:21]
Your own. It was a scene out of the film, the screenplay that they had, James Wan was trying to get
[04:26]
it off the ground and shot a scene and then boom, I mean, you can elaborate more on that. Yeah, essentially,
[04:33]
it's the same kind of whiplash model, model, except like if you don't have big actors, like, what,
[04:40]
what do they do? They capture the kind of unique tone from the story that, you know, propelled it into
[04:47]
a massive franchise. And the premise, I'm like, what is saw, like, you know, the whole thing about
[04:51]
being trapped with a, you got to undo a clue in order to get out alive. I mean, it was brilliant.
[04:55]
And obviously the rest is history. I don't know how many saws there are now, but I lost count. Too
[04:59]
many. Too many. Yeah. That's how you know, you've done a franchise well and there's way too many.
[05:04]
And it launched James Wan who's like one of the biggest names in the biz. Yeah. And I didn't even
[05:08]
know who's Australian. That's so cool. I know, you know, we're not done talking about Australians.
[05:13]
Yeah. We're gonna get back to them shortly. So we have the two models of making a short film that
[05:19]
both use scenes from their movie version that they wanted in order to convey, like, like, this is what
[05:26]
it's a feel. So it's not really considered short film, it's not like beginning, middle, and end.
[05:29]
The scene does, but it's not like a proper short film. Yeah. But one that is a proper short film. Yeah.
[05:34]
That became a huge hit. One of my personal favorite comedies. Yeah. The Pauline Dynamite.
[05:48]
If you don't have a, you know, entire feature under your belt, but you want to make a really
[05:53]
captivating short film watch, it's called Paluka. Well guys, I got to go to an FFA meeting right now.
[05:59]
We have a competition. Malad next week and we're taste testing whole milk.
[06:05]
I had an excellent time with you guys today. See ya. I forget the like, an
[06:12]
important Dynamite's name in it, but it's the same actor, same director. He goes by a different name
[06:18]
in the film, but you watch it and it's just the character is so ingrusting and ridiculous.
[06:25]
Yeah. It's so much that when they recorded this short, and I forget what festival they screened it at,
[06:33]
but essentially every producer went up to them, every comedy producer was like, look,
[06:38]
I don't care if you don't have a feature script for this, go make it and you have money because
[06:42]
this is going to be killer. I love, love, love that movie. Yeah. So like, so much. If,
[06:48]
if you just have like an amazing character lean into it, make it as especially in comedy.
[06:54]
It's kind of big and engrossing and bombastic as you possibly can.
[07:00]
And yeah, you might garner the attraction of some producers. And we recognize that, you know,
[07:06]
Whitbler saw an appointment in my, we're like in the 2000s. I think being filmed maybe
[07:11]
Whitbler's a little bit later. I don't know when that film was filmed, but it was like a year before.
[07:15]
Yeah. So times have changed, right? With the evolution of, you know,
[07:21]
the different outlets they have now, YouTube, Vimeo, all the different, you know, shorts,
[07:26]
ways to get your shorts out there. Well, sometimes some like YouTube success of shorts or viral videos
[07:33]
that have gone to the launch filmmakers. I know you have some interesting insight into that.
[07:39]
Yeah. It is fascinating where, you know, I was what five when YouTube came out, right? So like,
[07:46]
I've pretty much grown up with, you know, as long as, you know, I've had a computer and I've
[07:51]
access to the internet. I've seen the entire evolution of YouTube. And something fascinating,
[07:56]
I've seen the last few years is some of these YouTubers that we kind of all grew up with
[08:02]
are now kind of making their fore-end features because from being film accounts and making short
[08:07]
films all over YouTube, it's kind of what distributors and producers are looking for, which is like
[08:13]
without potentially even having keycast attached, like you have a built-in audience,
[08:17]
you have a built-in PNA campaign, and you have built-in film experience and like a litany of,
[08:24]
you know, proof of concepts at your disposal. Give the audience something to go watch.
[08:29]
Yeah. What are some of the successful ones that became from YouTube?
[08:32]
So like, you know, right now a good example is you can go and he's not a short filmmaker on YouTube,
[08:39]
but like you can go on theaters and see Shelby Oaks and like that film already made it to me.
[08:44]
It's stuck man, right? Chris stuck man? Yeah, the biggest film critic on YouTube.
[08:47]
That's right. Yeah. He just made a film and people are going to see it to like
[08:52]
criticize his. Critic that knows like a movie. I love that. I'd actually do it. I mean,
[08:57]
Roger Ebert talked about how those who, I think he said those who can't teach or why he's a film
[09:02]
critic is because I can't make, he tried to make a movie himself too and it was terrible,
[09:05]
but I love that a film critic could actually do it. And then you could even go back to,
[09:08]
you know, like most of my favorite film movement ever is French New Wave, which is essentially
[09:14]
a whole bunch of film critics from like Cauchyre's, Doos, cinema, and France got so annoyed with
[09:19]
the French films they were seeing that they essentially just created their entire new genre of
[09:24]
filmmaking to kind of satisfy what they were looking for. So you got to.
[09:29]
So you got to stop. Chris Duckman is not French watcher foe? No. But he made a good movie apparently.
[09:33]
Didn't see it. Yeah. Reviews are pretty good. So we got the Stockman. Yeah.
[09:37]
Duck. Doing his thing. What else there was like back room. There's a lot. So like,
[09:42]
again, if you're just kind of like a new filmmaker, like I think a great example is there's this
[09:49]
kid Wesley Wang. He made this short film last year. It went viral. It's called Nothing Except Everything.
[09:57]
And it's just like this coming of age story, this kid made during his senior high school,
[10:03]
about kind of like all the feelings you have as like you turned that corner in your life. Sure.
[10:10]
And it satisfies the title. It kind of just feels like life. And Darren Arnowski watched it.
[10:17]
And he, you know, bought the rights to it. And he said, kid, let's make this into a feature.
[10:23]
So like, you know, take a swing. Take a big risk. And if you don't need a big distribution
[10:29]
model, you don't need producers. Yeah. Yeah.
[10:31]
Looking for great film, piece of filmmaking. I hate to use word content. They're looking for
[10:37]
stuff that's made. And one of my favorite animated films the last 10 years, Marcel the Shell,
[10:42]
was a YouTube. I think there was a series of four minute shorts about this, you know,
[10:46]
Shell, you know, that was alive and walking around. It was a claim age. I can't remember. But
[10:51]
I came a movie like from based off the YouTube shorts. Someone loved it enough to greenline it
[10:57]
into a feature film, which became awesome. So that's a YouTube side of thing. But there's also one
[11:02]
YouTube thing I want to bring up that I don't think you know about. But like I don't have anyone
[11:06]
to see the yacht rock YouTube series. I came out, I don't know, like late 2000s. Someone
[11:11]
introduced to me like the early 2010s. And it was like the evolution of like yacht rock, which
[11:16]
they coined the term yacht rock. They made it up. These these filmmakers. They like had the
[11:21]
camcorder style. And they were having their friends talk about the evolution or the, you know,
[11:26]
origins of these certain, you know, Michael McDonald songs, you know, like like, like,
[11:32]
whatever. I think that's a dooby brothers. But Kenny Loggins, all the great yacht rock, you know,
[11:37]
bands and musicians and became a viral series on YouTube, which created a yacht rock genre.
[11:44]
There was no term yacht rock before they made this. And I just think like there's the power again
[11:48]
of creating some shorts, getting it out there in the world and like letting see like what happens.
[11:53]
And then they made a documentary last year on HBO Max about like the yacht rock. And it was
[11:57]
awesome. Like I love that. I mean, dude, go listen to some yacht rock. It puts you in the best mood ever.
[12:03]
I think I think I'll try to get some yacht rock in my ears like when I'm in a really like when
[12:10]
I've no other options. No, I'm gonna send you. I'm gonna create a surprise playlist. I'm gonna
[12:15]
send it to you and we'll talk about it. But those are the power of short films. You can do this
[12:20]
yourself. You can go out, get some friends, get your community, go make something. It doesn't have
[12:24]
to be a flushed out narrative as like a short film. It could be a scene. It could be a moment.
[12:29]
It could be a feeling. Just now you have no excuse. You got a cell phone. You have the best technology
[12:35]
at your fingertips. The ability to distribute it online. And that's not just YouTube anymore. There's
[12:40]
so many outlets to get your stuff seen. Yeah. And also, I mean, I guess my closing point too is
[12:45]
what you always hear from like aspiring filmmakers is they're like, well, I don't have the money.
[12:50]
I don't have this. I need that. Pretty much all independent producers are looking to see
[12:57]
what you can do on your own. No one is going to give you money. If you haven't proved you could
[13:03]
make zero budget movies or you have the initiative to just make a film on your own,
[13:10]
yeah, go out, make something. If you make something bad, make something else.
[13:16]
I think it's less about the finished product. I do think they want to see. Can you wrangle people
[13:21]
together? Can you get something down and finished? I see this all the time with writers. They
[13:26]
start a screenplay and they never finish it. I give me a writer that will finish something.
[13:32]
And we can work with their talent as opposed to someone who's like, a genius, but like,
[13:36]
doesn't finish the screenplay 100%. Give me those that will do it all day long. I think you
[13:41]
can work with that and your muscle, your art, your talent can evolve. Yeah, make something and
[13:47]
make it with a clear, established voice. Both of us, we read for competitions, we screen
[13:55]
for festivals. And what catches your eyes is just like, it's less so the ability to make something
[14:01]
masterfully or have the best color grader. What is about as just perspective? Do you have
[14:08]
an amazing tone? Do you have a voice? And can you just go out and do it? So go out and do it and
[14:15]
make the next Napoleon Dynamite. I love that. Dirk Diggler started. So hit us up. If there's any
[14:23]
shorts that we miss that went to a feature film, let us know. Hit us up in the comments,
[14:27]
email us, whatever one here from y'all. But go more importantly, go out and make something.
[14:31]
You know, maybe we should do like a little contest where like we do a week for someone.
[14:35]
That's a cool idea. We'll get like the keynote liners. We're going to give them a week.
[14:38]
I'm going to think this through, but we're going to come back out with something cool.
[14:41]
Something cool. We'll offer some prize where they make a film in a week. I don't know.
[14:45]
Some people making stuff. Let's go. Yeah, go make some stuff. Thanks for tuning in. And we'll see you
[14:50]
soon. If you got something out of today's podcast, please share it with your full making and
[14:54]
screen running community and hit subscribe. It genuinely helps us keep making these. We need
[14:59]
them. And we'll see you in the next one.
