Conventions of short films

Conventions: what we would expect from the short film, these conventions can be broken, and more commonly in this day, they often are.

In a short film, the names of characters are not often revealed, although this depends on their role, but most of the time they are only revealed towards the end or not mentioned at all throughout. This is due to the fact that the stars of the film are not so well known, and film producers may not think that it would help to promote the film in any way. In films, if the star is a well known actress/actor, their name is always broadcasted, people often go to watch a film simply because of who stars in it. In a short film, these kind of hollywood stars do not play a part in them, therefore it is not always neccessary to include them.
There is only one protagonist in a short film. In longer films there tends to be more protagonist characters were as in a short film it tends to use just the one character throughout.
Another convention is that there is always a twist in the narrative of a short film. Because the short isn't very lengthy it means that without the twist it would simply be boring. For example in the short film I have annotated "The First Time It Hits", there is a small twist at the end, that includes humour. Basically it is a love story and at the end, the male character hits his "lover" in the head with a skateboard knocking her out of conciousness. He then runs away, panicing, and the female winks into the camera. This use of humour makes the short film much more interesting and so I need to include a small twist in order to get my film noticed.
Another point is that a voice over is very popular in short films. This is used in place of dialogue, which is often removed from shorts. This makes them stand out against the longer films and gives them a sense of being different.
A short film would usually last between one and five minutes, depending on the narrative.
It is obvious that short films only use a small budget, for example there are no expensive or eye catching fonts and titles used. The tradition with a short film, is to use white font on a plain black background.