What Making 70 Short Films Taught This Filmmaker

Making one short film is impressive and takes a ton of work. Making 70 is another story.

Blake Ridder has done that, as well as a couple of successful features, and formed his own production company. Getting serious creative reps like that leads to natural insights, like what he is seeing as a trend in the space and how audiences are reacting to the work. He was born in Shanghai, raised in the UK, and trained in magic before filmmaking.

He spoke with Film Courage, who asked him for best practices in short filmmaking. He says you should know why you're making a short, know what you're building toward, and don't let habit or formula replace your creative instinct.

Dive in with us below.

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How to Come Up with Short Film Ideas

There’s no one “correct” way to come up with ideas for anything, including short films. Ridder's process is deliberately non-prescriptive. Ideas come from his personal experience, the news, and other films. He gives the example of learning the word "pardon" as an English learner and turning that into a film.

"Sometimes I start from the ending,” he says. “What is the twist? And sometimes I'll start with a very specific scenario, a person who's struggling with English and wants to learn a lesson. Or sometimes it could be an object. It could be anything that really sparks an idea. Then I build a story around that initial whatever that thing is to build a full story."

Some of us start with an image. I sometimes come up with a confrontation or line and build outward from there. Short films, of course, have to be slightly limited in scope, so they’re a unique beast, but if you need some prompts, we’ve got you covered.

You don’t have to go from character to plot to ending. No one will hold you to that, so go about it in the way that feels most inspiring. Follow the idea.

Your starting point can be anything. Something that made you cry today, a name you read in a magazine, an object you pass on the street, anything. We’ve got quick tips for coming up with your own great short film ideas, too.

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Magic Is Like Storytelling

Uniquely, Ridder has a background in magic (15 years, including with a U.K. magic school), and this happens to inform how he thinks about story structure.

A magic trick has a beginning, middle, and climax. It's designed to hook an audience and elicit a specific reaction from them. Short filmmaking, especially with twist endings (his specialty), works the same way. You control what an audience sees and when they see it.

Christopher Nolan built an entire film around this idea. The Prestige is structured as a magic trick, using misdirection and the strategic withholding of information to manipulate the audience's attention.

Ridder arrived at the same principle from the other direction.

The Hook Is Non-Negotiable Now

Ridder names three elements you need for a good short film: a relatable character, felt emotion, and (especially now) a hook at the top.

TikTok and Instagram have changed viewer expectations, and attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. Professor Gloria Mark says we’re down to about 47 seconds in general viewers now. That would make an extremely short film.

Ridder is not specific about what the hook looks like, but he's clear that it needs to be there.

"Whether it's you're showing the ending at the beginning or whether it's something that makes no sense, but it's a [curiosity] that make you keep watching," he says.

We want to acknowledge that a hook is always important, short film or not, it’s just even more important when you have limited time. You want a reader to keep turning pages from the start, and a viewer should lean in. Here’s how to tackle your first five pages.

How Long Should Your Short Actually Be?

It’s a point of much contention, and it depends on the story you’re telling. In narrative work, Ridder says 3-5 minutes is the ideal length for a short film, especially if you're hoping to put the work on today’s social media, but he's not rigid. Ff the story and hook are strong enough, 20-30 minutes can work. (If you’re doing a documentary short, you’re in a whole new playing field, and the works tend to be on the longer side at 15-30 minutes.)

The real answer is distribution-dependent. Social media and festivals are different games, and you should know which one you're hoping to use as a platform before you write.

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Know When to Switch It Up

It might surprise you to learn that Ridder stopped making traditional shorts on purpose.

He frames short films as a "playground" for developing skills, but once you've got what you need from them, staying too long can be a liability, not a virtue.

He's still making micro-content for social platforms, but the 70+ short era is closed. His argument against shorts is blunt: they don't pay as much as features, and they don't fully test you the way features do.

He was asked for his reasoning for and against making shorts.

"Making short films is learning, developing your skills, making mistakes. This is all where it should happen during your career of filmmaking,” he says. “‘Against’ is if you have those skills already and you really have the appetite and the passion to [make] features, then I don't think you should spend any more time and energy making shorts."

Short films could also be the space for your proof of concept. But the goal there is still leaving the playground, because you’re making one with the goal of stepping up to something bigger, the feature version of your story.

We wouldn’t say just stop making shorts if that’s what your passion is. Maybe you fall in love with the vertical format, and there's definitely money to be made there. But one thing you don’t want to do as an artist is get stagnant, so always remember to keep pushing yourself.