"Hi there,
I have a short story I want to turn into a movie and earn from it. But I’m skeptical about whether or not short filmmakers make money from their productions. Please is there anyone who clear up my confusion? And if short movies truly generate income, how can I create one with high engagement?"
Turning your stories into short movies is one of the most daunting tasks you could engage in as a producer because of the challenges involved. From the struggle with selecting the right resources to creating budgets, choosing the appropriate location for your set, and even selecting the right platform to upload your content for earning. This has led people to ask if short movies make money like we have in the scenario above. Well, the answer is YES, short movies make money. If you need a practical guide on how to create short movies, this post is for you. Keep reading as we reveal our comprehensive guide.
In this article
Part 1. What You Need to Put in Place To Make Money from Creating Short Movies
Earning from short movies shouldn’t be tough and that’s only possible when you have all of the necessities in place. This section will brief you on all that you need to put in place to make money from shooting short movies. Without delay, let’s fall in.
Create a Business Plan
If shooting a short movie is taken as a project, then planning is crucial for it to be successful. You need to create an outline that must be followed accordingly so you end up with a masterpiece and nothing below that. Without proper planning, there’s a high probability that you will get stuck and will probably quit the movie production since there’s no headway. Not only that, if you are looking to seek grants from investors, your business plan is what would speak for you and if you don’t have it, there is no way you are getting the funds.
To avoid these problems, we strongly suggest you draft a business plan which must be followed accordingly. Your short movie production business plan should contain the following:
- What your story is about?
- Your target audience.
- The location where each scene will be shot (if you have multiple destinations in mind).
- Your budget for the production.
Determine Theme Type
Selecting the right theme for your short movie is crucial and at the same time very critical as it often influences your story, tone, and emotional impact of your video. Here’s a guide to assist you in choosing the best theme for your short movie:
- Select a personal or popular theme.
- Identify the purpose of your story.
- Make the movie short and direct.
- Draw ideas from other short films to make yours.
Contact Actors
After getting your theme ready, contacting the actor you want to bring on set for your short movie is the next thing to do. This is very important so you know whether or not whoever you are bringing on board is available and ready to work with you on your story. Failure to do this can cause disappointment from the selected actor, leading to a delay in the production or termination of the project. So it’s best to connect with your actors and inform them about your project, the schedule plan, and payments before proceeding with production.
Platforms to Publish Short Movies for Cool Returns
The platform where you are looking to upload your short movies is also worth paying attention to if you want to earn from the production. While some are filled with high engagement and traffic leading to high income, others are gibberish with little to no traffic or engagement which would likely affect your income. We often advise producers to go with popular channels like YouTube to publish their short movies due to the high engagement and traffic it has generated over time.
Part 2. How Do Short Movies Make Money?
For maximum financial success from your short movies, here are some handy tips you can implement:
Monetize Film Festival
Film festivals are events established for short movies to showcase their artwork for exposure and critical acclaim. At this event, distributors purchase films they believe would convert and generate yield when marketed in their abode. Sending your production to this event can also fetch you significant money. Not only that, there is a possibility that you win an award for a wonderful job. For your information, all of these don’t happen on a platter of gold. You must meet up with the pre-selection conditions before your movie can make it to the table at a film festival.
Embedded Marketing
Oftentimes, retail brands leverage movies as a means of placing their products or services in front of the masses by simply embedding suitable content. Your short film shouldn’t be left out in this situation. So you should try collaborating with retail brands that are looking for ways to place their products in front of the masses via movies. Mind you, before a brand can accept to collaborate with you on this type of deal, your cinematography must have gained traction over time.
Gain Global Recognition by Winning Awards
Another notable way to earn from short movie production is to run for all the necessary awards under your circuit and win at least one. This automatically opens the door for monetization since awards are designed to acknowledge the work of a content creator.
Utilize Streaming Platforms
Distributing your movie to popular video streaming platforms like Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, and more is helpful if you want to earn from your production. These platforms often pay a healthy amount of money to content creators with high engagement and views.
A short film can bring you explosive growth in revenue within a few days. You can watch the interview video below.
Part 3. How to Create Short Films?
Now that you know how short filmmakers profit from their productions, let's explore the comprehensive guide to creating an engaging short film that converts.
Write A Script
Scriptwriting is an important phase in movie production, regardless of whether your story will end as a short or long-form movie. It serves as the foundation of your story by providing a clear structure and guiding narrative from the start of your production to the end, making it super easy for you to organize your ideas logically.
Bring On Your Casts and Crews
Selecting actors who would be working with you on your storyline is the next thing to do once your script is ready. You need to bring on experienced characters that suit your story and can deliver the result you demand. Additionally, you need to recruit crew members who will take on roles like camera operator, sounds, and more.
Rehearse
Rehearsing is another crucial part of short movie production you cannot neglect if you want a top-notch result. It’s at this phase you get the chance to polish the performance of your cast to ensure smooth flow when shooting the movie. It also helps you improve your production timing and streamline the overall process.
Shoot the Film
Now that rehearsal is out, it’s time to get on set and start the short movie production. This is when your crew brings all the equipment required for making videos, such as a camera, microphone, make-up, props, etc.
Create Highlights for Shorts
Making highlights or trailers for your short movie is essential for marketing and promotion as it helps you capture the essence of your production. To get this done, you can count on Filmora Video Editor. This software is one of the most versatile video editing utilities for creating attention-grabbing highlights. Thanks to the built-in Smart Scene Cut feature- a brilliant innovation that analyzes your video for exciting moments between scenes that you can turn into highlights.
Benefits of Using Smart Scene in Filmora
- Fast Processing of Movies: Regardless of the length or size of your short movie, Filmora completes Smart Scene Cut within seconds.
- Robust Integration with popular computer OS: The software works with Windows and Mac.
- Quickly locate the highlights: Your short film may need some pre-release promotion. Intelligent editing can quickly help you analyze the highlights within the video and create an exciting and captivating clip.
- Diversification of scene selection: Offers 3 scene categories, including highlight scene, custom scene, and character scene.
Highlight Scene
The highlight scene feature helps you to select the emotional and visual essence of your movie.
Character Scene
Use this feature if you want specific characters to appear in your key moments when creating trailers.
Custom Scene
If you want multiple objects or characters to appear in your trailer or highlight this feature is what you need.
Steps to Utilize Filmora Smart Scene Cut Feature
Follow these steps to use Smart Scene Cut to make trailers/highlights for your short movies.
Step 1: Install Filmora on your computer and launch it for operation. When the main dashboard pops up, click on any of the page dimensions that suit your project requirements from the options in front of the Aspect Ratio tab.
Step 2: Tap on New Project to proceed.
Now, click on Import and choose the short video to edit from your local storage.
Once the video is uploaded on the software, right-click on it and select Smart Scene Cut.
Step 3: Next, Filmora will direct you to the following come up.
Click Start to continue and the video will be uploaded for Smart Scene Cut to work on it. You will be charged approximately 2 credits for this operation.
Step 4: Once that is done, Smart Scene Cut will scan and analyze the video, then select the best moment for your highlight creation.
Step 5: Now, Filmora will provide you with 3 scene categories to select from for your trailer production. Each scene category has a unique feature which has been explained above. Choose one and click on Edit in the Main Timeline at the lower right corner of your screen.
Step 6: Add effects, filters, text, or any customization feature to pimp your clip. Now, the result should appear stunning.
Step 7: Head to the upper right corner of your screen and click on Export to save the edited file to your local storage.
Edit the Film
Editing is the next thing on board after completing your short movie production. It’s at this point you get to take out the scenes that don't suit your story, customize your video, and add all the necessary elements including subtitles, so you have a cohesive and engaging final product. A professional tool like Filmora could come in handy at this stage. Using this software, you can quickly pimp your short video to suit your taste in minutes without stress. Some of the editing activities that can be performed via this software include the addition of texts, subtitle addition, voice cloning, filtering, and more.
For example, you can use the Smart BGM generation feature in Filmora to add background music to your short film. You can also record voiceovers to add your own unique commentary to the film. Additionally, you can also AI face mosaic feature to automatically blur the faces of bystanders appearing in the film.
After the release of Filmora V14, the multi-camera editing feature can help you integrate materials, allowing you to control and capture each perspective and refine each clip to achieve a beautiful and cohesive narrative.
Send Out Movie for Review
Sending out your short movie after production is a crucial step in filmmaking you cannot neglect. It helps you assess what worked well and what needs to be improved in your production before publishing it to your audience. Here is a structured guide you can follow to review your movie:
- Gather a team of experts in the video production space to help you look at your short movie.
- Evaluate different aspects of the movie, from scriptwriting to cinematography, editing, sound design, and color grading.
- Take positive and negative feedback very seriously.
Publish the Movie
Having completed all of the above, it is time to publish your short movie and start earning from views. You can also follow this video clip to create a short movie.
Pro Tip: How to Create Eye-Catching Micro Movies That Convert with AI Sound Effect
Creating an eye-catching short movie with high engagement and conversion isn’t tough but you need a compelling storyline, marketing technique, plus innovative sound design to achieve this. Both storytelling and marketing require so much work from your end. As for the sound effects, you need to employ the services of tools like Filmora Video Editor. This software powers incredible features that you can use to tweak the sound in a video to suit your storyline.
Conclusion
Now making money from short movies shouldn’t be a big deal anymore. By combining all of the strategies given in this post, you can easily generate healthy revenue from your production without hassles. Take each strategy seriously and the results will come in no time. For video editing, we strongly recommend Filmora. The software helps you transform your raw video into a cohesive and impactful story, regardless of whether or not you are a professional in the movie production space.
