Sunday's seminars started with the second annual Short Film Circle. Because of the internet the short film distribution has taken a dramatic turn.

 “A genre that was itself questioned and disintegrating became the most widely distributed and seen genre,” Filmkontakt Nord's director Karolina Lidin said in her opening speech.

The seminar begun with international sales agents sharing their knowledge.

“Television is still the most important market for short films – financially”, said Sydney Neter of SND Films.

“In internet you can specially search for a specific film, the problem with television is that the short film is over before you know it”, he added.

Charlotta Bjuvman of Telepicture Marketing was in the same wavelength with Neter: “With a short film shown here and there on tv, it’s a mess.”

Bjuvman told that in Canada there is a regular one hour slot for short films – The world’s best shorts that is accompanied by a web site, which has helped to rise the profile of short film there.

The problem is that although most channels list the short films they screen in tvguides, the cable channels don’t always mention them.  And that is a problem, because you can never know, what is on and where. And it is expecially problematic because – unlike other distribution channels – the cable channels have their own short film budget.

Comedy sells

When the experts were asked, what sells, Bjuvman replied: “The subject is very important, because television is driven by schedules. I’d say make a film that can be shown on afternoons so kids can see it.”

Of course the length matters also.

“If the film is too long, it won’t sell, Bjuvman added.

“If you have a comedy with no dialogue, contact me, because those kind of films sell”, Neter said.

 “This is not he market to make money out of – it is usually a way of introducing yourself to as a director, a one step on the way to making a feature length film”, said Ivo de Sanctis of Village srl.

The mobile is the trend – but the problem is where to go to sell your film. Neter’s advice was to get a partner: “The mobile is usually limited to country, which makes selling difficult and chaotic”.

Subtitled short films may work if the viewer has a cell phone that is good enough.

“The right kind of film for mobile would be maybe films aimed for young audience, with no dialogue - films that are easy to understand”, de Sanctis described.

 The biggest problem in the short film distribution seems to be that the websites are eager to get more and more of short films on their sites, but no ones willing to pay big bucks for them. 

“They don’t put aside a budget for the content which is unbelievable. They put a lot of stuff in their websites to generate audience – and when it becomes a successful they might be able to pay something for it”, Neter said.

Although the future will be dominated by internet.

“A good thing for short films is that there is always market for it”, Neter concluded.

How Lasse Gjertsen made it big on YouTube

Also in the seminar YouTube hit Lasse Gjertsen told how he - 23 year old young man from Larvik, Norway -  made it big. Gjertsen’s YouTube channel is the 37^th most subscribed channel in the site. He has 19 videos available in there and they have been downloaded for almost 17 000 000 times already.

This all started with an assignment when he was studying animation in Britain. Gjertsen was not happy with the school’s emphasize on experimental animation – he wanted to make cartoons similar to the old classics of 40’s like Tom&Jerry.

The video was done a day before assignment’s - which was self portrait – deadline. The conclusion was a video called Hyperactive. The teachers did not like it, but Lasse send it to his friend a year later, who put it on his own website. And soon it was all over internet.

“One day it was put on YouTube - I didn’t even know what YouTube was – and it was seen like 100 000 times – and the guy who put it there got all the credit – so I made my own profile there and put the rest of my video’s there.”

The secret of Gjertsen’s success was good timing – and lot of luck.

“I was lucky my video was put on the site when YouTube was becoming famous. Also my videos were recommended on the YouTube’s front page”.

Hyperactive won 3^rd prize in YouTube’s Most Creative Video Video Awards in 2006.

Lasse’s had some good – and some really bad job offers since. Music television wanted him to make short films featured between programmes, but Lasse turned it down.

“I think the M in MTV stands for mediocre!”

Also Chevrolet wanted to use his video in its campaign – offering mere 1000 dollars.

But Gjetrsen finally got the job he wanted. A media company from Bergen named Alligator interested about his idea for tv-show - and he got his own show.