From the "On The Scene" Archives:

by Ryan Mottesheard

(indieWIRE/ 04.26.01) -- Perusing the heaps of free magazines scattered about the IFP/Los Angeles Film Festival -- from American Cinematographer to IFC Rant -- I came across a quote from Guy Pearce: "When you talk to people in L.A., they look over your shoulder, they don't look at you. They'll be thinking of someone else. They'll bump into your world every now and then, see what they can get from it, can't quite get anything, suck a bit of energy out of you, then piss off to the nextä" Somehow I got that same feeling watching the shorts at LAFF, that many of them weren't really interested in me, in entertaining me, in challenging me, so long as they caught that producer's eye or impressed that agent.

At a Q&A following one of the early morning shorts programs, an audience member asked the four filmmakers whether they wanted their shorts to serve as calling cards for Hollywood or did they prefer the short format. NYU student Agnieska Wojtowicz-Vosloo admitted she directed her 22-minute short, "Pate," to show the film companies she could direct her own feature script, "Dreaming of Red Fish." Brilliant art direction (by Wojtowicz-Vosloo) is on par with anything seen in the work of Terry Gilliam or Jeunet/Caro, and the opulent, oddball ingenuity of the film shows that Ms. Wotjtowicz-Vosloo will indeed accomplish said goals, even if "Pate" occasionally lingers too long on its own attributes.

Kandeyce Jorden, meanwhile, bragged, quite rightfully, that her short, "Undone," garnered her an agent and a commercial directing gig. Did its slick stylization really want to touch my soul or just get Ms. Jorden into the director's chair to sell us Sky Vodka? (Which it has.)

Another Hollywood-based filmmaker with their eyes on bigger fish was Jason Reitman, with "Gulp" (produced by AtomFilms), which might well have been subtitled, "Run Francis Run," as a young man attempts to find salt water for his dying fish. While I enjoyed it as much as any film I saw, I really don't remember what the hell it was about. And we mustn't forget thesp Pat Healy ("Treasure Island," "Big Canyon"), who weighed in with "Mullit," his self-described take on "Barnaby Jones while drinking too much cough syrup." Healy could certainly infuse any of the big-budget TV-remakes in the pipeline ("The A-Team," "SWAT") with enough mischievous wit to make them watchable.

A handful of Canadian shorts were even produced by the Toronto-based outfit called The Calling Card Program that "promotes the development of emerging Ontario filmmakers." (The films themselves however, including Semi Chella's "Three Stories From The End Of Everything," were not designed to get a meeting with Jerry Bruckheimer.)

And the talented, San Francisco-based production collective, The Orphanage, screened their 24P short, "BigLove." It came complete with film stars (Sam Rockwell) and plenty of "I can't believe this is video" technical audacity, yet it feels just so un-independent, which is a quibble with many of the shorts here, a quibble which has also plagued independent film of late. This discussion is especially valid with IFP/West taking over the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival this year, the same year that the IFP-sponsored Independent Spirit Award nominations for big budget specialty releases like "The Gift" and "Love and Basketball."

Yet should we be-grudge these films and filmmakers for wanting to make a feature, or turn out a nice living directing music videos? After all, one of the best shorts I've ever seen, Francois Ozon's brilliant "See The Sea," also happened to launch one of the most promising young feature film careers around.

Knoxville-based filmmaker, Paul Harrill ("Gina, An Actress, Age 29") brought up another valid point when he said, "the economic reality is that it's virtually impossible in America, and probably around the world, to earn your living as a shorts filmmaker. Unlike say, Raymond Carver who was able to eke out a living as a short story writer."

That said, short film websites (which sadly keep dropping like flies) and shorts programs on IFC and the Sundance Channel, are providing many venues unheard of five years ago. And "George Lucas In Love" (a previous LAIFF entry) is available at the Blockbuster nearest you. However, the widespread viewing (and economics) of short films is still far from ideal, especially considering that a century ago, patrons were lining up, nickels in tow, to pay for programs of one and two-reelers. In fact, at the dawn of the American sound film, many critics argued that many filmmakers (chiefly comedians such as Chaplin or Harold Lloyd) were ill suited for longer features. Can you imagine Buster Keaton's "Sherlock Jr." at 90 minutes? And MTV's "Jackass" (essentially a Johnny Knoxville two-reeler) is maybe the only thing on mainstream television that you can imagine Dali, Bunuel, Breton and the rest of the surrealists sitting around and watching. But I digress.

There were, however, a number of shorts that recalled Amerindie's mid-'90s hey-day (quoting indieWIRE's own review of "Too Much Sleep"). For me, the best of the bunch was the wonderful, witty, "Watching Mrs. Pomerantz." It arrived sans filmmaker and its well-traveled 16mm print looked a bit murky for some reason, yet the sheer joie-de-vivre of the piece quickly won over the blasÈ crowd. Writer/Director Steve Rosenberg tells the tale of Henry Faber, a nine-year-old Jewish boy who becomes smitten with his friends' mother, Mrs. Pomerantz, who lives across the street. It taps into those hidden parts of your memory and recalls, as did last year's feature fest entry "George Washington," all those little things you did when you were nine but have long since forgotten. Rosenberg's remembrance of things past, also manages to straddle that delicate line in depicting a childhood that neither gives way to cheap nostalgia (almost any Disney movie) or jaded cynicism ("Gummo").

Another low-rent miracle came from the afore-mentioned Harrill, whose film, "Gina, An Actress, Age 29," suffered from bad projection sound, though enough subtle brilliance shone through in this tale of a not-so-young woman trying to make it as an actress in Knoxville, Tennessee. The film revels in that social critique humanism of Bill Forsyth and Hal Ashby, or more recently, Alexander Payne. Harrill, along with producer Mary Jane Skalski ("Brothers McMullen"), plans to turn the short into an omnibus film entitled "Christmastime."

Perhaps omnibus films are the way for some of these filmmakers to go. (It really isn't fair that "Four Rooms" killed this idea -- though Robert Rodriguez' "room" certainly paved the way for "Spy Kids.") Why can't we reincarnate the days of the Roger Corman horror anthologies or "RoGoPag," "Seven Deadly Sins" and "Spirits of the Dead," which produced stand-alone masterpieces like Jacques Demy's "La Luxore" (Sins) and Fellini's "Toby Dammit" (Spirits)? Excuse me, am I rambling again?

[Ryan Mottesheard is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles whose credits include the TNT Original Series "Bull."]