Eat my shorts?
March 16, 2007 | 12:00am
If there’s probably one thing the digital "revolution" in cinema can lay claim to, it’s the hastening of the demise of the short film. This is something I’ve observed not from my lofty perch in critical Valhalla but rather from years spent in the trenches, i.e., attending and judging short film festivals and competitions. Stereotypes start to reassert themselves: Ateneans will continue to make angst-ridden riffs on Lost in Translation or, worse, the Wong Kar Wai brand of ennui; UP will do its best to jolt us out of our stupor with films tackling rape  literal, cultural and political; and La Salle…not quite sure about this one to be honest. (That actually might be a good thing.)
Sure, there are still people who make short films. But it’s hardly the counterpoint to the mainstream that it was in the heyday of Raymond Red and the variety of talented filmmakers that came out of the Mowelfund Film Institute. Perhaps the passing of the latter  which was the only worthwhile and practical place to learn filmmaking in the country (unfortunately, still is the only one)  combined with the ready availability of digital technology did the short film in. "Did it in," in the sense that the form is not appreciated in its own right  but rather as trailers or "condensed features" or  more commonly  exercises, made solely for submission to film class, passed off as short films. There are a lot of music videos being made  some good, others passable, most bad  but, in my opinion, these are not short films but rather another form altogether. Frequently, music videos or pop promos (as Derek Jarman called them when the late British filmmaker together with The Smiths’ manager at the time was urging Red to direct one for the band during their The Queen is Dead period) do aspire to be short films but they fail miserably almost always. It is ironic then that the best short film I’ve seen so far this decade is R.A. Rivera’s video for Radioactive Sago Project’s Wasak na Wasak. (The band’s third album, "Tanginamo Andaming Nagugutom sa Mundo Fashionista Ka Pa Rin," is out now. Buy it.) Hope the programmers of our local music channels finally muster the balls to play it. (By the way, it’s also by far the best music video made locally. Of this claim, I’ve no doubt.)
Technology and its conveniences made it possible for the emerging talents from the era of emergent cinema to do features, to allow themselves to even dream of composing images/narratives/sounds for that bigger canvas. For the most part, only amateurs are making shorts today  approaching the form with less than utmost respect for the form and not as a prelude to a feature-length telling of the same material. Admittedly, there are exceptions but hardly enough to merit reconsidering the opinion that the format is in decline.
To be blunt, only a minute fraction of the short films being made today can rise to the level of the short films made even as late as those produced in the early part of this decade. Even a partial list would elucidate the point: it would include Raymond Red’s Ang Magpakailanman, Mistula, A Study for the Skies and Kamada; Robert Quebral’s Deaths R’ Us; Tad Ermitaño’s Sausage and The Retrochronolgical Transfer of Information; R.A. Rivera’s Chicken Soup; Quark Henares’ A Date With Jao Mapa; Roxlee’s Lizard and Bulan/Bahaghari’s Riles to name but a few.
"Michael Moorcock is surprisingly well-represented in the shelves of Fully Booked!" This was my comment  ecstatic as always  whenever I find myself being surprised at something. Best known for his Eternal Champion series  which features icons of fantastic literature such as Elric of Melnibone and Jerry Cornelius  and being the somewhat iconoclastic editor of SF magazine New Worlds in the mid-‘60s, Moorcock’s stuff from the classics to the newer works are available. Though disparaging of proper English literature including predecessors like Tolkien (for whom he held special contempt), he is nonetheless a giant in both fantasy and science fiction of the 20th century  admired by an audience far beyond the high-rent ghetto of the "new wave." His new books reveal the writer to be more cantankerous than ever but without any falter in insight and language.
Sure, there are still people who make short films. But it’s hardly the counterpoint to the mainstream that it was in the heyday of Raymond Red and the variety of talented filmmakers that came out of the Mowelfund Film Institute. Perhaps the passing of the latter  which was the only worthwhile and practical place to learn filmmaking in the country (unfortunately, still is the only one)  combined with the ready availability of digital technology did the short film in. "Did it in," in the sense that the form is not appreciated in its own right  but rather as trailers or "condensed features" or  more commonly  exercises, made solely for submission to film class, passed off as short films. There are a lot of music videos being made  some good, others passable, most bad  but, in my opinion, these are not short films but rather another form altogether. Frequently, music videos or pop promos (as Derek Jarman called them when the late British filmmaker together with The Smiths’ manager at the time was urging Red to direct one for the band during their The Queen is Dead period) do aspire to be short films but they fail miserably almost always. It is ironic then that the best short film I’ve seen so far this decade is R.A. Rivera’s video for Radioactive Sago Project’s Wasak na Wasak. (The band’s third album, "Tanginamo Andaming Nagugutom sa Mundo Fashionista Ka Pa Rin," is out now. Buy it.) Hope the programmers of our local music channels finally muster the balls to play it. (By the way, it’s also by far the best music video made locally. Of this claim, I’ve no doubt.)
Technology and its conveniences made it possible for the emerging talents from the era of emergent cinema to do features, to allow themselves to even dream of composing images/narratives/sounds for that bigger canvas. For the most part, only amateurs are making shorts today  approaching the form with less than utmost respect for the form and not as a prelude to a feature-length telling of the same material. Admittedly, there are exceptions but hardly enough to merit reconsidering the opinion that the format is in decline.
To be blunt, only a minute fraction of the short films being made today can rise to the level of the short films made even as late as those produced in the early part of this decade. Even a partial list would elucidate the point: it would include Raymond Red’s Ang Magpakailanman, Mistula, A Study for the Skies and Kamada; Robert Quebral’s Deaths R’ Us; Tad Ermitaño’s Sausage and The Retrochronolgical Transfer of Information; R.A. Rivera’s Chicken Soup; Quark Henares’ A Date With Jao Mapa; Roxlee’s Lizard and Bulan/Bahaghari’s Riles to name but a few.
"Michael Moorcock is surprisingly well-represented in the shelves of Fully Booked!" This was my comment  ecstatic as always  whenever I find myself being surprised at something. Best known for his Eternal Champion series  which features icons of fantastic literature such as Elric of Melnibone and Jerry Cornelius  and being the somewhat iconoclastic editor of SF magazine New Worlds in the mid-‘60s, Moorcock’s stuff from the classics to the newer works are available. Though disparaging of proper English literature including predecessors like Tolkien (for whom he held special contempt), he is nonetheless a giant in both fantasy and science fiction of the 20th century  admired by an audience far beyond the high-rent ghetto of the "new wave." His new books reveal the writer to be more cantankerous than ever but without any falter in insight and language.
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