Short Film - History

History

Longer and shorter films coexisted with similar popularity throughout the early days of film. However, comedy short films were produced in large numbers compared to lengthy features such as D.W. Griffith's, "Birth of Nation" . By the 1920s, a ticket purchased a varied program including a feature and several supporting works from categories such as second feature, short comedy, 5–10 minute cartoon, and newsreel.

Short comedies were especially popular, and typically came in a serial or series (such as the Our Gang movies, or the many outings of Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp character). Even though there was often no set release schedule, these series could be considered somewhat like a modern TV sitcom – lower in status than feature films but nevertheless very popular (comedians such as Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton all 'graduated' from shorts to features).

Animated cartoons came principally as short subjects, as did newsreels. Virtually all major film production companies had units assigned to develop and produce shorts, and many companies, especially in the silent and very early sound era, produced mostly or only short subjects.

In the 1930s, the distribution system changed in many countries owing to the Great Depression. Instead of the cinema owner assembling a program of their own choice, the studios sold a package centered on a main and supporting feature, a cartoon and little else. With the rise of the double feature as a cinema programming format, 2-reel shorts went into decline as a commercial category. Hal Roach, for example, moved Laurel and Hardy full-time into feature films after 1935, and halved his popular Our Gang films to one reel. By the 1940s, he'd moved out of short films altogether (though MGM continued the Our Gang shorts until 1944).

Later shorts include George O'Hanlon's Joe McDoakes movies, and the animated work of studios such as Walt Disney Productions, Leon Schlesinger Productions/Warner Bros. Cartoons, Walter Lantz and Fleischer / Famous Studios. By the mid 1950s, with the rise of television, the commercial live-action short was virtually dead, The Three Stooges being the last major series of 2-reelers, ending in 1959. Short films had become a medium for student, independent and specialty work.

Cartoon shorts had a longer life, due in part to the implementation of lower-cost limited animation techniques, but also declined in this period. Warner Bros., one of the most prolific of the golden era, shut down its studio permanently in 1969. Woody Woodpecker was the last of the "golden era" cartoons to end, shutting down in 1972. The Pink Panther was the last regular theatrical cartoon short series, having begun in 1964 (and thus having spent its entire existence in the limited animation era) and ended in 1980. By the 1960s, the market for animated shorts had largely shifted to television, and even the existing theatrical shorts were being secondarily syndicated to television stations.