Producing and Directing the Short Film and Video, 3rd Edition

appendix A

Genres

EXPERIMENTAL OR ALTERNATIVE

The short film or video has been an ideal form for experimentation. Filmmakers have been experimenting with the possibilities of what film can do since George Méliès’s time. Many major European directors who became famous in the 1930s and 1940s began their careers in the 1920s with short films: Jean Renoir, René Clair, Luis Buñuel, and Julien Duvivier are among them. The artists Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp both explored the possibilities of film’s pure visual form. Many early experimental pieces relied on seemingly random images, with no apparent story or narrative expectations to engage the audience. These filmmakers played visual tricks with the medium, dealing with surrealistic film fantasies. ...