Stepping Stones

Stepping Stones. An action or event that helps one make progress towards a specified goal.

Finding a way into the film industry is proven to be a difficult and often exhausting process, it may take people years or even entire lifetimes to achieve their dream roles on a film set, but there are many ways for a person to pursue their goal of becoming a Hollywood Director and making big budget films, and one of those ways is by simply, making films.

Short films have been proven to be a way to enter the film industry through the likes of competitions such as Raindance, Sundance, or Venice film festivals, and even some of the industry’s most critically acclaimed and successful Directors have started off with making short films as a stepping stone to launch their film careers.

Martin Scorsese

Commonly known as one of, if not the best Director of all time, Martin Scorsese started his filmmaking journey studying at NYU’s undergraduate filmmaking program where he spent majority of his time creating short films.

Creating films such as “It’s Not Just You, Murray!” (1966), being the third ever short film that Scorsese Directed, focuses on a middle-aged mobster who looks back at his beginnings, and in this film, you see the beginning of Scorsese’s filmmaking style starting to take form. This film originally premiered at the New York Film Festival in 1966.

Another example of Scorsese would be that of “The Big Shave” (1967), a short film which he Directed as part of his Graduation project from NYU where one man simply shaves his face, Scorsese explores projecting his perspective in the form of simplistic filmmaking in this movie, Martin Scorsese went on to Direct his first feature film “Who’s That Knocking At My Door” (1966) that same year.

Martin McDonagh

Coming from a background of being a playwright, Martin McDonagh wanted to try his hand at filmmaking, something he had never done before but had an interest in, instead of writing a feature film script he decided to write a short film called “Six Shooter” (2004), a 27 minute long Comedy/Thriller based on a man who has just lost his wife, takes a train home where he meets a slightly psychotic young man.

This short film introduced Martin McDonagh’s filmmaking style to the world and helped garner him an audience who loves his perspective of storytelling, McDonagh then went on to direct his first feature film “In Bruges” (2008), releasing only four years after Six Shooter had come out.

It probably helps that Six Shooter won the Oscar for best short film as well.