The Live Action Short Film Oscar: Where Oscar Pools Go to Die

The Short Film has been a launching pad of sorts for many filmmakers.

Ridley Scott, Damien Chazelle, and Christopher Nolan all cut their teeth on brilliant shorts before becoming Hollywood powerhouses. There are many reasons filmmakers make a short film. Some tell a small portion of a bigger story to hopefully develop the idea into a feature, much like Neill Blomkamp did with his 2004 short film Alive in Joburg which would later become the hit feature District 9, or Kevin Reynold’s 1980 short film Proof which would later expand into the bittersweet dramedy Fandango starring a young Kevin Costner, or Wes Anderson’s 1994 short film Bottle Rocket that later became the 1996 feature of the same name.

Other filmmakers used the Short Film as a calling card of sorts much like Martin Scorsese’s 1967 The Big Shave, David Lynch’s 1969 The Alphabet, and George Lucas’s Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB. Although Lucas’s short would later become a similar feature, THX 1138 illustrated a style, especially in sound design, that would later become indicative of the Star Wars franchise.

It’s fair to say most Short Filmmakers go relatively unnoticed and certainly unsung, even those who’ve won Oscars. The old joke about Oscar pools being won or lost in this category is true mostly because the general public usually doesn’t have access to these films prior to their nominations.

Outside of film festivals and family members, most of these films never get seen at all. After all, there isn’t a market for a short film, right?

That wasn’t always true. Once upon a time short films preceded features, much the same way that Coke and M&M commercials now do. Short serials used to be big business with cliffhangers that kept people coming back for more. But now about the best you can hope for is an entertaining short that promotes the concession stand.

So why make them?

I posed that question to Belgian filmmaker Tom Van Avermaet whose current short film Hearts of Stone is making the festival rounds and has already qualified for Oscar consideration this year.

“I see short film as a separate genre of filmmaking, same as short story would compare to a novel. Some stories are just better told in 20 or 30 minutes and I’m a firm believer in the fact that if people do discover the art form, they’ll learn to appreciate it. Streaming channels like Vimeo and YouTube have made them more accessible and we even see the big-time streamers like Amazon, Disney + and Netflix picking them up more and more. The creation process has as many challenges as a feature would. As filmmakers we literally pour our hearts, souls, and bank accounts into these projects that can sometimes take years to complete. The resulting films often vary within a wide range from the wildly personal to the fantastically surreal (something I try to combine). …I do hope film lovers will open their hearts more and more again to this unique form of storytelling.”

Although Hearts of Stone has already qualified for Oscar contention through some major festivals such as Rhode Island Film Festival and LA Shorts International, it doesn’t mean he’s a shoe-in for the nomination.

“The process of getting to a nomination goes through many different steps, currently we’re on the what’s called the longlist, which features roughly 150 films. Academy members who chose to vote for the live action short film category can then vote for their 15 favorite films.  Once these results get tallied up, 15 films remain standing for the short list. A further round of voting will then lead to the final 5 nominations. Just getting on the longlist is quite an achievement knowing that there are tens of thousands of short films being submitted around the world to these qualifying festivals. We were fortunate to do this two times with Hearts of Stone.”

For the record Hearts of Stone is a brilliant and beautiful film. It stars Noomi Rapace as a woman who makes a living posing as a living statue who falls in love with an actual statue, played by Jessica Barden, who later briefly comes to life. It shows the true nature of love amidst the distractions that keep us too mired down to let it in. The enormity of the piece with incredible costumes, makeup, and grandiose special effects put many feature films to shame. Couple that with the star power of Rapace and Barden you can really see what Tom is saying about pouring it all in there.

This isn’t Tom’s first time at this, or the Oscar experience. His 2012 short film Death of a Shadow starring Matthias Schoenaerts (who was on the short list to play Batman this last go-round) was nominated for Best Live Action Short Film as well but lost to Curfew by Shawn Christensen. Death of a Shadow, about the shadow of a deceased World War One soldier who is offered the chance to live again if he captures the shadows of 10,000 people at the moment of their death, is another brilliant short film by Tom Van Avermaet.

I asked him how he’s able to attract such stars like Schoenaerts, Barden, and Rapace to work on his films.

“I’ve been very fortunate that the stories I create seem to strike a chord with the talented performers I want to work with. Matthias was someone I had wanted to work with for years and after a failed attempt to have him join my thesis film Dreamtime the second go was a success with Death of a Shadow. Noomi and Jessica I was able to approach through the help of an English casting director called Annie Rowe. The talent agents of the respective actresses fortunately really responded to my past work and the script for Hearts of Stone. …It became clear that Noomi and Jessica also wanted to work together, getting them to come on board went very smoothly. For Noomi it was actually the first short film she ever worked on, which is now something unique that can always be attached to our film. I certainly put both actresses to the test with extensive make-up and chilly weather, so I can only be grateful that they were willing to lend their talents to make Hearts of Stone into the film that it became.”

More and more stars have been attracted to short films as a way to do something fun, different, or deeper than they sometimes get a chance to do. Filmmaker and FOG! Contributor Fred Shahadi’s last two short films, Later Daters and HR Lady, have attracted some heavy-duty talent as well.

Film and TV heavy Jeff Kober played against type as a hilarious former rockstar cruising for chicks at a singles party alongside other formidable talent, David Clennon (The Thing, Missing), Joel Polis (The Thing, The Rookie), Eric Pierpoint (Holes, TV’s Alien Nation), Daniel Zacapa (Resurrection Blvd.), and a fierce Carolyn Hennesy (Terminator 3, General Hospital) in Shahadi’s Later Daters, while Kim Rhodes (Supernatural, Suite Life of Zack and Cody) has racked up several Best Actress Awards on the festival circuit for Shahadi’s latest drama HR Lady.

HR Lady is playing next at the Culver City Film Festival on December 9^th in Los Angeles.

So how can you win that Oscar pool?

Look up and seek out every nominated short film. Who’s in it? What’s it about? Why do you think it was chosen?

If you are lucky enough to live in a city that is featuring them, please go see them.

Check out film festivals in your area…

And if all else fails, flip a coin.