Four tips on making shareable short films

How do you make a short film so amazing that you immediately need to share it with your friends? Here are four tips from some of the best in the game on YouTube.

Be remarkable

Casey Neistat’s film “The Dark Side of the iPhone 5S Lines” provides a glimpse into an often unseen side of our cultural obsession with technology. Its documentary style tells a complete story in six minutes, and its surprising climax leaves viewers with a powerful image that makes them want to click the share button.

Find your niche

The film “Portal: Survive! (Live-Action Short)” is a film based on the popular video game Portal, and it taps into the game’s sizeable fanbase for viewers. In the comments section, fans of Portal quote their favourite lines, engage in passionate debate about the game and ask for more Portal-based films. Given that over four million copies of this game have been sold to date, this niche audience is quite large.

Relate to your audience

The short film “I Forgot My Phone” identifies a phenomenon in our society and handles it in a way that resonates with many viewers. When a film encapsulates something viewers identify with from their own life experience, they want to share it and say something about it. What do you think people would write when posting this video to social media?

Be topical

For their film “3D Printed Guns (Documentary)”, Vice took the controversial topic of gun control and paired it with the trending new technology of 3D printing. The information contained in this film called the meaning of gun control into question, and they released their film just when this issue was at the zenith of our cultural conversation.

As we can see from these films, choosing the right topic is an integral part of making your film shareable. For more information on creating content that will captivate your audience, take a look at our Creator Playbook.

Jeremy Kaye and Devin McNulty, Programming Strategy, recently watched “Arnold Works at Gold's.”