Would you watch a short film in a theater?

I've been thinking a lot about what comes after the festival circuit -- and the advice I keep getting is: put it online or rent the theater yourself.

So I started to do some research.

Short films were the theatrical model before features took over.

Early cinema was almost entirely short-form. Vaudeville theaters screened them between acts. The 90-minute feature didn't become dominant until the 1910s and 1920s -- when studios realized they could charge more for it. The feature length wasn't a storytelling decision. It was a pricing strategy that calcified into an assumption.

I pitched a theater programmer recently about bringing shorts back as openers. You can start trailers earlier and then play short film that could be tonally in theme with the feature film. I actually saw this during Tribeca in 2023 and thought it worked well.

Can you guarantee people will show up? That's the whole conversation. A theater is renting you a room. They need the room to not be empty.

With a feature, the format at least implies a familiar transaction -- audiences understand what they're buying. With 28 minutes, you have to answer a question a feature filmmaker doesn't: what exactly am I selling, and is your audience trained to show up for it?

But if the audience is coming regardless of the format, does it matter?

The runtime isn't the problem. The audience guarantee is. And that's the same problem a feature with no following has -- the format just hides it better because the infrastructure already exists to support it.

Which means the actual work is the same either way: build the audience first, then the theatrical argument gets easy. People are saying that I should partner with other shorts, to make it feel more substantial - but that feels different.

There is a theater starting up that is totally dedicated to short films and I love that.

But my question remains - if I rented out a Regal Theater - would you come pay $17 to see my 30 min movie?

That feels expensive. But maybe if there was a talkback or Q&A or party?