In all the hubub of SIFF, I was only able to attend two shorts programs in their Shorts Ghetto weekend: Animation 4 Adults and Horror. Now, maybe it was because I was tired, but the horror one was completely weaksauce this year, and the animation one had some fantastic bits to it but was programmed really strangely. Which leads me to ask, what makes a good shorts program?

Here’s my problem with SIFF’s horror program: none of them were all that scary. There were 7 shorts, three of which were striving for tension, and one of which half-succeeded. The other 4 were straight-up horror comedies. Let me confess, many good shorts tend to be humorous in nature as the fastest way to connect with your audience, and reset them from the previous short, is to make them laugh on your wavelength. But, if you’re promising horror, deliver the horror…which brings me to point number 1.

1 – Stay on theme
If somebody is going in to see a horror marathon, they want to be scared shitless. That’s the promise of horror. But, that doesn’t mean that you should only do scary intense jolts as a program because the same tone over and over again gets repetitious, which brings us to:

2 – Vary Your Tone
There’s a right way and a wrong way to vary your tone. You can throw the audience into a whiplash by putting comedy next to horror next to animation next to surrealism. But, they aren’t primed for the tonal shifts that you want to send them on. Sometimes an intense short needs a refresher, but a good shorts program can’t be intense – humor – intense – humor. Modulate between what the audience wants/expects and what they actually need.

3 – Make crescendos and decrescendos
Anybody who has ever made a mix tape or a play list (damn young’uns) knows that you can’t put Guns ‘N’ Roses’ You Could Be Mine next to Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares 2 U. They’re both great songs, and could end up on the same mix tape with a little finesse, but you have to create an emotional journey for the audience. Bring them with you from Guns N Roses to Sinead with interstitial music. This was a problem with The ABCs of Death; the shorts were dependent on their letter with no tonal curation whatsoever. It created emotional whiplasd which was decidedly wearisome (especially after 126 minutes).

4 – Bury your weak entries
One of the things that killed the horror shorts is that the final short, Popsy (based on Stephen King’s short story), just wasn’t very good. It was long, slow, disjointed, and had a bad way of telling the story in a confusing non-linear fashion. It was striving for slow burn, but it felt listless, especially in the wake of the rather funny comedies that came before it. This is the type of entry that should be third in the lineup so your audience doesn’t leave with a bad taste in their mouth.

5 – Send Them Off With A Bang
Much like burying your weak entries, put your strongest entry at the end. It doesn’t even have to be a fast whatever. You just have to make sure audiences go home remembering what a good time they had. Sometimes, the timing of the last short will make or break your whole program. If you send them off with a fright, you’ve assured that they may imagine the scariness of the previous lacklustre entries in the afterglow. If you send them off with a laugh, they’ll remember the comedies.

All that said, sometimes you gotta work with what you have. I’d love to have a rule that says “be inclusive” but that’s a laugh. Anyways, have you ever built a shorts program? What makes or breaks a shorts program for you?