Shorts for me would equate to film school and a business card. Although this may be the case I'm a story teller and see shorts also as artistic. It is great way to learn and to discover your own personal style. Better to make freshman mistakes and discover style on a 10 minute short, then then to walk into a feature wide eyed and niave. I have been script writing for some time now and currently working on my second short. After completing 3 shorts I hope to have learned enough to prepare me for a feature. I relize you are always learning but I would rather have some experaince behind me in the ways of getting investors, working with crew and talent, working with the city, distributars, festivals etc. before attempting a year long project.

you probably will never sell your short but it is a way to get your skills out there via film festivals. Not to mention padding the portfolio. Some shorts are bought by cable networks IFC, Comedy Central, even HBO, but not many. I am still in the short film making stage until i am fell i am ready to produce a feature. And i am still looking for the right script or finally finish my script. that way i am still making movies while my other stuff is in the pre production phase. that is another reason i like to do and host contests

Definitely agree...shorts are a great way to get mistakes out of the way and figure out where your going wrong, but its misleading to think any companies are going to buy them. We specialise mainly in Martial Arts films, which take a long time to perfect the right style, angles etc. Our director has been making short Action sequences since he was around 13 just in the garden with his friends...which means that now on our feature film when we're in a crucial location and time is short, he knows exactly what he's doing. That said...sometimes it can be more benficial just to try to jump in at the deep end and try to get a feature out there. We made a few shorts for a company who were making compilation DVDs of short films within the same genre...but that didn't really lead anywhere....so we decided instead of waiting for some investor to come along we'd just go for it with basically no budget and see what we could come up with....and its worked a treat! Compnmaies have been so impressed abour what we can do with no money, they've decided it might be worth their while to give us some! For more info check out www.utopianpictures.co.uk (the site is temporarily down at my time of writing...but hopefully will be back up soon!)