Bill Plympton's Three Rules for Making Short Films

Bill Plympton presented his three rules for making successful short films during PISAF. He calls it 'Plympton's Dogma'. Maybe it can be of use to an aspiring short film maker out there.

Make the film:

1. Short. Anything longer than 5 minutes is difficult to sell.
2. Cheap. He keeps a limit of $1,000 per minute. This way it's easy to make your money back. This is also why he sticks to hand drawn animation.
3. Funny. Funnier films are much more fun and easier to sell than serious ones.

I don't know the cost of the student films presented at PISAF, but the shortest and funniest films seemed to get the most positive reaction out of the audience. Many films were so long and gloomy.

By the way, the image is the back of a postcard that Plympton drew his short film's dog on for all the audience members after his presentation.