Short Films, Big Gains: How Tiny Projects Build Huge Careers

Paul Thomas Anderson directing his short film Cigarettes & Coffee

Filmmaking is like going to the gym. You don't walk in on day one and try to bench-press a hundred kilos. You start small, maybe with some squats or a light jog. You test your limits, refine your form, and gradually work up to the heavy lifting. That’s what short films offer—a chance to build your filmmaking muscle without the heavy weight of a full-length feature. You can stumble, fumble, and still walk away with something you’re proud of. There’s no need for perfection, just progress.

Jim Cummings' Thunder Road is a perfect example. He didn’t start with a grand plan—just a conversation he overheard about a man singing at a funeral. A little down the road, Cummings heard Bruce Springsteen’s 'Thunder Road' on the radio. “I heard it when I was drunk” Cummings said “I knew all the lyrics, because it actually is one of my mom's favorite songs."

Cummings fused the two ideas and began to write a short. Rehearsing the eulogy became his daily ritual while he was driving to and from work. Later, he hired a choreographer to help work out his dance moves. He shot the film in October 2015 in a real mortuary, in front of an audience he recruited off the internet. The film went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and later became the basis for the opening scene of the feature film of the same name. However, Cummings’ leap into feature films was not the end of his short filmmaking journey and has released several in the years since, some of them as brief as 35 seconds.

This same spirit can be seen in Sofia Coppola’s Lick the Star (1998). Yes, Coppola had the privilege of being a Coppola, but that privilege isn’t the story here. She took her first shot at filmmaking with this darkly comic short about high school politics. It was quirky, it was bold, and it was unmistakably *hers*. The film wasn’t a glitzy, studio-backed affair—it was a raw, honest glimpse into the emerging voice of a filmmaker.

Whiplash provides another powerful example of how short films can be used as a tool in a filmmaker’s broader arsenal. Damien Chazelle, a struggling young writer at the time, was trying to get his passion project La La Land off the ground when he wrote Whiplash as a way to stay creative. After being rejected multiple times, Whiplash caught the attention of Hollywood after spending a year on The Black List, a curated collection of the best unproduced screenplays. This recognition led to a recommendation to create a short film as a proof-of-concept, and Chazelle delivered. The short, which focuses on a young musician’s brutal first day at a prestigious music conservatory, starred J.K. Simmons as the brutal role he world later reprise in the feature.

The short won the Sundance Short Film Jury Prize, and soon after, the feature film was greenlit. Whiplash became a massive success, grossing nearly $50 million on a budget of just $3.3 million, and went on to win three Oscars in 2015, including Best Supporting Actor for J.K. Simmons.

So, what’s the takeaway here? Don’t sleep on short films. Whether you’re experimenting with a wild idea, sharpening your skills, or building a portfolio, shorts are an invaluable tool. They give you the space to play, to fail, to experiment—and they open the door to bigger opportunities. If you’ve got a camera (or even just your smartphone), you’ve got everything you need to start telling your story. The “perfect” moment? It doesn’t exist. Start now. The power’s in your hands.