Taking the Short Road to Success Thanks to the Web, short films (and their hopeful creators) are hotter than ever at Sundance.

Mark Osborne is living proof that it pays to be short at Sundance.

The 29-year-old filmmaker came to the festival last year with a six-minute animated film called “More,” about a listless inventor who hits it big. After it screened for the first time, agents and studio execs began hounding him. After it won the festival award for best short film and got an Oscar nomination, Osborne signed with International Creative Management.

Now, one year later, Osborne is back at Sundance with his first live-action feature, a dark comedy called “Dropping Out.” He’s actually a tall guy--nearly 6 feet 3--but he says he wouldn’t be here at all if he hadn’t had the chance to be short.

“Sundance gave me a career,” he said, recalling how “More” put him on the map. “I got calls from every agency and every major studio saying, ‘The response to your film was tremendous.’ I said, ‘Even if this is just Hollywood b.s., I love it.’ ”

Every year, agents and creative executives flock to the festival’s shorts programs to spot fresh talent. Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia,” had a short in the festival that he expanded into his first feature, 1997’s “Hard Eight.” And even years after it premiered people remember “How They Get There,” a 1997 short that sought to explain how a single shoe ended up at the side of the road, by the man who went on to direct “Being John Malkovich”: Spike Jonze.

But this year, short films are hotter than ever, thanks to a couple of shorts distributors purchasing product here. Last week, for example, AtomFilms.com, a marketer and distributor of short films on- and offline, bought the licensing rights to a 16-minute comedy, “In God We Trust,” about a guy who goes to hell and escapes. Filmmaker Jason Reitman, 22, says through AtomFilms he hopes to get his work shown on cable, or even potentially in new venues, such as elevators.

“Entertainment is getting more portable and starting to appear in new places, and what fits these new places is shorts,” said Mika Salmi, the founder of AtomFilms, who predicted that soon, you’ll be able to watch short films on your Palm Pilot or cell phone. Until then, of course, “the Internet is a great new venue for this stuff.”

Indeed, the World Wide Web is giving shorts bigger audiences than ever before. While the official festival here is showing 69 shorts in theaters around Park City--chosen from 1,900 submissions--the most established offshoot festival, Slamdance, is screening 21 shorts exclusively online (at https://www.slamdance.com). The streaming video section of Slamdance, titled Anarchy Online, is intended to give its filmmakers global reach.

“As a filmmaker you want so much to be a part of something bigger than yourself,” said Monika Mitchell, 33, whose eight-minute “Night Deposit” (about a sperm bank) is part of Anarchy Online. Though her Internet premiere may prohibit cable companies from buying her film (they often demand exclusive exhibition rights), Mitchell hopes it will help her get financing to turn her short into a feature.

Meanwhile, IFILM.com, another digital distribution network prowling Park City, has just partnered with Spike & Mike’s Classic Festival of Animation, the irreverent (some would say kinky) short film festivals that have a fervent cult following. Under the arrangement, fans can buy films online (via pay-per-view downloads) as well as videos, DVDs and merchandise.

“Worldwide exposure is really nice. So is no censorship, which in my case is a big issue,” said Craig “Spike” Decker, co-founder of Spike & Mike, who is cruising the streets here in a fake leopard-skin hat, complete with ears. Online distribution, Decker said, affords makers of short films limitless creative freedom and direct access to consumers.

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The festival shorts programs are among the best-attended venues at Sundance and among the first to sell out. If you’re among the lucky ones who get in, it’s easy to see why. There’s a camaraderie among the filmmakers whose work screens together and a heightened sense of anticipation, with many filmmakers exposing their first films to an audience for the first time.

At one screening last week, a director quietly wept as her 19-minute black-and-white film began flickering on the screen. Another director introduced his eight-minute animated “Rick and Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World” with a plea for employment.

“I hope you enjoy it,” Q. Allan Brocka said of his film, which was made using nothing but plastic Lego pieces. “If you do, offer me a job.”

More and more, film companies are considering doing just that. Just as music video directors have proven they can helm feature films, the makers of short films are increasingly being seen in the same light. Some in Hollywood think shorts give as clear a view of a filmmaker’s potential as features do, but in a fraction of the time.

“The interesting thing about shorts is they’re usually made without interference or creative compromise,” said David Unger, an agent at ICM. “You get a great sense of the director’s vision, untainted by studio politics or lack of funds, because they’re usually designed to be inexpensive.”

Actress Anne Heche, who directed a 27-minute short that’s in the festival this year, agreed. “Reaching Normal,” financed by Showtime, features Andie MacDowell as a housewife whose world is shaken by a sudden telepathic connection to a mysterious scientist (Paul Rudd).

“You see a sliver of a director’s vision without needing to sit through an hour-and-a-half movie--or, more and more, a three-hour movie,” said Heche, 30, adding that for young filmmakers, shorts are a way to try directing for the first time on a smaller, more manageable scale.

“It’s a great place to jump off,” said Heche, who also recently directed a half-hour short for HBO starring Ellen DeGeneres and Sharon Stone as a lesbian couple trying to have a baby.

Where does all this lead? Makers of short films everywhere were encouraged in November when the writing-producing team of David Garrett and Jason Ward inked a one-year development deal with Fox TV after their short film, “Sunday’s Game,” was displayed on the IFILM Web site. Later, the duo became head writers of the Fox Family animated series “Da Mob.”

Here at Sundance, a San Francisco-based sketch comedy troupe called Killing My Lobster is getting a little heat as well. After their four-minute “Sunday Afternoon,” about the underlying meanings of a romantic breakup, got into the festival, the troupe’s nine members started getting calls from managers, agents and studio reps. While here, they’re taking meetings, though they seem a little bemused.

“We’ve sent stuff to all these people before,” said director Paul Charney. “It’s kind of like, ‘Where were you guys then?’ ”