Short shrift no longer

Thanks to a new generation of viewers more conversant with YouTube than with appointment television, the short subject seems to be making a comeback. “Hotel Chevalier,” Wes Anderson’s 13-minute prequel to “The Darjeeling Limited,” was added to the feature’s theatrical prints after it racked up nearly 500,000 iTunes downloads. Cable channels such as IFC and Sundance regularly feature shorts in their programming. And the Cannes Film Festival has seen a mini-revival of the omnibus film, with “Paris, Je t’aime” and “Chacun son Cinema” allowing the Coen brothers, Alexander Payne and Gus Vant Sant to hone their short-film chops.

But perhaps the most dramatic example of the medium’s resurgent popularity is the success of the Oscar Shorts program, which compiles the nominated live-action and animated films into two feature-length shows. Released via a partnership between the London-based Shorts International and Magnolia Pictures, the program has grown exponentially in the three years of its existence. In 2006, the Oscar Shorts programs were released in five theaters nationwide. This year, according to Tom Quinn, Magnolia’s senior vice president of acquisitions, they expect to open in upward of 70 theaters on Friday.

“We always joke that our odds are way better than any distributor out there,” Quinn says. “Two awards guaranteed. If you wanted to rig the system, this is the way to do it.”

For short films, any kind of theatrical exposure is critical, but the value of a cinematic roll-out, coupled with the Oscar endorsement, is off the charts.

“It actually makes a big difference,” says Marcy Page, who has produced four nominated shorts for the National Film Board of Canada, including this year’s “Madame Tutli-Putli.” “It’s surprising how much, even in Canada, they defer to the academy to give the stamp of approval.”

A week after the theatrical release -- the series opens in Los Angeles Friday -- the Oscar-nominated shorts will be available individually on iTunes at a cost of $1.99. Carter Pilcher of Shorts International says comedies and animation sell reliably, as do the eventual winners. When a film is both, like last year’s winner, “West Bank Story,” sales can surpass 50,000.

Like everyone else, Quinn and Pilcher are in the dark as to the program’s content until the nominations are announced, which means they have a little over three weeks to acquire the rights for all 10 films and procure the necessary materials. “You’re buying 10 movies in such a short amount of time that you have to be extraordinarily flexible and creative,” Quinn says.

Although this year’s crop is devoid of American nominees, past years have required Quinn and Pilcher to negotiate with such corporate titans as Disney and Pixar, who licensed their films for theatrical release but withheld them from the eventual DVD.

In addition to giving audiences an edge in their Oscar pools, the shorts packages expose them to a wide range of styles and talents in a brief span of time. This year, the live-action entries range from the tart Belgian comedy of “Tanghi Argentini” to the tear-jerking drama of “At Night,” set in a Danish cancer ward. Animation viewers will be treated to “Madame Tutli-Putli,” an unnerving stop-motion nightmare set on a moving train, and the supple whimsy of “I Met the Walrus,” which sets squiggly line drawings to an audio interview of John Lennon conducted by a 14-year-old Canadian boy.

John Canemaker, who won an Oscar in 2006 for his animated short “The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation,” says that having an outlet for short film is particularly important for animators. “I always feel that the short form is one of the best forms, if not the best form, for animation, because it’s such a concentrated, potent medium,” he says. “I think short is best.”

For live-action filmmakers as well as animators, short film offers an opportunity to experiment as well as a potential stepping stone to feature films. Before writing and directing “In Bruges,” Martin McDonagh won an Oscar for his live-action short “Six Shooter,” and Sean Ellis expanded his nominated short “Cashback” into a feature (which, naturally, was distributed by Magnolia).

“It’s easier to find funding for a short film if the script is good,” says “Tanghi Argentini” director Guy Thys. “But if you get money from the government, it’s not enough to make the whole picture, so you need to find more. And then that is more difficult when you make a short, because no one is interested.”

Given larger shifts in popular culture, though, that all might be about to change. “If you’re young, under 25, short films are much more in your consciousness as a viable entertainment form,” says Pilcher. “If you’re over 40, maybe you know somebody who made a short film once, and you know that your parents watched short films before the features. But for somebody under 20, they watch short films all the time.”