I did a grad film but that ended up hurting me more than it helped. My grad film was this over the top, gonzo, completely absurd sci-fi thing with non- professional actors. When you have actors in their fifties who are still doing student films, you're not going to get top-of-the-line. It was a thing with a teleportation chamber, with a mad scientist and it was completely absurd. It cost $60,000, but it was completely campy,
Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988) kinda stuff, so when people looked at the short, they went, 'Well, is this how the acting is going to be in
Donnie Darko (2001)? We don't think you can direct actors if that's anything to go by.' I was like, 'Give me a good actor, and I can direct.' It became really frustrating when the short came up and it gave people a reason to pass. I would recommend that if you want to do a short, then do a short that's one or two scenes from the feature you want to direct, so they can see it. They really can't think outside the box. If you want to get a feature made, I would go and scrape together whatever money you can get, find an actor who can really pull off one of the parts and shoot a few scenes from your feature screenplay that can serve as a short. That's the best evidence that you can give them. That's what
Wes Anderson did with
Bottle Rocket (1996), it was originally a short film. And it worked.
