Over the years there have been many short films and even commercials that have jumped their lengh and either became features films, or the vehicle to their directors to direct a feature film. In this post, we’ll see some noteworth ones in the recent past, and some video of the features films inspired by them.

First, a south-african director by the name of Neill Blomkamp, with some very cool commercials work and short films, being the most know one “Alive in Joberg”. Due to this, he was chosen by Peter Jackson to helm the Halo movie adaptation, which fell apart but gave him the opportunity to adapt his own short for a feature film. This became the very much praised District 9. Let’s first have a look at the short film

And now, the trailer for District 9.

Next, another one with the 9 at the title. Directed and animated by Shane Ackerman(who also has a credit on the 3rd Lord of the Rings movie), this 10 minute short movie (which follows) was the basis for the feature film of the same name “9″, also directed by him and produced by Tim Burton.

The trailer for the animated feature film:

While we’re talking about Tim Burton, while he was at Disney as an animator, he was given the opportunity to direct two short films to prove his skills has a director. One was the stop-motion animation “Vincent”. The other, “Frankenweenie”, which is also in the works to become a feature film. Here’s the whole short:

This next example is of a different kind. It’s a series of commercials from insurance brand Geico in the US, wich featured cavemen characters in our world and were rather successful. So TV exec had the idea to adapt it to a TV show, which both short-lived and troubled TV show

Here’s a clip from the pilot of the TV show.

Last, but certainly not least, we have Fede Alvarez. This director from Uruguay with also an extensive commercials work, made a short movie that went viral, and a few weeks later the word got out that he had landed a deal with Sam Raimi’s production company for a feature film. The movie won’t be based on the short, but was probably the basis to get the deal, so let’s have a look

Video and Rich Media powered by Wooshii.com

The trailer for the feature film should be coming maybe next year or 2012! And remember, we have an interview with Fede coming up soon, with questions submitted by you guys, so keep your eyes open for it.

UPDATE: here’s the full exclusive interview with Fede Alvarez.