In the American film industry, a featurette is a kind of film that is shorter than a feature film, but longer than a short film. The term may refer to either of two types of content: a shorter film or a companion film.
Medium-length films
A featurette is a film usually of three to four reels in length, or about 24–40 minutes in running time,
thus longer than a two-reel
short subject but shorter than a
feature film. Hence, it is a "small feature" (the ending "" is a common
diminutive suffix derived from
French language), and in fact featurettes were sometimes called "streamlined features". Featurette was commonly used from before the start of the
Sound film into the 1960s, when films of such length as the Hal Roach's Streamliners—and several French films of that length—ceased being made, or were made as experimental or art films and subsumed under the more general rubric of
Short subject. Some featurettes are still being produced, notably the action comedy
Kung Fury, which runs only 31 minutes.
Other terms with a similar meaning include: medium-length films, long shorts and short features.
Companion films
After the advent of
DVD technology, the term also gained the meaning of "a brief
documentary film covering one or more aspects of the film creation process".
[Daniels, Bill; Leedy, David; Sills, Steven D (February 5, 2006). Movie Money: Understanding Hollywood's (Creative) Accounting Practices. Silman-James Press. p. 134.][ "Featurette". Merriam-Webster Online. Retrieved 2012-07-11.] In DVD features descriptions, the term "featurette" usually refers to
Making-of–type bonus material such as documentaries on
special effects,
Scenic design, or cast and crew interviews.
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