If tomorrow's new release Mama— in which two adopted children are beset by a malevolent creature they call Mama — sounds familiar, it may be because you first encountered the film in its original three-minute short form when it was released in 2008. (Watch the original short version of Mama below.)
On the strength of the three-minute version, Guillermo del Toro (of Pan's Labyrinth fame) tapped director Andres Muschietti to expand the short into a full-length film of the same name. But Muschietti is hardly the first director to cut his teeth on self-produced shorts before moving up to a big directing gig. Here, 12 early short films by famous Hollywood directors.