Welcome back! I think it is important to have an online presence. I see people like David Morefield are posting vlogs of his work. His channel doesn’t get that many views but he is going to get a lot of work from his viewers. If you want to make a short film, I think it is better to build a following like Danny Grevtitz. You can have sponsors and your followers can fund your short films instead of you struggling to fund it yourself. There is like Dana and the wolf. They have long form short films on their channel and they break into reels that go viral.