2020-07-29

New Driving Force for Film Industry | Short Video

How shall we redefine short videos? How shall we get good ideas? How shall we improve content by means of 5G, 4K and other advanced technologies? On the afternoon of July 28, the special short video activity under the 23rd Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) officially kicked off. The five jury members present there are Zhou Ziyang, a director and scriptwriter; Yuan Yuan, a scriptwriter; Liu Kuo, an animation director; Li Meng, an actress; and Wang Bin, CEO of Migu Video. In this activity, 20 excellent short video producers were selected and helped to knock on the door of film temple within four minutes.

It\'s the second year when such a special short video activity was carried out. In order to enable the producers to fully and personally experience the professional atmosphere at SIFF, the organizers invited them to learn experience and advice from the jury and accumulate practical experience and knowledge for their own future full-length film feature production.

The production of short videos is very popular across the country now, which provides an opportunity for more people to tap their own potential and encourages more young film lovers to create videos. Focusing on this topic of "four-minute short video", the jury members discussed various issues in a heated manner, such as how to think outside the box of short videos, how to foster strengths and circumvent weaknesses in content creation, and how to establish a new incubator for film talents.

Extensive Collection of Short Videos

With regard to the quality of creations collected in this activity, Liu Kuo, an animation director, bluntly said that despite the short period and low threshold for production of short videos, they received a lot of different styles and types of submissions, including those brilliant ones. He also stressed that the low production threshold did not mean low creation threshold, and in some sense, it\'s more difficult to produce short videos than full-length films, e.g., how to tell a whole story within four minutes.

Short Videos Stress Emotional Expression

For the narrative feature of short videos, Yuan Yuan, a scriptwriter, frankly said that it\'s quite challenging to produce four-minute narrative short videos due to traditional time-consuming characterization and foreshadowing plot. In her opinions, short videos should pay more attention to emotional expression and atmosphere rendering, and fully resonate with the audience emotionally. She also suggested that short videos should be closely related to the producers\' lives and experience and reflect the true feelings of the producers, to better touch the audience.

Good Videos with Time Limit

Zhou Ziyang, a director, talked about the production of short videos with deep feelings. He said that his major was design but his first film—a five-minute short film—gave him the confidence and determination to become a director. He also said his understanding of high-quality short videos. He indicated that a film or video, whether full-length film, short film or short video, would be good only if it integrated creativity, idea and technology. He called on young video producers on site to pursue their own original aspiration and overcome any difficulty with a strong willpower and not to easily give up if they chose to create videos and films.

How shall an actor perform in a short video? Li Meng, an actress, shared her experience. She recalled that her shortest film was a 68-minute short film if 72 minutes was used as a threshold for distinguishing full-length films and short films. She thought that either performance or creation was a well-grounded process requiring long-term accumulation and attempts. As a young actress, she would like to promote and help young producers to enter the film industry more smoothly.

Technology-Driven Creation and Idea Realization

In the forthcoming 5G age, short videos, as a creative form closely related to mobile terminal, will change dramatically. As for the relations between creation and 5G, VR and other emerging technologies, Wang Bin, CEO of Migu Video, said that the rapid development of 5G would improve the performance of mobile terminal in a leapfrog manner and then optimize users\' content consumption experience in a large scale; and meanwhile would further promote the development of UHD VR technology and enable VR films to actually provide theatre-level immersion. He also frankly said that technology could enable creation and accelerate realization of ideas and would become an effective tool for creators, but art and creation could never be replaced.

Today, for this activity for short videos, 20 recommended outstanding short videos and excellent producers were published and the honors of 5 categories were granted.

At last, SIFF and Migu Culture Technology Co., Ltd. affiliated to China Mobile launched the "Thousand 5G Creation Partners Program" and other cooperation matters, further promoting film production with new technology.

List of 20 Recommended Short Videos and Producers