Mastering the craft of making short video

THE Shanghai International Film Festival recently organized a masterclass for short video production at the Shanghai Vancouver Film School.

A total of 23 young filmmakers attended the five-day masterclass with new short video productions in the drama category.

The event is an extension of the festival’s “Explore” short video program, which was hailed by many film enthusiasts in June during the 22nd Shanghai International Film Festival.

At that time, 10 outstanding works were chosen from 2,000 candidates for showing as part of the festival’s efforts to discover and nurture young talented filmmakers.

Among the award-winning videos were “Wild Island,” “File of Fantasy,” “The Tree” and “Memory of the Spring.”

Most were shot from creative perspectives to explore different people’s lives, emotions and humanity.

Good storytelling and cinematography were featured.

The masterclass also attracted directors of the award-winning productions.

During the five days in mid-August, they talked with many film celebrities, including animation filmmaker Oliver Acker and veteran filmmakers Chen Daming and Zheng Dasheng.

The curriculum covered story pitching, scriptwriting, cinematography, production and marketing.

Students said the masterclass provided them an insight into the whole process and management of film production. It helped them to get closer to the flourishing Chinese film industry and pursue their filmmaking dreams.

In recent years, short videos have gained increasing popularity.

Compared with feature filmmaking, it costs less and there are lower technical thresholds.

Staged for the first time this year, “Explore” is expected to be ongoing.

Shanghai International Film Festival also launched a five-year cooperation with Migu.cn to discover and nurture more talented directors.

It will provide directors with more support in technology, production and distribution.