Short video forum held during film festival
New technologies, including 5G, and changed user habits will fuel the short video sector in China, which is already a key part of the country's audio and video market, industry officials told a forum at the ongoing 22nd Shanghai International Film Festival on Wednesday.
Several dozen short video works, including cartoons, won awards at the SIFF, the first time the local festival has set up such an award. The top works were chosen from about 2,000 short videos received by the festival organizers.
China's short video market saw an explosive year on year growth of 744.7 percent to 46.7 billion yuan (US$6.8 billion) in 2018, which will continue to expand in 2019, analysts said.
Film directors, publishers, researchers and representatives of dot-com platforms like Migu and Douyin or Tik Tok, talked about opportunities in the short video sector during the SIFF sub-forum titled Explore.
The 5G technology, which has started to take off in China following the issuance of licenses early this month, will bring a historic opportunity for industry development, the speakers said.
Compared with the current 4G network, 5G offers users 20 to 50 times mobile Internet access. It will make the spread and distribution of short videos easier and wider, industry insiders say.
Speaking at the forum, well-known Hong Kong actress and director Sandra Ng said that short video directors were “filled with talent and innovation”.
“Short videos are a nice platform for us (film directors) to test the waters and get audiences' feedback,” said Mai Zi, a young doctor.
The total number of short video users in China stood at 648 million last year, accounting for 78.2 percent of the country's overall online population. Users are spending more time on short video, making up more than 80 percent of the total internet traffic, researchers said.
User-generated contents, especially on the daily lives of normal people, have become a rich resource for short videos in the country, according to Douyin, which has 250 million daily active users.