Panaji, 24 November 2021

“Gobelins has been asking its students for last 45 years to make short film as part of the course and these films are an asset to us,” said Cécile Blondel of Gobelins School of Image, Paris.  Blondel was conducting a Masterclass virtually on Why Make Short Films on the sidelines of IFFI52 in Goa today.

While narrating the importance of short films Cecile Blondel said that “Films less than 59 minutes in US and less than 50 minutes in UK are considered short films. Because of rising demand the production of short films has increased in last few years.”

“The fact that people can watch them on their phone while commuting or at their convienience also increases the attractiveness of the short films, ” Blondel noted.

To stress how seriously short film section is taken by industry leaders she informed that “Pixar has opened short film division and considers it as an important business division.”

While deliberating over the reason why short films are attractive she said “They cost less to make which means lower risk. Moreover they give you autonomy as short films can be produced even alone”.

Moreover in case of short videos “You can easily show your work to studios and can bypass the gatekeepers also,” she quipped. 

Short videos are a great tool to master the art of film making. Explaining this she said, “It is a quick way to learn. We can learn about areas that need improvement in less stressful environment and also the skills that we learn are transferable to other formats.”

Cecile Blondel cited one study as per which out of 100 film directors that were interviewed one-third mentioned short films as an important part of their professional journey.

Short videos can easily cross boundaries of the world with the help of phone and internet and they can be source of income also, Prof Blondel added.

Ms Cecile Blondel concluded by highlighting the significance of Clermont Ferrand Short Film Festival in France. She said it is the second most prestigious film festival in the world after Cannes and most important film festival for short films in the world where over 7000 short films from the world are shown.

Cécile studied and worked in the field of history of art. From 1989 to 1995 she was an associate researcher and lecturer in Cultural History. She taught at La Sorbonne and Science Po, Paris. She has been the Head of International Relations at Gobelins since 2012, where she is in charge of the International Programmes: Summer Schools and Master of Arts in Character Animation.

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