Reminder: This article about the internationally known and distinguished Katie Bignell has elements of a journalism feature, journalism profile, journalistic memoir as well as Q&A. The result is a panoramic deep-dive landscape of the world of film festivals plus a rare deep look at the short films interests taking place that she is passionately involved in. Topics include her take on a diversity of cinematic topics including the evolution of “fraudulent” and “pseudo” festivals as well as what distinguishes excellent, good, and poor film festivals. Bignell also provides insights into the film school landscape, highlighting the importance of creative freedom and unique storytelling over technical proficiency.
Additionally, she shares her personal film genre preferences and perspectives on the current state of politics and their impact on the film industry – in many cinematic circles her perspectives and insight are like manna from heaven. Readers and visitors to this online publication should know that this article has been edited for context, accuracy, clarification.
the WORD:
Have you noticed that film shorts have been showing up on cable? So a bigger, it used to be they were sort of just for films. They were just films, but they started showing up on cable. We expect to see some feature films down the road. You see a lot of that happening right now with shorts. Yes. I guess I’m talking about how are they’re making it into pop culture or to a public.
Katie Bignell:
In some degree? I think a lot of shorts find an active engaged audience after they’ve done the festival route, generally online.
So that’s where people might put it on YouTube or they might put it on Vimeo or it might become something that’s shared. So a little bit more kind of viral.
That’s generally where most short films end up living is online somewhere. You can find people who will buy films. They generally tend to, you’ve got places like Shudder that does horror dust Alta where they’re a little bit more genre specific, but short generally, there’s not as much of a kind of buy and sell nuance to it anymore.
There used to be many years ago, but it’s because we have the Internet, everyone’s disposal. If you’ve got a short comedy film that’s like five minutes, chances are if you put it on video or YouTube, people are going to share it.
They find it funny and it’s going to get people watching it. Whereas if you’ve got a 20-minute relationship drama, that’s quite a lot to ask for somebody that’s riding the bus to work or getting the metro to school. It’s a lot to ask to watch on a small screen.
So I think how we watch short film now compared to how we used to watch it, which was War TV, it used to be shorts before a feature in the theater. That’s definitely changed.
the WORD:
I just need to take a pause here for a second. Are there any questions that you wish I would be asking you instead of some things that you wanted to say or get out there that I’m not even coming close to or maybe I did? Am I making sense? Oh, there is.
Katie Bignell:
Yeah. No, I mean, I’m enjoying these questions because it’s different to the other conversations I’ve had. Oh, okay, I got it.
the WORD:
Because I think I had this reporting approach to doing interviews and stuff, and sometimes I forget that I’m interviewing someone and I might not be asking them questions that they would, I would, I’m so wrapped up into my own stuff or not smart enough to be able to realize that it’s going in the wrong direction or it might be going in the wrong direction.
And I’m trying to get as much as I can so that I do this article, it is stand out and make other people want to do focus on short films in the filming process, and I’ll have a little voice, so, oops, let me just make sure. Oh, what do young filmmakers either in high school or college, I mean, so what’s your take on filmmakers over there?
Yeah, what’s your take? God, I’m going to ask this question. So what’s your take on budding filmmakers, young filmmakers, generation Z, high school, college? How would you describe the essence of that in terms of short film? Does that make sense?
Katie Bignell:
Yeah, so we do come across a lot of students. So we do a lot of teaching, a lot of film schools and education bodies hire us because when you are being taught film at school, you get taught how to make film, but you don’t necessarily get taught what to do once you finish the film.
And that’s where we come in because obviously we’ve got this expertise in the worldwide circuit. So I think what we often find is sometimes the work that students are making is not necessarily the most exciting narratives, but it’s them understanding their craft. So it’s them figuring out how to direct, how to light, how to edit the aesthetics of a film, the production design and so on.
So we always recommend to students when you make that story that you want to make, just make sure it is an interesting story and you make it as unique as you can because sometimes students can get very focused on what they’re making and what they’re not doing is watching other films that have been made already.
And as is the way for any creative process you can pilfer, but it’s not necessarily just taking it and plagiarizing it. You are learning what you like and what you don’t like and what works for your work and what doesn’t. So we always encourage students to watch as much short films as they can just because you learn by watching and you will know if you don’t engage with something, if you don’t like something. It’s always, like I say, going to see bad theater.
It’s never a wasted opportunity. You know what not to do because you’re seeing somebody else kind of not quite getting it right, so you can go, oh, okay, yeah, I wouldn’t do it like that. I’d do it slightly differently. So I always say to any student, watch films, watch films that people recommend to you. You’re not going to like everything nobody does, but you’re going to understand what your taste is and you’re going to realize what you want to be doing rather than doing something that you think you should be doing get you the credits.
I think.I kind of wish more tutors would allow students to take a risk, rather than saying, let’s make something technically competent. I’m like, let’s tell a story that’s unique and interesting that it shouldn’t make me think it’s a student film.
It should make me think this is a really compelling piece. And I will say student films now are sometimes hands down some of the best work that we’ve seen, but that’s when they’re being allowed that freedom to tell the stories they want to tell rather than just ticking a few boxes.
the WORD:
Again, I’m not seeking identity, but just a description. How do you compare, I’m thinking of the so-called best film school or school and then the worst film schools. Yeah, the worst film, the best film schools versus the worst film schools over there. Now. I teach in How to College in New York City and it’s in the Department of Film and Media studies. And they say film, but they’re awful teachers. I won’t get into the politics, but they’re bad. And so if you could describe the good over there versus the bad over there, I stuff over here.
Katie Bignell:
Well, I think the one thing I always find phenomenal about film schools is how expensive they are, which is surprising. I mean, that’s always, I think education, the cost of education in different countries is always such a vast difference. But in terms of good film schools, I think good film schools are the ones that allow you that freedom, that creative freedom to trial something, they let you fail.
They’re always constantly kind of saying, you have to hit these marks to pass. I always find that when we go into film school, we know that the students are thriving because they have the flexibility for a tutor or a lecturer to show them work that they wouldn’t have seen elsewhere.
And that can be somebody who’s watching something simple like a kid watching Buster Keaton for the first time and understanding this still translates. You’ve got to remember some of these people that are studying, they don’t have the kind of back catalog history that you or I would have a film.
So we could sit down with a group of students and say, you should watch this film and this film and this film, and they’re not going to know it. Whereas sometimes I find when we go into film school, it’s quite didactic the kind of teaching that they’ve done.
It’s like, right, we’re going to look at this and these are the masters and they’re the only people that we’re going to study when we’re talking about lighting or cinematography. And I’m like, you’ve got to let people find who they’re interested in and who they like and who they don’t like. So I think a good film school is a film school that doesn’t just stick to the mainstream or the store waltz.
They actually incorporate the forgotten people in the craft. Bad film schools, they just generally tend to do one size fits all. That’s it. You get a tick, tick, tick, done, hit the marks, and then thank you for the tuition fees and thank you for the money.
Now you’re a filmmaker. Whereas I think maybe I’m old fashioned, but I think you’ve got to really understand your craft and that isn’t always easy, and it’s not always something that’s going to be enjoyable or that you like, but you have to understand every facet to figure out what you do. And I’m thinking back to my script writing days. I used to hate being told this seminar and this kind of part of our course, we are just going to look at LAR and we’re going to look at their teachings of how to do structure.
And I’d be like, but there’s not just one way of doing structure. There’s other ways and there’s experimental form, and who says that that’s the one thing that goes? So I think that’s why I personally found my degree a little bit stunted, and I think sometimes you can tell when you go into a film school and it’s like the point of reference that all the students have are always the same thing.
And I’m like, oh, if you like that, you should probably check out this. And they’re always kind of scurrying down and notes. Yeah, good and bad. I suppose it depends on how much you want to be pushed.
the WORD:
Which are your favorite genres?
Katie Bignell:
I can tell you what I’m not a fan of because that helps me. So I’m not a fan of romcoms. They don’t really do it for me. I’m not a big fan of horror, but I realize some people don’t like the term, but elevated horror I find a little bit more interesting. What’s that?
So mid-summer or hereditary or us where it is horror but kind of put through maybe a social lens or it’s a little bit more, it’s not the traditional blood guts and go, it’s a little bit more kind of like a think piece. My husband loves horror.
That’s his thing. So he absolutely loves all of it. For me, I tend to go for more emotional drama, but I mean that’s a vague term, but if I say some of my favorite films are Harold and Maude, American Graffiti Magnolia, they’re all pieces about people. They’re not.
the WORD:
Okay, so I have some crazy questions to ask. I’m in the United States and things are crazy. I don’t know if this is the right question, but maybe it help me to get honed on things. What about what’s going on in the film ministry over where you live? Think about all the craziness that’s going on in this country over here, and if you don’t want to deal with that, that’s okay.
Katie Bignell:
No, no, no. I mean, because we travel a lot to North America. Oh, we do.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re always, yeah, so we travel to festivals a lot.
Yeah, I’ve just been in Hamburg for Hamburg Short Film Festival, and then in two weeks time we are coming over to Palm Spring Short Film Festival, but we travel a lot to the U.S and Canada, and so it means that we have a lot of friends and work industry people that are over there. So we are always sharing notes and being a shoulder to cry on and wailing at each other going, why is the world burning?
The UK side of things has its own political issues. That’s a polite way of putting it, but we find it insane looking over the pond because what is news shouldn’t be news. Some of the things that are the conversations or the scenarios that are happening, we’re just like, why is this even kind of making the news?
This shouldn’t be happening. There shouldn’t be a discussion that’s made public. I think the biggest tell is when we wake up to our news cycle every day and our news cycle is dominated by U.S. politics, that’s when we are like, oh, okay. It’s getting crazy over there.
the WORD:
Excuse me. Okay, so this is June. When do you expect to come to the United to be in Palm Springs?
Katie Bignell:
Towards the end of June.
the WORD:
Oh, so that’s not too long.
Katie Bignell:
Yeah.
the WORD:
Are you going to hit any other countries? Oh, why am I saying countries?
Katie Bignell:
So I mean, we get booked for festivals all the time, but for the upcoming months, because we have a team. So when my husband works with me, so when we’re at Palm Springs, we’ve got another team member in the Palace Film Festival, which is in Bulgaria. Then we’ve got indie shorts in Indiana in end of July, and then another team member is at a festival in the UK called Mansfield Town Film Festival.
Then we have, I’m doing some jury work at FTOs Animation Festival in Switzerland. Then we’re going to Atlantic International Film Festival, Nova Scotia. Then we’re going to Cordera Film Festival in Reno. So we are kind of all over really. How big is your staff? So there’s a team of seven, and we all have kind of set roles. Seven. Yeah.
the WORD:
How do you pcatch your breath? I mean, you definitely love what you’re doing, but it just looks like, wow, it’s huge.
Katie Bignell:
It’s a lot. So there’s seven of us, but we all have very specific roles. So there’s three strategists. They’re the ones that watch the films to consider for our slate and create the bespoke strategies for the films we take on. So it’s myself, my husband, Ian, and my colleague Mark, and then we have a designated submissions coordinator called Esther.
She’s the one that’s doing all the submissions for our clients that we do handle everything for. Then we’ve got Andy, who’s our tech guy. He’s the one that creates all the film files that we need for all the festivals. We’ve got Natalia, who’s our creative director, so she does all of our branding, all of our kind of logo.
We have Jess, who’s our marketing manager and social media communications person. So we’ve all got very set roles. We kind like a well-oiled machine that we all kind of work in harmony, that I have to do something, which means Jess has to do something, which means Andy has to do something. But it works. It’s kind of a team effort.
the WORD:
Thank you very much again, and you have safe trips, particularly if you come over here because things are really crazy.
Katie Bignell:
Yeah, yeah. We’re keeping the news on all the time, which is either a good thing or a bad thing, but at least we’re informed.
the WORD:
Oh, good thing. It’s a great quote. I’m going to borrow it. You take care now.
Katie Bignell:
Brilliant, lovely. Speak to you. Bye. Bye.