Dialogue Party Gan: UGC is now too early for JAUNT China to complete two major tasks

Compared with the business model that VR games can be sold online and offline experience, the profit model of VR film and television is still unclear. So how should vr film and television go forward? Hardware, platform, and CP have their own views. Recently, VRZINC had the honor to have a dialogue with Fang Gan, CEO of Jaunt China, which introduced some of the help and suggestions provided by Jaunt China as a hardware and platform party to the content production team.

As the content team's top concern, Jaunt China is currently able to help with shooting equipment and cloud platform services, "First, from the equipment point of view, we can help reduce production costs. Second, our technicians, especially foreign ones, have been in this area for three or four years and have experienced many different projects, and they can provide a lot of sharing from the experience, which will also reduce the risk of production. Third, in some cases we will consider investing in some projects, of course, this is more cautious. If you come across good content, we'll also come up with some resources to help him promote it. ”

In terms of VR film and television content production, Fang Gan said, "Chinese users are more enthusiastic and accepted of VR than American users, and pay more attention to interaction. As for whether it is aimed at the global market, in Fang Gan's view, "a good film is not necessarily made for a certain audience, and if you think about which audiences it is aimed at, I think the work may not achieve the desired results." ”

"VR is a highly technically demanding media content, and the user experience is not good without a better device. If you don't have a good quality, a lot of the C-end content you do may not be seen by everyone. This is different from traditional media, and I don't think VR has reached this point yet. In Fang Gan's eyes, UGC's VR content is not suitable at this stage, "first professional, different equipment to improve, improve and then decline, and then popularize to the C-end market." ”

At the end of the interview, Fang Gan also expressed some of his own ideas about the Chinese film market, "Through an outbreak period, there will be some unhealthy behaviors in the market, and these behaviors will be eliminated by the government or the industry itself, and there will be new industry regulations to make the industry more healthy." China needs time to hammer out some new systems, and it also takes time for cultural exchanges. ”

Why did you choose to join Jaunt China after coming out of Oriental DreamWorks? Fang Gan: I already had some interest in VR when I was in Dongmeng, and at that time, Dongmeng also had some VR cooperation, such as helping to do VR content production, and looking for some projects in the market. And when we developed our own animation content, we also used different VR equipment. During the summer vacation last summer, I spent a lot of time observing and researching the VR market. Before joining Jaunt, I always had a question in my mind, how VR can spread to the market. I see that mobile VR can help VR become popular in the future, and this is a big attraction for me. I've talked to my friends in Hollywood and found that this is a whole new field. There is a very open environment, there is no restriction from traditional experience, everyone is trying to explore, which is also very attractive to me. When I left DreamWorks, everyone was thinking about setting up a Jaunt China joint venture. For these reasons, I ended up joining Jaunt China. You joined Jaunt China as CEO, what are your top priorities this year? Fang Gan: Jaunt has the best VR production platform in the world at present, we not only have cameras, but also cloud platforms, which can help users do algorithms and automatically stitch content. Our cloud platform not only supports our cameras, but also OZO cameras, arguably two of the most high-end cameras on the market right now, which is a great foundation for me. With this foundation in place, our task in China is how to bring these technologies, as well as the skills and resources of VR production, to Chinese entrepreneurs. It's a task to get them deeper acquainted with and understand VR. Another task is to bring the world's best VR content to Chinese audiences. You need to have good content, and you need to introduce good content to market audiences and teach them how to appreciate it. It can be summarized into two tasks to help entrepreneurs create content and bring content to Chinese audiences. JAUNT cameras are for professionals and consumer-grade is not considered for the time being What role can Chinese culture and SMG play in Jaunt's expansion into the Chinese market this year? Fang Gan: I think this is a rather new layout. Many traditional joint venture companies are shareholders of the United States, the Chinese side has no way to buy shares, cooperation is only the Chinese side of cooperation, there is a generation gap in the global market. I think Chinese Culture, Shanghai Wenguang and Mr. Li, they are very wise to put this into a three-way win-win concept. Although my mission is to expand my business in China, I also have a mission to help the United States export content to the world. In this regard, our release is a synchronous release on a global scale, which is an important strategic positioning. In addition, the two Chinese shareholders have a lot of content in the Chinese market. We are all exploring opportunities for cooperation by using these good resources. In addition, we provide technical support, and the TV station also brings us a lot of platform and other resources to support. Now that Jaunt has launched the first generation of prototype product Jaunt one, which is now very expensive, is Jaunt considering pushing some consumer versions? Fang Gan: We mainly focus on high-quality and professional production content, we develop equipment for professionals to use, and now we have not considered turning these photography devices or cloud devices into products for C-end users in the short term. Does it mean that the entire platform now distributes content, mainly relying on professional teams to do quality content, UGC at this stage you think is not appropriate? Fang Gan: I think it's a matter of time. VR is a highly technically demanding media content, and if there is no better device, the user experience is not good. If you don't have a good quality, a lot of the C-end content you do may not be seen by everyone. This is different from traditional media, and I don't think VR has reached this point yet. We are now mainly to push out the professional content, this thinking is very similar to the traditional movie or TV, you can see that very professional TV and movies are made first, the equipment is slowly simplified or smaller, until almost the beginning of YouTube, everyone thinks about how to use these different devices to shoot some content, put on YouTube for some viewers to watch. They have PGC professionals on YouTube to shoot, which is a long process, and I think VR will go a similar path. First professional, different equipment to improve, improve and then decline, and then popularize to the C-end market. Doing premium content distribution Short-term fees are challenging Can you tell us about the entire JauntVR content distribution platform now? Fang Gan: Let me first introduce more than 200 self-produced content abroad, and we have introduced a large number of excellent third-party content. Now Jaunt China is the first step in building its own platform to introduce American content to Chinese audiences. And we work with different studios and different media in the country to produce some content together. In addition, we encourage third-party professional content, and they can provide the best content works to our platform for global distribution. What is the cooperation model for introducing third-party content? Fang Gan: At present, the concept of VR charging is still relatively new, and it has not yet begun. I feel that there are some challenges in terms of short-term charges, the content is not to the extent that everyone thinks it must be seen, or it is not so popular, and many of you are still laying out this piece in the early stage. We work with a lot of third parties, and the third parties take some of the content themselves and put it on our platform. What is the commitment of our platform? Help them connect content with different terminals and push it to different platforms. What kind of support can Jaunt China provide to the content production team as a hardware and platform party? Fang Gan: First, from the equipment point of view, we can help reduce the cost of production. Second, our technicians, especially foreign ones, have been in this area for three or four years and have experienced many different projects, and they can provide a lot of sharing from the experience, which will also reduce the risk of production. Third, in some cases we will consider investing in some projects, of course, this is more cautious. If you come across good content, we'll also come up with some resources to help him promote it. Do you think there is a gap in the quality of foreign VR content and domestic VR content? Fang Gan: There is no market standard at present, and it is not said that this is good or bad. You may see that some of the award-winning VR content is a foreign production company, and you think that their production level is very high. I think these are just foreign elites, who are already doing movies and TV series at a high level. And this is only today's level, not the future trend. Why? I personally feel that there are some differences between Chinese users and American users, such as seeing That Chinese users are very enthusiastic about VR acceptance and are particularly fast. There are two pieces of VR content in China: First, cheaper VR glasses or some other equipment, everyone can contact. Second, many offline experience centers or entertainment venues have VR. Chinese audiences have long been widely exposed to these different VR devices and VR content. I don't think the U.S. user base is as enthusiastic as the Chinese user base, and they are only exposed to online, relatively high-end VR glasses to appreciate these contents. From the ability to accept or the ability to grow in the market, I think China is faster than the United States, which is quite an important point. On the other hand, Chinese audiences have begun to have a lot of offline contact and prefer to interact with content, so it is likely that the next wave of content will be enhanced in terms of interaction. Third, from the perspective of social VR, we look at China and the United States from a market perspective, there are also different development trends, and everyone is still in the observation stage. The Chinese film market is developing healthily From 2014 to 2016, the output value of China's entire film industry grew very fast, why did so many problems have been exposed in 2016? Fang Gan: Of course, it is some of my personal thoughts. Personally, I think it's been a very healthy growth. First, the market adjusts itself to become healthier. Second, there will be new policies on the government side, and the United States also went through this path in the 40s and 50s. Before, the cultural aspect was relatively closed, but in the past few years, many films have begun to open up, and China's production and creative capabilities have also improved a lot. Therefore, through an outbreak period, there will be some unhealthy behaviors in the market, and these behaviors will be eliminated by the government or the industry itself, and there will be new industry regulations to make the industry more healthy. Personally, I am still full of confidence in the Chinese film market, after all, the Chinese market is still very large and still in the process of growth. Maybe it won't grow like 40% of what it used to be, but there is still a very healthy growth rate. Why is it that the West can become a norm to do high-quality works, but we in China are all individual cases? Fang Gan: I think this is a growth process, 40 years ago, the cars from Japan were not very good cars, but through continuous improvement to become one of the world's top car brands, this is its growth process. I think Chinese films need the same process, not that you can make things quickly by investing a lot of money. If you look at American studios, they have more than 100 years to run into a system, while China does not have such a system now. Now China's environment is different from the United States, the United States at that time mainly made of television, and the Chinese environment of film, television, the Internet plus VR, to grind out a new industry, a new model is enough time. In addition, the Content of the West is somewhat different from that of China, largely due to cultural issues. For example, American films can tell stories with a global concept, and the United States certainly has a great advantage in this regard. And China's youth films are taken to the United States, and Americans can't understand them. Why? Their youth is completely different from the youth of Chinese. Bringing Chinese youth films to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, everyone can understand, there is a common language and recognition. Now that China is also open, China and foreign cultures are slowly beginning to have different contacts, and it is very likely that the next generation of Chinese authors will have stories in the common language of the world, and everyone can understand the common point of view. Do you think that when the domestic VR film and television team creates content, it aims at the global market from the beginning, or only does it Chinese understand VR film and television works better? Fang Gan: I personally believe that if you just tell a story, the first thing you should think about should not be who the audience is, but think about what kind of story to tell. This story should have a good fit with the director's team. A good film is not necessarily made for some audience, mainly for entrepreneurs, directors or with ideals, and if he wants to do it to the highest level, it will affect all audiences. If I think about which audiences to target, I don't think the work will necessarily achieve the results you want, which is my personal opinion. Is Jaunt planning to take some IP and make it into a VR version? Fang Gan: For IP, we will not rule out, we need to see opportunities. If there is an opportunity to cooperate in terms of business model and creativity, I think we can consider it.