Text | Hao Xin
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Li Guangming is the manager of a small theater in the inland area. The theater is not large, with six halls and more than 700 seats. When May came, the theaters in his city were still operating normally, but one after another "can play" movies have been withdrawn, and the theaters have no films to play. 6 projectors, can only be shut down in the dark.
Cinema people are the last link in the huge film and television industry. The vast majority of them have nothing to do with the wealth or momentum of the industry. They have a fixed monthly salary of four figures and an hourly salary of tens of dollars. Their work is day in and day out: arranging films, selling tickets, playing popcorn, selling Coke.
They have nothing to do with stars, nothing to do with hundreds of millions of dollars of investment, and nothing to do with billions of box offices — a small movie ticket contains a complex share of interests such as state taxes, film producers, investors, distributors, and theaters. Theater managers don't share much of the benefits when the market is at its best, but when the film industry is bleak, they're the ones who are most directly affected.
Some people say that theaters, like Disneyland, are used to create dreams, and people who work in them are not too sad. But in these days, seeing that the paradise he runs is becoming more and more deserted, and even forgotten, Li Guangming can't help but start to feel sad.
The following is Li Guangming's story.
In August 2020, when we survived the six-month theater closure period and were full of hopes to get out of the epidemic, we did not expect that this would be the case two years later. Every movie has been withdrawn, the Qingming file period is gone, and the May Day period has also seen a dead end. It can be said that the two months just experienced are the worst time for countless theater practitioners in more than ten years.
My cinema is in a small city inland, where the epidemic is not serious, and the cinema is still open for business. But the so-called business is nothing more than to throw 3,000 yuan into the water every day. 3,000 yuan is the cost of my daily eyes. I and you calculate: the rent is 70,000 a month, and the spread is 2300 per day. Now the weather is not hot, do not turn on the air conditioning, the daily electricity bill is calculated as 200. Six employees, in order to save wages, began to work in shifts, four per day, with a single-day salary expenditure of 600.
So how much does the theater earn per day? No more than 500. Last Wednesday, after opening the door from 11 o'clock, there was not a single customer during the whole day, so it was cold and lonely. The colleague stood stupidly behind the counter, and four people, including me, were idle and looked at each other. By the end of the evening, four people arrived, one was a couple and two were students. I remember they watched the Hong Kong movie "The Marginal Walker". 4 tickets for a total of 120 yuan, that is all our income for that day.
A friend who was a theater in Guizhou comforted me to be content, they already had zero audiences.
This was not possible before the pandemic. Even if Wednesday is a day of the week with a relatively small number of spectators, there can be dozens of them. Before the epidemic, we could collect an average of four or five thousand a day, and our days were very stable.
Now we're all taking the minimum wage. There are colleagues who are billed on an hourly basis, 10 yuan an hour. Sometimes I look at the empty hall at night, count the time, and at 9:05, I ask my colleagues to get ready to leave work—no one will come anyway, and it would be better to save a little salary and electricity bills.
The current situation in the theater is that there are not as many customers as the staff, and the staff does not check the epidemic prevention more people. Law enforcement brigades, health bureaus, propaganda departments, streets, police stations... Today this comes tomorrow and that comes, from time to time.
In order to throttle, I am trying to compress the opening hours of the theater and postpone the opening of the door from 11 o'clock to 1 pm. But this is also bad, my studio was robbed some time ago. Several times I looked at the monitoring and found that in the morning, a few junior high school students dressed up came to steal things, lying on the glass counter, a little bit reached for the cabinet door inside, opened the lock and rummaged through the cabinet. When they couldn't find the money, they stole potato chips, ice cream, drinks... Sit by the hall with something in your arms and eat no one, and throw the garbage on the ground after eating. They also stole dolls, played with them for a while, maybe got tired, and returned the dolls to me, and gave them back to me. When we got to work, the glass panels on the counter were crushed—they were going to scratch them, and I had to paste the money. You say it's angry and funny.
Many of their peers are looking for another way out. I have seen several cinema people who have changed careers do live broadcasting, the cinema manager in Chengdu is now an insurance broker, and the cinema manager in Shenzhen is doing epidemic prevention materials and trade agents. I also saw someone say that a film and television practitioner turned into a tarot master... Everyone laughed, and they didn't know if he could calculate his fate.
Some time ago, I saw a photo of the Closed Door of the Beijing Suning Cinema. I heard that it is one of the cheapest theaters in Beijing, so it did not survive. In the photo, large theater sofa chairs are neatly arranged on the side of the road, and at night they look like a cemetery.
Beijing Suning Cinema Ciyun Temple Store
In 2020, good multimedia is reporting the news of "rescue theater", and the hot search can also see the news that the theater is processing syrup, corn and so on. Now, society seems to be numb to the fact that the theater is dying, or rather, everyone is unable to take care of themselves.
I didn't think about changing careers. Starting in 2017, I worked in the cinema for 5 years, from the age of 24 to almost 30. Cinema is the place I know best. The projector is stuck, the screen is black, as long as it is not a big problem, I can fix it. The toilet was blocked and I could get through. Where the bricks in the theater are broken and leaky, I bought glue and made up the same as professionals.
I really love the industry. Working in a movie theater is a pleasure. Peers also said that the atmosphere of the theater industry is very active and simple, and there is no other place to work so much calculation. And when we open the door to do business, we always have a smiling face and bring happiness to others. Some people say that theaters are like Disneyland, and people who work in Disneyland are not very sad.
In the past 5 years, I have also experienced the most prosperous period of the Chinese cinema film market. In the three years from 2017 to 2019, I think about it now that I am very happy. At that time, domestic movies included "Wolf Warrior 2", "Nezha", "Red Sea Action", "I am not a medicine god"... Foreign blockbusters are one after another: "Fast and Furious 8", "Reunion 3", "Aquaman", "Ready Player One"... At that time, the theater was really crowded, and I helped my colleagues play popcorn until they were soft. In February 2020, a few days before the outbreak, I had just helped a boy in a very romantic marriage proposal ceremony in the theater. The audience actually has a lot of feelings for the theater, couples dating, friends gathering, unit team building, family leisure and relaxation... The theater has witnessed many big and small things between everyone and their relatives, friends and loved ones.
Cinema before the pandemic
What now? I brought up my projector almost exclusively on those cartoons. Qingming Festival, I look forward to the movie "Life Events" starring Zhu Yilong, which was withdrawn. On May Day, the "Brother, Hello" starring Shen Tengmali that I was looking forward to was withdrawn, Dapeng's "Keep You Safe" was withdrawn, "Procuratorial Storm" was withdrawn, and even the animation film "Pig Man Movie" was withdrawn. I heard they were going to re-release the 2020 movie "Home at One Point." What does this do?
What I am most looking forward to, thinking about every day, is that good films are fixed and blockbusters are fixed. But I also know it's hard. Doctor Strange was very vocal, but I couldn't feel it. Good blockbusters can't come in, but bad movies have introduced a bunch. As for domestic movies, there is a backlog of many that have not yet been on.
Now there's a gear-fixing circle. Usually, no movie dares to go, and all go to the holidays. Previous movie schedules were scattered, such as the Spring Festival stalls, and at most three popular movies grabbed the big head. Now the schedule is very concentrated, any festival, a swarm of bees are coming. The result is that there are more monks and less porridge - more movies in the same period, less scheduling. At this time, who can grab the slice first, who can account for the share of the slice, who can possibly get a little porridge.
I remember that after 2020, the film side began to pay for our theater manager to buy a schedule. On New Year's Day last year, all the filmmakers came to look for it. Our kind of small theater, the New Year's schedule fee is 2000 started, 3000 pieces can buy 10% of the schedule, more can also give a 5000. As for Wanda's kind of big theater, seven or eight thousand is normal.
The picture is from the circle of friends of the interviewee
In this way, the movies that can grab the schedule can be more points, and most of the others are cannon fodder to accompany the run. But even so, there are still few movies that dare to go on in ordinary days - because they will lose more miserably.
The problem caused by the film's piling up is that I can't digest so many movie schedules in these halls. But with the money, I had to give people a row — I couldn't get out of the line during the day, so I stuffed it at night.
At the fullest of New Year's Day last year, I lined up the movie from 0:00 to 4:00 a.m., and deliberately raised the price to 70 yuan a piece. As a result, at this price, I actually sold four tickets in the middle of the night. In the early hours of the morning, I received a call from a customer asking: What about people? I bought the ticket. I thought you're stupid, will the movie play normally at three or four o'clock in the morning? The next day I returned the ticket money to him, and quickly adjusted the ticket price of this invalid show to 199, thinking: If anyone still buys it, I really can't sleep, come and watch a movie with them!
So, it's not that the audience doesn't want to see the movie. No. It's that the audience has no good movies to watch. The impact of not having a film to watch has too great an impact on movie-watching habits, and it may take three or five years or even longer to digest.
Cinemas are like supermarkets. Supermarkets are out of stock, there are fewer customers, and it is not only those of us who sell goods that are starving to death, but also many farmers who cultivate and sell seeds and agricultural tools... The whole process was very difficult, and it was finally passed to us one link at a time.
Some people say that movies are desserts, not necessities of life. But I want to say, you see like this Shanghai epidemic, many people are hoarding grain and vegetables, what is the hard currency that is most lacking? It's cola, it's sweets. Some people may think that movies can be watched or not, it is not so necessary, but you said that when people are particularly difficult, they can eat a bite of dessert, do they think that life is still very good, and the days are still a little sweet? In fact, the meaning of the existence of movies and cinemas lies in this, as long as they are still there, they can always make people feel that there is still hope in life.
(Source: Tencent News)
* Some images are from the internet