Industry recovery? Didn't come to my house

Author|Weinika

Editor|Li Chunhui

"Recently, a lot of books have suddenly been handed over." An actor agent excitedly sighed to Hard Candy Jun that he hadn't received a book in nearly a year. From his point of view, if the waist actor begins to receive a lot of scripts, it can be seen that the film and television industry has indeed a trend of recovery.

Last year, Hard Candy Jun talked more than once about the situation in the film and television industry that "landlords have no surplus food". After the long-form video platform collectively practiced the content strategy of "improving quality and reducing quantity", the waist project was greatly reduced, and the waist actors bore the brunt and collectively survived the winter.

Nowadays, the waist actors who were the first to be impacted have made appointments. Spring River water heating duck prophet, could it be that the spring breeze of "recovery" has indeed blown into the film and television industry?

"I had a film project in the pipeline and found that the actors were out of schedule." Faced with this problem, theater film producer Xu Ge also gave Hard Candy Jun an affirmative answer - "The market is getting better, the worst era has passed, and everyone has become very motivated recently." ”

Then link with the recent market signs: Spring Festival movie theaters are bustling again; The TV series "Crazy" triggered a ratings frenzy, and the drama version of "The Three-Body Problem" was recognized by word of mouth; The long-form video platform frequently reported good financial news, iQiyi achieved a full-year operating profit for the first time, the number of members rose to 120 million, Tencent Video reported a profit in July last year, and Youku's losses narrowed year-on-year for seven consecutive quarters.

It's easy to judge: entertainment is one of the first industries affected by the pandemic to achieve a full recovery. But at the same time, there are those who have the opposite opinion. Especially ordinary migrant workers or entrepreneurs in the film and television industry, they believe that it is too early to talk about "recovery", there is still very little "living money" in the industry, and the open positions are still limited.

Perhaps for the grassroots of any industry, it is necessary for the industry to reach the level of "bubble" in order to achieve others eating meat and drinking soup. And a little warm wind is difficult to blow the entire south bank of the river.

Episodes, there are white horses and no dark horses

The biggest spring breeze in the film and television industry now is that the backlog of projects has finally come to fruition, and even the delayed dramas that have been hidden for a long time have been set one after another.

Before there was "Gentleman League", after there was "Light Abyss", and now 101 is lined up to legend "airborne"; Imported films are also set in batches, "difficult to review" "Endless" was released, and others such as "Fengshen Trilogy" and "Solid as a Rock" also have good news, or will impact the summer file.

"Catching up with the good period of policy loosening, a stream of unloading and clearing inventory can allow the industry to breathe a breather and make up for the lack of inventory of new films." Series producer Leo told Hard Candy.

But all this does not mean that the industry has recovered, and the biggest sign of recovery is that "the industry must have money flow". But at present, the production strategy of the long-form video platform has not been significantly adjusted - the project is still difficult to platform, the industry is still very little money, and the market is still in a polarized state.

"In the current market, there are only white horses, no dark horses." Leo sighed pessimistically, self-pitying.

He himself started his own business from the head drama company. According to his observations, at present, on the market, the hit drama and popular drama companies, such as the stellar gravity of "Canglan Tips" and the blank film and television of "Crazy", both companies have a very strong financial capital background, and they are taking the copyright self-made route of their own "lavish" funds. This kind of drama does not completely rely on the funds of the video platform, and the drama company itself will be deeply involved in the publicity when it is broadcast, ensuring the broadcast effect of the series.

So in a sense, the project they save is a capital escort. Stellar gravity, white space film and television are all white horses, not dark horses. The vitality of the market requires the emergence of dark horse companies to have more innovation and vitality. But in the past, many dark horse companies that relied on platform funds to do customized dramas and tens of millions of projects, because of the platform's cost reduction and efficiency increase, are now almost "disappeared".

Film and television companies that have become labels from small dark horses do not have many custom dramas to do now, and can only transform into large-scale copyright dramas and try to get the head project quota of the platform. Of course, there is also an option: to do the Chinese dramas, short dramas, and micro-short dramas that the video platform is still supporting, which can barely support small companies.

"Clearing the inventory and adding the storage of new films, the platform is enough to operate the content of this year, so there are still very few new projects that start shooting. In this way, survival is still difficult for many small and medium-sized waist companies. Leo sighed.

But there are producers who disagree. They believe that the improvement of platform profits, the recovery of the consumer market, and the new budget for advertisers all indicate that a recovery is imminent. There is no rush to define at the moment, and it will take time for the full picture to emerge.

Movie, the project finally moved

The recovery of the film market is more talked about than drama. Because the movie is more affected by the epidemic, the series even has some home dividends, but there is no money upstream. The drama actually performed well throughout last year, and it seems that the movie is making an explosive recovery in this year's Spring Festival.

Producer Xu Ge told Hard Candy Jun that he has made substantial progress in several film projects he ran last year, and he is about to start filming. The actors he knows have tight schedules, and the condition of both the head and waist actors is much better than before.

"The clearance of the film market is not the same as the TV drama market." Leo explained to Hard Candy Jun that the market was not good before the movie because it was greatly affected by the epidemic and censorship. Now the influence of the former is almost non-existent, and the influence of the latter has also begun to improve, naturally ushered in a positive.

With the recovery of the film market, even the financing fraud of film projects is "food and grass first". CCTV also specifically reported the matter, forcing popular film projects such as "The King of the Long Sky" to issue a statement to remind investors. If there is no demand to invest in movies, there will be no fraudsters taking advantage of it. Although it is a scam, it is enough to circumstantially prove that the financial situation upstream of the film has indeed improved, and the film project can raise money again.

Moreover, the "unloading" of the film market is that funds are directly returned to upstream content producers, which is easy to form a benign industry production ecology. Therefore, once the film market catches up with the hot C-end consumer market, it is easy for investors to restore confidence. The commercial logic of the series is different, and most of the unloading is now the return of funds by video platforms. Whether it can eventually be replenished to upstream creation depends on the platform's operation strategy and investment promotion.

"So the film market has money flowing, but the drama market is not." Leo concluded. Now it gives many people the illusion of recovery, because many long-dormant TV series and movie projects have recently become operational. In fact, after the epidemic was released, people in the circle were actively working and looking for a way out.

However, even if the drama project is operational, it will not necessarily succeed, because in the end, it depends on whether the platform can buy or not. However, the film project depends on the production company's own situation, and the current policy and financing environment is favorable, as long as you work hard enough, there is a great hope of success.

However, the situation of the film industry is only better than that of TV series. Although there is more "living money" upstream than in the past, the risk of making movies is higher than that of TV series. Once the drama project is paid by the platform, it will not lose money. Film projects depend on whether the C-end market buys or not.

Especially after the epidemic, the audience's film consumption psychology has changed greatly, and if the content production level cannot keep pace with the times, it will be eaten back by the consumer market, which will greatly reduce the recovery progress of the film market. In fact, we can see that compared with the word of mouth of the drama in the past year, the Spring Festival movie can be said to be a box office, slightly inferior to the word of mouth, the content discussion, out of the circle is far less than the drama, it is difficult not to see it as a manifestation of the weakening of the film's influence.

Film and television migrant workers are still "wintering"

"After waiting for three years, I finally recovered. But after finishing the Spring Festival ticket, you will change careers. A cinema practitioner helplessly sighed with Hard Candy Jun. All walks of life are waiting for more policies and financial support, even if the film and television industry was once classified as a "special hardship industry", it should not be further support, after all, it is necessary to support the main national economy and people's production industry.

Manager Li, an independent cinema operator who has changed careers, is even more pessimistic that the Spring Festival file is only a short-term retaliatory growth, more like a "return to the light".

Film and television practitioners change careers, and many times they are forced to do so. In addition to sharp declines in income and layoffs, fewer and fewer jobs are opened throughout the industry.

Soda, who has been looking for a job since last year, used to be a literary planner for a film and television company. When I was looking for a job last year, there were still some film and television planning positions on the market, but this year it has almost plummeted, and the recruitment APP slips a few pages to the end.

And since last year, many positions have been suspected of false opening. She interviewed many dramas and film companies, and many interviewees confessed that the company did not need to recruit people. "Although some people have left, now HR is opening positions as usual, but it does not affect if it does not recruit, because there is not much work."

Planning is a cutting-edge job in the film and television industry, including originality, copyright project development and pre-production. If the job is still in this "standstill" stage, let alone the project operation of the entire industry. A film and television company that Hard Candy Jun knows now has only one planning staff, and this film and television company had 8 planners two years ago. The remaining one took over all the legacy projects of my colleagues, but there was still no substantial progress.

A working film and television planning friend of Hard Candy Jun revealed that her head film and television company had a discounted salary and year-end bonus during working from home last year, not to mention other waist film and television companies.

Now most of the film and television planners on the market looking for jobs have gone to the fields of Chinese dramas, short dramas, and micro-short dramas. This is the mainstream recruitment in film and television planning at present, even Chen Sicheng's One Productions are recruiting people to do short dramas, and state-owned enterprises such as Migu Video have also opened a large number of short drama positions. That is to say, not only waist film and television companies are begging in the field of Chinese dramas, short dramas, and micro-short dramas, but also head companies are strategically deploying this field.

The recovery of any industry is not immediately visible with policy changes. This is still the case with the hot tourism industry during the Spring Festival, not to mention the film and television industry with a long project cycle. The confidence lost in the past three years needs time to recover, needs realistic guarantees, and in addition to seeing a temporary market boom, I want to see the hope of the future of the industry.