"As long as one is done, venture capital is useful"
Since the end of the last Beijing Film Festival, it has only been about 8 months, and this year's Beijing Film Festival Venture Capital has received 874 delivery projects, setting a new record high. It can be seen that although the industry is still recovering, the creators' enthusiasm for creation has not decreased.
In the selection scope of venture capital, in addition to the venture capital projects, projects in production and international sports film week shortlisted projects as in previous years, a sub-unit of Hong Kong, China was added this year, and 4 outstanding projects from the venture capital unit of the Hong Kong International Film Festival were introduced to the Beijing Film Festival Venture Capital Final Judging Roadshow through review.
At the same time, the "market buyer decision-making group" of Beijing Film Festival Venture Capital in previous years has also been upgraded, and this year launched a "chief producer" team composed of presidents, producers, producers, etc. of major leading film and television companies, striving to bring more industry perspectives to the venture capital project team.
The first Beijing Film Festival after the epidemic, compared with the online negotiation and other forms that had to be adopted in the past due to epidemic prevention and control, this year finally resumed offline fireworks, and discussions about creation and market, about the past and the future took place.
Use venture capital to get to know young people
"I participated in the Beijing Film Festival in 2020, and it was completely online at that time, and this year the offline feeling will be much better, because there is nothing more intimate than face-to-face." At the appointment negotiation site, Gao Renjie, the director of "Rocket Guerrilla", who chatted with industry guests all day, told Poison Eye (ID: Domoredumou).
This is Gao Renjie's second time participating in venture capital, and he has mastered some practical skills - such as putting his and the producer's WeChat QR code on the PowerPoint at the end of the roadshow, but more importantly, he believes that the second time he comes to venture capital must show everyone his growth and changes in the past few years.
Gao Renjie has never had the fantasy of "one-hammer sale" for venture capital, and in his view, venture capital has two core values for him, one is to let these people read the script and give him advice, and the second is that as long as others see the project, then things may advance.
At the roadshow site, several judges did actively discuss the story of "Rocket Guerrilla" and put forward different opinions and suggestions. In Gao's view, creators may not fully adopt the judges' suggestions, but it is most important to think carefully about why experienced judges produce such comments, "The way I solve it may not be certain, but at least it makes me realize that some parts of the current version are not enough to convince them." ”
In the view of Zhang Ji, a venture capital judge, this is one of the important values of venture capital activities: to let creators be seen. Zhang Ji believes that in venture capital, people are more important than projects, and the main highlight of this venture capital journey also comes from the emergence of individual potential creators, "because venture capital is actually a meeting, you will see the person who wrote the script, by looking at his gaze, his expression, his inner motivation, you can actually see whether this is a person who can calm down and engage in creation." ”
In many cases, the industry will not be satisfied with the fact that venture capital activities are frequent, but the actual "transaction rate" is low, which is also a common dilemma that venture capital activities have not been able to make breakthroughs in China for several years. Zhang Ji's answer to this is that as long as there is a project, the value of venture capital will be there. "If there is no venture capital mechanism, then none of them will win." If I had venture capital when I was young, I wouldn't have come out so late, and now I say that I was lucky that I finally persevered at that time, and if I hadn't carried it, I might have really changed careers back then. ”
For creators, projects that participate in venture capital may not eventually succeed, but capable creators will be seen by the mainstream market earlier. The problems and questioning processes reported in venture capital can also push creators to grow further.
What's more, venture capital can even act as a window into the industry to observe and understand young people. Zhang Ji mentioned, "Part of the reason why studios need to see new people is to understand young audiences by reaching out to young creators, and what they care about may also reflect what stories this generation of young people love." ”
For example, at the scene of this year's Beijing Film Festival venture capital roadshow, Zhang Ji put forward an observation, "This seems to be the seventh or eighth project about the relationship between father and son today, indicating that the generational conflict of the post-90s generation is still quite prominent." ”
The desire of young creators to express is not only on the issue of father-son relationship, the common phenomenon in almost all major venture capitals is that suspense crime films always have the highest proportion.
In Zhang Ji's view, the space for the localization of suspense and crime types is smaller, if only telling an emotional story as long as it is sincere, but to do suspense crime genres must have a breakthrough in creativity, but this also faces a direct comparison with excellent suspense crime works in Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea. Under such circumstances, the possibility of really being able to write a breakthrough and unique suspense crime script is very low, and it is naturally difficult to be put on the market.
But young creators' preference for the suspense crime genre also reflects the aesthetic preferences of young audiences to some extent. Zhang Ji believes that the market needs to be touched, "I think in fact, in the future, creators like us may also have to make some attempts at strong plots or suspense crime types to see how to establish a new connection with young audiences." ”
Encouragement is also important
In addition to establishing a window for mutual observation and providing practical help to creators, of course, it is also the proper meaning of venture capital.
At the door of the appointment negotiation room, you can see the schedule of each project being booked by the fund, some projects are booked for a full day, and some projects are relatively cold. On average, WIP appointments are less frequent than for screenplay ventures.
This is not surprising, because most of the WIP projects have been filmed, the subjects who can participate in the subsequent production process are relatively limited, and more companies with specific businesses such as post-production and publicity have cooperation needs, so there are naturally fewer industry guests who come to negotiate.
On the other hand, at the roadshow site, unlike script venture capital that can provide judges to propose script revisions, WIP projects can only receive the blessings and encouragement of the judges most of the time due to limited modification space. From the perspectives of both evaluation and investment, how to help WIP projects break through these limitations is a long-standing and difficult problem faced by various venture capital activities.
In the case of the WIP project "The Cowardly Dragon", they were lucky enough to get some practical help at the VC site – Huang Xuan, as one of the VC judges, promised to voice the characters in the film and is already communicating time. In addition, the project also won three awards at the Night of Honor, and the cash or resource support provided in the awards can alleviate the urgent needs of this film with a small investment volume.
As a relatively rare children's film with teenagers as the main audience in venture capital activities and even in the film market, "The Cowardly "Dragon" has also participated in script venture capital in the past, but because this genre has always lacked precedents for success at the market level, the main creative team has been very difficult in attracting investment. Now that it has finally reached the post-production stage, "Timid "Dragon" producer Zheng Jing told Poison Eyes that coming to the WIP unit is actually a very valuable opportunity, finally being able to take out a relatively formed thing to share with everyone, before officially entering the market, can let more people know its existence.
In addition to practical help, spiritual encouragement is equally important in Zhang Ji's view, "When you encounter a difficult situation, in fact, no one can help you, because a difficult situation is a difficult situation." But if someone at least understands you and can encourage you in a difficult situation, I think you can also say it's 'useless,' but maybe many years later, the creator will also feel something 'useful'. ”
As Zhang Ji said, this is an industry that is very prone to failure, and people engaged in creation are often very fragile. "It may feel a little pretentious, but really, at a young age, an understanding and a word of encouragement are sometimes more important than money."
Young director cultivation system
In addition to venture capital, the Beijing International Film Festival has also formed a complete set of young director cultivation system in the process of development and exploration year by year, covering various genres such as short videos, short films, and feature films, trying to build a "closed loop".
In the field of short video, the Beijing International Film Festival has set up a short video unit, aiming to encourage more outstanding creators to enter the "track" of mainstream international film festivals and change from "moviegoers" to "creators". The final selection of the works themselves is also an important window for observing young people.
In the field of short films, this year, the Beijing International Film Festival once again joined hands with Samsung Mobile to launch the "Samsung Mobile Phone Movie Short Film Unit" to encourage more young people to join the ranks of creators in the contemporary era where the shooting threshold is getting lower and lower; The second ReelFocus Reality Project is committed to "turning student directors into professional directors", providing young creators with signing opportunities and project development opportunities
In the field of feature films, the Beijing International Film Festival held the "Chinese Small and Medium Cost Art Film Screening", inviting 15 young directors from the Mainland and Hong Kong to screen, including small and medium-cost films that have been released in theaters or have not been released. Through the platform of the Beijing Film Festival, this part of the film is given more exposure opportunities, so that excellent small and medium-cost works can be seen by more people.
There are also many thematic forum activities, all of which revolve around the development path of young filmmakers. At a time when slash youth are quite fashionable, the training path of young filmmakers should also be broader. Only a more complete young director cultivation system can make every "bead" who has the opportunity to become an excellent filmmaker be seen.
Text | Liu Nandou
Editor|Sui Yi