If film and television culture cannot be based on reality and express the characteristics of an era through its light and shadow records, then all related works, no matter how they are called "great" when retouching, are essentially playing hooligans.
Similarly, if the targeting of a certain type of targeted population in the movie-watching market cannot be accurate, then the result can be imagined.
This is also the original intention of writing a non-professional article today.
Probably because I just chatted with the company's "Haodaer" WeChat in the afternoon, talking about some of the progress of the project, I expressed some of my recent feelings in general:
From the "book", it seems that the current "quality" of the film and television industry practitioners is good-
Dressed up in time, highly educated, familiar with all communication platforms, and proficient in and using all Internet popular memes.
But when it comes to the work you do, you tend to be "pure".
There are many reasons for this problem, I think the root is that the "characteristics" of the industry determine the work characteristics of practitioners, especially for the entire industry chain from creation to marketing, there are often some difficult routines, such as how to determine marketing strategies, how to grasp the characteristics of the project and accurately deliver, how to avoid "sensitive" content to achieve "strengths and avoid weaknesses".
In fact, there is no problem with these theoretically, the problem is that the delivered answer sheet often ends in "work" regret.
Few people really think that the decisive factor for a film is the publicity, in fact, about the film and television project, or the film project itself, its intention and type and whether the expression theme can accept the market test and audience recognition is fundamental.
The only role of the pre-stage foreshadowing marketing is to reinforce the core idea of the project and the unique temperament exclusive to the film. And put it on the market in advance with a necessary emotional opinion to attract the appropriate crowd.
In the first year after the pandemic was unlocked, the Chinese film market did not show a clear upward trend. Even at some point, practitioners are still habitually doing Brownian motion according to the "sense of survival" of the previous three years (note: that is, the state of purposeless chaotic movement).
To add insult to injury, based on the inability to recognize the characteristics of audience appreciation, only using simple speculation to determine the film's publicity strategy, unable to treat fans and the market differently, let alone realize the track interaction between the two, has always been the "basic disease" of box office failure.
Back in 2007, a director once said to me:
"I hope that one day, our industry will not be criticized as a dregs concentration camp - uneducated people lead cultural projects, ignore the relevant creative knowledge they must learn, just put a lot of energy on mixing circles and drinking groups, in the hope of gaining a wide range of contacts, and then export things that have no nutritional and artistic value to make quick money, and finally leave a mess for the market and audiences to gradually lose their awe and trust in film art."
He said this at a time when Chinese cinema had not yet taken shape.
Now more than ten years later, I'm still sorry.
We have experienced the era of box office explosion, the era of "embarrassed to say hello if you don't earn 100 million", the era of "swarming" to shoot a type of film, and the era of various "bloody" rampant in three years.
Unfortunately, the sequelae caused by blind self-confidence and opportunism are becoming more and more obvious, and there are still people who firmly believe that "as long as the endorsement is good, a billion a year will earn old age".
At the same time, because of the gradual changes in living habits and entertainment patterns in those three years, more and more people began to choose to accept new ways of entertainment consumption after accepting the fatigue of the "strong needle" output like a storm.
In addition, in the past three years, a large number of employees who have changed careers and should have become the backbone have caused a huge "IQ vacuum" in the film industry——
Few people come up with the studio market research and summarize the data.
The formula for calculating the box office city is gradually submitted as a simple reference, and no longer attaches personal survey suggestions.
The studio activities began to be patterned, and after the audience walked out of the studio, they turned on their mobile phones and habitually crossed out the cookie-cutter promotional releases, but they were very interested in unofficial complaints...
Professionals ignore the most critical "interaction" and "communication" in marketing, although on the surface everyone is paying attention to pre-screening feelings, but in practice, deliberately strengthening "tear gas" and "sensationalism" has become the 100th imitator's mindless "work" standard.
But the audience, especially the audience with a growing younger trend, needs to be "objective" and even see the "reverse" operation at some times, rather than the lofty posture of some literary and artistic workers. For example, when a film enters a university and faces professional questioning in the details of the film, not only does it not show its due modesty, but it is still stubborn, and even the host involuntarily stands on the opposite side of the "masses" and says to the questioner seriously:
"Student, there is still a long way to go in scientific research..."
Mr. Ma Baoguo also said in a short video of his selfie:
"I, this flower gun, do not pull the shelf, fight in a real way, pay attention to actual combat..."
Old comrades in their seventies are still so alive, not to mention the artists who have always opened their mouths to Stanislavsky and shut up about David Fincher?
This involves a more intuitive phenomenon:
Some creators at the top of the industry chain have lost themselves in the sound of "beautiful boys".
They no longer know how to go deep into life, polish the story and watchability as they did when they were young, nor do they pursue some ideas and inspiration that the film needs to give the audience, and even no longer want to communicate with the "children" in the office for inspiration, their eyes look up, their hands and feet are hanging down, ostensibly contributing to the art of film, in fact, one-sidedly currying favor with capital and trying to choose to be on an island in the torrent.
This creates a chain reaction:
Do not face up to the serious shortcomings of their own "products" to the real market, only focus on the high "go down to the campus, mingle with the masses", what is more frightening is to cater to this posture is "I actually won't look, but I don't want to offend you" walk.
Therefore, when this atmosphere and atmosphere gradually take shape, they must be greeted by the ruthless ridicule of the market, and the mockery mode opened by the small broken station UP owners without the constraints of the identities of both parties A and B.
When no one on the "scene" gently criticizes "you", "you" are bound to face the real voice from the "people".
For example, the word "grounded" has been used as a "selling point" since I entered the industry for so many years:
It is so great, so noble, so full of heroism, but it has never forgotten the "people".
The real situation may be:
According to the tune imagined by "I" to broadcast the universe far away, to create the atmosphere, it does not matter whether this is the case, the main thing is a "companionship" -
It is Party B's accompaniment to Party A, not the audience's accompaniment to the movie.
So what about young practitioners?
In terms of seniority, you can't fight the connections that the older generation drinks at the wine table.
In terms of work, like other industries, insist on commuting to work.
In terms of knowledge, what was given to them was the attitude of a big man who was "a good teacher".
In terms of communication, they only need to firmly implement the instructions of their superiors.
Meetings are for them work, whimsical and practical is the norm, in the end it is necessary to "old-timers" set the tone for implementation, and finally, they have lost their right to speak and work passion, so they have to sink into short videos and Douban to write the story they just made.
For the industry, whether from upstream to downstream, it is a grim fact.
However, "hormones" may not only "spill" from dating platforms, the study of body positions and the exchange of time are only helpless entertainment in the face of a vast and helpless future, and literary and artistic creation and marketing creativity can also be a powerful "" in the face of creation and market.
The difference is only that when everyone seriously faces the market reality and the emotional demands of the audience, puts down the shelf and gets rid of the false scene words, listens to the real voice of the new generation, and gives them the maximum space to play, only after fine-tuning the details, return the "right to communicate" to them, just like their own back then, they will feel their desires, then you will find:
Even if Kong Yiji does not take off his robe, he may have a different life.
This kind of life, whether it is for the future of the entire market or for the way out of talents, has great practical significance.
At the same time, as a cultural communication platform that always emphasizes "depth and breadth", we have always looked forward to analyzing a project and gaining dominance in a certain space, because "culture and uniqueness" are the "hormones" that we have retained in the industry until today.
Postscript -
When the Deyun Society was at its hottest, Guo Degang said:
"Kids, don't go to the nightclub, come to me and listen to crosstalk."
Because at that time, on the stage of the Deyun Society, which had not yet been "rice circle", there was the reality of the world that the audience wanted to hear the most.
Laughing and scolding the rivers and lakes, and treating each other coldly and looking at the years like a song.
Movies, as they should be.
Finally, I must say:
The views expressed in this article are personal.