Stills from the online movie "China Flying Man".
Stills from the online movie "Tibetan Grass is Green".
Stills from the online movie "Black Eagle Boy".
【Literary and Artistic Tide】
The spring of online movies comes earlier and more intensely than the natural spring of Jiachen year. According to incomplete statistics, as of March 26, iQiyi, Tencent Video, and Youku have released a total of 89 new online movies this year, and they are of different types, well-made, and welcomed by the market. Among them, the box office champion has received a total of more than 34 million yuan, and "The Legend of Qiao Feng" has appeared on the big screen in some overseas countries and regions, becoming the box office champion of Malaysian Chinese New Year films and the box office champion of Singaporean Chinese New Year films. This gratifying scene has effectively boosted the morale of the industry and the confidence of practitioners, and stimulated people's thinking about future development.
Create film works based on Internet distribution and dissemination
In 2014, the industry defined online movies: movies with a duration of more than 60 minutes, a complete movie structure, and the Internet as the main distribution platform. At that time, the industrialization reform continued to deepen, and the Chinese film market showed a high growth momentum, attracting capital and talents. But for a long time, film communication channels have been mainly concentrated in theaters. Although the number of screens in domestic theaters has grown steadily, after all, the capacity is limited, and some films cannot be released every year. At this time, video websites rose rapidly, and the massive capacity and convenient viewing methods provided market space for movies. As a result, the emergence of films based on Internet distribution and dissemination has gradually formed an artistic category that is different from theatrical films in terms of content and audience.
Due to the relatively low cost of launching on video websites, online movies attract a large number of small teams and new companies that pursue low investment and short cycles to seize the market. In order to form differentiated competition with theatrical films, some producers regard themes rarely involved in mainstream theatrical films as competitiveness, and regard the sword to go sideways and attract attention as the main direction of topic selection. His creations mainly focus on themes such as thrillers, alien beasts, and fantasy, and he has repeatedly remade and interpreted classic works or big IPs. Some of the themes collide and the content is similar; some works use the titles and even themes of popular theatrical films of the same period; and some works have sensational titles, exaggerated and explicit content, and unclear narrative logic. For a time, "low style", "shoddy production", "love to rub hot spots" and "imitation and follow-up" have become the keywords of online movies, causing criticism from the audience. In response to this phenomenon, the relevant departments have begun to deal with it. On the one hand, it scientifically plans the selection of topics, regulates the creation of overcapacity themes such as fantasy and alien beasts, and on the other hand, provides support for the main theme works that reflect real life and praise the great era in terms of review and project approval, broadcast and publicity. In 2022, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television will issue administrative licenses for online dramas, and online films will be "employed" with certificates, leading the industry to advance towards high-quality products.
Explore the scientific account sharing model to make high-quality works get higher box office
The direction of high-quality is not only reflected in the continuous updating of creative concepts, but also in the improvement of industry rules. For a period of time, there has been a saying in the industry that it takes three elements to make a hit, that is, the title, the poster, and 6 minutes. "6 minutes" is the free trial time limit, once it exceeds 6 minutes, the system will prompt the audience to purchase a membership or pay to watch, and the video platform will share the account with the filmmaker according to this effective number of views. This rule makes online movies fall into a "6-minute" cycle. In order to get more money, some works put most of the production budget and creative energy into the first 6 minutes of creation, so that the wonderful content, hot scenes, and dazzling special effects erupt in a concentrated manner. The creation 6 minutes away was fooled, either "water injection" or "unfinished", and the quality fell off a cliff, making the audience feel deceived.
In response to this problem, the industry has been trying to explore new account sharing models, adjusting "account sharing according to the first 6 minutes of effective viewing" to "account sharing according to the length of the account" and "account sharing according to the length of the ladder". Taking iQIYI's new regulations introduced in 2024 as an example, if the viewing time of members exceeds 10 million, over 6 million and less than 6 million hours, the corresponding 10,000-hour ladder bill prices are 3 yuan, 2 yuan and 1 yuan respectively, and the final total box office is the sum of the income of each ladder. In order to avoid deliberately filling the film with water and squeezing the duration, some video platforms refine the calculation method of the effective duration, such as the audience watching a 60-minute movie at twice the speed, and the final effective duration included by the platform is 30 minutes. This means that the "key time" that attracts users to watch is no longer the first 6 minutes, and the longer users watch, the higher the revenue for the filmmaker. In order to leverage a higher box office account, the filmmaker must come up with high-quality content that can stand the test of the audience throughout the work.
Actively respond to the changing market environment and establish new differentiating advantages
In the past two years, online movies have encountered new challenges. On the one hand, the window period for theatrical films has been shortened, which has brought competitive pressure to online movies. The window period refers to the time that the content of the movie needs to be spaced apart in different media. Earlier, after the movie was released in theaters, it was not broadcast on streaming platforms until at least a month apart. But in recent years, the speed of theatrical movies has become faster and faster, which has broken this convention. Many users who watch movies on the Internet are more inclined to choose theatrical movies that have been tested by the market and have accumulated a certain reputation and popularity. To a certain extent, this has squeezed out the market space of online movies.
On the other hand, the emergence of micro-short dramas has had a certain impact on the online movie market. They are also a new type of film and television category that has developed rapidly in the process of the rise of the Internet, and they all make full use of the convenience and interactivity of online media, allowing audiences to watch through online platforms anytime and anywhere, and they are all good at using dense memes, frequent reversals and other ways to attract users. But the difference is that micro-short dramas can be used both horizontally and vertically, and the length of a single episode is shorter, and the number of episodes can be more or less, which is easier to meet people's entertainment needs for watching in fragmented time with mobile phones. Online movies, on the other hand, are mainly in landscape mode, which is more suitable for the traditional in-depth viewing experience. If you live in full accordance with the monetization logic, the current micro-short dramas with a traffic pool larger than the online movie track are more attractive "gold rushes" for creators. In the past two years, the scale of the online film industry has declined, and according to incomplete statistics, a total of 245 online movies will be launched in 2023, which is a decrease compared with the number in 2022, which should be related to the limited market space and the loss of talents to the content of micro-short dramas. In the face of the ever-changing market environment, in order to achieve sustainable development, online movies must not only adhere to the quality of films, but also tap the advantages of the Internet, and achieve new differentiated competition in the sandwich of micro-short dramas and cinema films.
High-quality works from professionals are constantly emerging
Blowing away the wild sand to gold. Continuous policy guidance, resource convergence, and concept renewal have squeezed the market bubble of online movies, and promoted the industry to embark on a benign track of forming a professional creative team, adopting a scientific and standardized production process, and creating high-quality content products. In the spring of 2024, the online movie market will achieve a bumper box office reputation, marking that online movies have entered a new stage of "improving quality and reducing quantity".
The market competition of online movies has changed from "invitational competition" to "knockout competition", and speculators who were greedy for more and faster, and regarded this track as a fast way to make money were gradually eliminated, and practitioners who adhered to the wrong concepts of attracting audiences and obtaining economic benefits by creating coolness and gimmicks have also changed their thinking, and high-quality films that have been created and intensively cultivated continue to emerge. Many of his creations have jumped out of the previous traps of gathering fantasy, supernatural, thriller and other themes, and turned to explore themes of the times such as poverty alleviation and rural revitalization, showing real life, history and cultural classics from a youthful and typological perspective, opening up more artistic space for the dissemination of mainstream values. For example, "China Flying Hero", "Tibetan Grass Green", "Black Eagle Boy", "Super Hero Huang Jiguang", etc., some have been on the prime time of satellite TV, some have been selected as excellent online audio-visual works by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, and some have received high scores on rating websites, which have been recognized by mainstream media and praised by the audience. People were pleasantly surprised to find that in addition to the "coolness" and "excitement" of online movies, they can also see so many cute and respectable characters, diverse and flexible artistic presentations, and silent value expressions, which have a positive and far-reaching impact on the diversification of the main theme film and television expression from the aspects of subject matter, style, form, and communication channels.
In addition to deepening the creation of themes, online movies also deepen their existing advantages. Unlike cinema movies, which have a large screen capacity and richer picture expression and scene scheduling, online movies are limited by the screens of computers, mobile phones and other viewing terminals, and pay more attention to the details of the picture and the drama of the story. Action movies have become a genre suitable for this medium of communication, which can create a unique audio-visual effect on the small screen. Many practitioners are deeply involved in this field. For example, in terms of creation, works such as "Company of Warriors" and "Sniper Heroes" focus on showing the state of the characters in a critical moment, calmly responding to the battle and confronting the enemy with neat and coherent movements, so that the audience can truly feel the tense and exciting atmosphere of the battlefield and deeply understand the spirit of heroes who are not afraid of sacrifice. In terms of planning, iQIYI launched the "Action Master Season", focusing on the launch of a number of action movies to create a publicity matrix.
In short, online movies have a "network sense" that is different from theatrical movies, and a "cinematic sense" that is different from micro-short dramas. Therefore, we should meet the needs of network carriers in terms of form, and adhere to the artistic quality of the film in terms of content. With the establishment of a sound market mechanism, the improvement of comprehensive evaluation indicators and the improvement of the audience's aesthetic needs, online movies will continue to play the role of a theme test field, talent training dish and IP incubator for film and television production, and achieve high-quality and standardized development.
Source: Guangming Daily
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