Dialogue with Tulagu, founder of Quangan Interactive Entertainment: Use AI to create the next generation of hyperspace theaters

Reporter Li Jing reports from Beijing

The initial rise of cinema was accompanied by the backdrop of the economic downturn of the First World War. At that time, opera houses closed down in large numbers, and after renovation, they were replaced with big screens and began to show movies. At that time, the movie theater charged 5 cents, which was a fairly cheap price, and the 5 cents was not the price of movie tickets in those days, but the cost of tea. Because of the rest and fun provided, and the cheap enough ticket prices, a large number of people flocked to the cinema at that time. From the improvement of theater to the improvement of content, standards, and technology, the current cinema and film industry were finally formed.

"Today, the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology has changed the production process and process of the audiovisual industry. In the current economic environment, people need a new, cheap place where they can spend a whole day and socialize, and we believe that 'super sensory film games' are the new generation of 'film' industry. Tulagu, the founder of Quangan Interactive Entertainment, said in an interview with a reporter from China Business News.

Recently, Beijing Tiantu Wanjing Technology Co., Ltd. and Chongqing Yongchuan Urban Development Group Co., Ltd. invested in the establishment of Quangan Interactive Entertainment (Chongqing) Culture Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Quangan Interactive Entertainment"), as the main operating body of the commercial implementation of "Super Sense Movie Game", to jointly promote the accelerated implementation of the new consumer product "Super Sense Video Game" independently developed and supported by artificial intelligence. At present, Quangan Interactive Entertainment has received more than 10 million yuan in the first round of financing. The reporter recently talked to Tulagu and his "Super Sensory Film Tour" project.

A new generation of the "film" industry

China Business News: What kind of opportunity prompted you to do the project of "Super Sensory Film Tour"?

Tulagu: From my personal experience, I first made science fiction films in Hollywood, and after returning to China, I hoped to make movies in the mode of Hollywood film industrialization, but I found that it didn't work, because the domestic film industry is still in the process of development. Since I know how to code, I tried to write some software to compose video in real time on set, which made the whole production process very fast. This makes me think that it is a very good way to promote the industrialization of Chinese films with technology. So we developed a set of technologies for real-time compositing video in the field of science fiction.

After doing it for a while, we don't want to just do film industrialization, because film industrialization is relatively small, we want to do audio-visual industrialization, because in China's entire audio-visual industry, movies are only a part, MVs, variety shows belong to the audio-visual field, as well as the emerging metaverse, VR, AR, XR are all part of the audio-visual field.

What we want to do is a solution provider for the whole solution from screen narrative to spatial narrative. The screen narrative is two-dimensional, and the spatial narrative is three-dimensional and three-dimensional.

There are two forms of spatial narrative space as we understand it, the first is spatial narrative with wearable devices, such as the content of Apple's VR glasses experience. The second is to provide content, design and equipment for the existing space offline, which is also called spatial storytelling.

China Business News: From the perspective of the overall environment, why do you judge that "Super Sense Film Tour" will be a new generation of film industry?

Tulagu: Once upon a time during the Great Depression in the United States, movie theaters were an inexpensive casual social scene. Around 2018, script killing, secret rooms, and board games began to be widely popularized. In recent years, people have wanted new places to socialize that are cheaper, more fun, and socialiser. "Super Sensory Movie Tour" is such a new species, and we think it is the next generation of "cinema".

In "Super Sensory Movie Tour", from the big screen to the small space, from viewing to interaction, everyone can play their own characters and decide the direction of the story. It is a new experience that integrates cinematic audio-visual, offline interactive games and emotional socialization, which broadens the boundaries of young people's social interaction and brings full upgrades and supplements to the film and game industry.

From the perspective of production, the development of AI has made the cost of content production cheaper, so that the content has become richer.

For the script killing shop, it needs to decorate different styles of stores and buy dozens or hundreds of scripts. If you turn the script into a visual content, such as movies and games, you need to graft different visual effects, sound effects, and lighting effects, and there is a huge team behind it.

Now use our AI tool, input the script text, and wait for the output result, and the middle is all AI automatic processing, and a complete script game video can be formed. The next step is to spatialize the video content, which requires the participation of the director, which is an artistic act, just like editing the timeline, and you can confirm the upload after it is cut. At present, it only takes about 15 days from the script to us, and then to the launch of the entire game.

China Business News: It sounds very similar to the current script killing. What is the difference between "Super Sense Movie Game" and script killing?

Tulagu: First of all, it's important to affirm that script killing is a good form of socializing, but the disadvantages are also obvious, first of all, script killing takes a long time, to say the least, four or five hours, sitting and playing. The second is the high price, which costs two or three hundred yuan to play a script killing game in Beijing. The third is to make up people, and to read and understand a lot of text. Judging from various comprehensive factors, the threshold for traditional script killing is high, and only people who love script killing games very much can sit down and play this game.

It not only allows people to become characters, but also releases players' emotions through psychology and game interaction design, so that the characters can achieve rich game interaction and emotional interconnection. Playing a "super sensory movie game" is equivalent to "watching a movie + playing a script kill + playing a game + listening to a concert + experiencing a stage play ......" at the same time"

In fact, we ourselves hope to get rid of the contrast with the script kill, so in the follow-up business promotion, from the store decoration to the overall style, we will gradually get rid of the script kill style.

We will build 70,000 stores in 5 years

China Business News: Has the "Super Sensory Movie Game" been landed? How is the landing operation?

Tulagu: I'm currently working on some experience stores. For example, in Yongchuan, Chongqing, there is an experience store, there are about 19 halls, each hall is similar to the small hall of the cinema, and the 19 halls have pomp and circumstance every day.

In Beijing, projects are also being tried in many formats, the first type is in the cinema, and Poly Tiananmen Cinema is also trying, jointly launching the Super Space Super Sensory Film Tour Project to explore the immersive "third generation cinema". The second type is in the bar format, so that the bar has a scripted story in addition to singing and drinking, and provides opportunities for socializing. The third category is the theater, where we do some small audio-visual experiences. The fourth category is the experience store, which currently has an experience store in the Olympic Sports Center. The fifth category is KTV, we try to turn KTV into a game space, because KTV is now less young people, we try to add content stories to KTV to attract young consumers.

China Business Daily: What is the difference between the large-scale replication and landing of sound and light projects such as "Super Sensory Film Game" and the landing of movie theaters?

Tulagu: Why can cinema replicate globally, but theatre cannot? Because cinemas are standardized, unified technical standards, uniform formats, and standardized things are cheaper, the cost of theaters is too expensive in comparison.

The equipment required for the landing of "Super Sensory Video Game" is also standardized, and it only takes 50,000-60,000 yuan to arrange a small hall, and the cost is very low.

Cinemas talk about flat efficiency, we call it cubic meter efficiency, and the height of the space is also calculated. If we put a small hall in the cinema, it can fit 1.3 times more consumers than the existing audience of the cinema.

The longest time for our "Super Sensory Movie Tour" is 120 minutes, with an average of 90 minutes, which is about the same time as a movie, and in terms of price we price twice as much as a regular movie ticket - 78 yuan, and in Beijing it is 88 yuan, because a regular movie ticket is about 35 yuan.

But I think that "Super Sense Film Tour" should not be compared with the movie theater, because the two forms are not the same, the movie does not pay attention to social and interactive, it is pure viewing, "Super Sense Film Tour" should be compared with immersive drama, immersive theater, song and dance drama, happy twist, this kind of drama performance is more than 200-300 yuan, and most of the performances and the audience do not have any communication, and the experience of "Super Sense Film Tour" is more diverse.

China Business News: Is there a specific plan for the implementation of the project?

Tulagu: I hope to achieve 1,000 terminal stores this year, maybe 4,000-5,000 terminal stores next year, and 70,000 terminal stores in five years.

We will cooperate with a large number of script killing stores and KTVs to upgrade them all and turn them into new formats such as "Super Sensory Movie Games". We have already started to do planning and promotion of the script killing shop, KTV we found a KTV agent in Fujian, their song ordering system accounts for a large share in the country, through them, we can cover our "super sensory film game" system to these KTV.

In addition, we want to make a platform. For content creators, one is a creator platform and the other is a distribution platform. The creator platform is equivalent to Adobe's software, which can be used to make videos, and the finished films can be distributed to our distribution platform, which has many different types of games.

There are also user-facing platforms. Through this platform, users can connect online and offline, so that the entertainment industry of "Super Sensory Movie Game" will change from B to C to C. Through the platform, users can find content, venues, and players all over the world, and make a social platform that connects online and offline.

China Business News: Does Quangan Interactive Entertainment mainly sell technology or content? What are the paths to commercialization?

Tulagu: Content is not our main component, we mainly provide tools and cases for everyone, everyone can produce it, and then share the accounts together and make money together.

Of course, we will also sign some good studios and authors to help produce content together. At present, we already have the "Super Sensory Movie Game" represented by "Legend of the Continent: Eternity", and have planned 11 series of world views and multi-level stories, including the adventure theme "Sea of Destiny" and "Ghost Fortress", the romantic theme "Protagonist Academy", the adventure puzzle theme "The Curse of the Sun God", the realistic theme "New City" and so on.

(Editor: Zhang Jingchao Review: Li Zhenghao Proofreader: Zhang Guogang)