Author / Qiao Miao'er
The 2021 Shanghai Film Festival is of great significance: coinciding with the centenary of the founding of the Party, the film market ushered in the peak of film creation with the main theme; after the new crown epidemic in 2020, the entire industry has been revived after a long recovery period of one year, and it is also facing many new problems and new thinking.
At the Jinjue Forum held today, the heads of domestic leading film companies from China Film Group, Shanghai Film Group, Light Media, Bona Pictures, Wanda Film, Tencent Pictures and other domestic leading film companies that participated in many main theme tribute films to varying degrees gathered together to conduct in-depth discussions on the innovative creation of main theme works, how to optimize the mechanism to stimulate market vitality in the post-epidemic era, and how to tell Chinese stories to help international communication.
As Cheng Wu, vice president of Tencent Group, CEO of Yuwen Group and CEO of Tencent Pictures, said, "Today is closer than at any time in history to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and the most important starting point is the founding of the Communist Party of China 100 years ago." "How to present gifts to the centenary of the founding of the party has become the focus of attention of the filmmakers present."
"1921", created by Tencent Pictures and more than 500 filmmakers, met with the audience last night as the opening film of the Shanghai Film Festival, in addition, Fu Ruoqing, vice chairman and general manager of China Film Co., Ltd. and chairman of Huaxia Film Distribution Co., Ltd., introduced that China Film Group participated in the production of more than ten main theme works including "On the Cliff", "My Father and Me", "In Wuhan", "Infinite Depth" and so on. Wang Changtian, chairman of Guangguang Media, revealed that the company participated in the production of two films, "Revolutionary" and "Sniper", of the 11 key films on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Party. Wang Jian'er, chairman of Shanghai Film Group, said that Shanghai Film has participated in the creation of 3 theme works this year, in addition to "1921" cooperated with Tencent Pictures, "Wangdao", which has been completed, and an inspirational story about the struggle of young people. Zeng Maojun, president of Wanda Culture Group and president of Wanda Film and Television Group, showed the company's work reserves in two aspects: film "No Spring Will Not Come", "My Father Jiao Yulu" and the drama series "Trumpeter in Place" and "Hello Doctor".
The creative direction of the head content producer can often drive the development of the entire industry, and when the strength of the whole industry is gathered to create the main theme content, competition is inevitable. From the perspective of the attributes of content producers, Tencent Pictures has entered the film and television industry for just a few years, quickly becoming the Internet company with the largest participation in the main theme of the work, and also providing a new perspective and new thrust for observing the development of the film industry. The practice and thinking of Tencent Pictures may bring valuable inspiration to practitioners.
The sense of presence of the main theme movie:
Looking back at a hundred years with the power of art and video
As the opening film of the Shanghai Film Festival, "1921" quickly aroused heated discussion in the media and audience after its premiere. 13 representatives with an average age of 28 years old completed a feat that shocked the world at No. 106 Wangzhi Road 100 years ago, and since then changed the fate of China, this magnificent history is not unfamiliar to every Chinese, but how to turn party history into a popular and popular film work requires not only the creator's heart, but also the brain.
As Huang Jianxin, the director of "1921", said, "I hope to use such a film to help the current young people look back on the journey of a hundred years and understand the original intention of the hundred years." "The charm of film works lies in the spring wind and rain, moisturizing things silently, and '1921' uses innovative perspectives and youthful expressions to turn the creators' expectations into reality." A hundred years ago, Mao Zedong wrote in a letter to Li Da that "my brother is the founder of the company", and it is this sentence that has become the realistic background of the most enthusiastic and cattle "entrepreneurial group" in "1921", with different backgrounds and different industries, and the young people who came together to save China's survival, for the Chinese's beautiful life, and for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. In Cheng Wu's view, "Through the power of art and images, we can look back at the past hundred years and understand the original intention of the hundred years, which I think is a particularly responsible and responsible thing, and it is also something we as Chinese filmmakers and Chinese film and television companies should do." ”
As early as the 70 years of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Tencent Pictures participated in the largest number of works as an Internet content producer, and the accumulated experience also played a role in the creation process of "1921". At the forum site, Cheng Wu extended from the creative experience of "1921" to the production and creation of the main theme work, summarizing three points of experience:
"The first point is to pay attention to respect for history, pay attention to rigor, and pay attention to reflecting the truth." "1921" was coordinated by the Propaganda Department of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee and invited party history experts and senior researchers of a major memorial hall to check and grasp the accuracy of each major figure and major event. In addition, this accuracy is also reflected in the restoration of the scene, the crew 1:1 restored the first and second conference sites related to the Wangzhi Road No. 106, Bowen Girls' School and other buildings, but also to ensure that the state of the actors, costumes and props can accurately reflect the characteristics of the times.
"The second point is to give full play to the artistic characteristics of film as a video, starting from a human point of view." The Chinese people are not unfamiliar with the historical facts shown in the film "1921", but it is not clear how the behavior, thoughts, living conditions and how their thoughts are formed by these young people in it. For the creator, it is to pass on the "artistic re-creation" to the audience.
"The third point is that all artistic creation ultimately depends on artists, individuals, actors, directors, and creators of the entire group." Tencent Pictures has put forward the concept of "not doing film and television in isolation" for a long time, one of the dimensions is to unite talents in the industry to serve content creation, and "1921" is also another practice of this concept by Tencent Pictures.
"Insist on respecting history, but also have artistic creation and artistic innovation, and at the same time cooperate with the best team to create more excellent film and television works through our practice." In addition to summarizing the experience of the beginning and end of the creation of "1921", Cheng Wu also shared the creative planning of the troika composed of Tencent Pictures, Yuwen Film and Television and Xinli Media in the future on the main theme of the works: the tribute era trilogy composed of "1921", "Human World" and "Heart Residence". What kind of new enlightenment can the latter two bring to the content market at that time, and what angle can provide new ideas for the creation of the main theme, which is also worthy of the continuous attention of the industry.
Innovation, cooperation, ecological chain:
Three keywords of mechanism optimization
After the impact of the new crown epidemic at the beginning of last year, the film industry is still in the recovery stage. The Jinjue Forum is also a large-scale industry forum in the industry after the new crown epidemic, and how to make the film industry more dynamic in the special historical node and era background is also an important topic of this forum.
As a content producer, Cheng Wu has a plan, but also a sense of crisis. He pointed out that in addition to the epidemic, the industry is undergoing new changes every day, with different forms of entertainment and cultural consumption, and the corresponding time of the audience is fixed and limited. "For a movie to stay alive, filmmakers can't be complacent, they can't lie on the credits of the past and take it for granted."
In the first half of the year, after the accumulation of New Year's Day, Spring Festival, and May Day, the total box office was more than 30% compared with 2019, which was not affected by the epidemic, and the audience's recognition of works with realistic themes or realistic expressions was high, "Send You a Little Red Flower", "Hello, Li Huanying" and other works derived from real life and with a sense of truth can have a strong emotional resonance with the current audience. Cheng Wu said, "Work with screenwriters, directors and other industry partners to create more works that reflect people's current feelings and pursuits of a better life, show difficulties and find solutions to problems, bring warmth and motivation to the audience, and adhere to and increase the creation of realistic themes."
In addition, taking advantage of the IP verification by the market and users, Tencent Pictures relies on the Reading Platform and Tencent Animation Platform, and through the joint efforts of Tencent Pictures, Reading Group and Xinli Media, good stories can be endless, and there can be more works like "Qingyu Nian" and "Son-in-law".
In terms of mechanism, Cheng Wu believes that "the film and television industry is a creative industry, and the essence of the creative industry is innovation, and innovation may also fail." As a creator, I hope to be able to continue to trial and error, and I also hope that a good mechanism can make creators have a higher success rate and let enterprises have stronger hematopoietic functions, instead of "today become one, tomorrow I don't know how." ”
For the effective revitalization mechanism, Cheng Wu put forward suggestions for building an IP ecological chain. For the high-quality IP that has been tested by the market and the audience, we will create a continuous ecological chain including literature, animation, film, film, television, games, derivatives, etc., and fully link between different categories to achieve complementary advantages, bring more possibilities to the film industry, create good works and attract more talents.
Internationalization of Chinese Culture:
Stories go out
With the improvement of comprehensive national strength, cultural self-confidence has become one of the high-frequency words in the film and television industry, and cultural self-confidence has two levels, telling the international perspective of Chinese stories and disseminating Chinese culture internationally. The film "1921" is both a demonstration and an inspiration: the film innovatively uses the perspective of the Comintern to show the influence of the founding of the Communist Party of China on a worldwide scale. It shows that the attempt and exploration of "internationalization" has been applied to the production of film and television content.
To help Chinese culture go global, what else can content producers do and what should they do?
In Cheng Wu's view, if you want to go out with culture, the most important thing is that cultural products go out, and the premise of cultural products going out is to have excellent Chinese stories and reach more potential users around the world, especially young users. In the past five years, Tencent Animation has incubated animation works that reflect the combination of traditional Chinese culture and current life, and are deeply loved by young people, such as "Under One Person" and "Little Red Lady of the Fox Demon", which have also received good responses in major animation culture countries, including Japan. Taking advantageous categories as a pioneer to open up the international market and then promote film and television development is worth learning from.
At the same time, Cheng Wu also shared that the Reading Group he manages is trying another practice to help the international dissemination of Chinese culture. Taking advantage of the advantages of online literature to lead the world, thousands of excellent online literary novels reflecting China's current life and traditional history and culture in the starting point international have been translated into multiple languages for global promotion, attracting foreign writers to watch and called the resident authors of the starting point international, and the group of overseas writers has exceeded 100,000. The next plan also includes that when literary works and animation works form an influence in the global market, through the form of master control, joint industry partners will create film and television works and bring them to the world, so as to help the spread of Chinese culture.
The reason why the annual industry forum is worth looking forward to, summarizing the past gains and losses, it is more important to be able to see the momentum and hope for the good development of the entire industry from the future planning and thinking of front-line creators. Just as the main theme works represented by "1921" this year have become more acceptable and word-of-mouth among young people, the planning and practice of head content producers in the past few years has been rewarded. Now when it comes to the strategy of revitalizing the market mechanism and helping the globalization of Chinese culture, Tencent Pictures' planning is exciting, and it is also expected that in two or three years, the vision will blossom.