At the just-concluded 2021 Qingdao Film and Television Expo, the "Film Blue Book: Global Film Industry Development Report (2021)" showed that in 2020, China's cinema box office was 20.417 billion yuan, a decrease of 68.2% compared with 64.266 billion yuan in 2019.
In fact, the filmmakers attending the meeting have long been mentally prepared for this. Affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the entire film market has fallen into an unprecedented dilemma: the restrictions on the flow of people in theaters by epidemic prevention and control measures, the change of online movie viewing methods on the public's viewing habits and other factors have superimposed, and the sharp decline in the box office of movies has become almost inevitable.
The market side is not optimistic, from 2018, after experiencing the false prosperity of "hot money" running into, private floating capital has left the market, and the film industry has encountered a capital retreat. Even in 2019, before the outbreak of the epidemic, there were only 27 investment and financing incidents for film and television companies, a sharp drop of 65.82% compared with 2018.
Many participating filmmakers faced the "two heavens of ice and fire" of the 2021 Spring Festival and summer files, pointing out that the core problem of China's film industry is not in the market, not in the audience, not online or offline, and whether filmmakers can continue to launch more attractive high-quality content, the call for "content is king, quality and efficiency, and standardization" has become the consensus of the industry.
The ultimate differentiation of the "law of two eights":
2% of head films create 80% of the box office
"Chinese films have entered a new stage of development, some new structural problems and contradictions have emerged, and more head works are needed to shift from quantitative development to qualitative development. Finally, through the head work to drive the viewing of movies, to promote the development of the Chinese film market. This is rao shuguang, president of the China Film Critics Association, on the current film industry.
The data also supports this judgment: even in 2020, when the market is generally sluggish, benefiting from the good performance of Chinese films in the local market, "Eight Hundred", "My Hometown and Me", "Jiang Ziya" and "King Kong Chuan" are among the top 10 global box office in 2020, of which "Eight Hundred" won the annual box office global champion with a box office performance of 460 million US dollars.
By 2021, the "one ride on the dust" of the head work has become more and more obvious: "Hello, Li Huanying" and "Detective Chinatown 3" in the Spring Festival file have obtained 5.414 billion yuan and 4.524 billion yuan respectively, while "Changjin Lake", released in the National Day file, has won 5.33 billion yuan at the box office as of 15:00 on October 26, ranking third in the total box office list of Chinese films.
"The Chinese film market has 300 to 400 films released normally every year, which is a very large space. The head effect is mainly manifested in the head file, such as the Spring Festival file or National Day file that we are familiar with. Wusheng, president of Beijing Convergence Film Association Culture Media Co., Ltd., said, "Because in the head file period, the publicity cost invested by everyone is high enough, and the commercial elements of a film, from the main creative team, the starring team, to the overall presentation of the market, will be infinitely amplified at this time." And because of the eyeball effect gathered by this slot itself, everyone will relatively put all their energy on the most head project. ”
The huge "siphon effect" of the head slot and the head film has caused an extreme differentiation in the box office market. Li Tingwei, deputy secretary of the party committee and general manager of Tianjin North Film Group, introduced: "In recent periods, the box office of the head film has accounted for almost 80% to 90% of the annual box office market. In the past, we in the industry were saying the 'law of two and eight', that is, 20% of the films created 80% of the box office. Now it seems that this 'two' has become 2%, that is, 2% of the head film can create 80% of the box office. ”
tale! tale! Or the story!
In the view of Huang Qunfei, executive deputy general manager of Huaxia Film Distribution Co., Ltd., the cause of the head effect is, "In the final analysis, we have insufficient supply, and there are not many good films!" With good content, the audience can pay for it. ”
Coincidentally, when some media mentioned that the number of screens in Chinese cinemas exceeded 80,000, Rao Shuguang also said: "This is a good thing, showing the improvement of the scale of Chinese films." But at the same time, it is also necessary to see that the growth in movie attendance is lower than the growth in the number of movie theaters and screens. The most important thing is to go back to the work, back to the creation, with more types of head films, to stimulate the audience's enthusiasm for watching movies. ”
For "what is a good content supply", Li Tingwei talked about his understanding: "Film is a kind of popular art, it has a largest common denominator, only with the audience to have the greatest empathy, in order to attract more people into the cinema. "Hello, Lee Huan Ying" and "Chosin Lake" are precisely because they have aroused the resonance of the whole people that they can become phenomenal films, and then build a huge box office foundation. ”
"The methodology of the Chinese film industry is still quite simple, it is the story! tale! Or the story! "Through the Maoyan data, it can be found that Chinese audiences' attention to film visual effects is actually only effective for foreign films." The requirement for domestic films is the plot, see if your film can tell a different, unique, reasonable, unexpected story. ”
In Huang Qunfei's view, the key to improving the supply of high-quality content is still talent. "Everyone knows to invest in head films, but they just can't invest in them, because good directors and large companies have only a few projects, and there are tens of thousands of enterprises across the country to invest, so for us, cultivating and discovering young people is the top priority for the future development of Chinese films."
At this year's Qingdao Film Expo, 11 films participating in the Oriental Film and Television Venture Capital Venture Capital reached an intention to cooperate with many investors and signed contracts, with a cooperation amount of more than 300 million yuan. Many young directors and screenwriters have participated in the "production workshop" link of the venture capital conference to help them strengthen and improve, and Guo Kuiyong, a young director and screenwriter who has already done two theatrical films, is one of them.
Previously, Guo Kuiyong had already won the favor of mainland director Wan Ma Tse-dan with his script, and invited the latter to serve as the film's producer and script consultant, revised the script several times, and thought that the script had been quite perfect, but in the activities of the "Production Workshop", he still learned about many deficiencies in the script during the tutor's counseling process. For example, screenwriter Zhang Ji mentioned the problem of "strong plot", and Guo Kuiyong began to conceive adjustments that night. Director Ding Sheng mainly let him learn how to interact with the audience, and changed a version that night, "In fact, it is very simple after breaking it, but if there is no more experienced teacher to point it out for me, I need to spend some time to figure it out." Guo Kuiyong said.
Filmmaking should have a transparent mechanism
While the market is calling for the supply of high-quality content, the investment logic of the return project itself is becoming clearer and clearer.
Once upon a time, the film industry was the darling of China's financial investment, from coal bosses to real estate developers to Internet companies, like a marquee, plunging into this glamorous industry, setting off round after round of investment boom. The "anti-fever" turning point began with a strict investigation of celebrity taxation, coupled with the impact of the salary restriction order, and the capital gradually left the market.
"In the past few years, capital has entered our film industry at a speed of 100 meters at any cost, but in recent years, especially in the last two years, everyone has felt that this enthusiasm is less and financing is more difficult." Rao Shuguang said.
The data shows that the overall performance of the film capital market in 2020 is cold, with more than 90% of listed companies with film as the main industry losing money, and individual companies losing billions of yuan; correspondingly, the confidence of institutions in investment and financing of film projects is obviously insufficient, and the phenomenon of capital retreat is becoming more and more obvious.
In the view of Liu Hongtao, CEO of Happy Twist Culture Development Co., Ltd., the impact of capital retreat on the film and television industry may be positive. "The film is actually a long-term project, and from the perspective of capital, it may be considered that the risk is relatively large, because the volatility is stronger." However, film projects that really do a good job in content are actually not short of money, which will promote the industry to form a natural elimination process. ”
Good film projects are not short of money, the key is how to let investors see "where the good is", and then strengthen investment confidence. In this regard, Li Tingwei further explained: "As far as the film industry is concerned, the capital market has never been short of money, but lacks a good evaluation standard. In the cultural industry, the investment evaluation of films is relatively difficult. Whether it is the cost input method, or the market comparison method and the income expectation method, it is difficult to apply to movies. This leads to film investors can only do 'black boxes' and 'blind boxes'. ”
In this regard, Huang Qunfei deeply felt: "The films invested by Huaxia fully illustrate the current situation of film investment, this year, the national 12 key films, Huaxia invested 6, how much does the total investment cost?" More than two hundred million. This document was on the table and I hadn't signed it for days. Why? It is very likely that the last one will lose one. ”
How to break the investment "blind box"? Li Tingwei explained in three sentences: "Costs can be controlled, risks can be managed, and benefits can be expected." To achieve these three points, it is necessary to use the data of process management, the industrialization of the production process, and the expected income that requires two-way interaction between investors and producers to achieve effective communication. ”
In this regard, Tan Wusheng put forward his own answer with "transparency". "Production costs need to be more transparent. The industry has been exploring the establishment of a completion guarantee system, and the premise of the completion guarantee is the transparency of production costs. The process of film production must have a transparent mechanism, without which it cannot accept the supervision of the film guarantee company, and there is no way to talk about standardization. ”
The second is the transparency of the cost of publicity, wusheng took his own company as an example to communicate: "Because I was originally a technology company, after coming here for half a year to establish a whole-process OA mechanism, the cost of each link must be transparent, all the declaration fee approval mechanism, we can implement the reverse inspection of funds, the back of the agreement, to see where every penny is spent, earning and losing is an uncontrollable process, but at this point it needs to be transparent." ”
Source: Dazhong Daily