Recently, because many people are talking about the cold winter phenomenon of the film and television industry, we have specially planned a push - to chat with Mr. Wang Heming, the founder of Script Supermarket, about the topic of "film and television winter"; from the perspective of screenwriter brokerage, he extended this topic to fa financing, producers and other aspects.
First of all, Wang Heming is not surprised by the so-called "cold winter period of the film and television industry": "The so-called cold winter is not a special phenomenon, but a staged and seasonal event", he believes that this is a natural phenomenon of the film and television industry, it is a market selection of content producers, through this natural selection of bad money in the market, will leave some excellent content producers. Therefore, he believes that this is a good thing, and it will be good creators who can survive the winter, and then it will be a spring in the film and television industry. Then, when we talk about "what caused this cold winter in the film and television industry", Wang Heming said that some people think that the initiators are those non-professional speculators, which is a one-sided understanding, they may not understand the market, nor do they know how to create, but they are not wrong - the investor's profession is to earn income, and the reason for this environmental change is complex and multi-faceted factors, and cannot be simply attributed to one person or collective. You could argue that many filmmakers focus only on investors' ideas and only care about meeting investors' needs, which is blind behavior – not conducive to survival in the cold winter. "You don't do things for money, you have to do things for your own faith", Wang Heming firmly believes that as a person in the art industry, you must insist on artistic creation, and it is not okay to take your own work seriously, in this regard, he mentioned a thing that impressed him, when he went to see Zhang Yimou's "Shadow", Zhang Yimou said a sentence: "For so many years, I have seen so many people enter the industry, but I have never seen anyone traveling." He explained that those people are because they love movies and settle down, so they can have such a status, you can't get through the winter without focusing on content, and you can't become such a good creator.
Regarding the problem of the cold winter period of film and television, Wang Heming used the screenwriting industry as an example to further explain why so many people "travel". He said that the root of the screenwriting industry lies in the way its scripts are operated, and it should move from commissioned creation to copyright transfer, rather than the mainstream of commissioned creation today. Today, commissioning creates put most screenwriters in a vulnerable position: they have neither a voice nor a fair remuneration. Speaking of this, he gave an example, "I once asked senior experts in the screenwriting industry, how many people are in this industry? He said, 'At best, less than 2,000 people', one industry, only 2,000 people in an industry! For this bad situation, he said that there is no way to change, and the way is to operate the reasonable way of copyright transfer through a professional industry structure. Because this method can stand the test of the market, in Japan, South Korea, Europe, the United States and other countries, are used in this way of operation: the screenwriters are party A, when they write a work of art, they will be entrusted to an operating company to operate, rather than risking plagiarism to invest in the production company or the director, producer. Not only that, the big domestic screenwriters also give a professional attitude, they first collect the deposit, and then directly submit the manuscript after a period of creation, which means that they do not allow their works to be treated contemptuously, and they should buy out the copyright through formal methods. In this regard, Wang Heming particularly appealed: "We must find institutions like publishing houses, find institutions like Script Supermarket, and even many institutions like Script Supermarket to help screenwriters operate his scripts." ”
The script supermarket is deeply involved in the blank area of screenwriting brokerage and script copyright trading, which is to solve the survival crisis of screenwriters and scripts from the fundamental pain points of the industry.
From a professional point of view, the script supermarket is to solve the relationship between the upstream and downstream of the film and television company, and its upstream is the screenwriter, which is the script; its downstream is financing. The upstream is resolved by promoting the operation of copyright transfer, while the downstream is responding through fa financing.
Financial adviso is an independent industry that helps startups efficiently sort out and incubate projects to raise money quickly. For example, Wang Heming said: "When we build a platform for film and television projects, we will find that the disk value of some plays is not correct. A play originally raised 10 million yuan can be started quickly, some people want to raise 30 million; some plays need 50 million to start, and some people only raise 30 million to start. "In such a situation, it is not easy for investors to enter, and the project will fall into difficulties." Wang Heming said that talking about the project talks about the people in the film team who manage the project - the producer, the producer is like a translator, he wants to dock art with art, business to business, specifically: when you meet the director, actors and other creative personnel to talk about how to make this play better; when you see investors, you have to talk about operation, risk and management. He has to speak different languages to different people, which means that the producer who carries the project needs to understand both art and business – which explains why some projects are producer-centric.
Wang Heming said that many of the problems mentioned above are restricting content production and prolonging the cold winter period of film and television, the biggest problem is not standardized, although the works of art are non-standardized, but film and television are in the industrial system, so these works can not be developed without industrialization, and their development should be standardized. Just like the purple sand pot, each purple sand pot is a unique work, but it can be introduced to the market through packaging, publicity, and promotion, and this process is the process of standardization, so the degree of industrialization is increased in this operation. "So what period is the film and television industry ushering in?" Wang Heming finally said, "It is how to combine a non-standardized product- a work of art with a standardized operating system, which is what the script supermarket has been doing." ”
Film and television winter is not a flood beast, but a normal stage of development, at this time, we must always adhere to the content as king, but also timely adjustment of the industrial structure, so that copyright transfer becomes the mainstream, so as to ensure the interests of screenwriters and the safety of the script, and promote the benign development of the industry.