This article is transferred from CBN
Article original title: "Documentary schedule less than 0.1%, why the gold medal producer insisted on 16 years"
Author: Ge Yiting Editor-in-charge: Li Gang
On the 11th day of release, the cumulative box office of the documentary film "Refining" Love reached 363,000 yuan, and the scheduling rate was less than 0.1%. In theaters that are still open, its schedule is mostly avoided in prime time, and is scheduled after 9 p.m. or 9 p.m.
Poster of "Refining Love"
At present, more than half of the theaters in the country have suspended business, and theaters in several major box office cities, including Shanghai, have closed, and the situation of documentaries is even more difficult in the case of the overall cold film market.
"But there's really no way to do that, right?" Unless we can keep showing it until all the people can go back to the cinema, there may still be a chance. Chen Lingzhen, chief producer of "Refining" Love, said helplessly. At the beginning of last year, the documentary "The Ballad of the Yellow River" with her as a producer also grossed only 222,000 yuan.
The market dilemma for documentaries has long existed. Chen Lingzhen worked in a large consulting company in the first half of her career, and in an exclusive interview with CBN, she expressed her thoughts on the ecology of documentary creation and the investment environment. In her view, the impact that a documentary can have is not directly related to the size of the box office, and investment in a documentary should not only focus on the immediate numbers, but also see its more far-reaching social effects.
Document social reality
In 2006, Chen Lingzhen co-founded CNEX with like-minded friends, and has contributed many masterpieces to the field of Chinese documentaries in the past decade or so, and supported many creators. Among them, dozens of films and documentaries with Chen Lingzhen as the producer or producer, including "Music Life", "Street Dance Frenzy" and "Datong", which won the Golden Horse Award for Best Documentary, "Young Zhao" at the Hong Kong International Film Festival Documentary Jury Award, and "Stick! Juvenile", etc.
Hip-Hop Frenzy poster
Turning from the bustling business world to the deserted documentary industry, Chen Lingzhen feels that there is a common point between the two, that is, insight into human nature and human hearts. In an organizational structure and even a larger social mechanism, the most critical thing is how to influence people. Mobilizing people's hearts and creating empathy is the function of film and television works, and documentaries are closer to human nature and people's hearts, which is why she and many creators continue to work in this line.
For example, "Refining" Love presents a reality that single women in large cities are facing the pressure brought to them by the surrounding crowds in the process of finding love and trying to build lifelong happiness. At the heart of the film is a discussion of the attitudes and methods in which social mechanisms should interact with women. "Don't use women as an appendage, a tool for procreation, so there will no longer be so many sad stories of oppression of women." Chen Lingzhen said.
Similar to "Refining" Love, the original intention of most documentary creators is not to take business as the purpose, but to put their observation and thinking on social issues in the first place, such as government management mechanisms, the selfishness or aimless consumption of human nature, the exploitation of vulnerable groups, the destruction of the environment and other issues, and then find ways to correct and solve them.
In Chen Lingzhen's view, the documentary is still a relatively niche creation, and its audience accounts for only about 20% of the movie market. "Most people are still more concerned with stories that are close to their own, things that are directly related to happiness and happiness. For example, if a person's life has been very hard, and he still has to think and worry about so many things, isn't life harder? Their situation deserves more attention and support. ”
Every year, CNEX sets an annual theme that is closely related to society, and creators propose their own proposals around this theme. The theme of the first year is "Money", which explores people's perceptions of money and changes in the way wealth is distributed. In addition to the collection of video works, there was also an installation exhibition, and the film crew interviewed passers-by and asked them the same question: If there was 1 million yuan, what would you do with it? Passers-by wrote the 1 million yuan allocation on a whiteboard, and the photographer photographed their respective answers.
"We see that many people are not particularly rich themselves, but when he has 1 million yuan, very few people will only use it to do their own things, but choose to help others, or related to education, or solve the problem of poverty in the village, etc., and then they may leave very little money." 」 Chen Lingzhen said that it is precisely because of the encouragement of the first year that she has the motivation to insist on doing this today, "because I know that among all sentient beings, there must be such people."
Capital supports art
In 2010, the documentary "Musical Life", which tells the life story of Hong Kong music prodigy Wong Ka-cheng, was screened for 8 months at the Broadway Art Cinema in Hong Kong through online booking (if the number of reservations reached more than 70%, the attendance rate reached more than 90%.
Poster of "The Ballad of the Yellow River"
In China, the concept of art theaters has been proposed for many years and has not really landed, so that art films, documentaries, etc. are still mixed with commercial blockbusters to compete in the same pool, which is not a good way to solve the problem. Chen Lingzhen mentioned that in Europe, where the development of film art is earlier, there are a large number of art theaters, through a small but lasting way, specializing in playing excellent art films and documentary films, as long as you want to see them, you can always find them in the corners of the city; in France, some large theater brands have both commercial lines and art lines, and the benefits they get in commercial theaters can support works with artistic pursuit and cultural height.
Chen Lingzhen said that in addition to the construction of channels such as focus distribution and art theaters, creators also need to keep pace with the times, and in the process of creation, they should take into account irreversible trends such as the Internet environment and coexist and even integrate with them. "In addition to self-expression, whether it is possible to use the way that the audience can enter may be more pleasing to the eye, or use some creative methods to closely grasp the attention of the audience and mobilize everyone's imagination, empathy and thinking."
In addition, capital can also allocate a small amount of money to play a key role in the creation of documentaries. In recent years, ESG (environment, social responsibility and corporate governance) has become a hot word in the international investment community, that is, an important indicator of whether listed companies have a sense of social responsibility. Chen Lingzhen believes that the flow of some funds can be thoughtful, "the so-called investment for good, it does not pursue 50% return, but the pursuit of 5% to 10% return, at least do not return money."
Chen Lingzhen told CBN that she has been working in the field of investment return for a long time, which makes her realize that many intangible values are far greater than tangible values. Usually, this amount of money is a small part relative to the overall size of the enterprise, but the social effects that can be achieved are considerable.
This has been confirmed in some documentary cases in the past, such as environmental documentaries that have indirectly contributed to changes in laws and regulations. At present, Chen Lingzhen is planning a public welfare charity awareness promotion and establishment work, hoping to guide a part of the funds into the documentary field through the promotion of some documentary cases such as disabled people, women's consciousness, ecological environmental protection, and elderly care, so that they can realize the broad social effects that documentaries can achieve, so that they have confidence in the documentary field.
Chen Lingzhen is the co-founder and CEO of CNEX, a professor at the School of Film, Television and Animation Arts of China Academy of Art, and a member of the Oscar Documentary Selection Committee.