Maker Cat Note: This article comes from the keynote speech "The Entertainment Market Tends to Be Rational, Content Creation Needs Sensibility" delivered by Zong Shan, founder of Beijing Huashan Sword Film and Television Culture Media Co., Ltd., at the "2018 NBI Summer Innovation Summit" hosted by Pintu Group.
In recent years, China's entertainment industry has shown a booming trend: the film box office continues to break through the records of previous years; high-quality online dramas go to sea; and variety content continues to iterate. The ensuing tests are also more and more: strict supervision; impetuousness of creators; star price and film remuneration, etc. Make the entertainment industry walk on thin ice, in the face of the eve of the reshuffle of the film and television industry, how do we break through the predicament?
At the meeting, Zong Shan first analyzed the four impacts on the current film and television circle: the poor external economic environment, the public's doubts about the legal compliance of the film and television industry, most film and television companies do not seek gimmicks in a down-to-earth manner, and the strict policy supervision. Zong Shan said that in the face of such a dilemma, the key to highlighting the siege lies in having good content. And good content should be blessed with a kind of "temperament": the temperament of becoming a hit. Zong Shan pointed out that there are five elements for good content to become a hit: it is related to the people's livelihood society, the empathy of the people, the widely disseminated topic degree, the sense of substitution and the advancement with the times.
At the end of the speech, Zong Shan proposed four directions for the next development of the film and television industry: comedy, romantic love story, action movie, and positive energy theme.
The following is the transcript of Zong Shan's speech (edited by Maker Cat):
Zong Shan:
The conundrum of the film and television industry
During this period of time, the entire film and television circle has suffered some unprecedented impacts. I think people may be more concerned about how we should deal with it on the eve of the reshuffle of the film and television industry?
The incident of Cui Yongyuan a while ago not only exposed many problems in the film and television industry, but also made us, the film and television industry practitioners, reflect on ourselves and see that there were so many problems in our industry. For example, the phenomenon of celebrity tax evasion, loose taxation, and excessive value of celebrities, a series of things have catalyzed the supply-side reform of the film and television industry.
What kind of state are several CEOs in our film and television industry facing now? We used to meet and say hello and say which project are you working on now? What are you going to do next? But this time I found that people don't talk about it anymore. What are you talking about? Your family's market value is very well maintained this time, you have only fallen by a few percent, and everyone has stopped talking about projects.
Why are there some of these situations?
1, the external economic environment is not very good.
2. Cui Yongyuan's incident has led to the entire public opinion questioning the legal compliance of this industry, and it is difficult for the project to get the favor of capital.
3, I remember that the previous year there were tens of billions of funds pouring into the film and television industry. I counted that 100 companies held strategic launches at the Shanghai Film Festival that year. But by the time we look back a year later, those companies are basically 80 percent out of business. Really good projects don't need to be so publicized.
4. What is more severe is the unclear policy of film and television direction.
In the past six months, I have almost become a research expert on film and television policy, and today I watch this trumpet and say that we have a policy, and tomorrow I have another policy, and I feel very tired and can't catch up. In the first half of the year, the strictest ancient restrictions in history were issued, and only costume dramas could be filmed, and palace fighting dramas were strictly prohibited from being broadcast on first-line satellite television. The restrictions of the entire genre are still quite large for our industry, and the share of costume dramas is very small now.
5. After the Cui Yongyuan incident came out, a restriction was promulgated for actors. In fact, we have heard before that the actor's film chip can not exceed 40%, and the production is 60%. But the actual production is unlikely, because the actor is a scarce resource, a state of short supply. How does the state control it now? Your film must have a film and television license, you attach the entire actor's bill and contract, he can clearly see whether you have taxed, this trick is very cruel. Therefore, producers who rely on resources to eat are also facing new pressures and reshuffling like the price limit order.
What to do? Now I feel anxious every day, and the whole film and television company is a bit dazed and trance-like. I heard that the scenes I want to shoot in the second half of the year have stopped, and they are all waiting and watching, what to do? Who pays the extra 35% of the celebrity's tax? If it is all borne by the film and television company, the film and television company can not stand it, so the entire industry, like this green banana state.
I flipped through some of the materials of the entire market this year, and I felt that what I wrote on the eve of the reshuffle of the film and television industry, what should we rely on to survive these difficulties and obstacles, this is a pit for ourselves. This is the conclusion I want to say that is difficult to deduce from the numbers. But in the process of studying the data, I found that there are still some loopholes.
In the first half of 2018, the data of the entire Chinese film, 271 entered the theater line. Although it is an increase of 5 billion yuan over the first half of last year, in fact, there are only 15 films with more than 100 million, accounting for only 6% of the total, which is actually a very small proportion.
It means that many people in our industry pay attention to, or are flashy, or feel that this movie must make money, but in fact, it is not a real phenomenon in this industry. What is that Poseidon Needle? Just good content.
Good content is not equal to blockbusters, and blockbusters must first have good content
Why good content? What exactly is good content? Good content requires a good story, a good script, a good production, and professional actors. There are many good film and television works that do meet these hard standards just mentioned. But what kind of temperament is missing? I want to say that good content does not equal blockbusters, and blockbusters must first have good content.
The reason for the appearance of the blockbuster I think is more obvious:
1. It is related to people's livelihood and society.
2. What the people are concerned about and empathize with.
3. Widely disseminated topics.
4. Explosive personnel with a sense of substitution.
5. Keep pace with the times.
I gave an example, during the release of "I Am Not a Medicine God", it was a period of great earthquake and the most anxious discussion in the entire film and television industry, but it did not affect its 3 billion box office. Why can "I Am Not a Medicine God" become a blockbuster? As I concluded, the difficulty of buying medicines in China is a well-known problem. And it reflects some deep topics that many people dare not touch at the moment.
I am not much an audience for palace fight dramas, I want to see why "Yanxi Raiders" is so popular, I found that its heroine is very up-to-date with the times, and the current female combination is very close. It turns out that the palace fighting dramas we are familiar with are like "The Biography of Zhen Huan" and "Huan Zhu Gege", the heroine used to be Xiao Bai, was bullied, and blackened before revenge. What is the heroine of this "Yanxi Raiders"? You trip me up and I fight back right away. This is a manifestation of the position of Chinese women, why I said that good blockbusters must keep pace with the times, this is also the truth.
In addition, "Wolf Warrior 2", the box office of the general main theme cannot reach 5 billion, but it is just right, the times make heroes. In the environment at that time, the self-confidence and civic sentiment of the great powers were well raised.
Finally, middle-class consumption has become the mainstream, so we should pay attention to the spiritual and cultural needs of the second- and third-tier people.
When the whole entertainment needs to be reshuffled, we see that these original works actually have a very good performance to regain some of the positions that original content should have.
I summarized why these IP + traffic star models that are now popular have failed. No one has thought about it, what kind of industry are we engaged in? It's not a container, I just get the carton out and produce it according to the assembly line. We are engaged in an industry that is careful, you are creating products with your heart, and the audience is also feeling the works with your heart, so you can't create them with raw and hard manufacturing.
Talking about this trend, it doesn't matter if everyone is anxious and panicking, but I think that the more materialistic the era, the more people need spiritual sustenance, and the more economically striated the era, the more they need entertainment, so there is still a great future for the development of the entertainment industry.
The development direction of the entertainment industry
What should we shoot? I listed a few hard requirements as a reference:
1. Comedy.
2. Romantic love story.
3. Action movies.
4. The main theme of positive energy. Our country will always need positive energy and main theme movies, I don't think it is a shame for you to make main theme movies as a commercial company, I think this era has passed. You can study how the current self-confidence of our great power reflects and rekindles our cultural hopes.
(The above maker cat on-site manuscript, reprint should indicate the source)