The Paper's reporter Gao Dan
Recently, the domestic high-format film brand CINITY held a 120-frame "Detective Chinatown 3" media demonstration meeting of CINITY AI Master Reproduction (hereinafter referred to as AMR) at The Inka Cinema in Beijing.
Detective Chinatown 3 poster
Xu Bin, deputy general manager of Huaxia Film (Beijing) Co., Ltd., introduced the scene, saying: "In the post-epidemic era, audiences need a better audiovisual experience to regain their enthusiasm for watching movies on the big screen, and theaters need higher standard projection systems to attract audiences to resume their consumption habits in theaters. The CINITY cinema system creatively integrates high technology in the seven film projection fields of 4K, 3D, high brightness, high frame rate (HFR), high dynamic range (HDR), wide color gamut (WCG), and immersive sound. ”
Xu Bin also mentioned that CINITY's film source has been fully opened, and has established cooperation with more than 20 domestic production companies and six major Hollywood film companies. He said: "In the future, there will be a CINITY version of large-scale films, and some of the high-quality films will be produced into CINITY AMR high-frame versions. "The launch of CINITY AMR will greatly increase the supply of CINITY projection system film sources, bringing a more extreme viewing experience to the audience, thereby promoting the further development of the CINITY projection system and spawning more high-format film production and production."
It is reported that CINITY's exclusive AMR 120-frame version of "Detective Chinatown 3" and "Hello, Li Huanying", "Assassination of a Novelist", "Samurai Order", "Surging Crowds" and "New God List: Nezha Reborn" and many other CINTY edition films will be released in this year's Spring Festival.
At the scene, Xu Bin, deputy general manager of Huaxia Film (Beijing) Co., Ltd., Shen Rui, deputy general manager of Huaxia Film (Beijing) Co., Ltd., and Cui Gang, CEO of Frame Color Film and Television Technology China, were interviewed about the CINITY projection system and the AMR artificial intelligence master reproduction process.
【Dialogue】
AMR is a double-edged sword
Reporter: Please tell us about the technology behind the AMR artificial intelligence master remake process?
Cui Gang: Our core team is the earliest batch of artificial intelligence doctors in China, who have worked in large international companies for more than 20 years, serving some film and television brands, image-related product brands, etc., and have been applying artificial intelligence technology in this process.
Specifically, the work we do in THECINITY AMR can be divided into three levels, and the application of artificial intelligence technology at each level is relatively large. At the first level, we have to analyze each shot one by one, which is equivalent to making an intelligent robot to read each shot, such as scenery, motion, lighting, and then build a 3D model. The second level, for the film is more difficult to understand the director, photography shooting intentions, such as its aperture, lens selection, focus selection, mirror selection, motion mode selection, only read to understand, in order to improve the film more appropriately. Because every shot is carefully designed by the director and cinematographer, film is the art of speaking with the lens. In this regard, we have accumulated a lot of experience, which is equivalent to the identification of the director's artistic intentions.
The third part, based on the first two recognitions, we choose how to carry out secondary exposure for each lens, the so-called secondary exposure is that you can choose the depth of field, choose the aperture, choose the degree of dithering, etc., from this point of view, you can restore the director's creative intention from the aspects of clarity, frame rate, etc., for CINITY such a very good global leading hardware environment, to create the best visual experience and effect, the work itself is still very challenging. In fact, some of the key shots here also have manual intervention, which is fine-tuned through manual intervention, while accumulating more elaborate models.
Reporter: We know that one of the selling points of "Billy Lynn's Halftime Battle" is 4K, 120 frames, can the AMR artificial intelligence master remake process you introduced, in principle, be able to convert all ordinary versions of the film into 120 frames?
Xu Bin: AMR is a computing technology, we can convert the ordinary version of the film into AMR, but there is a relatively large investment, there are many commercial considerations. In addition, a more vivid and smooth production can strengthen the picture texture of excellent production quality films, and at the same time, it will also expose the production defects of poor production standards, which is a double-edged sword. Therefore, in doing AMR plate making, we and the frame color are very cautious, we hope that the films made in this version can be handed over to the market, and they can get better feedback.
Reporter: So when doing the AMR version, what kind of film will you choose? Is it basically a commercial blockbuster?
Xu Bin: As you can see, at this stage in China, when the films are released throughout the year, the films that basically make money are still mainly action visual effects, so among the more than 30 films that CINITY has released, the visual effects category accounts for the vast majority, but we also don't want CINITY to only push and dominate the visual effects films, so this year's Spring Festival file we did "Hello, Li Huanying" and other other types of CINITY versions such as comedy themes.
But because in Hollywood genre films, the proportion of visual effects (action) itself is also relatively large, which is also the main ticket position of the entire industry, so we usually choose 60%-70% of the films that are visual effects, if in the special period, we see that the commercial value of the film is relatively high, we will also choose other types of films.
Reporter: So how has the CINITY system changed compared to other projection systems on the market, such as the Dolby Cinema?
Xu Bin: The biggest selling point of Dolby Cinema is the higher contrast, which advertises a contrast ratio of hundreds of thousands or even 1 million. Almost all of CINITY's indicators are comprehensively surpassed and improved, including brightness and fluency, compared to Dolby, CINITY can provide more comprehensive dimensions in terms of picture performance.
A variety of different optical indicators, in different types of scenes above the embodiment is not the same, such as boxing scenes, that is, the difference in frame rate is more obvious, dark scenes are more pictures, that is, the difference in brightness and contrast is more obvious. Therefore, the design of CINITY, we do not want it to only improve the contrast and dark scenes, we also hope that it can be seen at a glance in the appeal of color, shadow tone, and fluency.
As you can see on this screen now, CINITY's picture quality is the top in the world, and I can proudly say that there are a lot of China's own intellectual property rights, and we are also working hard to break through the impact of overseas monopoly technology on us.
Reporter: AmR manual plate making process and CINITY cinema hall are two parts? So can we apply the AMR manual plate making process to ordinary films and make it into an AMR version to be screened in a general theater?
Xu Bin: For example, like you bought a TV at home, CINITY Cinema is the high-end TV, AMR is a new Blu-ray DVD production method, if you use this version of Blu-ray DVD, you see the picture will be more beautiful than the ordinary DVD, and only on your home Blu-ray TV, it can be better realized.
Artificial intelligence master reproduction process is now not available in the general cinema hall, because the CINITY plate making is a proprietary format, the reason is that the optical performance of this system is 4-7 times that of ordinary theaters, so the entire technology is also specially developed for different optical properties, you can not see so many colors on the ordinary system, nor can you see such a smooth effect, it is a matching process, a bit like bottles and water. This system, or our cinema, is a larger container, and the content of our CINITY plate making is a bottle of water that matches this bottle very well, and it is a tailor-made technology.
The sense of ceremony of watching a movie in a movie theater is not a substitute
Reporter: The industry has undergone a reshuffle last year, what potential market opportunities do you think the CINITY projection system has in the industry transformation?
Shen Rui: Last year, the box office in the Chinese market was more than 20 billion yuan, which has shrunk to about one-third of our market peak. Simply put, this situation is a big risk for the industry, including the risk of entertainment formats such as streaming, but at the same time we also see a lot of opportunities.
We believe that the viewing experience in the theater and the sense of ceremony of watching movies are irreplaceable, the theater will always be the highest standard of audio-visual, from 100 years ago black and white, silent, and now slowly appear in color, from 2K to 4K, sound from point sound source, stereo, development to 5.1, 7.1, and then immersive... But from every point in time, cinema and film were the highest level of audiovisual presentation in the world at that time.
Reporter: Frame Color has been cooperating with several Hollywood blockbusters for many years, how do these Hollywood filmmakers see this new product technology?
Cui Gang: The United States, especially the technology represented by Hollywood, has actually stagnated, and the current equipment status of the US theater line is very large compared with China, especially compared with the CINITY indicators. We have some dealings with Hollywood, because the cinema equipment in the United States is very backward, such as Ang Lee's good movies of 4K, 3D, and 120 frames, which cannot even land in the United States because the hardware environment is too poor.
How the film will develop in the future, their feeling is that the whole film and television will develop towards high dynamic range and fluency. The development of the display can not stop, then to the high brightness, high dynamic range, there must be a high frame rate to match, otherwise some push and pull panning lens is too shaky, consumers can not stand.
Therefore, the AMR technology that Frame Color and CINITY have made together has made some reserves for the further development of CINITY. There is a huge problem after high frame rate shooting, the original 24 frame film, there are many forms of artistic expression related to 24 frames, for example, your movement, your jitter, your motion blur, are related to 24 frames, then in the new display under what kind of expression, high dynamic range and high frame rate how to present, in fact, CINITY future development will have more staying power.
"Win the Championship" poster
Xu Bin: Our original intention was to hope that the picture you saw in the audience was exactly the same as the director's picture in the viewfinder. The director of photography for "Win the Championship" and the assistant in charge of post-production and the whole data processing came over to tune the CINITY version of the film together, and after tuning it, he was particularly excited, he said that this picture is exactly the same as the picture of our live monitor. In order to show the softness of the picture, they covered a stocking on the lens, so that the picture is very soft, but it can not be very dark, so it hit a very strong light, so that the picture is bright and soft, at the same time it is 48 frames of real shooting, and it is very smooth, because it is a playing scene, so he said Master We have to change a more cattle monitor, and now the theater has reached this level, our shooting screen can be improved.
Fluency demo
Reporter: How much does it cost for the theater to upgrade the CINITY system, and if it is scheduled according to the normal schedule of the theater, how long will it take to recover the cost?
Xu Bin: The business model of the CINITY system is two, one is hardware sales, a system of 5.5 million yuan, plus a relatively small proportion of box office shares; the other is the business model of financial leasing, financial leasing plus some box office shares, basically these two ways.
The whole process is divided into two categories, one is the upgrading of the old theater, and the other is the newly built theater. The upgrading of the old cinema is usually about two weeks, like the reconstruction of the entire cinema hall of Inka Cinema, plus the erection of the entire system of CINITY, which was completed in ten days. New cinema we will intervene from the earlier design process, the design of the entire cinema hall, including various angles, interior materials, seats, screens, acoustic effects, picture effects, can achieve a relatively complete CINITY design standards, this cycle is relatively long, we will intervene in the entire auditorium design three to six months in advance.
Reporter: How many theaters are open in the CINITY system now?
Shen Rui: In the domestic market, before the Spring Festival, there will be more than 50 CINITY theaters open, mainly distributed in second-tier cities, especially in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, accounting for 50%, for example, There should be 9 CINITY theaters in Beijing, and Ingengar Cinema is one of the recently opened. Second-tier cities may account for half, and only a very small number are in third-tier cities. In the next step, CINITY will further increase its efforts to promote and land in third- and fourth-tier cities.
At the same time, with the current products, CINITY is also doing differentiation and refinement, the current dual-machine system, there are also stand-alone systems, follow-up will have more products to the market. While ensuring the quality of the projection, a stand-alone system will be launched for medium and large cinema halls, and its cost and other aspects will be much better. For the domestic market, our initial idea is that it is planned to be 500 blocks within three or five years. At present, the awareness of CINITY in first- and second-tier cities is relatively high, taking Inga Cinema as an example, the pre-sale ticket price of "Detective Chinatown 3" has started at 150 yuan, and the pre-sale situation is very good, indicating that the audience's recognition of THE high frame rate of CINITY is still very high, and we will do more sinking work in third- and fourth-tier cities in the follow-up.
In the international market, we began to promote CINITY from the previous year, and made a layout in the United States, Canada, and Europe. However, the new crown epidemic is raging around the world, the domestic situation is relatively good, and the cinemas in the United States, Europe and other foreign countries are basically in a state of stagnation. After the COVID-19 pandemic, we will continue to follow up on the North American market, especially in Canada and the United States. It is expected that within three or five years, CINITY can have a scale of two or three hundred pieces in the world.
Reporter: What are the considerations for future product innovation?
Xu Bin: Now this system is arguably the most exquisite system in the whole world, and we are also evaluating some different imaging technologies, which involve further adjustments to the platemaking process, our own business model, and the reliability of the new technology. However, it can be guaranteed in the long-term scope, and will maintain our advanced nature in brand and picture expression, which is the basic goal of our work.
Editor-in-charge: Cheng Yu
Proofreader: Zhang Liangliang