On June 8, the 8 sub-forums of the first cultural power building summit forum were held in Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Center. In the sub-forum of "High-quality Development of the Film Industry", Chinese filmmakers gathered together to discuss how to develop high-quality Chinese film industry at a new starting point. Creators such as Chen Daoming, Zhang Songwen, and Guo Fan, as well as practitioners, experts and scholars from Bona Pictures and Alibaba Pictures, shared their insights from their respective perspectives. This sub-forum is hosted by the China Propaganda Film Bureau.
Group photo of the sub-forum
Mao Yu (Executive Deputy Director of the Central Propaganda Film Bureau)
Since the beginning of this year, the film industry has achieved very good results in the Spring Festival. The box office in the first five months reached 21.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 45%, laying a good foundation for the overall recovery of the film industry, but we must also be sober It is recognized that there is still a very large distance compared with the high-quality development requirements of the film industry and the goal of building a cultural power.
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Especially after the epidemic, the enthusiasm and ability of film investment and financing have declined, the effective supply of excellent films is insufficient, the traditional film distribution method needs to be transformed and improved, and the difficulties in the operation of the film industry have not been fundamentally alleviated. These problems are more prominent, which needs to be based on new history. The starting point is to face up to the gap, win-win challenges, and focus on solving the difficulties, pain points, and blocking points of the high-quality development of the film industry, and quickly change from "yes" to "good".
The high-quality development of the Chinese film industry must do a good job in five aspects, including making every effort to do a good job in film content production, making the film market bigger and stronger, promoting technology to empower films, promoting high-level opening up of Chinese films, and actively doing a good job in film public services .
Chen Daoming (Chairman of China Film Association)
There were more than 400 Chinese movies last year, and the previous peak was 800 or 900. Can any of you name 10 movies? There may be, but relatively few, this is the relationship between quality and quantity.
The relationship between the quantity and quality of movies must be properly handled. Quantity is the basis and quality is the guarantee. Only a relatively good number of movies can guarantee the production of high-quality movies. We cannot use quantity instead of our performance. It would be better to have fewer movies. It seems that the performance is not very brilliant, but the quality is much better than the performance.
Any movie can be made to look good, and the main theme is one of the important manifestations. The success of some movies in recent years just shows the audience's choice. Boehner made a lot of powerful movies, made a lot of money, and it was a win-win.
Chen Daoming
The types of movies also need to be richer. It is not necessary to pursue grand narratives. Looking at Chinese and foreign movies, there is never a shortage of small and beautiful movies. This is to meet the diverse needs of audiences. this profession.
For Chinese films, I am full of confidence that our filmmakers have the ability to create excellent films. There are countless stories about China from ancient times to the present, both in history and in the present. In recent years, I am very pleased to see the emergence of a group of fruitful young and middle-aged directors, young actors, and young screenwriters. I hope that Chinese actors will continue to change faces, inject new strength and talents, and create new and diverse works that the audience will like.
Audiences love to watch movies. Even in the era of streaming media, watching movies in theaters is an irreplaceable way. As a filmmaker, we must protect this trust. Before creating a film, it is necessary to think about how to ensure the quality of the film, the relationship between the film and the audience, the relationship between the film and life, the literary, artistic, social, and philosophical aspects of the film itself, and the influence of the film. A movie comes out and makes money, but how long can it live in the field of art? Thinking about whether a movie can become a historical classic, how we can think of life, and then turn our thinking into life, this implementation process is the creation itself. Chinese movies are forever young!
Yu Dong (Vice Chairman of China Film Association, President of Bona Film Group)
This year is a crucial year for the film industry to fully recover and gain momentum. In the past three years, due to the impact of the epidemic, the Chinese film industry has been greatly impacted, especially downstream theaters have been most affected, and the average profitability of individual theaters has dropped significantly.
I once did some calculations. In 2019, the box office of Chinese movies reached 64.2 billion yuan, equivalent to 9.8 billion U.S. dollars. This year, the box office revenue of the North American market, including the United States and Canada, was 11 billion U.S. dollars. We are very close to the third place. The box office in the Japanese market is 2.9 billion US dollars, and the Indian market is 1.9 billion US dollars. We are more than three times behind the third place. Before 2020, Chinese films maintained a compound growth rate of 17 years. According to the 2019 box office of 64.2 billion without growth, the box office should exceed 190 billion yuan from 2020 to 2022. In fact, the three-year box office of the epidemic is only 90 billion, and the film industry has evaporated. 100 billion. In 2019, the Chinese film market had a record of 1.73 billion moviegoers. In the three years of the epidemic, we have almost lost nearly 3 billion moviegoers.
Even though the situation is difficult, the vast number of Chinese film and television workers still withstood the pressure and worked hard to create. In the absence of imported films, a large number of excellent films such as "Changjin Lake" and "The Wandering Earth 2" have resisted the Chinese film market. 90 billion box office is hard-won.
At the beginning of this year, the Spring Festival stalls ushered in a good start, the audience returned, and the market recovered rapidly, which gave film workers great confidence and boosted the morale of the industry. Now, with the full resumption of operation of theaters, high-quality movies are scheduled to be released one after another. As of May 29, the national box office has exceeded 22 billion yuan. More than 85% of the year.
Next, how do we attract the 3 billion movie viewers lost in three years to the cinema and get back the lost 100 billion box office? This is what we need to think deeply about and work hard for.
Guo Fan (Vice Chairman of Beijing Film Association, Director)
The large-scale application of artificial intelligence will set off a new round of technological revolution, and its impact is far-reaching. Under the influence of the basic law that productivity determines production relations, the application of artificial intelligence will widely affect production relations and organizational structures. Our team will Pay close attention to the development of these technologies, be brave in innovation, hope to constantly explore the possibility of creation, actively apply more advanced shooting, production and projection technologies, improve the audio-visual effects and artistic expression of movies, and bring richer and more diverse to the audience. Optimized viewing experience.
Our team is well aware that technology is the primary productive force. We are determined to stand at the forefront of technology and seize the opportunity of this era where overtaking is possible. Facing the arrival of artificial intelligence, whether it is us and Hollywood, we may stand on the same side. on the starting line.
Zhang Songwen (Actor)
In the world, there is no country that does not need art, no matter how backward or powerful a country is, art is our soul. There are eight major arts recognized around the world, namely literature, music, painting, dance, architecture, sculpture, drama, and film. I sometimes wonder if movies matter? I think it is very important, because in my childhood memory, watching movies is a very beautiful part of my memory.
Zhang Songwen
Today's professional actors come from many sources, and actors from various fields have joined the team. I cherish the education of Beijing Film Academy very much, because the performance education of art schools tells you to respect the art of performance, because performance art is a very important screw in movies. Some people also call the aesthetics of movie performances movie aesthetics, and movies can never be separated from the performances of actors.
Film performances in our country have a history of over a hundred years. Today, China has the Film Association and the Academy of Film Performance. Our performance aesthetics has been pioneered by our predecessors, and the basic characteristics of aesthetics have been established in the 1920s and 1930s. Today, we are on the same level as filmmakers all over the world.
My thinking about movies is not very large. Back to the individual, Chinese actors today should make progress together with actors from all over the world, and they are not afraid to compete and PK with them even on the same stage. As long as we have high-quality movies, high-quality scripts, and high-quality production teams, we actors dare to share the prosperity with our global counterparts on this stage.
Chinese actors have a 5,000-year heritage of civilization and inheritance of modern development. This is our confidence and confidence. We hope that in the era of high-quality film development, Chinese actors can show the ambition, backbone and confidence of Chinese actors. Let's encourage each other to develop high-quality movies together.
Li Jie (President of Alibaba Pictures)
The past ten years have witnessed the rapid development of China's film infrastructure. As of now, the number of screens in my country has exceeded 80,000, ranking first in the world.
We have noticed that there are still certain risks and problems in the process of rapid development. For example, we have an average of 0.6 screens per 10,000 people, and the average number of films shown per screen per week is 11.8, while the average 10,000 people in North America have There are 1.3 screens, and the average number of films shown per screen per week is 17.5. It can be seen that although our scale has reached a certain height, there is still a gap in quality. This is also a problem that needs to be solved in the future from a big film country to a film powerhouse.
With the vigorous development of the Chinese film market, the development of science and technology is also continuously promoting the transformation of the film industry. How do we reshape the film distribution model in the integration of "film + Internet" and tap the potential of the film market? Topics that I would like to discuss with the leaders and guests.
We can see that the Internet is entering every link of the film industry chain, and it has had a profound impact on ticket purchases, announcements, and screenings.
From traditional offline ticket purchases to competitive fare discounts, to seat selection experience as an innovative selling point, and finally to digital consumption changes with the core of movie viewing decision-making, under the innovation of Internet thinking, Chinese movie audiences have indeed enjoyed To the world's best audience ticket consumption experience.
Although the user's movie consumption experience is constantly improving, the current film publicity and distribution work still faces many challenges. The traditional media and means of reaching users cannot achieve large-scale effects. The focus of film publicity and distribution has gradually shifted from popularity to word of mouth. .
In the era of the integrated development of "film + Internet", expanding the supply of high-quality films, providing differentiated schedule options, and strengthening digital publicity are one of the key paths for film distribution to move towards higher momentum.
The integration of the Internet and film continues to deepen, and has become the epitome of the integration of culture and technology. We have shifted from widely disseminating movies to serving movies in depth. The Internet, big data, and artificial intelligence have brought more possibilities to the development of movies. The transformation of the film industry chain has also helped us move from a big film country to a film powerhouse. In the future, we will continue to practice the values of small people, real heroes, big feelings, and positive energy in content, make a good technology platform, improve technology level, be open and inclusive, and jointly promote the high-quality development of the Chinese film industry.
Sub-forum site
Yin Hong (Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University)
We should be soberly aware that compared with the great achievements of Chinese film development, the influence of Chinese films has not yet reached the depth, breadth, and intensity. So far, although the box office records of domestic films have continued to break through in China, the best overseas box office performance of Chinese films is still "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" in 2000, which created an international box office of 210 million US dollars, about 1.5 billion yuan. . The international market of the domestic film "Hero" produced in 2000 was 150 million US dollars, and it has not been refreshed until now, almost 21 years ago.
This year's "Man Jianghong", "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Bear Infested" ranked fourth, fifth, and eleventh in the global movie box office rankings with box office results of 660 million US dollars, 598 million US dollars, and 221 million US dollars respectively. . But so far, these films that have topped the list mainly rely on the single market in the mainland, and their communication capabilities outside the local market are still insufficient. Take "Man Jianghong", which ranks fourth in the world as an example, with a box office of 654 million US dollars in the mainland, but the total box office overseas Only 13 million U.S. dollars, the fifth-ranked "The Wandering Earth 2" has a domestic box office of 580 million U.S. dollars, and an overseas box office of less than 30 million U.S. dollars, which is almost 200 million yuan. The score only accounts for 5%.
For most of the top 20 foreign films at the global box office, their overseas box office has surpassed that of their home market. In this sense, Chinese films are mainly in the domestic demand market, and there is huge room for improvement in overseas and international communication capabilities. In the construction of a powerful film country, we believe that Chinese films must undertake the historical mission of telling Chinese stories and spreading China’s image to the outside world. It is inevitable to form an international discourse power that matches my country's comprehensive national strength, create a strong external public opinion environment for my country's reform, development and stability, and make positive contributions to promoting a community with a shared future for mankind.
Therefore, efforts should be made to improve the influence of international communication, the appeal of Chinese culture, the affinity of China's image, the persuasion of Chinese discourse, and the guidance of international public opinion. It is an important mission for Chinese films to face in the future.