The Shanghai International Film Festival in 2023 is a veritable "big year". Out of the haze of the epidemic, the scale of the past has been fully restored, with stars gathering and the participation of the whole people; the creation is full of vitality, the number of registrations has reached a new high, and the screening list is exciting. And after a full 30 years, it has been held until the 25th, which makes this film festival particularly memorable.

The "Year of Light-Shanghai International Film Festival 30th Anniversary Exhibition", which opened before the film festival, was opened on June 6 at Shanghai Daguangming Cinema. On the second floor of Daguangming, the fan salon collection display area exhibits a variety of items of cultural value in the past 30 years, including originals such as 5th generation Golden Goblet trophies, previous posters, badge commemorative cards, and commemorative stamps. Since April this year, the official has been collecting folk memories of the film festival from the audience. Fans have provided thousands of collections, ticket stubs, posters, souvenirs, autographs... full of love and memory of the film.

Exhibits provided by movie fan Mei Haixing in "The Year of Light - Thirty Years Exhibition of the Founding of the Shanghai International Film Festival"

Regarding the memory of film festivals and movies, the easiest thing to witness and keep in your collection is, of course, movie tickets. From the small ticket of the first film festival 30 years ago, the words "Shanghai International Film Festival" appeared for the first time in the second session. In 2006, there were computers to print thermal paper movie tickets. Later, different theaters launched personalized customization Ticket stubs... Some movie fans carefully collect the ticket stubs and screening lists of each session, and look at the movie tickets as if 30 years are close at hand; It feels like wealth that can be counted down at any time.

The 30-year film festival and thousands of times and memories related to movies carried in a small movie ticket are also a small microcosm of technological, social and cultural changes.

The words "Shanghai International Film Festival" appeared for the first time on the movie tickets for the second session. Image source: Ye Zhiguang

There is a great sense of the times in a small movie ticket

June 2nd is the ticketing day for the 25th Shanghai International Film Festival. Although online ticket sales have already become the mainstream method, offline old movie theaters such as Shanghai Film City and Da Guangming will still become ritual strongholds for movie fans to check in and get tickets immediately.

Mei Haixing, an old movie fan who is over seventy years old, appeared in the Shanghai Film City as scheduled. In addition to grabbing the 16 movie tickets for this year, he also carried his own film festival collection book, which attracted many media and movie fans to watch.

Mei Haixing showed the tickets for the first Shanghai International Film Festival to The Paper journalists.

Fan Mei Haixing's "first experience" of the film festival

These small tickets are like bus tickets in the early years, only the size of a finger. The words "Shanghai International Film Festival" have not yet been printed on the tickets for the first film festival, and the title of the film has not been marked. Fortunately, Mr. Mei took notes. During this year's film festival, he watched 8 films including "Phoenix Piano", "The Caged Man", "Wedding at Gunpoint" and "The Cherry Orchard" at the Victory Cinema in Hongkou. .

"I was cycling to and from get off work, and when I passed the Victory Cinema, I came across a scalper selling tickets for the film festival there." With a curiosity to try something new, Mei Haixing bought a movie that was about to start from the scalper on the spot. The 10 yuan movie ticket price, the scalper did not add money. Since then, Mei Haixing has formed a deep relationship with the film festival.

In the 1990s, all movie tickets in Shanghai were printed in two printing factories designated by the film authorities, and Shanghai Baoshan Yiwen Printing Factory was one of them.

Shanghai Baoshan Translation Printing Factory was opened in 1981, and began to print movie tickets in 1987. Over the past 30 years, it has witnessed the development of the entire industry from a small incision.

"We started from watching Lei Feng movies, and now we see all kinds of domestic blockbusters. The output value of printed movie tickets has also changed from one to two million in the past year, to seven to eight million a year now, depending on the number of tickets. , nearly 30 to 40 million tickets are needed." Director Zhang of Baoshan Translation Printing Factory introduced with a sense of accomplishment.

Zhang Zhiming, Director of Baoshan Translation Printing Factory

In the early years, there was no computer, and the ticket plates used in movie theaters were all manually typeset. For each movie, a template containing hall, row, and seat information had to be made separately and loaded on the printing machine. Therefore, early movie tickets were also called "manual" by the printing factory. ticket".

"Don't look at how many rows and seats look simple, there are procedures in between. Generally, people who are not familiar with movie tickets and movie theaters, if you give them more than 1,000 seats, they don't know how to arrange them." For example, theaters are divided into odd and even numbers. , There are corridors between different areas. These details test the meticulousness and experience of the ticket printing staff.

In the memory of Director Zhang, in the era of handmade tickets, the workers in the printing factory had to "print day and night" before issuing tickets. At that time, each movie theater had its own ticket, and each seat had to be marked in advance. Be careful enough to avoid manual errors causing duplicate numbers, although it is inevitable that it will still cause some embarrassment that "may make a young couple date out of date".

More and more movie tickets are being printed, which corresponds to the continuous increase in the number of films shown, the number of screenings and the number of movie theaters participating in the show.

"We have formed a habit for decades. Every year around May, we start to prepare for the purchase of materials. If we weigh more than ten tons." Director Zhang introduced the history of the factory and the film festival.

"The organizing committee of the film festival gave us the design of the manuscript. We have to go through countless tests. The speed of the printer and the position positioning must be measured at the technical level. If some colors are inaccurate, we need to adjust them. Make sure it is good. After the ticket is issued, we will officially start printing. The ticket has to be crimped, coded, and assembled to the cinema. Generally, it is printed and delivered within half a month. After the ticket is issued, is there any problem in the middle? Some theaters may not have enough supply. It also needs to be deployed in a timely manner. Many people buy tickets online, and then go to the machine to pick up tickets. During this process, we will also provide some guarantees for service and technology. The whole work is not over until the end of the film festival.”

Movie ticket version of previous Shanghai International Film Festival

In the past, there were 145 workers in the factory at the most, but now more than 30 people are enough. The progress of technology has improved production efficiency, and new technologies such as various chips and invisible QR codes have also made Factory Manager Zhang happy.

"We are doing it, from ordinary tickets, to computer tickets, to tickets with chips, UHF tickets, and micro frequency tickets. Now technology is developing too fast."

Ticket version of the 25th Shanghai International Film Festival

The computer-printed movie tickets that audiences are familiar with today first appeared at the 9th Shanghai International Film Festival in 2006. The development of printing technology has been iterative, and some tickets on the market have begun to use thermal printing technology. The film festival has heard the news, and it has also produced a trend-setting effect. From this year onwards, the printing factory only prints the thermal paper with the film festival logo and the blank background of the advertisement on the back, and sends it to each screening theater, and each theater prints the seats for the show through the computer. This technology has been developed more and more perfect, and it is still used today. For the factories at that time, it was also a technological revolution. Technological innovation has reduced the workload. In Zhang's opinion, "the energy saved is probably ten or eight times as much."

Director Zhang also showed the "homework" done on the anti-counterfeiting of the film festival ticket paper to The Paper reporters. There are two anti-counterfeiting based on naked eye observation, but in fact there are three lines of defense. It is an intelligent design. In addition to the looming Jinjue that can be seen under the special light, there is actually a QR code with sound hidden in the ticket stamp at the auxiliary connection line. Under the illumination of a specific machine, it can remind the ticket stamp in a very cute way. authenticity.

The ticket distribution service that goes with the movie tickets also made Director Zhang sigh. "In the past, there were 30 screening theaters at the film festival, and we had to drive a car to deliver the ticket version one by one, because the film festival issued tickets at the same time, and all the theaters were in a hurry, fearing that they would not be able to catch up with the ticketing, but sometimes when the delivery came, the matchmaker was not available. If you have to wait, you will be rushed by the next company." But now, the urban express delivery industry is super developed, and the ticket boards can be put in place in time. "As long as the film festival organizing committee gives an order, each company will start printing tickets That’s it. We’ve really seen the development of all walks of life.”

Shanghai Film Festival ticket version

"In fact, there is no profit in printing movie tickets, but a small movie ticket entrusts our cultural feelings and makes us feel that we are also a part of the development of Shanghai's cultural undertakings." He said proudly.

Corresponding to the traditional printing of paper tickets, there is a ticketing system on the Internet that allows movies to "directly reach" audiences faster and faster.

From Guevara, who has withdrawn from the stage of history, to Tao Piao Piao, which has completed ticketing in a "smooth way" this year, online ticket sales have ended the "ritual sense" of queuing up all night to wait for ticketing. The first small orgasm. According to the data in the background, at the most time, more than 4,000 people are vying for a seat every second at the same time.

In order to ensure that movie fans can grab their favorite movie tickets as much as possible in a fair environment, the film festival organizing committee and Taopiaopiao have already worked hard on this year's system.

"We have tested the functions of the entire link through multiple steps this year to ensure that the functional preparations of each node are normal." The track and field cup, the technical director of Tao Piao Piao, told The Paper that many engineers' teams this year are Came from Beijing and worked overtime to serve the film festival's ticketing system.

Stress test site

The engineers who developed the film festival ticketing project not only referred to the experience of Alibaba’s e-commerce Double 11 and Damai’s various popular concerts, but also simulated every possible error scenario in order to obtain rapid decision-making and response. At the same time, multiple rounds of real stress tests have been done based on the data of 5 times the historical peak flow in previous years to ensure that the system has sufficient pressure resistance.

Stress test drill Background simulation drill

According to the technical person in charge of Alibaba Pictures, many of the technical and business partners in the team are actually movie fans. On the one hand, from the perspective of movie fans, they have contributed wisdom to the design of more and more humanized schedules. On the other hand, , Everyone will also personally participate in grabbing tickets to participate in the film festival. "Although we may not be able to grab tickets ourselves, we must work hard to ensure that every fan who wants to buy tickets can enter this page fairly and compete fairly."

Movie tickets, how could they disappear

The Shanghai International Film Festival solicited 30-year memories from the public, and the most received were ticket stubs posted by movie fans.

In addition to the officially printed movie tickets, the admission tickets to the film festival are also decorated in more and more styles to preserve the memories of movie fans. In the private collections of many movie fans, "unofficially produced" movie tickets and related derivatives are also full of love and care for movies.

Yu Jia, the deputy director of the project department in charge of the marketing and publicity of Maggie and Yihai's film project, noticed that among the memories collected by the film festival from fans, many of the ticket stubs posted by fans included commemorative ticket stubs produced by them. She is somewhat proud.

Some of these ingenious special movie tickets are printed with classic movie lines, and some are made of special physical materials.

This year Maggie's commemorative ticket is square in shape, inspired by Polaroid, which means "record a moment"

Every year, there will be a large number of new films in the film festival. Yu Jia and his team members will try their best to find some trailers or clips through the Internet, or contact friends who have watched the films at overseas film festivals, and relay the content of the films, so as to learn from the design. inspiration. First, the core design team will come up with a template. After the film list is confirmed, the theater’s own staff and some fan volunteers will jointly collect film materials and pictures, and then two or three designers will coordinate the style of text and pictures.

At the beginning, commemorative ticket stubs were launched to attract movie fans to collect tickets in advance, and to ensure good order on the scene through the diversion of different channels and time periods. "This is a hall of thousands of people. If it is arranged like a regular movie theater, many audiences will not be able to enter the theater on time. There will be a lot of pressure and problems." Yu Jia said frankly that the origin of the commemorative ticket stub was "" functional".

Ticket stubs designed by Shanghai Majestic Theater for film festival screenings in previous years

At first, it was designed to divert the minds of the audience, but after a few years, it has become a feature of this newly popular stronghold of movie theaters. At this year's Shanghai Film Festival Mobilization Conference, Wang Jue, director of theater operations, spoke as a representative and introduced his experience in customizing ticket stubs and related peripherals. "As a unique feature of the theater, Yihai and Majestic Theater will customize exclusive ticket stubs and peripherals for movie fans every year according to the film screenings. These products are sold out on the last day, and even the samples are packed away by fans."

Because the commemorative ticket stubs are so exquisitely made, more and more ticket stub designs are "rolled". Yu Jia said that this was not the team's original intention, but "we are all people who like the new and dislike the old, and also people who love movies, so we always want to make some innovations of our own." Therefore, the retro feel of the vertical ticket, the delicacy of the jagged edges, and even the sci-fi feel of EVA in 2021, Majestic also launched PVC transparent card stubs, all of which have become special commemorations for film fans about the film festival.

EVA commemorative ticket stubs posted by movie fans

In 2020, the "fraternal unit" Yihai Theater will also join the army of film festival screenings, and the ticket stubs of the two theaters will have a "dream linkage" on the back. Coinciding with the 125th anniversary of the birth of the film, the stills of the earliest films shot by the Lumiere brothers, such as "The Train Into the Station" and "Factory Gate", were divided into two and printed on the back of the commemorative ticket stubs of the two theaters, Majestic and Yihai. Only two can make up a complete commemorative ticket stub. This design is full of aesthetics, feelings and heart, and the operation effect is also remarkable.

Majestic and Yihai's ticket stub linkage

This year, the number of commemorative ticket stubs has been increased from 100 in previous years to 166, because the street signs of Maggie and Yihai happen to be No. 66 and No. 466, Jiangning Road.

"Movies occupy a period of time in the life force of moviegoers, and movie tickets are the retention and reminder of this period of time. When you see this thing, you will recall that specific moment." Yu Jia said.

As a carrier, movie tickets also carry the tacit culture among movie fans.

Movie fan KAI started organizing offline movie viewing activities for movie fans in 2007. He found that "even if it is a plain paper, many people still cherish such a small piece of paper." So, starting in 2009, , he began to add the additional service of customized ticket stubs for the event. "In addition to the basic functions, movie tickets have a strong commemorative significance. The previous movie tickets were very traditionally designed. We think it is necessary to make some designs on it and integrate it more closely with the content of the movie. When movie tickets have some special designs, do you keep them more patiently?" Moreover, most ticket stubs printed on thermal paper have a short storage time and may fade in a few years. "Inkjet printed commemorative ticket stubs can be stored for a longer period of time. At that time, no one made this thing, unlike now, whether it is a film festival or a commercial film viewing group, this thing will be used as a standard souvenir for movie fans. .”

Since organizing movie viewing group activities, KAI has probably designed hundreds of customized movie ticket stubs. In the 2018 Beijing Film Festival, there was an "uncivilized movie viewing" behavior that had a great response in the movie fan circle. A group of like-minded friends Suddenly, I felt the need to promote "Civilized Movie Watching".

"For ordinary audiences, the requirements for civilized viewing of movies may not be particularly popular. Many people think that watching movies is probably entertainment and relaxation. It is the same as going to the park, and they will not pay attention to some etiquette norms. But for other audiences Movie viewing experience, as well as from the perspective of law and copyright, these are necessary to popularize.”

So at that time, a dozen or twenty movie fans crowdfunded and produced the first generation of "civilized movie watching" ticket holders, which were distributed on-site at the film archives.

"Because of such a small design, let more people participate in the discussion of this topic, and then pay attention to this behavior. This is our purpose. As for how much our action will promote civilized movie viewing, we really can't say." KAI said.

In 2019, some local fans in Shanghai also enthusiastically participated in the distribution of ticket holders, and some organizations promoted "civilized viewing of movies". The material of ticket holders has changed from perishable paper to more durable PVC.

For this year's Shanghai Film Festival, the team designed a Shanghai-language version of the ticket holder for Shanghai fans. Fans from Shanghai provided ideas and participated in the Shanghai-language proofreading. The appearance of the ticket holder looks like an old Shanghai newspaper, which contains the news of the rejuvenation and return of Shanghai Film City this year, as well as the voices and jokes of movie fans, all of which are interestingly presented.

Shanghai language wallet

"A lot of the content in it is the points of concern provided by Shanghai movie fans, as well as some 'events' that happened in Shanghai in the past." For movie fans who love film festivals, a small object may be able to promote the creation of a better It is their sincere wish to create a movie-watching environment so that good movies can be presented in the most perfect way.

As soon as the machine is turned on, the prosperous cultural undertakings are back

"Printing tickets is not profitable, it is more of a social benefit. We feel very honored to be able to participate in this grand event every June with Shanghai citizens and movie fans." Director Zhang likes the atmosphere of the printing factory every June. And this June, because of the "silence" for a period of time, it looks particularly lively.

On the shelves of the factory building, there are bundles of ticket papers that have not yet been loaded into the theater ticketing machines. Whether it is the old movie theaters such as Daguangming and Shanghai North, or the new high-end movie theaters such as Broadway and Red Star Movie World, Shanghai movie tickets The starting point is here. "Almost half of the movie theater tickets in Shanghai are printed by us."

Shanghai Film Festival ticket version

The gradual recovery of increased movie ticket orders is the best evidence of the recovery of the movie industry. On other production lines, concerts, art galleries, theater music and dance performances and other high-end art performances, as well as tickets for various emerging digital art exhibitions are also being printed at full capacity. The fact that a small printing factory has collected the "entry tickets" for Shanghai's cultural industry has to make people feel emotional.

Even train tickets can be entered directly by swiping ID cards. The development of the tide of the times has greatly impacted traditional printing factories. Director Zhang also worried that ticket printing will withdraw from the stage of history and physical tickets will eventually disappear. But after more than ten years, tickets are still booming now, and young people are also very interested in collecting tickets. Tickets are becoming more and more fashionable, and there are many more designs. People regard it as a symbol of ritual, to collect and The time spent together with an exhibition, a movie, and a concert. This made Director Zhang feel relieved.

During the three years of the epidemic, movie theaters have strictly controlled the attendance rate, and most other offline cultural and sports events cannot be carried out as usual. Small printing factories have also been greatly impacted. For this printing factory, whose business of cultural and sports events accounts for more than one-third, a large number of businesses have stagnated and interrupted. "Our factory has no work, and the reason behind it is that many people in this industry in the society have no work."

Today, tickets for the film festival, together with tickets for various concerts and performances, are rushing to the line on the production line of the printing factory. Not only Shanghai, but also tickets for many cultural and entertainment venues in the Yangtze River Delta region are also ready to go here, waiting to lead audiences who love cultural undertakings into various colorful worlds.

"As soon as our factory came to life, the whole industry recovered. We moved after hearing the news. Although it was only a small ticket, without this ticket, we would not be able to do the following things." In the tone of factory manager Zhang, proud and pleased.

Shanghai Film Festival ticket version