Film music marketing: To give full play to the value of the music industry, we still need to pay attention to rhythm

The animated film "Big Fish Begonia", which will be released during the summer, invited Eason Chan to sing the theme song "Meet in this World." "Internet celebrity" Da Zhang Wei sang the magical song "BiuBiuBiu" for another summer film "Fast Hand Shooter". A song makes a movie popular, and music marketing is being favored by production companies and has gradually become the "standard" of film marketing.

Original title: Good movies must have good music.

The animated film "Big Fish Begonia" will be released during the summer vacation invited Eason Chan to sing the theme song "Meet in This World". "Internet celebrity" Da Zhang Wei sang the magical song "BiuBiuBiu" for another summer film "Fast Hand Shooter".

The two Hollywood blockbusters "X-Men: Apocalypse" and "Warcraft" since June have also launched China promotional songs in order to take care of the China market. The former was written and sung by Tan Weiwei, while the latter was sung by the Taiwanese hip-hop team "Brother Nature".

A song makes a movie popular, and music marketing is being favored by production companies and has gradually become the "standard" of film marketing.

Movies such as "To Our Youth That Will Eventually Die","Tiny Times","Rush Year" and "Pancake Man" have successfully used film music marketing, and music plays the role of driving force behind the scenes of the film.

Unlike in the past, this kind of music that strives to become a symbol of movies is not necessarily the theme song. It may be just a cutscene, such as the "axe dance soundtrack" in "Kung Fu"; or it may be a ditty that the protagonist likes, such as "Invincible" in "Mermaid".

The producers even developed a concert with the same name as the movie. On July 2, 2016, the "To Youth" concert will be staged at the Beijing Workers 'Stadium. Stars such as Li Yuchun, Zheng Xiuwen, Lao Lang, and Zhang Zhenyue, as well as the creator of the movie "To Youth 2: So You Are Still Here", will all appear in the concert.

This is the second concert created by Asian Starlight Entertainment for the film after the "Old Gun" concert.

Ma Le, CEO of Asia Starlight Entertainment, told reporters that the online live broadcast of the "Lao Pao 'er" concert in cooperation with the video website exceeded 3 million online viewers. An audience maps to an average of 50 people. Another 10% of these people conduct secondary transmission, which is a huge transformation to the box office of the movie.

Music must be "matched" with movies

. Film music marketing is not a new invention in recent years. The theme songs of Hong Kong film and television dramas such as "The Legend of the Condor Heroes","Huang Feihong","The Bloody Two Heroes" and "New Love" can almost be said to be household names and are well known to all ages.

The theme song of "Titanic","My Heart Is Forever", has also become a classic.

The theme song of the movie will give the audience an intuitive impression of the movie. Singer Sha Baoliang gave "Outlook Oriental Weekly" an example: "When you hear the music of the Japanese movie" Hunt ", you will think of those pictures: Ken Takakura riding on a horse and leaving."

At the end of Stephen Chow's movie "Journey to the West", when an empty desert appeared on the screen,"Love of my Life" immediately sounded. This song, which expresses a man's growth and helplessness and deep-rooted lovesickness, is perfectly matched with the movie, making the life cycle of both longer.

Properly interpreting the content and emotions of the film is considered to be the first condition for a good film music work. In Sha Baoliang's view, the emotional interpretation of the film by songs should be "suitable, appropriate and accurate". For example, the theme song "Friendship Years" of "Young and Dangerous" is integrated with the temperament of the film.

"Right taste" also means a perfect fit between the singer, the film and the music. The comedy movie "Pancake Man" uses cross-talk actor Yue Yunpeng and rapper MC Hotdog to perform the humorous "Song of the Five Rings", which has received unexpected results. Sha Baoliang joked: "It's not suitable for me to sing" Song of the Five Rings ". If I were allowed to sing, people would scold me to death."

Good movie music should also be communicable and spread. No matter who sings and how it operates, it must be focused enough to sing.

According to data released by Zizai Media, which is mainly engaged in film marketing, the theme song "Because of Love" of "Carry on Love to the End" in 2011 was sung by Eason Chan and Faye Wong. After its release, the popularity of the movie increased by 82.6%, reaching the peak of the movie's popularity.

Later, in films such as "To Youth","Little Apple" and "A Rush Year", the popularity of the theme song also drove the popularity of the film.

Regarding the degree of communication, Zhu Weijie, president of Zizai Media, told Oriental Outlook Weekly a very interesting criterion: "Go to the square and listen to see if any aunt starts dancing in the square. Just like "Little Apple", the power of singing is very huge."

Good songs can add icing on the cake to film and television works, but you can't expect music to become a lifeline for film and television works. It is still the film that determines the final fate of the film. Only by having excellent quality can the film withstand the test of the market and time.

Zhu Weijie believes that if the movie itself is popular enough, the movie concert will become a support. If the former is not popular enough, the latter can only bet."From the perspective of film marketing, we hope that it will be support rather than bet."

Persuading Feng Xiaogang to sing his voice for "Lao Pao 'er"

Before the emergence of professional providers, the creation of theme songs for many films was directly responsible for film marketing companies.

What kind of music should a movie use to interpret it? Directors, music creators and marketing practitioners may have different ideas. For example, if the musician thinks a song is good, the director thinks it does not match the picture.

Marketing companies are not necessarily proficient in music. When selecting song creators, they often consider the creator's reputation unilaterally, or directly find singers familiar to the director or producer to write songs. This has caused many movie theme songs to not match the movie.

When the creation of film music and film marketing are divided into different systems and there is a lack of communication channels, the role of music in promoting films cannot be exerted.

Since 2013, more and more filmmakers have tried to explore the importance of music, and professional service companies have begun to emerge. As a bridge, they provide communication and control functions for musicians and filmmakers, prompting both parties to reach a consensus on the "commercial" nature of commercial films.

Gao Hang, the music marketer of "Pancake Man" and "The Quest for the Dragon", told "Outlook Oriental Weekly" that they must first communicate with the director to understand his specific needs for music, and at the same time judge which needs can be achieved and which cannot be achieved, and find suitable creative candidates for it.

For example, if a director needs a cheerful music, he must first find a suitable music creator to match the cheerful tone, and then discuss the information transmission of the lyrics together.

Pan Anzi, director of "Fast Hand Shooter", believes that the first thing to do is to identify the target audience of the movie before determining what kind of singer to use to convey the song: "Music, dance and MV, their relationship with the movie, and where the communication channels are, it will be very helpful to understand these clearly."

In fact, it is difficult for a song to carry all the emotions and connotations of a movie. Therefore, the musician and the filmmaker need to fully communicate in advance.

When writing the theme song of the movie "Hot Pot Hero", music producer Zhao Yingjun and director Yang Qing both hoped to release a very profound work, but they waited for three to four months without results. Later, Yang Qing thought that there was one thing that was not clearly explained in the movie, and he could use a song to explain this matter clearly. Zhao Yingjun completed the creation in one night.

Feng Xiaogang sang at the concert of "Lao Pao 'er", which was also the result of the "soft and hard work" of the horse music team of Asia's starlight. Ma Le said that Feng Xiaogang was originally very disgusted with singing on stage."As a famous director, becoming the male lead is already a big breakthrough."

However, the Ma Le team did not give up."I hope that the role of Lord Liu can have a very tender and down-to-earth expression on the stage of the concert." They used such ideas to impress Feng Xiaogang.

Ma Le believes that such cross-border attempts can use the integration of entertainment and marketing resources to establish a deeper emotional relationship with consumers.

Zhu Weijie believes that letting Feng Xiaogang cross the border to sing is actually a kind of eye economy-"only when there is an accident can spread." Just as he himself once proposed a marketing plan for "Charlotte Worries", allowing two contrasting artists, Zuo Xiaozu and Huang Bo, to sing the film's theme song,"A Cut of Plum Blossom".

Film music must have the dignity of the song

to interpret the emotions of the film and create momentum for marketing. The existence of film music mainly serves the film. This is the usual understanding of film music in the film industry.

Therefore, producers will strongly hope that the song will include the name of the movie, or lines, or even the names of the actors. But music producer Zhao Yingjun told Oriental Outlook Weekly that he placed great emphasis on the independence of music: "Since it is called a song, it must have the dignity of a song."

Movies usually contain many emotions, and directors always hope that songs will express one of them-family affection, love, hatred, killing. They want to define some "directions" for the song.

Zhao Yingjun usually resists these practices: "Songs cannot carry so much, they can only carry the small emotions in the movie. You must find this thing accurately and turn this thing into a song. Songs must have their own dignity. Even if I don't understand movies, I must have emotional resonance when listening to this song."

For example, when writing the theme song for "Detective Chinatown", Zhao Yingjun always considered how to use a song to write a detective story, but he never found a direction.

Until the movie was about to be released, the producer's words suddenly gave him inspiration: "Why do you have to sing a song to solve a case? Let's just say Chinatown!"

So Zhao Yingjun thought of food and other things related to nostalgia, and wrote it down in one night.

Zhao Yingjun believes that as long as a song has empathy, it will have a good impact on film promotion.

Director Pan Anzi introduced that "BiuBiu" became the first promotion song of "Fast Hand Gunner" and was sung by singer Da Zhang Wei, because the film itself has the sound of "biubiubiu" shooting,"biubiubiu" and very diffuse. And Zhang Wei personality "ghost horse", is the appropriate performer.

When Ma Le was doing the "Old Cannon" concert, he also did not want to make the concert a different form of release. Therefore, Ma Le invited Cui Jian, Black Panther, Zhao Chuan and other "Lao Bao 'er" singers, hoping to show the spirit of "Lao Bao' er" through music.

Ma Le believes: "Music products with strong styles are an extension of the spirit of 'Lao Pao' er, and are actually packaging the movie IP more three-dimensional."

Cross-border, integrated, and symbiotic

music marketing also needs to focus on the rhythm of marketing. In this regard, Guo Jingming's "Little Times" is considered a model. Before each movie in the "Tiny Times" series is released at different time points, movie songs sung by different young idols are released, creating momentum for the film and accurately reaching the audience.

At this stage, the promotion of movie music mainly relies on the movie marketing team to promote songs through movie media channels, such as movie websites or movie channels of comprehensive portals. The traditional recording industry has not joined the channel of film music marketing. Therefore, many songs fade in popularity as the movie is released. They are completely born for the movie and die for the movie, with a very short life cycle.

Zhao Yingjun believes that the field of traditional music belongs to a gray area."I hope some people or companies can see this gray area, and there may be more songs left in the world."

Among the various movie marketing methods, music seems to play the least pretentious and most closely related to the audience's emotions. In fact, audiences and listeners have little resistance to film music marketing. Whether it's "A Rush Year" or "The Breeze Comes Soon", the song itself is rarely criticized due to the quality of the film.

Therefore, from another perspective, the song itself can also use the express train of movies to quickly increase its popularity and singing popularity amid the overwhelming promotion. Gao Xiaosong once commented: "The basic resources for promotion have doubled. Whether the movie can help the song or the song can help the movie, it ultimately depends on the compatibility and whether the song itself is good."

The value of film music has changed, which is regarded as a symbiotic industrial form created by the film industry. In fact, in Hollywood 50 years ago, many film companies opened music companies under their jurisdiction to maximize the value of the movie-related music industry.

In addition to music marketing forms such as theme songs, interludes, and promotion songs, musicians directly join the film and television industry and become directors or producers, which is another integration of the music and film and television industries. For example, Zheng Jun created and invested in the animated film "Rock Tibetan Mastiff", and Zhang Yadong, Yang Chengang, Hu Yanbin and others all entered the film and television industry in different forms to hold producer, director and other positions.

Duan Zhongtan, chairman of Rolling Stone Group, told reporters: "On the one hand, resource utilization has been improved; on the other hand, these musicians 'own experience in the music industry may be able to develop a different growth posture for music and films."

Editor: Nancy