When will big Internet movies get rid of their embarrassing situation with rotten themes and crude content?
Short-term and rapid investment returns have made big online movies the darling of the market. Although it is favored by capital, there are many problems in the online movie market. Just like when the WeChat public platform was first opened, it was mixed with good and bad people. If it is not adjusted in time, the prospects of big online movies will still be in crisis.
Original title: How long can eroticism, horror, and evil taste last for big online movies?On July 13, the big online movie "The Scarecrow" was launched on major video websites. As of 11 a.m. on July 14, the number of views had reached nearly 30,000. The reason why this film with low data attracted people's attention is that it recently won the "Best Screenwriter Award" at the Peking University School of Film Arts Award.
This is the first time in the 118 years since Peking University was founded that the "Best Screenwriter Award" has been awarded to a suspense film. This is also the first time that a major online movie has won an academic award.
Since its birth, although big online movies have been the darling of capital, they have always been criticized or even ignored by traditional filmmakers. When director Jia Zhangke was asked about his opinion on big online movies, he replied,"What is that? I haven't heard of it." "The Scarecrow" won an academic award. Does it mean that big online movies can get rid of the embarrassing public opinion situation and are about to enter a new development cycle?
With low barriers and fast revenue generation, online movies have become the darling of the market.
The prototype of online movies first appeared in 2013, and many people think it is an upgraded version of micromovies. Iqiyi defines a big online movie as an investment of between 500,000 and 30,000 to 40,000 million yuan, a duration of more than 60 minutes, a relatively short production, shooting and distribution cycle, a relatively complete core story, and a distribution on the Internet.
The biggest difference between big online movies and theater movies is that they have low production thresholds, short cycles, and fast revenue generation. Take the big online movie "The Taoist Out of the Mountain" as an example. It only invested 280,000 yuan in filming the first film. The producer revealed that the script writing time was less than a week. In addition, 10 days of preparation, 10 days of filming, and 10 to 12 days of post-production. Although the filming took no more than a month,"The Taoist Out of the Mountain" recovered its cost in two days after its launch, and the online box office exceeded 3 million in ten days. Baidu ranked ahead of major theater films in the same period, and broke the payment record of major video websites.
Short-term and rapid investment returns have made big online movies the darling of the market. According to data previously provided by iQiyi, in 2016, the number of major online movies released across the network is expected to reach 2200. Among them, the number of films with a split of more than 2 million will exceed 200, an increase of nearly six times compared with 2015. It can be predicted that 2016 will be a year for the rapid development of big online movies. Some people estimate that in 2016, the market size of big online movies will reach 1 billion yuan. Stimulated by low entry barriers and huge market dividends, many new media companies and entrepreneurial teams have turned their attention to big online movies, eager to get a piece of the pie.
Although it is favored by capital, there are many problems in the online movie market. Just like when the WeChat public platform was first opened, it was mixed with good and bad people. If it is not adjusted in time, the prospects of big online movies will still be in crisis.
Big online movies encounter embarrassment At
first, big online movies gradually formed a unique positioning and attributes based on their characteristics of "low cost, high return, and short cycle", creating a new format that deeply integrates the Internet and the film industry. But unlike online dramas, which include phenomenon-level word-of-mouth works such as "The Promotion of the Crown Princess", although big online movies are full of vitality, there are almost no phenomenon-level works under crude production.
Whether in relevant film review groups such as Douban and Shiguang, or on Q & A platforms such as Zhihu and Baidu Zhizhi, there is almost no discussion and rating of specific online movies. The lack of an evaluation system shows that big online movies have still not entered the mainstream. Vision. Although "The Scarecrow" has been recognized by academics, people's negative impressions of big online movies have solidified due to the following reasons. If they want to achieve long-term development, the current situation is still a bit embarrassing.
1. The subject matter is rotten and vulgar. Since there are currently no strict censorship standards for big online movies, many themes that traditional movies dare not make will be realized in big online movies, such as horror thrillers, zombie themes, gambling films, erotic edge games, etc. Due to the lack of supervision, the content of big online movies has fallen into an endless cycle of subject matter. The more vulgar the subject matter seems to be, the easier it is to attract audiences. In order to attract traffic and achieve high profits in the short term, vulgar subject matter will inevitably become a shortcut for big online movies.
2. The content is rough. In order to make profits, most online movies are currently paid for viewing. Therefore, both in terms of title and theme selection, they will try their best to stimulate the eye. It is not uncommon to see pornographic and violent content. Moreover, the current online movie pay-sharing model is becoming more and more mature, and the paid membership system represented by iQiyi has taken shape, giving film producers the hope of gaining huge profits from this. Under the dual pressure of short time and high profits, it is also expected that the content is shoddy.
3. Catering to the audience's evil tastes. It can be seen from the title that the theme interest of big online movies basically remains at the aesthetics of Hong Kong films in video halls in the 1980s and 1990s, mainly to satisfy the audience's curiosity and voyeuristic desires, such as "The Zombie King","The Taoist Out of the Mountain","Mr. Yin and Yang","The Legend of the Gambler","Night Attack on the Widow Village","Naked Female Agent" and so on. "Peach Age","Admittance Game","My Wife Underage","Crazy Night", etc. are all common themes in Hong Kong's third-level films in the early years. Coupled with the poster with the cover is extremely provocative, it makes people unable to control and click in and earn all their attention. Others directly correspond to current popular movies, TV dramas, and online dramas, and play the edge in the titles, such as "The Taoist Out of the Mountain","Lost in Australia","The Close Expert of the Beautiful President","Return of the Pen Fairy", etc. The audience of big online movies is mainly young people in second-and third-tier cities, towns and villages.
Looking back at foreign countries, although there are short films with similar concepts, the content direction, audience group, and profit model are all very different from those in China. In the United States, online movies are mainly concentrated on video websites such as Vimeo, Fander, HULU, and NETFLIEX, and most of them are similar to domestic micromovies. Most of the time is within half an hour, the subject matter is serious and the story is strong, and the purpose is to share. There is also a longer-lasting online movie with a clearer story. Investors intervene. They do not share it on video websites for a long time and participate in various film festivals. In order to gain more professional recognition, this kind of film is screened at film festivals. Once it is favored by big capital such as Warner, it will have the possibility of going to theaters and earning box office. In addition, there are mature peripheral supporting facilities such as DVD distribution to achieve returns.
Therefore, major creators in the United States or independent film creators uploaded on the Internet often treat their works carefully in the hope of being favored by investors or theaters. Therefore, the minimum cost of full-length shooting is about US$1 million.
The United States has a relatively complete film grading system, and works with vulgar themes also have opportunities to be released. They have no special needs for large-scale online films to fill the gap.
In contrast, domestic big online film teams are often emerging teams of new media film entrepreneurs. Many lack professional background and literacy, and lack the pursuit of film art. Even if they are invested, they rarely think about how to obtain more peripheral benefits based on content.
Marketing has become a dilemma, and quality is the key
. In China, more and more gold diggers are pouring into the big online movie market due to their birth in the wild. If you want to produce phenomenal big online movies, you must have a good marketing strategy, like the online series "The Promotion of the Crown Princess", seize the topic of characters 'complaints and poor crew, and build itself into an IP with high attention.
But compared with online series, the marketing of big online movies is destined to be in trouble. On the one hand, most of the content is crude and sloppy, and it is difficult to promote it in a big way, and it is difficult to truly impress people's hearts, whether it is based on scale or storytelling. On the other hand, investors mostly come to make quick money and are not pursuing phenomenal works, so they don't plan to spend too much energy on operations.
Many current operations are basically boasting by video platforms. Many public relations articles hype up some big online movies, but the content is actually unappetizing. Even the so-called award-winning "The Srecrow" is actually a work full of flaws.
Without an objective evaluation mechanism system, it is difficult to correctly evaluate the creator's creative direction.
In this case, the entry of high-quality IP becomes extremely important. Once a professional company tries to improve the quality and create word-of-mouth works, the quagmire will stir. Perhaps in the current online movie market, the attitude of producers following the trend and investors following the trend to make quick money will be changed.
At a time when some works have already received professional recognition, high-quality online movie content is still worth looking forward to, but there are not many opportunities for new grassroots companies to do business. More and more big online movies are being institutionalized and invested. Its content will not always be vulgar, and inferior products will inevitably face elimination.
In particular, when the state's control over the Internet will be irreversibly tightened and policy barriers will be tightened, the existing environment for big online movies will be subverted. Those who really benefit should be those who make content attentively.
Editor: yvette