Pictures and technology have become a powerful tool for domestic animation to attract fans. Weak plots restrict box office reputation

Surprisingly, since the beginning of this year, a number of original animations that do not rely on IP have appeared one after another, and have even become the protagonists of the summer season. While pictures, technology, derivatives and even dubbing lineups are becoming tools for original domestic animations to attract fans, stories seem to be becoming a new issue in this genre.

Original title: Domestic animation technology in the "Post-Great Sage Era" has reached the standard and the story has become a new hurdle?

Last year's "Return of the Great Sage" gave audiences renewed confidence in domestic animated films, and this type of film has begun to gradually get rid of the childish style and develop into a broader field. According to statistics, the box office of animated films in the first and second quarters of 2016 has reached 81% of the total box office of 2015 (4.41 billion yuan). It is expected that the box office of animated films will exceed 10 billion this year, which also marks that 2016 will be the first year of original domestic animated films.

Surprisingly, since the beginning of this year, a number of original animations that do not rely on IP have appeared one after another, and have even become the protagonists of the summer season. The much-awaited "Big Fish Begonia" and "Rock and Roll Tibetan Mastiff" were released separately last week, but how is "carrying the handle" so easy? "Rock Tibetan Mastiff" did not bring much surprise, while "Big Fish Begonia" encountered controversy in terms of word-of-mouth. Thinking of the previous defeat of "New Year Beast Battle" and "Small Gate God", most of the negative comments were inseparable from the plot. Weakness. While pictures, technology, derivatives and even dubbing lineups are becoming tools for original domestic animations to attract fans, stories seem to be becoming a new issue in this genre.

The financial environment has improved and the influx of hot money into

funds has been a big factor restricting domestic animated films. It was once one of the most difficult movie genres to "find money". Liang Xuan recalled that funding was a big problem why "Big Fish Begonia" had been produced for 12 years. "At that time, this problem was very difficult for a team of newcomers. How to gain the trust of investors? Such a short film was adapted into an animated film without any big IP, and the budget was so high."

Nowadays, a lot of hot money is pouring in, allowing many domestic animated film practitioners to at least "have no worries about food and clothing" and do not have to use extra time to do other work, so as to feed back animated films. Gao Song, executive director of "Dragon Valley: Breaking Dawn", once revealed to the media that sometimes a design can win tens of millions of yuan in investment. Zhang Chun also admitted that after "Return of the Great Sage", the investment environment has also changed a lot."It turns out that my friends found it difficult to find money, but now they can calm down and make things."

This may be seen from the investment amount of some recent animated films. The investment of "Big Fish Begonia" is 30 million yuan; the construction cost of "Little Gate God" is 70 million yuan alone, with a total investment of over 100 million yuan; the investment of "Rock and Rock Tibetan Mastiff" is as high as US$60 million; the investment of "Throne of the Elves" to be released later is 45 million... both have reached or exceeded the investment of a mid-range live-action movie.

However, Liang Xuan also believes that the message of "not short of money" should not be conveyed, because it is always very difficult to find investment in domestic animated films."Even if everyone now sees that some animated films have been successful, I think if you really want to make animated films, you still have to ask very rationally whether you really love this thing, because it is a long process."

Dubbing stars and singing have become "standard"

. In addition to content, the promotion model of domestic animated films is also developing. Compared with live-action movies, animated films generally don't pay attention to lineup. Nowadays, this rule is gradually being broken. Inviting stars to dub has become one of the means to increase the selling points of domestic animated films, and even the dub model is constantly improving. In parallel with this, inviting stars to write and sing special theme songs for the film has also become an important means of film promotion.

For example,"Little Door God" tried the Hollywood model of "dubbing first, producing later". Yu Zhou revealed that Hollywood animation blockbusters often perform dubbing after the animation script is completed, and then the animation department creates characters based on the stars 'performances. "Little Gate God" adopted this approach. From the very beginning of production, the film selected stars Gao Xiaosong, Bai Ke, and Jiao Shou Yi Xiaoxing, whose "body shape and temperament are consistent with the character design", to dub. At the dubbing scene, the staff used three cameras to record their performances from close, far and side respectively, and then referred to them during the production, so that when the audience watched the final film, they could feel the characters 'mouth shape, expression, and action. It is closer to the natural sense of reality. The dubbing lineup of the animated film "Battle of the New Year" during the Spring Festival is even more luxurious. Lei Jiayin, Zhou Dongyu, Chen He, Tao Hong, Guo Tao, Guo Zirui, Liu Yiwei, Shen Teng, Zhang Yibai, Wang Xun, Hao Yun, Xie Na, Xiong Naijin, etc., has more stars than a live-action movie. Summer releases "Rock Tibetan Mastiff" and "Big Fish Begonia" also pay attention to star dubbing. The former invited Zheng Jun's family, Guo Degang and his son, while the latter included Ji Guanlin, who voiced Zhen Huan, and Xu Weizhou, a young fresh meat.

Filming is still weak but making progress

Last summer, the animated film "Return of the Great Sage", which had less than 10% of the scheduled films on its first day of release, relied on a large wave of "tap water" to counterattack and become a dark horse at the box office, which refreshed the audience's "low-age" impression of domestic animated films has also enhanced the confidence of theaters in this genre of films.

Liang Xuan and Zhang Chun, two directors of "Big Fish Begonia" who attracted much attention during this summer's summer season, revealed in an interview with this newspaper that the success of "Return of the Great Sage" has indeed had a positive impact on the subsequent domestic animated films. "The biggest help is that when cinemas are arranging films, they will wonder if this domestically

produced animated film may become the next miracle. Therefore, last year,"The Return of the Great Sage" was probably about 10% on the first day of filming, while ours was about 20%, because everyone would have the idea that maybe "Big Fish Begonia" would become the second miracle. "

Although compared with many live-action films and even some Hollywood animated films, the layout of domestic animated films is still weak, even a high-profile work like" Big Fish Begonia "only earns no more than 20% of the box office. However, it is gratifying that the confidence of theaters and audiences in domestic animated films is indeed gradually recovering.

The technical part has reached Hollywood standards and begun to pursue China characteristics

. When it comes to domestic animated films, flat two-dimensional images and rough picture production are all characteristics that adult audiences cannot tolerate, and they are also one of the reasons why this genre has been unable to rise. Domestic animation filmmakers are like martial arts masters who are in retreat and cultivating silently. When they come out of the mountain again, people find that domestic animation technology is developing rapidly, and the gap between them and Hollywood's animation film technology is no longer as far as imagined.

For example,"Little Door God" released during this year's Lunar New Year holiday, the exquisite pictures were produced by more than 100 animators over 29 months. The entire film has as many as 1940 shots, each shot going through 10 stages of production. In the end, the entire film The version reached an astonishing number of 101556 versions. Most noteworthy

is that the final version of the film has a total rendering of 80 million hours, surpassing Hollywood films such as "Kung Fu Panda 2" and "Super Marines".

The maturity of technology has even allowed some domestic animated films to pursue some "China characteristics." Before "Return of the Great Sage", a breakthrough attempt was taken in the creation, first finding real actors to perform in order to give the characters more oriental charm. Director Tian Xiaopeng said that in fact, there are many domestic animators with overseas processing experience, and technically speaking, there are many people who can do high-end animations. Cultivating some technically mature local animators who know what the behavior of China people is is a long-term task in the future.

The surrounding areas have developed

rapidly from scratch. Some industry insiders have mentioned that anime films do not make money in China, while foreign animations are very profitable, more than half of which come from derivatives. The domestic film surrounding market is far from being developed. However, this situation is also improving, opening up a new source of income for domestic animated films in addition to the box office. For example, last year's "Return of the Great Sage" seemed to be very business-minded in this regard. Due to the shortage of funds, after the film's feature production was completed, the image of "Wukong" was authorized to a company invested by Ren Quan that specializes in entertainment derivatives. Tao Yadong, the company's chairman, invested tens of millions of yuan in outdoor hard publicity for "The Return of the Great Sage" regardless of cost. He did not require a share of box office revenue, but only required a six-year exclusive license for the products surrounding the animated film.

The counterattack of "The Return of the Great Sage" made the film's derivatives "sold well." On July 23 last year,"Return of the Great Sage" launched a crowdfunding campaign for surrounding products on a shopping website, and its sales exceeded 11.8 million yuan in just one day. With this channel alone,"Return of the Great Sage" achieved the highest single-day sales in the history of China animation and China films.

At the beginning of the year, Alibaba Pictures 'distribution plan included Alibaba's Entertainment Bao and Tmall, which will provide professional and strong help to the film's derivative sales. Liang Xuan also revealed that "Big Fish Begonia" has authorized the film image to e-commerce for derivative cooperation, hoping that audiences can buy the character derivative products in their favorite movies as soon as possible.

The weak storyline restricts box office reputation.

Although there have been so many improvements in domestic animated films after "Return of the Great Sage", new problems have also emerged. It should be said that the weakness of the plot, the confusion of logic, the paleness of the characters and the simplicity of the story have always existed in domestic animated films. However, the technical problems were more obvious at that time, and the audience often ignored the story while criticizing the pictures. When the technical problems have been solved, the problems of the story gradually emerge.

Many of the highly anticipated domestic animated films this year attracted fans from the pictures, but also undermined the box office and reputation over the stories. To this, the creators of several films responded.

Liang Xuan, director of "Big Fish Begonia"

: It's not a simple love story.

First, it's "Big Fish Begonia", which is undergoing controversy. A grand world view, beautiful pictures are carried by a dog blood love triangle. Many viewers think that this is a waste of the film's good settings and good technology. But director Liang Xuan believes that this is not a simple love story: "This story can be very deep or shallow, and we hope it can be done at a level." When he mentioned that during the road show, no one in the child audience felt that the film told a love story,"They felt that it was a story of pure friendship." When a person is in a very pure mental state, he cannot see love. What he can see is that this sister is so persistent and wants to send the fish home. He can see that this brother is trying to help her sister and tell her before she dies. Say things like 'she looks good'. In the eyes of innocent children, love cannot be seen." In the eyes of older people, Liang Xuan thinks that they can't see love, but more see the reincarnation of life. People must boldly pursue what they want to protect."I think different audiences will have different understanding. Including when we went to the SARFT to review the film, Director Zhang Hongsen of the SARFT also liked it very much. He didn't understand it as a love story. He wanted to recommend this film to all departments and let them watch it."

However, Liang Xuan also admitted that "Big Fish Begonia" is, after all, market-oriented, and the main audience of the movie is still concentrated in the 16-25 age group."So our movie is about them, how to impress these young people? In addition to simple feelings and pursuits, and those efforts, I think there will still be some pure love. We don't need to understand those things as love, or a love triangle, but just things you have to pursue and protect. I believe that when everyone is 16 years old, your inner experience is definitely not a love triangle, but that there are people you like and people who like you. But sometimes you need to make some choices, and in a lot of time, you need to think about which path your destiny should go." He prefers to understand the movie as an inspirational story first and an emotional story second, but regarding the controversy caused by the film, he believes that different audiences indeed see different things."A thousand people have a thousand" Hamlet "and" Big Fish Begonia "in their eyes."

Wang Wei, director of "Xiao Door God"

: The next work will be

improved. The same is true for "Xiao Door God" at the beginning of the year. Compared with the technical praise, its story is highly controversial. The film does not follow the most popular IP path nowadays. Although the two brothers of the door god in the film also come from China traditional culture, they are among the most unpopular gods. Director and screenwriter Wang Wei said that when he was writing the script of "Little Door God", a curiosity kept driving him: "Many traditions that China people once cherished in the past have unknowingly disappeared today, such as the Door God. So, if the disappeared immortals were still alive, how would they face the feeling of being unneeded in their hearts?" Regarding the weakness of the storyline itself, producer Yu Zhou believes that such problems will be gradually solved in the next and lower parts of the film. "" Little Gate God "is the first work of Chasing Light. Foreign countries like Pixar and DreamWorks have a history of more than 30 years. We are just a company that has just been established for more than two years. If they are young, we are still children., but our development speed will definitely be faster."

"Rock Tibetan Mastiff"

Zheng Jun: There is no other appeal, but to watch

"Rock Tibetan Mastiff" The creator Zheng Jun admitted that movies are always about the story first and foremost."We spent a long time on this screenwriter and changed countless versions. We used It has changed from Disney's" Hua Mulan "screenwriter to various major screenwriters, and there have been four or five screenwriters. The purpose is to tell a story that will make both Eastern and Western audiences find interesting. The movie is very simple. It has no demands. It just has to be good."

However, although there are still some problems in the story, it is gratifying to note that China films have been experiencing an IP blowout in recent years, but a number of domestic animated films that do not rely on IP are constantly attracting attention. In this regard, Yu Zhou shared an experience when he went to the United States a few years ago. "When we went to Hollywood, we also met some animation colleagues. When we introduced ourselves to make animated films, I remember more than one person blurted out,'Are you going to make Monkeyking? It seems that China only knows how to be the Monkey King. This impressed me." Yu Zhou believes that China's traditional culture is extensive and profound, and there are too many things to do. Why do we have to get together? "So if we want to do new things, make use of and explore some traditional culture and folk customs, it has become a tone of our creation."

Editor: Nancy