There is another way for film and television works to gain economic value. Documentaries don't just stare at the theater

The commercial value of art films and documentaries should not be limited to cinemas, and cinemas are not the only places that can give the greatest economic value to film and television works.

Original title: Documentaries, don't just focus on theater

art films. The commercial value of documentaries should not be limited to cinemas. Cinema is not the only place that can give film and television works the greatest economic value.

From last year to this year, I have watched 5 documentary films."A Bite of New Year" and "My Poetry" were watched in the cinema,"I repaired cultural relics in the Forbidden City","We were born in China" and "The Gate of Life" were watched in Tencent and iQiyi member videos.

After watching these movies, a question couldn't help but arise: Why do documentaries have to go to theaters? This is obviously a film that is completely unsuitable for the public entertainment positioning of cinemas.

Take "I Repair Cultural Relics in the Forbidden City" for example. It was originally a TV documentary. The total volume of three episodes of 150 minutes ensured the space for complete presentation. It demonstrated the skills and persistence of the old craftsmen in a meticulous manner. The Douban score was as high as 9.4. Because it was welcomed by netizens after it was broadcast, the film company made another 86-minute movie, which was released on December 16, 2016, even at the expense of competing with Zhang Yimou's "The Great Wall", which was released that day.

Unfortunately, after its release, the Forbidden City movie was described by Douban netizens as "an ultra-long documentary piece together from piecemeal footage", with a score of only 7.4 points. Even netizens who thought that "the movie theater works well" said that "they would rather watch three episodes in the movie theater." version ". The film's final box office was 6.43 million yuan, less than half a day's box office for "The Great Wall".

Most other films have the same problems. The lenses are scattered and the stories are weak, which cannot capture the audience's attention. They are not in line with the viewing habits of young audiences who like visual impact and fun and good looking.

Movies and television are often collectively referred to as "film and television". In fact, the professional technology and channel resources required by the two are extremely different. The most important thing is that the audiences and consumption scenarios of the two are also completely different.

In the past, people in the industry always felt that movies were at a higher level than television, so there were professional film critics and film review websites, and the existence of topic leaders also made it easier for movies to form social topics. But now the dominance of the social "public opinion field" has been dispersed. As long as the quality is up to standard and marketing is in place, a TV series, an online drama, or even an article can be swiped and become a hot topic in society.

Communication channels have also undergone tremendous changes. In the past, if a documentary was not made available to theaters, outsiders would have no way of knowing it. Later, CCTV's Documentary Channel emerged, various video websites had documentary channels, and online communication. This was a condition that the ancestors of documentaries did not have. Among the five documentary films, except for Disney-led "We were Born in China", the other four have video websites participating. It can be seen that video websites welcome such works very much.

The environment has changed, but some filmmakers have not kept up with their ideas. Not only documentaries, art films also have this problem. Beijing Runzhi Film Co., Ltd., which released "My Poetry", also released an art film. The 2016 "Yangtze River Picture" had a box office of 3.36 million yuan, and was defeated in the movie theater at 11 p.m.

Directors and producers of artistic films and documentaries are quite contradictory. On the one hand, they are accustomed to accusing movie audiences of being poor and unwilling to pay for their feelings. On the other hand, they feel that art films do not necessarily have to stick to poverty for their feelings, but must focus on commercial benefits.

They insist on going to the cinema to prove the commercial value of art films, which shows that they do not understand art films. The commercial value of art films and documentaries should not be limited to cinemas, and cinemas are not the only places that can give film and television works the greatest economic value. Even if we don't talk about audiences and consumption scenarios, but only talk about revenue, according to the current debt-sharing standards, the producer can only get about one-third of the box office revenue. For documentaries with commercial pursuits, this is not the most favorable condition.

Last year's attempt to hit cinemas with documentaries also yielded results, including the discovery of "crowdfunding" as a marketing tool. You know, crowdfunding was first founded by a group of "literary and artistic youth", which is highly consistent with the positioning of documentaries and art films. Films such as "100,000 Cold Jokes","Get Out of the Dog" and "Big Fish Begonia" have all been used.

Put it on a documentary, it will also work well. Last year's five documentary films, three of which adopted crowdfunding marketing, trying to impress viewers with feelings to pay in advance. "My Poetry" not only has crowdfunding, but also launched a movie ticket activity for strangers with the help of WeChat official account. You can buy tickets in advance, transfer them to friends, or put tickets into drift bottles for strangers to collect. I was so impressed by this link that I bought a few tickets.

"We were Born in China" does not crowdfunding because there is Disney, a big financial owner behind it, and most people cannot learn from it;"A Bite of New Year" does not require crowdfunding. It is like a long advertisement for a gourmet product. It is enough to make money by linking it with Tmall and the New Year's Festival where we originally lived. This is also a successful attempt to commercialize the documentary.

Even Feng Xiaogang has to borrow Fan Bingbing and Wanda to make artistic films. It is really necessary to find several partners and innovate marketing methods for documentaries. Of course, the most fundamental thing is that your eyes should not only focus on the box office of the movie theater.

Editor: Nancy