National Development and Reform Commission Wan Zhe: The development of national animation industry should make full use of its strengths and avoid its weaknesses, and "optimize entry and output"

Wan Zhe pointed out that the animation industry is ultimately an industry and must be tested by the market. On the one hand, opening up to the outside world allows China animation practitioners to realize the development status and trends of the international cutting-edge animation industry. On the other hand, it is also an incentive to let everyone know how to learn from each other's strengths, give full play to their own advantages, and learn from the existing successful experiences of others.

Original title: China animation paints wonderful things for the world

From June to August every year, many students in school have a summer vacation. This period is not only a valuable time for young children to have adequate rest and extracurricular study, but also a "peak season" for demand for animation products. It is understood that China's animation market opened to the outside world relatively early. At the beginning of the opening up, there were also a number of classic domestic animation works in China. With the introduction of animation from Japan, the United States and other countries, China's domestic animation once appeared to be weak in innovation and lack of competitiveness. In recent years, under the competitive pressure of foreign animation and the encouragement of relevant national policies, China animation has successively emerged a number of high-quality products such as "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf","Bear Infested" and "Return of the Great Sage". While being exported overseas, they have drawn the world's wonderful creations from China.

Imported anime has become "catfish" and

"anime" are the collective name of animation and comics. They usually refer to the use of simple or exaggerated techniques to depict some scenes and stories in reality or fiction, with all-encompassing content. For the majority of young people and many adult audiences, animation creates an environment that originates from but transcends reality. It can stimulate a sense of "substitution" and arouse thinking, so it has a different cultural consumption significance.

For a long time after the founding of New China, although the penetration rate of TV was not high, comic works mainly in the form of "comic books" and "comic books" developed rapidly. Its themes mainly focus on historical facts, famous classics and allusions, revolutionary wars and other themes, and a large number of excellent works have emerged such as "Hua Mulan","The Troubles in Heaven","Taking the Birth Outline with Wisdom" and "Crossing the River Reconnaissance".

After the reform and opening up, with the popularization of televisions, not only have the characteristics of the development of comics into animation become obvious, but the entry of foreign animation has also shown a strong "catfish" characteristics. It is understood that from the late 1980s to the early 21st century, although China has also created a number of excellent animation works such as "The Gourd Brothers","Black Cat Sheriff","Nezha Troubles the Sea" and "Lotus Lantern", compared with the unique imagination and creativity displayed by imported animation works such as "Digital Baby","One Piece","Super Warrior" and "Batman" from Japan and the United States, domestic animation has begun to show a clear disadvantage in terms of market share.

In the eyes of industry insiders, this stems from the fact that China's animation industry is excessively limited to traditional historical allusions in its theme selection and lacks the freshness of the times; on the other hand, it is also related to the economic and social development level of animation powers such as the United States and Japan. High degree of openness. For example,"Detective Conan" created by Japanese cartoonist Yoshasa Aoyama is a "screen-dominating" work. "Detective Conan" presents many interesting mystery stories and scenes based on various criminal phenomena and criminal investigation technology in real life, and its suitable age group is not limited to teenagers. At the same time, its fresh style and compact plot have also made many people long-term "hardcore fans."

"Whether the work is good depends on whether there is a strong team behind it. In fact, the foundation of China's animation is not bad. We used to have a very strong art and literature team and many outstanding works. From the perspective of economic development, animation artists enjoyed strong economic protection from the system during the planned economy period, and they worked hard for artistic creation, so these results were achieved. With the reform, opening up and economic development, on the one hand, the market demand itself has become larger and more diverse, and the past selection mechanism has been unable to effectively cultivate and select more relevant talents; on the other hand, after the reform of state-owned cultural institutions, mature market mechanisms have failed to be established in time, which has affected the generation and allocation of talents in the animation industry in China." Wan Zhe, chief economist of the International Cooperation Center of the National Development and Reform Commission, said in an interview with reporters.

Gather creativity and practice hard

internal skills in response to the animation industry's own problems, China has also issued timely incentive policies. As early as 2006, the "Several Opinions on Promoting the Development of my Country's Animation Industry" jointly issued by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Culture and other departments proposed: Strive to use 5 to 10 years to significantly increase the production quantity of domestic original animation products, significantly improve product quality, continue to enhance technological innovation capabilities, and continue to emerge. The animation industry's creative development and production capabilities rank among the world's major animation countries and powers. While gradually occupying the main domestic market, we also actively explore the international market.

At the same time, the opinion also provides specific incentive measures for high-quality domestic animation to "go out to sea", including: appropriately subsidizing the export translation funds of animation products, actively encouraging and supporting excellent domestic animation works and products to participate in overseas exhibitions, and providing policies to animation companies for export Financial support, export tax refund (exemption) policies for export animation products, etc.

Today, China's animation industry has achieved good results. At the 2010 Cannes Television Festival in France, an Italian distribution company purchased five original China animation works in one go. The Italian official made it clear that these animation works will be broadcast on mainstream television stations in Western Europe.

"It is very difficult for Asian animation works to enter the mainstream markets in Europe and America. If animation works want to enter the European and American markets, animation companies must consider it from the beginning of script creation." Xiong Junyi, general manager of Hengfeng Animation Production Co., Ltd. from Chengdu, Sichuan, once said this when evaluating cooperation with Italian companies.

In fact, this China animation company did put in a lot of hard work. It is understood that Hengfeng Animation has studied advanced production technology in Europe and the United States very early, overcome common technical problems in domestic 3D animation, and achieved mass production of 3D high-definition animation. In terms of production methods, Hengfeng Animation uses the most advanced MAYA software and high-definition rendering technology, and the effect has reached a first-class level, thus winning the favor of overseas customers.

In Guangdong, another major animation production province, classic works are also constantly emerging. Among them, the two series "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" and "Bear Infested" are most familiar to audiences at home and abroad. These animation works are not only popular on TV, but also widely disseminated through books, newspapers, stage plays, audio-visual products and other forms and achieved good box office results.

What is important is that these domestic animations are also actively deploying overseas markets. In 2009,"Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" began to appear on CNN's Nickelodeon Children's Asia Channel and was broadcast in English in 13 countries and regions in Asia; in 2010,"Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: A Happy Year" was broadcast in 52 countries and regions in Disney Channel's Asia Pacific region, in more than 10 languages, and even in the dialects of different states in India; In 2014,"Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" was broadcast in Asia-Pacific regions such as Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. In the United States and Canada, it also began to be broadcast on Chinese community TV stations in Mandarin; the producers of "Bear Infested" opened the "theme park" to Iran and Ukraine

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It is worth noting that the improvement of domestic animation creative strength is also obviously promoting the transformation and upgrading of the regional economy. Data show that in 2016, Guangdong exported 41.81 billion US dollars of cultural products, covering more than 160 countries and regions, forming a number of key export enterprises and brands with international competitiveness in the fields of publishing, animation games, creative design, cultural equipment manufacturing, etc.

Today's world is an open world. If China animation must be based on the nation and face the world, it is necessary to further enhance the awareness of catching up and surpassing in "bringing in" and "going out", accelerate its own development in high-level international exchanges and cooperation, and contribute to the world in fierce international market competition. Excellent animation works with distinctive China style, China taste, and China culture, launch China brands, achieve "excellent entry and excellent exit", and promote cultural prosperity. However, experts also warned that although China's animation industry is currently enjoying a good momentum in its open development, there are still many problems. Taking Beijing as an example, as an intellectually intensive animation industry, there are three types of talents:

First, there is a lack of high-end original talents. According to a survey, most animation company managers believe that only 22% of creative personnel are considered innovative talents, while most talents are inclined to copy or imitate. This can easily lead to fewer original products and insufficient core competitiveness of enterprises.

The second is the lack of management talents. Compared with traditional enterprises, animation and game enterprises have both scattered individual labor, simple collaborative collective labor and concentrated social labor. Creative talents have strong work independence and the creative work process is difficult to supervise.

The third is the lack of management talents. Creative talents often lack market management capabilities, and management talents who can "industrialize" and "marketalize" creativity are obviously indispensable.

"For example, in the United States and Japan, the industrial chain in animation production is very complete, and the business planning in terms of promotion and derivatives is also quite mature. This has enabled the commercialization of its industry to rapidly increase. Of course, the development of all industries has its own laws and cannot be achieved overnight. Although China's domestic animation is becoming more and more mature in technology, there are still deficiencies in plot structure and story narration. Therefore, we need to rationally view the achievements and shortcomings, work hard on the details, and seek rapid development of the entire industrial system." Wan Zhe said.

Editor: jessica