Liu Kailuo, President of Heyi Pictures: In the future, the industrial chain will be networked, and the value of a single link will surely increase

"Nowadays, many Internet companies are just working on the industrial chain, from front-end capital sources, development and production, to ticketing to distribution, to theaters. If such an industrial chain was connected with every pearl, we would hope that our content would be the brightest one, like a diamond. At the same time, this industrial chain is changing and will become networked in the future. There will be many different paths from one node to another. At that time, the layout value of the industrial channel chain will be weakening, but the value of a single link will be increasing."

Original title: How should I play Internet movies without catching the wind and setting up a platform?| Interview with Liu Kailuo, President of Heyi Pictures

Two years ago, in the film industry in China, video websites, as platform media, were not well known and understood by the public to undertake small-scale film and television publicity, promotion and other projects. In the summer of 2014, iQiyi established iQiyi Pictures in July, and immediately after that, at the end of August, Heyi Group (Youku Tudou) officially announced the establishment of Heyi Pictures.

This move means that Internet video companies have fully and formally entered the film industry to carry out marketing, publicity, promotion, and Internet operations.

Liu Kailuo, President of Heyi Pictures

, has more valuable space for cultivating his own brand

. At the end of August 2014, Heyi Pictures, a subsidiary of Heyi Group, announced the establishment of Heyi Pictures. Soon after, during the year from 2015 to 2016, Internet platforms such as Le Pictures, Alibaba, and Tencent successively established film companies. It can be said that Internet video platforms use their own advantages to enter the film and television industry, which will have a powerful and unpredictable impact on China's film and television industry.

Various video platforms have taken advantage of their own advantages and opportunities to start laying out sites at various ports in the film industry chain. Alibaba Pictures will focus on online and offline film and television distribution ports, setting up a distribution team, and acquiring online ticketing companies; Tencent Pictures will mainly focus on developing pan-entertainment businesses. Compared with several other Internet platforms, in terms of its strategy of turning to movies, Unity Pictures seems to have no intention of building a large platform. In the past two years, it has focused on the creation of brand content and product marketing. This makes people wonder, what has this rather meaningful Internet movie company done in two years?

Less than a year after its establishment, Heyi Pictures has intervened in more than 20 film projects through production, publicity, etc. In the past two years, it has produced and co-produced 38 theater films, with a cumulative box office of more than 9 billion yuan. Among them, there are star projects such as "Meeting Ever Later","Unexpectedly","Monster Hunt", and "Detective Chinatown", as well as "Master","North by Northeast","Girl Nezha","High quality films such as" Heart Maze ", and these works involved in Heyi Pictures have been nominated 56 times and won 24 awards in major film festivals.

At present, in terms of film production, take Han's film "No Future Meeting" in which Heyi Pictures participated in 2014 as an example. Heyi collected Han Han's audience distribution through a database and selectively carried out roadshow publicity. In the end, the film earned 600 million yuan at the box office., the results are pretty.

In addition to participating in the production of film and television works, Liu Kailuo, president of Heyi Pictures, said that currently Heyi Pictures 'business of controlling content production is divided into three categories: self-owned IP incubation, cross-border IP cooperation, and original IP development.

As we all know, spending a lot of money on IP has long been a crazy phenomenon in the industry, and supporting your own IP is undoubtedly more valuable and imaginative than purchasing IP from other platforms at sky-high prices.

Among them,"Unexpectedly" is an example. This movie comes from Youku's online drama "Unexpectedly". Because it created a down-to-earth popular element, its influence continued from online to offline. In the end, the film created a good box office. Unity Pictures 'return on investment in this project exceeds 300%, of which derivatives and business development account for 60% of the total revenue.

The model of reverse incubation to make movies has been

iterative. While the same type of platform is still trying to create a structure, lay out the situation, buy copyrights, and purchase IP, Unity Pictures 'approach seems to be a bit pragmatic. It establishes its core positioning as "operational management of brand content", including content development and product marketing. Liu Kailuo believes that compared with other Internet companies,"our business is the most advanced in terms of clarity of positioning and actual promotion of business. At the same time, we are the only film company that has successfully developed its own label."

The success of a private brand basically follows two criteria. One is that it can make money from the perspective of the commercial system; the other is that it can continue from the content level, that is, people will watch it again.

Liu Kailuo said,"Youku Tudou itself is a platform for content production and the collection of creators. We continue to have new content appearing. In terms of private brands, there are "Report the Boss","The Journey", and "Genius J", and we will gradually develop them into big movies; at the same time, we will jointly develop existing IP or brand projects with cooperation platforms, such as "The Best Household","The Star Sky and the Sea", etc., reverse incubate a project, use online dramas to warm up movies and accumulate fans. This method will be the main method for future content platforms; Third, we develop original projects, such as "Blood of the Machine". Original works will place more emphasis on its serialization and the extensibility of derivative development."

The emphasis on derivatives comes from the exploration of a healthy income structure: a movie only accounts for 40% of the total revenue at the box office, and 60% of the revenue through other channels is a healthy income structure. In the past, movies relied on the weather for their livelihood, and 90% of their revenue relied on the box office, so their dependence fluctuated greatly. "Whether it is a private brand, a cross-border cooperative brand or an original brand, we will consider the possibility of derivative development to make the income structure healthier."

Among the development projects of Heyi Pictures 'own brand, in addition to the well-known "Unexpectedly", the "Report Boss","Genius J", and "Lovers" under preparation have also been developed from online dramas with distinctive characteristics and a wide audience.

Due to its re-deconstruction, remake, and ridicule of classic film and television works,"Report the Boss" has an average of nearly 30 million clicks per episode on its broadcast platform. Its creative laughter and open-minded plots and slots make it have a group of hardcore fans who are hotly debated. This series and the online drama "Unexpectedly" both come from the joint promotion and cooperation with Wanhe Tianyi. The production and performance are also the cast of "Unexpectedly".

"Walking Together" is an outdoor reality show. The program presents a couple's extreme adventure journey of "walking to the extreme and loving to the extreme", as well as their experiences in global politics, economy, environment, extreme scenery, etc. A program with personal experience and humanistic connotations. Liu Kailuo said he would upgrade it to a "real movie."

"Genius J" tells the fierce story of a talented boy who cracked the formula of human life, fought against evil, and saved mankind. The story setting and Japanese shooting methods of No. 2 were sought after by netizens, and were later excavated into a comic book and serialized into a book.

It can be said that in terms of attaching importance to and creating platform content, Heyi Pictures pays more attention to in-depth heritage and personality cultivation. There are both creative works that focus on the young people's market and open up their minds, travel programs that are full of humanistic meaning and sense and exploration of the world. There are new generation Internet works that have been transformed into drama series through IP, and there are also many discoveries that have new possibilities. New programs that discover value.

Liu Kailuo said that producing high-quality content products is the fundamental manifestation of the company's value. It can be said that Unity has always been at the forefront of the industry in terms of production models, but so far Unity's own cooperation model has also been constantly iterating.

"Compared with other companies, we have an advantage in publicity, but this advantage is not enough to stop people, because the core of the content industry is still whether it can produce good content. If you invest in a good project, people will at most say that you have a good eye. If there is no core content development part, it will be problematic in the long run. So we will put more efforts into our own brands or jointly developed things in the future."

In the future, the industrial chain will be networked, and the value of a single link will surely increase.

Liu Kailuo, the head of Heyi Pictures, has been involved in the Internet film industry for more than two years. He can talk about all kinds of things about the Internet at his fingertips. Regarding the current impetuousness and leap forward in the industry, he seems to only focus on and love the movies he has laid out, and specializes in content to cultivate this career.

At the Shanghai International Film Festival held in June this year, when the industry released super film lists regardless of strength or not, Unity Pictures only released 6 selected films, and all departments had careful layout calculations and plans.

Based on his experience in the traditional film industry and the Internet film field, Liu Kailuo seems confident in both different thinking. Speaking of the core differences between traditional marketing and Internet marketing, Liu Kailuo said that tradition is more about shop fronts, hoping that 100,000 people will see a piece of content, but the basic probability of how many out of 100,000 people will see it is difficult to measure. The Internet is more accurate and can quickly find users, core users.

Liu Kailuo said that from the traditional film industry to Internet startups, the transformation of thinking is rapid and immediate. "Nowadays, many Internet companies are just working on the industrial chain, from front-end capital sources, development and production, to ticketing to distribution, to theaters. If such an industrial chain was connected with every pearl, we would hope that our content would be the brightest one, like a diamond. At the same time, this industrial chain is changing and will become networked in the future. There will be many different paths from one node to another. At that time, the layout value of the industrial channel chain will be weakening, but the value of a single link will be increasing."

Now, the projects launched by Unity Pictures are becoming more and more mature. Liu Kailuo said that he is more confident and hopes to maximize the value of existing and original IP through professional management and operation means.

In his view, the real IP is content that does not rely on a single actor, director, author, or can still have vitality out of a certain time dimension.

There are four criteria for film selection: new angles and entry points, ability to convey "happiness, wisdom and emotion", accurate type, and serialization.

Although he is backed by the big tree of the Unity Group, Liu Kailuo still emphasizes the identity of the "startup company" of the Unity Film Industry. Heyi Pictures has been independent accounting since its establishment. The mentality of an "internal entrepreneur" also makes Heyi Pictures full of motivation and fighting spirit when choosing its own development direction and participating in market competition.

The Australian launch conference of "Blood of the Machine"

was held at the end of August 2016, which marked the second anniversary of its establishment, and the company's employees celebrated its second anniversary together. Not long ago,"Blood of the Machine", starred and produced by Jackie Chan, was launched in Australia. This time,"Blood of the Machine" will be a major production and a big cast in the film market.

Editor: Nancy