Dong Chenchen, Chairman of Chenming Media: Persistence in the China-South Korea Co-production Conference is the best social interaction

As a producer born in the 1980s, Dong Chenchen, chairman of Chenming Media, has been in the film industry for more than ten years. He has been a director and a screenwriter, and now he is in charge of this large-scale company. He said that the company's top executives rarely go to socialize and socialize.

Dong Chenchen, producer of the original title born in the 1980s

: Chen Ming has been established for five years. In the early years, he cooperated with South Korea to film "Break Up Contract" and "Return to 20". This year's summer There are also three works including "Lu Yao Knowing Ma Li". Next year, many new films such as "Antarctic Love" starring Zhao Youting and Yang Zishan will be released. As a producer born in the 1980s, Dong Chenchen, chairman of Chenming Media, has been in the film industry for more than ten years. He has been a director and a screenwriter, and now he is in charge of this large-scale company. He said that the company's top executives rarely go to socialize and socialize. A few days ago, Dong Chenchen accepted an exclusive interview with reporters and talked about Chenming Media's development path for the first time.

What is Chen Ming? The company's stability, low mobility, and false publicity are afraid of being scolded.

The entire Chenming Group can be divided into three parallel parts in terms of structure, film industry, investment and technology. Investment is very similar in operation to funds. While investing in projects, it also invests talents in the industry and companies in the industry chain. Areas covered by technology include VR, visual previews, etc. Relatively speaking, the film is Chen Ming's main content, the second half of this year will also shoot online drama and so on. As far as movies are concerned, Chen Ming also has many subsidiaries, whose business scope includes IP development, production, marketing, brokerage, business and so on. "We are basically a platform company with content as the core and layout of the whole film industry chain," Dong Chenchen said.

Chen Ming Group had a large number of employees. There were more than 80 people in the company headquarters alone, as well as many subsidiaries with hundreds of people and the crew that were working. Moreover, the company's personnel mobility is relatively low. When it comes to benefits, Dong Chenchen said that it is normal in the industry, but it will be more stable and sustainable than some other companies."There are more companies that can provide higher income, but why can you still come here? Because everyone hopes to grow and learn things here, and to have this sense of pride when they see Chen Ming make better movies, this is the most important thing."

Dong Chenchen went on to say that every team member will encounter difficulties halfway through from trivial work matters to fighting hard on the front line of the film industry, and these people may become very successful producers, directors, screenwriters, etc. in the future. When things are done well, things such as money and benefits will naturally come.

As the chairman of the company, Dong Chenchen has formulated specific development plans, such as listing."Listing is just a process. We now have capital planning." Not only did Dong Chenchen have more plans in mind, but none of them have been made public.

Since its establishment, Chen Ming has never held any strategic conference. Looking back at this year's Shanghai International Film Festival, many companies have released film lists, and there are countless types of films. Dong Chenchen has his opinion on this,"I have always had a view that being a company will eventually combine reality and reality. But you must have this 'reality', that is, a down-to-earth 'reality'. The work must be 'real', the company's structure and basic skills must be' real', and with the 'real', you can do virtual things. Because everyone in this industry is very smart. When you promote the company's brand to the outside world, you always promote the imaginary side. If others can't see the real side of you, they will know that you are not a trustworthy company. A company that works down-to-earth. We will not do such things, and we are not good at doing them. If we do this, we are afraid of being scolded by others, so we should keep a low profile." Dong Chenchen said that next year, when everyone can see more works produced by Chen Ming and better working methods, a press conference may be held to speak out with the practical things they have done.

Who is the owner of the Chenming Media booth company at the 19th Shanghai International Film Festival

? Dong

Chenchen, chairman of Chenming Media

, who has worked as a director and screenwriter for thirteen years, barely socialized, gave himself a clear positioning when expressing his thoughts,"A good investor must be a good producer, and a good producer must understand the product. First of all, he must be a product manager. He must have a very deep understanding of the attributes of a product. Then he must have a very deep understanding of capital and business logic, and combine this thing into one commodity." He said that if there are only feelings and dreams that are not combined with capital at all, it can only be called "blind thinking". Moreover, feelings and dreams must be combined with capital and business logic in order to make the best products.

Chen Ming has many employees and a wide range of business. How can he support his subordinates without business acumen? But it is not accurate to say that it is just for money."For me, feelings and sense of mission still exist. This respect and enthusiasm for movies are the biggest reasons that support me to build this company. Without this enthusiasm and respect, I don't think it would be possible to support me for so long. I would have done it myself a long time ago. Investing in others to film is much more tiring than filming myself."

This sentence "filming by himself" actually reflects his previous experience. He worked in the industry for thirteen years. Before founding Chenming, Dong Chenchen was also a director, screenwriter, and made films. So, is the company established to realize a dream? The answer is no.

"No need to round. I can have more resources to make movies now, and many investors can help me do this. But I think my greater responsibility and obligation now is to develop the company and work with the team to fulfill their dreams." Dong Chenchen gave an example that if he made a movie, he would make a play every two to three years, but a company might have the works of five or six directors a year. This is also a sense of accomplishment."Chen Ming itself is also one of my works."

Living in this circle, the importance of public relations and relationships is self-evident. However, Dong Chenchen said that all shareholders of the company rarely interact with each other, even in the early days of the company's establishment, and it has never changed. "During the year, I rarely go out to socialize. I basically stay at the company. If there is anything, we will meet and chat. Otherwise, we will hold project meetings with the team. We always feel that the best thing is to use our movies and our projects to prove our professionalism. Everything else is empty and useless."

What path have you taken? Three years of watching the road, the main films have made money. China-Korea Co-production Association will stick

to it. The first three years of the company's establishment were the road watching period."For the first three years, we have been watching the road to see where the problems are and where the gaps are. We hope we can do our best to solve these problems." Dong Chenchen said that these are Chen Ming's core competencies. He is down-to-earth and low-key. He is determined to do content, not for pure capital."Our goal is not to quickly launch the company and quickly obtain benefits. This is to let it take its course."

At the beginning, Chen Ming appeared in the public's eyes because of the China-South Korea co-production "Contract for Break-up". Although the box office revenue of less than 200 million yuan is insignificant today, in 2011, it could have become a phenomenon. Chen Ming's cooperation with South Korea started early and was very successful. Dong Chenchen said that there are only three films that have been truly successful at the box office between China and South Korea,"The Contract for Break Up","Return to 20" and "I am a Witness". The first two films are produced by Chen Ming, and cooperation between China and South Korea will be maintained in the future, giving full play to Chen Ming's own advantages, learning from each other's strengths, and giving full play to the abilities of Korean filmmakers in genre control, technology, scripts, etc., and combining local characteristics to make good films. It is a serious matter.

Since its establishment, the films produced by Chen Ming have a relatively large chance of winning in terms of making money. Dong Chenchen introduced two ways for the company to invest in films. One is main control and the other is foreign investment."So far, most of the projects we have controlled have been successful, including the projects that have been filmed (not yet released). We are also very confident that there may be dark horses." For projects invested abroad, there is no guarantee that there will be steady profits and no losses, because the partners need to handle the transaction. If money is invested, they are betting on the other party's ability to handle the transaction.

"We have a goal. If we do ten plays, we hope to win six, draw two and lose two, that is, we can win more than 80%." In this way, even if there are loss-making films, they will be controlled within an acceptable range as a whole. What if the box office is not good? "Cases of unsatisfactory box office sales are also very valuable. They often bring clear understanding and improvement of internal issues, as well as experience accumulation and reflection on external trading capabilities."

What to do in the future? Paying attention to basic skills is more important. After the period of cultivating new directors and new producers

, Chen Ming's long-term goal is to establish a relatively ideal way to cultivate talents, transport more filmmakers, and produce high-quality content. At present, the basic framework and standards have been established, and what needs to be done is to stabilize them. "Whether a company can make movies quickly to make profits, or can you let that matter go relatively, precipitate a set of methods, and pay more attention to people and basic skills? This may be one of the things we are facing now. Choice, then we must think that basic skills are still relatively important."

Chen Ming attaches great importance to the cultivation of new people. Dong Chenchen introduced that the two types of talents the company focuses on cultivating are directors and producers. "80% of the movies made in a year work with new directors. We have been trying to find new directors with potential." However, cultivating new directors is not easy. It relies on the strength of the entire company's professional team. Without a link, it cannot be accomplished. When selecting a new director, Dong Chenchen introduced a set of more detailed criteria. The first is to consider the ability to do a good job in drama, then to test the shooting methods, and finally to understand editing, performance, etc. These abilities can be evaluated through communication and visual management."Once the new director has basic skills, you can help him equip a very good team and have a better producer and producer to take him away. Then the success rate will be much higher."

In addition to new directors, producers are also key training targets."Our requirements for producers are that they must have three abilities: the ability to develop projects or find scripts, the ability to produce and the ability to market." Among these three capabilities, there will be corresponding cooperation methods depending on the number of capabilities available.

The first is a producer who has an ability but lacks experience. He is called a "project manager". He still needs to work hard and will be selected to continue to be cultivated. If you have two abilities,"For example, knowing production and scripts will be simpler. At the market level, we have our own publicity team and can cooperate with him." After a period of working-in and successfully producing two films, then you will enter the second method of cooperation-having your own studio."If this studio does two or three more projects, it will be successful, then we will help him build a relatively independent production company, and the projects developed after that will be based on his will." After having an independent production company, if the producer insists on doing some projects that Chen Ming is not optimistic about, he can also go outside to find investment. However, this kind of thing has not happened yet.

What movie? At most, six films with high quality and quantity are available in a year. Dong Chenchen quietly invests in artistic films.

Dong Chenchen made it very clear that Chen Ming could shoot at most six films a year. Why is this number? Because this volume can be guaranteed at the current stage. The films Chen Ming has filmed include "Break Up Contract","Return to 20","Lu Yao Know Ma Li" and other different types of films. He will also produce the comedy "The Master", the crime action film "The End" and the disaster love movie "Antarctic Love". Future investment projects will be more diversified in types, and science fiction films are also planned.

Although the previous films were mainly commercial films, this does not mean that Chen Ming is insulated from artistic films. In this year's Toronto International Film Festival's "Discovery Unit", a film called "Old Stone" was sponsored by Chen Ming.

If you choose to make artistic films, in the eyes of many people, you may lose money, or you must be prepared to lose money, but in reality, this is not the case."Some artistic films have very low costs. After all, the current distribution channels are still relatively smooth. If you win an award abroad and distribute it, you may be able to recover the cost. And nowadays, whether it is the Internet or TV (both channels for recovering costs), it can control costs." If the director of an artistic film is really talented and has greater room for development in the future, Dong Chenchen said that the company will be very willing to invest in him."I don't care what type of film you make, you are really talented and the film is really good, I am willing to cultivate it."

Editor: Nancy