How will Interstellar Entertainment be a "China Marvel" lead a new revolution in IP adaptation?

China's film and television industry needs to standardize industrialization processes and maximize creative value.

IP has become a hot word in the film and television industry. IP, the full name of Intellectual Property, means "intellectual property", but in today's film and television industry in China, this term also represents a high premium capital valuation.

However, behind the success of "Legend of Zhen Huan","Nirvana in Fire","Thousand Bones of Flowers", and "Ode to Joy" is the accumulation of IPs under development, but not many results are produced; among the IPs produced, many of them are too far from the image imagined by the readers, which has attracted constant complaints from the original party.

People in the film and television industry are beginning to seek change: When will China catch up with Hollywood's film industry and even surpass Japan and South Korea first?

The changes brought about by the visual script

were adapted from the launch of Japanese drama IP's "Late Night Canteen". Currently, the score on Douban is only 2.7 points. The movie version of "Tomb Robbing Notes" previously adapted from the Third Uncle of Nanpai also received numerous bad reviews. There has been a phenomenon in the market that "big IPs are getting cold and Japanese TV series IP adaptations are on the street."

How can IP change to ensure that content meets market expectations?

Zhang Lijing, CEO of Interstellar Entertainment (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd.(hereinafter referred to as "Interstellar Entertainment"), proposed the implementation of the "visualization script" in China.

What is a "visual script"? It is similar to the storyboard in the traditional film and television process of China. It presents the plot existing between the words in the form of comics, conveying the creative intention of the director and screenwriter to everyone participating in the shooting of the work, so that the film shooting has a "painting" basis. It is an independent high-quality "comic-like" work.

Different from the traditional film and television production process in the past, visual scripts bring about changes in decision-making power. The final content no longer depends on the director and screenwriter, but on the audience and users.

Zhang Lijing revealed: "The company's painters make literary scripts into 'visual' comic scripts and put them on the comic platform. After receiving user feedback, they adjust the script content at any time, and finally continuously polish the ones that most follow the original work and are most popular among the audience."

"In addition, during the comics stage, comics are drawn based on the actors themselves, which facilitates seamless subsequent connection of film and television characters and reduces the risk of IP adaptation." Zhang Lijing added.

According to the Interstellar Entertainment Annual Report, the company cooperates with various film and television companies with novel websites such as Chinese Online and Shanda Literature to turn many literary works and scripts into visual effects. In 2016, the company achieved operating income of 9.4838 million yuan through visual scripts and comics businesses.

Based on this, Interstellar Entertainment has extended its resources upstream. Through cooperation with domestic and foreign universities and governments, it has established scholarships and industrial funds, signed contracts with a small number of screenwriters, painters, and writers, and reserved IP resources.

It is understood that Interstellar Entertainment has recruited more than 100 comic artists from South Korea and signed exclusive strategic cooperation agreements with five well-known comic platforms such as JIN, DECON, and PIKICAST in Japan and South Korea, which have rich visual scripts. It has exclusive copyright in China, which owns nearly a thousand online comics; In China, it has serial cooperation with many domestic comic platforms such as Tencent Comics, Kuaikan, Fenghuang. com, Comic Island, Big Horn, and Youyao. Select high-quality IP for cultivation through the data that users click and read.

At present, Interstellar Entertainment has accumulated nearly 1000 comic copyrights that have visual characteristics and are easy to be transformed into film and television. The company's works "Suspense Event S","Welcome, My Love", as well as "11 People in Urban Love","My Soul Boy Girlfriend","Elegant Turn", and "Semi-Underground Goddess" have already reached cooperation with domestic and foreign film and television companies and major TV stations. It is expected that 5 dramas and 8 films will be released this year.

Using South Korea as a foundry.

In fact, visual scripts are quite common abroad.

Taking the United States and South Korea as examples, the comic industry is only one part of the visualization of scripts in the film and television industry. Currently, all film and television dramas in the United States and more than half of Korean film and television works are polished through visual scripts of comics.

According to data released by the Ministry of Culture of South Korea, from 2013 to 2015, 60% of Korean dramas were adapted from South Korean comics, such as the popular "Full House of Romance","Palace","A Plum","Man in Flowers","Urban Hunter","Tomorrow Like a Song","Unborn","Cheese Trap", etc. In December 2016, Sohu Video launched an adaptation of the comic book of the same name by cartoonist Zhao Shi,"The Voice in my Heart" was launched. Real people highly restored the comic book, and the characters 'expressions were almost 100% synchronized with the comic book. It quickly became popular in China and South Korea with zero reviews.

Zhang Lijing said: "There are two main reasons why painters were recruited from South Korea. First, the style of Korean comics is realistic, and most of the employees have background in the film and television industry." He said,"The domestic comics style is relatively close to Japanese comics, mainly the second-element and q version, which is not suitable for the adaptation and presentation of scripts. Second, the cost of Korean comic painters is relatively low."

He revealed: "In 2016, I went to South Korea to communicate and found many problems: the copyright fees purchased by China from South Korea are generally more than 10 times that of South Korea. For example, in 2013, China spent US$20,000 per episode on" The Successor ". In 2016, iQiyi and Tencent Video competed for" Legend of the Blue Sea ", offering a price of US$500,000 per episode."

According to incomplete statistics, popular variety shows such as "Two Days and One Night","Running Brothers","Sisters in Flowers","Grandpa Flowers","Extreme Challenge","Where Are You Going Dad","Dad Is Back","Real Man" and other popular variety shows are broadcast by major TV stations in China after purchasing copyrights from South Korea.

Zhang Lijing said: "The China market has directly picked South Korea's" fruits "with its capital. And this part has already been pushed up by capital. We want to reverse the order and use only South Korea's cheap training resources and painting resources to incubate the core IP culture seeds belonging to China."

The initial Internet

exchange completely changed the business layout of Interstellar Entertainment. At that time, Interstellar Entertainment was still Beijing Tashi Jiamiao Technology Co., Ltd., which started in the development and distribution of mobile games. With the transformation of the company's shareholding system, the company has developed into today's Interstellar Entertainment.

According to Zhang Lijing: "The experience in operating IP has also been accumulated in the game field." At that time, Tashi Jiamiao Technology released nearly 30 mobile games products such as South Korean Internet giant NHN's RPG mobile game "Sacrifice·Undead Killer" and well-known anime "Crayon Shin-shin" and "Rogue Rabbit".

Before that, Zhang Lijing had been fighting in the mobile games industry for more than ten years.

In 1999, Zhang Lijing, who was born in the Navy Special Forces, entered the game industry after retiring. While doing programming, he participated in the first end-game "Daqin Heroes" developed using China's own game engine. In 2002, Zhang Lijing turned to the promotion of mobile software and mobile games; in 2005, Zhang Lijing saw the broad prospects of the mobile games market, united the accumulated resources of mobile games manufacturers, and organized a mobile games alliance.

In 2009, Zhang Lijing participated in the creation of Weiyun, a social platform for mobile games. At that time, tens of millions of users were accumulated, but there was no complete business model. Zhang Lijing revealed: "At that time, domestic social platforms were not yet mature and many opportunities that could be grasped were missed. At that time, I often went to South Korea for exchanges. Dozens of companies in South Korea, large and small, wanted me to represent their mobile games products, but at that time, I missed the opportunity because the company's business direction was unclear."

A similar situation occurred again in 2013. "In 2013, we officially started distributing game products in South Korea and the United States. However, because we were still in the exploratory stage, we missed many opportunities for M & A financing. Later, mobile games have become a red sea market, and we missed the opportunity to make the company bigger." Zhang Lijing sighed.

Compared

with the hesitation and mistakes he made in the past, Zhang Lijing is now very certain about the company's future: InterStar Entertainment wants to be a company with independent copyright and original content and be China's Marvel.

Marvel, first as a comics giant as famous as DC Comics, was founded in 1939. At the end of 2009, MARVEL was acquired by The Walt Disney Company for US$4.24 billion and became its subsidiary. It owns superheroes such as Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Black Widow, Wolverine, and superhero teams such as Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Guardians of the Galaxy. These super IPs are still vividly active on the screen.

Zhang Lijing said: "The IP created by Marvel is not controlled by actors and directors. The image itself firmly controls traffic and fans, and has great commercial value. And all of this is due to the long industrial chain."

It is understood that the film and television industry has gradually realized the importance of building a closed loop of the industrial chain in IP development. According to public reports,"Zitian Ji" has accumulated fans in various forms such as novels, animations, games, and stage dramas, and has connected with copyright parties, producers, broadcast platforms, and publicity channels such as Tencent Pictures, Penguin Pictures, and Reading Group.

Companies in the same industry are testing the waters, and interstellar entertainment takes the lead in deploying, realizing the linkage of comics, movies, games and surrounding derivatives.

According to the 2016 annual report, Star Entertainment achieved operating income of 54.17 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 221.18%; and achieved net profit of 10.82 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 349.31%.

Zhang Lijing said: "No company in China has formed a Marvel business model like ours. We hope to build the entire industry chain of screenplay visualization in the film and television industry around" original content IP "by leveraging advanced foreign technologies and models."

According to its disclosure, InterStar Entertainment has completed the integrated construction of content production, R & D, and operation in all five links: mobile comics, mobile games, animated films, live-action film and television dramas, and peripheral product development. In the future, efforts will continue to be made in online animation, animated movies, and live-action film and television dramas. At the same time, InterStar Entertainment has jointly run schools with well-known universities at home and abroad to better train local film and television comics talents in China, and to create a new generation of film and television industry training system with domestic schools and overseas school teaching systems.

Zhang Lijing said: "China's film and television industry needs to standardize industrialization processes and maximize creative value."

Editor: Mary