Rao Shuguang: the Spring Festival shows the potential of the film market, but structural problems need to be prevented.

The new box office record created by the Spring Festival not only represents the effective improvement of Chinese film creativity, but also creates a new market space on the basis of subdividing the Lunar New year festivals, highlighting the great potential of the Chinese film market. However, there are still all kinds of structural contradictions and problems in Chinese films, and capital, especially non-professional capital, may not consider the overall and long-term interests of Chinese films at all. The risks and dangers that may cause the development of Chinese films out of control must be vigilant and prevented in advance.

< strong > [Editor's Note] < / strong > the box office of the 2016 Spring Festival film has exploded again and even "freaked out", helping the Chinese film market to surpass North America again in a single month. Rao Shuguang, a journalist special expert and secretary general of the Chinese Film Association, believes that the new box office record created by the Spring Festival not only represents an effective improvement in the creativity of Chinese films, but also creates a new market space on the basis of subdividing the Chinese film festival. it highlights the great potential of the Chinese film market, and it can even be said that there is no so-called "ceiling". The iconic and exemplary role of the Spring Festival makes Chinese filmmakers play down or even eliminate the entanglements, worries and even fears of "the end is coming" in the face of the coming 2017. But we should also see that there are still all kinds of structural contradictions and problems in Chinese films. Capital, especially non-professional capital, may not consider the overall and long-term interests of Chinese films at all. We must be vigilant and guard against the risks and dangers that may cause the development of Chinese films to get out of control. In addition, film as a content production can not only meet the audience's social and entertainment needs, but should further effectively meet the audience's spiritual, emotional and aesthetic needs. This is not only the commercial ethics of Chinese films, but also the narrative ethics of Chinese films.

there is no doubt that the unprecedented structural changes and effects being produced by Chinese films have been fully and centrally reflected and expressed in the Spring Festival. The growth of hardware facilities (including third-and fourth-tier urban cinemas, the number of screens and new communication channels) has greatly broadened and expanded the space and capacity of the market; the upgrading of creative groups and the rise of "new forces" have become dominant, breaking the Romance of the three Kingdoms directed by Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou and Feng Xiaogang. The formation of post-90s movie viewing habits and the rise of young people in small towns have contributed to a new audience and younger aesthetic taste. With this new structural change and development, New year films and Spring Festival files have become the most important phenomenon in the Chinese film market at the market level, and also become an enduring hot topic at the cultural level.

the new market space has once again driven the way of watching "Family Happy" since the 1990s, and has become a unique sight in cinemas during the Spring Festival. The whole family watching movies and watching domestic movies during the Spring Festival has formed a new cultural phenomenon of the Spring Festival, which is or will form a "new folk custom" in the historical process of China's modernization, and is very likely to become the new normal of China's film market. In this context, it is not difficult to find that this year's Spring Festival is still dominated by comedy films. the three films released on the day of the Spring Festival all focus on comedy elements and create box office miracles one after another. it also reflects the unique dominant position of the current comedy films in the Chinese film market. Behind the popularity of comedy movies, there is a relatively complex social and aesthetic psychology, on the one hand, the transfer of collective social psychology, that is, the demand for social entertainment is dominant for most audiences to watch movies in cinemas. including the demands of young audiences to release life pressure, emotional pressure and all kinds of psychological pressure. On the other hand, comedy film is also a relatively mature type of Chinese film operation since industrialization, coupled with the inherent festive cultural atmosphere of the Chinese Spring Festival, the marketing strategy of comedy films in the Spring Festival has a natural fit with the theme of family fun. However, in terms of quality, there is still a certain gap between this year's Spring Festival film and the author's expectations. on the one hand, it does not reach the characteristics of family fun in production. on the other hand, individual films' demands for social entertainment and capital for profit suppress or even drown the artistic aesthetic character of the film.

strictly speaking, the phenomenon of "family reunion" in this year's Spring Festival is produced at the cinema level, and there is an obvious deviation in terms of the quality of the film itself. Among the three films released on the day of the Spring Festival, "the Mermaid" and "three dozen White Bone essence" show the high technical level of current Chinese films, but there are still varying degrees of defects in creativity, story and narrative structure. it can't constitute a family movie in a real sense. "Family watching" covers audiences of all ages, especially minors who need to take care of children, which is also the central demand of the "Family Carnival" film. However, there are varying degrees of audience deviation in the three films, the violent scenes in Mermaid (so the film was rated R when the film was released in the United States), the shape and horror of goblins in three dozen White Bone Goblin, and the gambling and prison scenes in Macau 3, these unscreened and screened contents are not suitable for minors, especially children. At the same time, from the positioning of "Huan", the comedy effects of the three films are not ideal. During the promotion of "Mermaid" and "Macao Fengyun 3", the comedy is defined as the type, and the audience looks forward to the specific director style and series brand effect, but in fact, although the former has a positive theme of environmental protection, the story is still weak. the display of the film's violent scenes destroys the comedy rhythm with character performance as the core, and the two produce a natural tear. The endless feelings of selling Hong Kong films in "Macao Fengyun 3" and the disorderly patchwork have fallen below the downline of comedy, relying only on the star lineup and brand effect to consume box office resources during the Spring Festival period, and the result has been unsustainable. Therefore, in terms of the overall effect, the current Spring Festival file is the result of the agreement between the film with high brand effect and the schedule with market potential space, and its content is still far from the level of "Family Carnival". The benchmark of real family fun came after the Spring Festival, when the Disney animated film Zootopia successfully counterattacked despite being squeezed at the beginning of its release, breaking the box office record for Chinese animated films in the normal schedule. The film represents Disney and even the world's highest level of commercial animation in terms of technology, stories, feelings and other aspects. the reason why it can set a record in adversity lies in its family characteristics and quality to a large extent.

Premier Li Keqiang proposed that market economy is a moral economy, which is also aimed at the cultural industry to a large extent. The film economy should also be a moral economy, and the film industry should also be a moral industry. Further speaking, Chinese film should be an excellent traditional culture, especially the spiritual inheritance and modern transformation of the excellent tradition of Chinese film. Early Chinese films experienced extremely fierce commercial competition, completely on their own, without any support from the government. even so, early Chinese filmmakers still insisted on "conscience" and advocated that films must be "beneficial to the hearts and minds of the world". It can be said that the conscience of early films is not only a creative method, but also a value concept and pursuit permeated in the blood and bones of filmmakers. In fact, both the content problems reflected by the film itself and the market problems presented by various film phenomena are the refraction of the overall social state. We are also very pleased to see that the current Chinese mainstream films have the value concept and pursuit of upward goodness, and most filmmakers adhere to the basic business ethics and moral bottom line. However, there is no denying that some people have violated the red line of moral bottom line, giving way to commercial interests in film creation and artistic pursuit, which may reduce the recognition and reputation of the whole society to the film. it will further affect the innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development of Chinese films. The film must have the power to improve the content production, especially in the process of overall communication, which is beneficial to the people of the world and promote the improvement and improvement of the overall social state.

therefore, on this level, we must admit that there are still all kinds of structural contradictions and problems in Chinese films-the old structural contradictions and problems have not been effectively resolved, new structural contradictions and problems are constantly highlighted, and new situations, new phenomena and new problems that we have never encountered in the past emerge in endlessly, severely testing the wisdom and adaptability of Chinese filmmakers. In particular, a large number of non-professional capital and non-industrial capital enter the film industry regardless of cost, which has formed capital capriciousness and carnival in some links and fields, seriously challenging the order and environment of China's film market. If it is not effectively regulated and controlled, it is likely to pose an unprecedented fatal threat to Chinese films and destroy the good situation that all filmmakers have been looking forward to after years of hard work and struggle. The author has been calling for slowing down the development of Chinese films in order to create a buffer space to focus on improving the quality and quality of films, but it has become an extravagant hope driven by all kinds of almost crazy capital. Capital, especially non-professional capital, may not consider the overall and long-term interests of Chinese films at all, and we must be vigilant and guard against the risks and dangers that may cause the development of Chinese films to get out of control.

it is well known that supply-side reform is proposed under the background that China's economy is facing tremendous downward pressure. Although Chinese films are not facing the problem of downward pressure, capital wayward carnival and unprovoked intervention in creation also put forward the need for more reform and depth on the supply side of Chinese films. provide more high-quality products to meet the growing and changing needs of the people, enhance the endogenous driving force of Chinese film development, and effectively extend and prolong the "golden opportunity period" of Chinese film development. Although the social and entertainment needs greatly outweigh the artistic and aesthetic needs, and become the main behavioral motivation and psychological motivation for most audiences, especially young audiences, to enter the cinema, however, film as a content production can not only meet the audience's social and entertainment needs, but should further effectively meet the audience's spiritual, emotional and aesthetic needs. This is not only the commercial ethics of Chinese films, but also the narrative ethics of Chinese films.

from the supply side point of view, due to the history and the shortcomings of scale, industrialization and intensification of Chinese films, the brand effect is relatively weak, so the production of sequels and series films is undoubtedly scarce resources for Chinese films. Due to the lack of cultural preparation, artistic preparation, industrial preparation, creative preparation, as well as the lack of in-depth processing and development of the original resources, the brand has been deformed and even broken. The recent "Macau Fengyun 3" and "Love Spicy Hot Pot 2" are typical brand continuation and failure cases, which do not effectively achieve due economic benefit maximization and optimization. Supply-side reform should not only help the film box office hit a new high, but also promote the inventory of Chinese films to make up for deficiencies, and promote the overall upgrading of Chinese films. Critical weapons can not replace the criticism of weapons, we should vigorously promote institutional construction, promote and protect the cultural and spiritual character of the film. At present, it can be predicted that China will surpass the North American film market to become the world's largest voting position in 2017, which we used to regard as the "deadline". However, we should not only have box office indicators and the transcendence of economic indicators, but also the improvement of artistic and cultural indicators, especially the further and effective expansion in international communication. in order to promote Chinese film from a big film country to a film power in an orderly manner.

corresponding to wasting market resources, films such as "Himalayan ladder", "the Dead of Mountains and Rivers" and "Master" do not sell well in mainstream cinemas, but they still have a specific audience. When watching Xu Haofeng's "Archer Liu White Apes", the author found that the attendance rate of the small hall could reach 80%, but the cinema arrangement was extremely few, especially the Spring Festival filming provided less living space for diverse films. If the construction of the differentiated market system can be promoted and the cinema takes out a hall for differential projection, the ecology of the overall projection market will be greatly improved. It can be predicted that the balance of supply and demand of cinemas will change in the near future. when the number of screens in cinemas reaches 4-45000, it is likely to exceed the growth of audiences and cinema attendance at the box office and break the current balance. At that time, it will be very difficult to make structural adjustments.

We should prospectively promote supply-side reform and provide better products from the creative level, not only to meet people's entertainment needs, but also to meet people's spiritual needs. More importantly, we must spare no effort, comprehensively and effectively promote the construction of a differentiated market system, so that differentiated, multi-type, multi-variety and diversified films, especially minority literary and art films, minority minority films, opera films, children's films, rural theme films and realistic films can all have benign exports and channels, and can effectively connect their target audience groups so as to achieve a virtuous circle. Only in this way, the ecology of Chinese film will be more optimized, the sustainability of Chinese film development will be enhanced, the period of strategic opportunity of Chinese film will be effectively extended, and Chinese film will realize the orderly transformation from a big film country to a film power.

another risk faced by Chinese films is that the whole industry lacks an effective communication mechanism and platform, which is not only difficult to reach a basic consensus, but even difficult to reach a limited consensus. This undoubtedly puts forward a more difficult task for the critics of Chinese film theory. In any case, Chinese film theory critics should further effectively give full play to the role of Chinese film wisdom, think tanks and think tanks, and promote the whole film industry to reach a basic consensus: no matter what problems and contradictions exist in Chinese films, they are all problems and contradictions in development, which can only be effectively resolved by comprehensively deepening reform and development. For a period of time in the future, Chinese films will have many new situations, new phenomena and new problems that have not been encountered in the past, which have posed new and great challenges to us both at the level of practice theory and epistemology. In any case, we should not only see the existence of the problem, but also see the deep-seated causes of the problem, and find effective ways, strategies and methods to solve the problem. As long as we do not lose our self-confidence, have the courage to face problems and contradictions, find ways and methods to solve them with a positive and constructive attitude, and constantly improve our creativity and imagination, the prospect of Chinese films will certainly be better.

Edit: Tsai