Chinese Culture Xu Zhihao: Domestic animated films need to establish a production system to improve storytelling capabilities

Faced with the current problem of lagging development of domestic animated films, Xu Zhihao, president of Chinese Culture Holding Group, said in an exclusive interview with reporters: "In essence, the core of the development of our animated films is to improve our ability to tell stories. Currently, there is no industrialization in China. Animation production system, high-quality animated films should be the perfect combination of story creativity and commercial development."

Original title: Xu Zhihao analyzes the development direction of animated films: Improve story creativity and establish a high-quality animation production system

."Kung Fu Panda 3" released earlier this year has a cumulative box office of 1 billion yuan in the mainland, breaking last year's popular "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage" The box office record of 956 million yuan has become one of the few high-box office animated films in the history of China films. Strictly speaking,"Kung Fu Panda 3" is not a pure domestic animated film. It is the first China-US animated film produced by Oriental DreamWorks, but it has been deeply branded by China. Oriental DreamWorks was established by a joint venture between the Chinese Cultural Industry Investment Fund and American DreamWorks Animation, with the Chinese side of the joint venture holding 55%. It hopes to leverage Hollywood's advanced animation concepts and industrial technology to develop into China's largest animation production base that is in line with top international standards. In the framework of Oriental DreamWorks 'pursuit of the development of domestic animated films, what is the crux of the lag behind in domestic animated films? Xu Zhihao, president of Chinese Culture Holding Group, said in an exclusive interview with reporters recently: "In essence, the core of the development of our animated films is to improve our ability to tell stories. Currently, there is no industrialized animation production system in China. High-quality animated films should be A perfect combination of story creativity and commercial development."

Domestic animated films have not yet formed their own core framework for storytelling.

The domestic animated film "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage" and today's release "Big Fish Begonia" have both raised funds. It can be seen that domestic animated films that need investment seem to face the dilemma of lack of funds. But there is another view from the outside world that domestic animated films have not yet fully matched Hollywood's animation production technology. What is the crux of the lagging development of domestic animated films? "Essentially, the root cause is a lack of storytelling ability." Xu Zhihao, president of the Chinese Culture Holding Group, which is responsible for the film project, pointedly pointed out. This is also a problem faced by China films. Compared with Hollywood animated films, domestic animated films have not yet formed their own core framework for storytelling. Good stories know how to guide the audience's psychology, and through storytelling, animated characters can establish a deep emotional connection with the audience.

In China's traditional culture, there is no shortage of interesting characters and stories. Even some "China symbols" have become commercial tools for world animation. Unfortunately, these cannot bring profits to domestic animated films. When "Mulan" premiered in the United States in June 1998, the box office reached US$23 million in three days, with a global total of US$304 million. Ten years later,"Kung Fu Panda" has grossed US$60 million in three days since its national premiere in June 2008, and its global total box office of US$577.1 million has become a box office miracle in the history of Hollywood animated films. However, in recent years, there have been few excellent domestic animated films. China's animated films have experienced more than 80 years of baptism. Starting from the first animated film "Iron Fan Princess" in the history of China's film, to the early 1960s, films such as "The Sky","The Three Monks" and "Nezha The Sea" pushed the development of China's animation to a climax. Since then, the only domestic animated films that remain in people's memory are "Lotus Lantern" in 1999 and "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage", which once set a mainland animation box office record last year.

Why can't we tell the same story abroad, but others can spread the world with the story of China? Tian Xiaopeng, director of "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage", said: "'China 'is the attribute of' story', which means that an excellent domestic animated film must not only suit the current audience's movie-watching tastes, polish the script, tell the story well, and have the entertainment of the film itself; it must also inject China cultural connotation, tell China stories well, and express China attitudes and values."

Telling good stories is also the core of Hollywood animation. In the movie outlook of Katzenberg, the head of American DreamWorks Animation, good movies and good stories come from the heart and are beyond measurement by science. Before founding DreamWorks, Katzenberg led Walt Disney Animation Studio. He believed that storytelling was a creative process. Even under the big data transformation movies sung in the Internet era, big data still tells directors, producers and screenwriters how to tell a good story that audiences long for and hope for.

It takes time and patience to establish a domestic animation production system

. In the history of China's animated films, excellent works have been produced, but they cannot be continuously produced, resulting in a gap. In Xu Zhihao's view, this is like a student taking an exam,"Everyone has the opportunity to score 100 points occasionally, but how can we ensure that we will continue to score high scores in the long-term study process? Making animated films may rely on perseverance and crowd tactics, but if there is a lack of systematic processes and comprehensive management capabilities for large-scale projects, there is no way to ensure the continuous production of high-quality domestically produced animated films." Xu Zhihao said,"Our country has not yet formed such a high-quality animation production system, so it is difficult to reach the level of the Hollywood animation industry." Oriental DreamWorks cooperates with DreamWorks Animation in the United States and also hopes to bring the advanced concepts and system management capabilities of Hollywood animation production to China to help the development of domestic animated films. Xu Zhihao believes that a high-quality animation production system, including creative processes, animation technology, commercialization capabilities and other aspects, can only be truly established if these links are truly established can we continue to produce excellent domestic animated films.

Establishing a domestic animation production system requires time and patience. Katzenberg said that American DreamWorks Animation is to inject this patience and technology, talents and concepts that support patience into the Oriental DreamWorks and incubate a world-class animation production factory. For example, the art director of "Kung Fu Panda 3" spent eight years delving into China culture, art, architecture and landscapes.

Katzenberg, who has produced a large number of high-quality Hollywood animations, does not believe that eager pursuit of success can make animated films well. He said: "To do animation well, we must have good innovation and patience." DreamWorks Animation has the world's top technology and talents. On average, it still takes 4 to 5 years to produce an animated film."Disney has been like this for the past 80 years." Katzenberg doesn't believe that world-class animated films can be made in two to three years without luck,"but for us, it doesn't depend on luck." The establishment of the Hollywood animation industry system was not achieved overnight, but a long-term accumulation. Compared with most of the domestic animation films that have been accelerated over the years, the latter's "freshly released" is obviously extremely impatient.

Animated films do not lack funds. Professional talents need to be cultivated in a step-by-step manner.

Long production cycles, low industrialization and unpredictable returns, which all made it difficult to finance domestic animated films before "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage". Although "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage" ultimately made crowdfunding crowdfunding an average profit of 250,000 yuan, director Tian Xiaopeng also spent millions of yuan out of his own pocket to survive in the early days. The long production cycle of animated films is unacceptable to investors. Even animated films such as "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage", which set a box office record in the mainland, have gone through eight years of production, and "Big Fish Begonia" was once short of funds to skip the ticket, and the preparation and production period lasted as long as 12 years.

In Xu Zhihao's view, normally speaking, a high-quality animated film takes as long as 3 to 5 years, or even 8 years, but a single film is still a long time for investors. On one hand, there are investors who spend a lot of money and on the other hand, there is a handmade workshop-style animation company. Xu Zhihao said: "Only the industrialized production of cartoons can improve efficiency and give investors more confidence. Under the animation industry process, an animation company can develop and produce 2 to 3 films at the same time. However, without a systematic process, it will take a long time for a company to produce a high-quality animated film." Xu Zhihao believes that "The Return of the Great Sage of Journey to the West" is a watershed in the financing of domestic animated films."After that, there is a large amount of money that wants to enter domestic animated films. Domestic animated films are no longer as short of funds for development as in the past, but what needs to be considered is How to give investors more confidence. Domestic animated films cannot rely solely on a single model of box office profits, but should also have the ability to commercialize all aspects of IP derivatives."

Xu Zhihao introduced that Oriental DreamWorks will release its first local original animated film in 2017. This film originates from China culture and China stories."The positioning is to tell the cultural story of China well. The high-quality presentation method will be acceptable to audiences around the world, and the animation technical level will be world-class." Starting from "Kung Fu Panda 3", Oriental DreamWorks has used practical projects to drive the training of China animation film talents. Most of the pictures in the film were created in a China studio. At that time, there were 250 animators, but today it has expanded to more than 400. Xu Zhihao said that talent training is also an important factor in establishing China's animation film industrialization system. China's current animation talents are increasing, and there is a foundation and hope in this regard."We have also contacted many schools that cultivate animation talents. Compared with the past, they have a broader vision and seen more good animations. We hope to combine animation film production with the establishment of a talent pool. Of course, it does not mean that the cultivation of Chinese animation film talents depends on us alone. However, only when there are well-trained professionals in all aspects can it be conducive to the consolidation of the production system of China's animation industry."

Editor: yvette