Why are big online movies that have failed in the United States popular in China? Internet University's "proliferation" looks forward to a virtuous cycle

Netflix in the United States is famous for shooting the American TV series House of Cards, but the investment cost of Netflix's homemade film is too high and the production cycle is too long to achieve large-scale production. At present, it seems that Netflix can hardly make a breakthrough in homemade movies. While China's online movies began to break out in the past two years, why did Chinese online movies do what Netflix wanted to do but could not do?

Netflix in the United States is famous for shooting the American TV series House of Cards, but the investment cost of Netflix's homemade film is too high and the production cycle is too long to achieve large-scale production. At present, it seems that Netflix can hardly make a breakthrough in homemade movies. While China's online movies began to break out in the past two years, why did Chinese online movies do what Netflix wanted to do but could not do? Yien recently released the "2016 China Internet Film Industry report" shows that the reasons for this interpretation.

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in the first half of this year, there has been an explosive growth in online blockbuster films. Hong Kong director Wang Jing, along with Zheng Yijian, Zhou Xiuna and others, released the first online blockbuster "my Best Goddess." Wang Jing said in an interview with reporters: "Internet film and television will certainly become an important position in the film market in the future, and the cooperation mode of the Internet will also be very broad for cutting-edge creators."

with the rise of the online film industry, more and more well-known film companies and directors begin to join the field of online film production. According to the latest report released by Yien, the number of "Netda" is expected to reach 2500 for the whole year, while the number of theaters in 2016 is expected to be about 485. NetUniversity's production company increased by 130.3% in the first half of this year, which is 2.1 times that of cinema-line film production companies.

at present, the main types of "NetUniversity" are thrillers, love, plot and comedy, accounting for 91.2% of the broadcast volume, and the concentration is even higher than that of cinema films. Relaxed, love and feature films have filled the gap in the market of cinema films to some extent, but they need to be explored in the weak types of cinema films such as adventure, science fiction, documentary, war and so on. In addition, the online film industry is in the stage of data accumulation, the investment behavior is still perceptual, the production is lack of theoretical guidance and recognized qualitative evaluation standards, the level of quality is also uneven, and the statistical standards of data broadcast in the online industry are not unified, resulting in the failure of quantitative evaluation methods.

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in February this year, Netflix "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2" was simultaneously broadcast on North American IMAX cinemas and Netflix networks, but it was boycotted by traditional cinema chains, including AMC. In October this year, Netflix announced a partnership with American iPic cinemas. In the future, 10 films it produced will be released online and in cinemas on the same day, but as of September this year, iPic had 113 screens. It accounts for only 0.28% of all movie screens in the United States.

by contrast, the prospect of China's "NetUniversity" seems to be unique. Chinese film companies are actively cooperating with Internet companies to devote themselves to the creation of NetUniversity. As of June this year, the number of NetUniversity production companies reached 843, 2.1 times that of cinema film production companies.

Why is there such a big difference between China and the United States? Industry insiders said that compared with cinema films, NetUniversity is characterized by short production cycle, low cost, fewer box office sharing links (platform-- "business" / film "--investors), and the risk of each link is greatly reduced. Another important reason for promoting the rapid development of NetUniversity is that although the proportion of cinema films in domestic films is increasing year by year, the total domestic film production is stagnant. It has never reached the 2012 level, and at the same time, the demand for movies from the audience has risen rapidly, resulting in a decline in the supply and demand index of Chinese cinemas year by year. Comparing the supply and demand index of cinema chains between China and the United States, since 2013, the number of films per unit of cinema in China is lower than that in North America, and the gap is widening, that is to say, film production capacity is now unable to meet the fast-growing demand for cinema.

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< strong > the market size of NetUniversity in 2017 will exceed 3 billion < / strong >

because the future of China's online movies is so good that there is a shortage of talents, Yi Wenqing, director of research at Yien, told reporters: "in the process of writing the report, many founders of Internet companies said to me, 'you recommend some people for me', which shows how much the industry is eager for talent." To this end, Yien's report was released in Communication University Of China, but also set up a special recruitment session, hoping to meet talents unexpectedly.

the future of NetUniversity is also bright. Data show that the size of China's online membership market can reach 40.2 billion yuan, and the investment scale of online films is expected to reach 510 million yuan this year, while the market size of China's online film industry will exceed 3 billion in 2017. the number of films with a share of more than one million is also expected to reach about 500. excellent story and well-filmed quality content has the potential to cut into a bigger market cake.

NetUniversity may even affect the direction of film projects in the future. Industry insiders believe that when a film project is set up in the future, we should first consider the premiere channel, whether it is NetUniversity or cinema, and calculate the investment risk accordingly. Develop different positioning, creation direction, and publicity strategies. At present, NetUniversity is in the transitional stage from production factor-driven to investment-driven development. The admission of cinema film talents has pushed up the production and marketing costs of the network industry, and the tilt of resources to the high-cost network will lead to a further increase in costs. In the first half of this year, NetUniversity with an investment of less than 500000 was eliminated, and more than 1.5 million was a high cost, accounting for 10%. With the continuous growth of the network market and the continuous growth of the investment scale, investors can use more data to assist decision-making and evaluate the risks and benefits of a project before investing.

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< strong > it's embarrassing to invest in speculative "NetUniversity" < / strong >

although in the research report of big data Company, "online Big Movie" has a very bright prospect and "money scene". However, in the eyes of the most basic practitioners, shooting a big online movie has to face many difficulties. As it is difficult to strive for investment, a large number of "NetUniversity" will be filmed in just more than ten days, which undoubtedly limits the quality and market of the single film "NetUniversity". For producers, directors, screenwriters and actors, NetUniversity is neither a dream nor a nightmare, but a dream.

< strong > "it's hard to get an investment of 5000 yuan." < / strong >

with the development of the mobile Internet, online movies are becoming more and more popular. "the movie dream in my heart is always there." Jin Yongjie, who was originally engaged in advertising in 2014, won 200000 yuan in investment and used his contacts to set up a shooting team. made a 77-minute suspense online movie "Beauty in a Dream" and went live in Tencent Video.

Jin Yongjie has developed feelings for movies since he was a child, and his father is an employee of a film company. He recalled that when I was a child, I spent all day with my father in the cinema. Basically, I saw's movies many times. But when he finally chose his personal career, because of the poor environment of the film industry at that time, he chose "curve to save the country" to enter the advertising industry. More than a decade later, with the "east wind" of online movies, I realized the "movie dream" in my heart.

although the scale of investment in online movies is small, Jin Yongjie revealed that it is also difficult to secure funds. "not to mention 200000, it's hard to get an investment of 5000 yuan." he believes that Chinese films are still very short of money at present. At the same time, because of the limitation of investment cost, many links have to "make do".

< strong > is a director, a screenwriter, a producer and a leading actor < / strong >

"short and fast" is the main feature and life of online movies. In order to save costs, the start-up time of the film will be reduced as much as possible to ensure that the shooting will be finished in about ten days. At the same time, because he could not afford to hire a famous screenwriter and was unwilling to use "second-rate screenwriter", Jin Yongjie held several positions as the screenwriter of "Beautiful Dream". He laughed that he had "exhausted all his strength" in order to make the film, and asked a lot of friends in the circle to help him through "exploiting friends."

because of his personal acquaintance with director Jin Yongjie, drama actor Liu Biao was dragged down to perform in online movies. Having many years of drama acting experience, he was not used to filming when he first came into contact with filming. The high-intensity shooting rhythm also made him a little unbearable. "it is common to stay up all night waiting for the scene." the actors have to wait for the scene at any time, and maybe they will have their own part in the next show.

similar to Jin Yongjie's experience, Zhang Xinze, the producer of the online movie Yongqing Kid Crossing the Ancient War Road, personally participated in filming and became one of the leading actors in order to save the cost of film production. At the same time, he used his contacts to invite, a well-known Hong Kong martial arts actor, to make a guest appearance for the online movie.

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The billboards in the hotel lobby are covered with information about the recruitment of actors by major online film crews. After visiting the floating Home Hotel, the reporter found that men and women came one after another to stop in front of the billboard, carefully looking for acting opportunities. Once the target crew has been identified, they will deliver their personal data to the corresponding room of the crew. Some of the crew will leave information for candidates to wait for news, while others will have live auditions.

according to the hotel staff, the crew are all mobile. "I checked out after choosing the actors in two or three days." Among the actors who came to look for acting opportunities, there were actors who acted for the first time, and some actors who had some acting experience but were unknown. "mix life," an actor who came to the audition told reporters that the big online screenplays are "weird", but they will still find suitable people to shoot in order to make a living.

online blockbuster movies provide a relatively "low threshold" platform for a large number of directors and actors with "movie dreams", and provide the first opportunity for new directors, actors and screenwriters to "train their troops". But there are also many problems. On the one hand, many online movie actors are first exposed to filming and are inexperienced. On the other hand, the shooting time is strictly controlled and there is not enough time to think about the characters. A big online movie actor revealed that if he got the script one day, he would start shooting the next day. Shooting in a hurry, improvising the performance depends on your life.

< strong > behind the hot topic "investment" is speculation < / strong >

"Beauty of Dreams" has been viewed nearly 50 million times on Tencent Video, and there are many sharp criticisms such as "what bad movie" and "not pretty at all" in the comments. In this regard, Jin Yongjie said frankly that no creator is willing to make a bad film. He said helplessly, "the problem of lack of funds has restricted the performance of the film to a certain extent."

"every filmmaker wants his or her work to be meaningful." In his view, there are still many gaps in China's film market that need to be filled. Film is a product that can affect values. After watching the movie, it can leave the audience thinking or directly provide entertainment to the audience is the value of the film.

online big movie investors often keep a "good imagination" of popular cinema movies. Through the topic and popularity, they expect the director to make an online movie with almost the same title and almost the same theme. In the past, there was a cinema movie "passing through your World", and now there is an online movie "my World you have passed by" is being filmed; lost in Thailand and lost in Hong Kong have been successful one after another, and online movies such as "lost in safe haven" and "lost in the alley" have been released immediately.

"investors think that they can catch up with the trend, but they do not realize that some themes have long been outdated and successful and cannot be simply copied." Jin Yongjie found after contact with many big online film investors that most investors choose to invest in a big online film out of the mentality of "speculation." "give it a try. If you make money, keep investing, and if you fail, you won't invest any more," he said.

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< Internet University looks forward to a virtuous circle < / strong >

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< / p "one can be made in three days", "it can be made with an investment of 50,000 yuan", "actors can be chosen at will". The production of "low threshold" makes the number of online movies more and more rampant, at the same time, it is also more and more superficial.

"if the preparatory work is not done in the early stage, the problems will appear one after another during the shooting period, and it will not be able to make up for it later." Jin Yongjie said that if the preliminary preparatory work is valued by investors, it can also be shot calmly in a tight shooting time. He called on investors to respect the opinions and aesthetics of film creators.

the lack of funds is the root cause of the general feeling that the creators of big online movies are unable to achieve their goals. On the other hand, producer Zhang Xinze provides a new way to win investment for online movies. Yongqing Boy Crossing Ancient Battle Road, which will be launched today, attracted the attention of the local tourism bureau in the name of "local video records" when it first fought for investment, so as to successfully win the sponsorship of local enterprises. "it is rare to rely entirely on corporate sponsorship." Zhou Yan, the film's director, expressed his appreciation for this way of attracting investment.

A good movie must have three elements: a good actor, a good script and a good director. According to the analysis of people in the industry, it is not easy to obtain these three dominant elements at the same time under the condition of small cost. However, we should also believe in the power of the grassroots and form a virtuous circle in trying and exploring, so as to seek the better development of online movies.

Edit: yvette