Zhou Tiedong: The film industry has succeeded, and the Internet has failed

If movies are sweet alcohol, then commercial films can be called spirits, art films can be grape wine, and garbage films are nothing more than alcohol or even industrial alcohol. The rest of the various copycat clones that appear in the name of movies, whether they are micro-movies or big online movies, are drinks mixed with water, and have no expressive value in the movie context.

Original title: Big online movies are water-infused drinks that have no expressive value in the movie context

. It is reported that Tencent Video bought the online copyright of "The Legend of Ruyi" at a price of 9 million yuan per episode, which has become the trigger for pushing up the market price of this year's TV series. The "content determinism" I proposed two years ago has unfortunately been verified. At that time, I once wrote and pointed out: "The Internet, as a communication tool, communication channel and communication platform, cannot replace the 'true scriptures' as content, and what determines the communication value of these communication platforms is precisely the content itself. Without content, the entire Internet is just a bunch of lifeless servers." Starting this summer, China's film market has finally begun to return to calm and rationality after years of continuous delirium. When the rumors are swept away, the capital market will enter an era of content-hungry. Whoever holds high-quality content will swing the pendulum of game power towards him. To this end, we can look at the Internet's "extension" and "dilution" of movies from the perspective of the film market.

As an industry, the structure of film can be simplified into a material level, an economic level and a social level, intertwined in a political framework. The filling of this structure can only be the content itself. The material level is expressed in the physical medium of the film and pure material and technological things such as machines and equipment, studios, sound, light, and color. The economic level focuses on various links and means for film products to achieve output value, as well as the proportion of the industry in the national economy, and its impact, impact and contribution to the national economy. This is reflected in the output value achieved by the industry itself, how many jobs it provides, how much profits and taxes it pays, how much the industry's expenditure is, the output value of relevant industries promoted, and how valuable economic activities are triggered in other industries. The social level involves the impact on public life styles, cultural consumption trends, social ethical orientation and national mentality. The political framework is like the palm of the Buddha and the tightening curse of the Tang Priest. No matter how the above levels are extended, they cannot escape its framework. It is not limited to ideology and censorship, but refers to various political considerations in the progress and implementation process at every level: sacrificing artistic pursuits for the sake of box office is also a category of political considerations. This framework covers aspects such as policies and regulations, positioning orientation, demographic geography, racial sensitivity, cultural taboos, religious restrictions, and film festival awards.

Movies are products born of money as the medium, business as the basis, and the marriage of technology and art. They are an interdisciplinary, industrial creation, production and management practice. The realization of all its functions must first rely on theaters. There is a specific window period for film distribution, and theaters are the first window. The industry calls it a "bottleneck". It is the first barrier for a film to realize profit flow and the gatekeeper to the film market. Almost all films of major Hollywood companies use the theater as the first window to realize their first income, because the quality of theater distribution, especially the good reputation established through theater distribution, determines the realization of their downstream output value. The annual domestic theater box office of more than US$10 billion in the United States can generate 4 to 6 times the downstream output value and build an economic contribution of US$700 to 800 billion. Through the theater window, movies have become the most successful export industry in the United States.

In view of this, American independent companies will strive to distribute their films in theaters when budget permits. Even if the financial resources are weak, they will try their best to be distributed by large companies through theaters. If the revenue stream of a movie is a train, the theater box office is the locomotive of the train. The power of the locomotive needs to burn costs, so the theater is the only window that may lose money, and most of them lose money. If the front is strong enough, it can pull enough carriages to extend horizontally overseas and dig vertically downstream. Therefore, theater box office in the United States only accounts for about 13% to 17% of total revenue, and the rest comes from downstream output value. But 85% of our film revenue depends on theaters, and it is precisely this industry that relies on theaters for life and death that is frequently clamored to be replaced by the Internet.

From the overall structure of the film market: the window is the deep and three-dimensional development of the film market, and the schedule is the extension of the horizontal plane of the film market, which constitutes a diverse three-dimensional structure from the dimensions of space and time. In addition to the first window "Cinema", there are also the second window "Single Pay-Up Movie Channel and Auxiliary Rights" with a time interval of generally three months, the third window "Cable Pay-Up Movie Channel", the fourth window home video, the fifth window Cable TV, the sixth window wireless TV, the seventh window local TV (called "syndicate" in the United States) and the eighth window video-on-demand, as well as new media including the Internet. In addition, the revenue chain that overlaps and intersects all windows and can last for many years also includes overseas distribution and product development. In this way, a film that is determined to grow big can create a profit stream of billions of dollars.

The extension of the Internet to movies: Helping it become a huge new economic growth point

The integration of the Internet and film and television has not begun today. Since the birth of the online broadcasting platform, it has been a natural extension of the film and television industry and has become its huge new economic growth point in recent years. Without the extension and support of the Internet platform, the world's independent film industry may no longer exist. As a platform and channel, it is even more logical for the Internet to feed back film and television from content. Its joining in the film and television industry will not only have a negative impact on the film and television industry, but will expand the scale of the industry and allow the traditional film industry to be extended more effectively. There is a symbiotic relationship and integration between content, channels and platforms. Only if you have me in you and I have you in me is a healthy industrial structure.

The Internet has been with us for more than 20 years, Internet video has been born for more than ten years, and smart Mobile device has been popularized for more than five years. Over the past 20 years, the number of screens in China has increased from less than 2000 at the beginning to nearly 40000 at present, and the number of screens in the world has increased from 50,000 in the past to 150,000 at present. Not only have cinemas not disappeared, they have continued to grow and become increasingly prosperous. The power that promotes this sustainable development is the content itself that the audience cannot satisfy. For example, Netflix, which was founded in 1997, has done content construction for many years, and platform construction has only complied with the default values of its content construction. Its global subscribers have exceeded 50 million, including 36 million in the United States, accounting for 32.3% of the national video streaming market share. The film and television library covers almost all films of all major production companies in the world. Even so, the program content is still difficult to meet all the needs of subscribers, so that it is criticized by the media as "no longer synonymous with a good place to rent movies."

When radio was invented, someone sentenced the movie to death. However, not only did the movie not die, copyright transactions such as radio dramas and movie recordings and editing became an extension of the movie economy, and also added new channels for movie marketing. When television was invented, when video was invented, especially after the home theater was invented, countless people sentenced movies to death countless times. However, not only did movies not die, the current revenue from TV and home video is far higher than that of theaters. Box office, and has even become the profit support for major Hollywood companies and the cornerstone for independent films to survive.

After mankind entered the Internet era, while we were still worried about the Internet, a large number of online playback platforms, such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Showbox, iTunes, etc., have been supporting and promoting the prosperity and development of global independent films in the past five or even ten years. Industry facts have continuously proved that due to the inherent resilience and elasticity of the film industry, the emergence of any new technology and new media will not only not weaken the film itself, but will also expand its scale and extend its vitality. However, we don't make enough use of these global online platforms. We can only corrode and dilute movies within the walls by the so-called "Internet thinking" and "Internet +" boosted by capital.

Dilution of movies by the Internet: Over time, it will inevitably lead to dilution of thinking.

"Micro movies" and "Big Internet movies" should be the biggest erosion and dilution of Chinese movies by China's Internet. In fact, these two concepts that do not exist in the context of movies are born out of the originator of "short films", because movies at the beginning of their birth were all "short films". Short films refer to any film that is not long enough for a feature film. However, there is no uniform standard for how long it is. The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines it as "an original film with a length of less than 40 minutes." Films that are between short films and standard feature films are called "short feature films". From an early industry perspective,"short film" means the implicit assumption of feature films plus screenings. This is the living space of short films in the traditional market, living next to feature films, but today there is no such industry practice. For now,"short films" can only survive in various film festivals and are not for profit. They are part of independent production, with low or no cost (sponsored by someone). The main function of short films is to allow newcomers to practice, increase their experience, and showcase and prove their talents in order to attract private investors, entertainment companies or film studios to invest in their feature films, so as to ultimately make contributions. Short films themselves cannot support a self-contained business model.

In the early days of movies, long and short films coexisted and were popular, especially comedy short films. Before the 1920s, a movie ticket included a feature and several extras: feature 1, feature 2, comedy short, 5-to 10-minute cartoons and news documentaries. Comedy short films are particularly popular and can usually form series. This should be the prototype and originator of modern TV sitcoms. Cartoon short films are mainly short themes, and news documentaries are also standard for extras. All production companies have short film development and production departments. Especially in the silent film era and the early days of sound films, many companies mainly produced short films, or even only produced short films. This is the early form of film, and what we now call "micro-film" is an atavistic and regression to this "origin". In the 1930s, due to the Great Depression, the distribution system changed dramatically. The rise of dual feature films has led to the decline of previous dual short films as commercial categories. By the 1940s, many short film stars of that time no longer starred in short films but focused on creating feature films, leaving only a few natural continuations of early series and animated short films from Disney and Warner in theaters. By the 1950s, television rose and the commercial screening of short films came to an end."The Three Clowns" became the terminator of the short film era, completely withdrawing from the historical stage in 1959.

However, this "short film" type that has long disappeared in the world's mainstream market has become a sub-industry of "micro-movies" and "big online movies" due to the "spillover" effect of our film industry with overcapacity and limited capacity. This is undoubtedly the biggest dilution of movies on the Internet.

Extension is that the movie itself uses the Internet to extend its commercial life, enhance its communication effect, and stretch its long tail effect. Dilution is the compromise of the film itself to the Internet. Empowering the Internet is a typical example of cutting one's feet to fit one's shoes. Film and the Internet coexist and co-prosper: it must be the icing on the cake, not the embroidery of sacks. Although countless Internet universities that have been surfing hot spots, although they are "happy to run"(Internet universities produce more than 3000 films per year, and tens of thousands of micro-movies), they are always thin and indifferent, and have no heritage."Blue and thin mushrooms","thinking carefully is extremely scary." Just like countless hot words on the Internet, this is a great dilution of content by the Internet. Over time, it will definitely lead to dilution of thinking, culture, talent and audience. The industry and academic circles must pay attention to this.

If movies are sweet alcohol, then commercial films can be called spirits, art films can be grape wine, and garbage films are nothing more than alcohol or even industrial alcohol. The rest of the various copycat clones that appear in the name of movies, whether they are micro-movies or big online movies, are drinks mixed with water, and have no expressive value in the movie context.

A new round of negotiations with Hollywood will begin in 2017. By then, China's film market can only be more open and imported films will become more fierce. Since 1994, when China filmmakers exclaimed "The wolf is coming" to the present, in a protective environment where Hollywood films can only "endure humiliation and swallow the burden" or even "bow and bow", some of our filmmakers have not only failed to cultivate their internal skills and retreat to form a network. Instead, they have been swept by the anti-intellectual flow of their capital, drifting with the tide, fishing in troubled waters, wasting hard-won opportunity costs and time costs, and diluting our film content beyond recognition. So there was the beginning of this summer's summer vacation.

Editor: Nancy