2019-06-22

SIFFORUM｜The Future of China's Film Derivatives Industry: Between High-quality Content and Cultural

On the morning of June 21, the SIFFORUM of the 22nd SIFF held the forum of "New Cultural Travel and New consumption - New Blue Ocean for Film Industry Enablement".

Lin Jiawen, Vice President and General Manager of Greater China and Korean Consumer goods of Walt Disney Company, Fu Xiaoran, General Marketing Manager of Alibaba Pictures and Alifish, Chi Zemiao, Vice President of BANDAI NAMCO (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Zhu Hairong, Deputy General Manager of CFGC (Beijing) Marketing Co., Ltd., Zhang Tingting, Derivatives Business General Manager of Pearl Studio, Chen Jianyu, Party Secretary and Director of Administrative Committee of Ningbo Film and Television Culture Industry Zone, Li Yuhao, assistant president of SUNAC Culture Group and General Manager of Content and Investment Center, Yu Zhiqing, Vice President and Secretary General of Shanghai Broadcasting, Film & Television Producers Association, attended the forum. Liu Haibo, professor of Shanghai Film Academy of Shanghai University, was invited to preside over the forum. Participants discussed the consumption of film IP and its future application at the level of live entertainment.

Base on the native country, explore the market potential

The forum started with the keynote speech by Lin Jiawen. At Disney, consumers and movies complemented and achieved each other, "Disney is not an IP company, but a consumer-centric consumer goods company", he said, Disney derivatives seen on the market today were all completed 18-24 months ahead of schedule and in collaboration with local authorized dealers.

Zhu Hairong believed that the development of China\'s film derivatives industry should be led by domestic films, and the vision of CFGC was to lead the film derivatives industry of domestic films.

Zhu Hairong said that THE WANDERING EARTH had a market-derived product capacity of about 800 million, creating a new high in the domestic film, and then would try to make it into the long-line IP, including the development of theme park, theme hotel and so on. If it could continue to develop, market capacity would increase several times.

However, Fu Xiaoran pointed out that the entire Chinese film derivatives market was still in the stage of development, compared with the more mature foreign markets, the share was not large. From this we could see that the derivatives market potential of Chinese films was still very huge.

Zhang Tingting further added that the Chinese derivatives business was currently far lower than the market share of the international derivatives business, which was related to the content base. For example, China\'s annual animation production capacity had not reached the standard of the United States, and the cultural and creative institutions and movie stars participated in IP building in the United States. But Chinese stars and creative IP was at starting stage.

Chi Zemiao said that Japanese derivatives could account for 40% of the film revenue because there was a relatively mature industry chain, and the seamless connection from upstream content to midstream owners and producers and to downstream channels could be achieved. However, China was still in the early stage of development, and the whole industry chain still need to be improved, but it was believed that China\'s film industry chain would develop rapidly.

Base on content, select the appropriate IP

For what kind of IP is suitable for the development of derivatives, Chi Zemiao said that the first was to impress users, the most fundamental was to make users, IP and content resonant. Then it looked at the worldview of the content, character setting, richness of the characters and the plot of the story, etc. Among them, the stars and cast of live action played a great role, while quadratic films payed more attention to the world outlook and image setting which could resonate with the audience and the star effect of dubbing actors.

Zhang Tingting pointed out that, for China\'s authorized industry, consumers were more likely to accept animation, because the share of children\'s market in the licensing industry was relatively large, and there were limitations in the live action, such as the image right of stars. Derivatives were sold depending on product characteristics, so it was necessary to determine what product to develop according to IP category and characteristics.

Zhu Hairong believed that a film suitable for the development of derivatives needed to have a strong market influence first. If the film is unsuccessful, the derivative product would no longer exist. The IP strong market influence was the prerequisite of the derivative industry.

Zhu Hairong also said that, from the film type, the first category was animated film, and the second category was science fiction film. Because the important characteristics of the animated and science fiction films were the creativity of the film element, which have the characteristics of authorization.

Fu Xiaoran said that when choose the copyright and carry out the authorized industry, it was first to see if the IP was hot enough and initial, the second was the potential for IP, that is, the product phase, and the third was what to be hatched and pushed. The mode of Alifish was to rely on the complete industrial chain closed-loop to help merchants solve the whole derivative chain, from the product design link to the middle approval link, then to the marketing promotion link and the last channel laying link, to help the copyright party to improve the exposure rate of the whole IP.

Bidirectional enablement of IP content and live entertainment

Focusing on the combination of film IP and live entertainment, Chen Jianyu said that China\'s future films should develop towards industrialization, and film and television bases should also develop towards studio and factory. The cultural and travel project of the film and television base should be used as a derivative of the film and television base, which brought the transformation of other IP and the value of tourism through the shooting of the film and television, so that the film and television base was vital.

Li Yuhao said that the logic of bi-directional enabling between IP content and real-time entertainment was being studied and developed, and the good IP content was landed in the park, and the whole content chain was opened. And the core of the whole industrial chain of culture was to build long-chain IP, and the travel that can start from the IP, to the content and shooting to the culture and travel city IP in the whole later stage.

Yu Zhiqing, based on the background of the establishment of the Shanghai Broadcasting, Film & Television Producers Association, said that seven policies to promote the development of Shanghai films were promulgated at the Shanghai Film Work Conference in 2014, the seventh of which was the establishment of an integrated service mechanism for Shanghai film and television facilities. For this reason, a Shanghai film and television production service organization was set up to coordinate the management of film and television shooting in Shanghai, as well as policy consultation. Since last year, film and television shooting services have formed a standardized service system, and are expected to extend film and television services to the Yangtze River Delta.

As an important part of SIFF, this SIFFORUM was held from June 16 to June 22, with 10 forums and 5 "film school" activities. The 22nd SIFF was entitled gift for the 70th anniversary of the founding of the new China, and the promotion of Chinese film from the big country to great power, went deep into all aspects of the film industry, carried out a smart impact around the film industrialization, industrial chain, science fiction film, film education, mainstream film innovation and other topics, oriented a deep and realistic "Belt and Road " film exchange and display of the film art, to help Chinese films move towards a better future.