2020-07-27

SIFF Forum丨Cinema Resumes Work Inspiring Online Movie Watching in the ascendant

During the six months when cinemas were shut down due to the epidemic, click rate and subscribers on streaming media platforms worldwide have increased significantly. Now, China\'s cinemas have finally reopened. Will audiences return to cinemas when they are accustomed to "cloud" life? Under the wave of mobile Internet, what new forms will appear in the future on movie distribution and screening? At the Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) Forum held yesterday afternoon, domestic and foreign filmmakers discussed and exchanged ideas on the topic of "New Trends in Film Distribution and Screening".

Difficulties did not erode the confidence of filmmakers.

All the filmmakers who participated in the forum still remember the New Year movie season six months ago. This New Year movie season was originally expected to hit a record high at the box office, but it failed because of the epidemic. And many shooting movies and TV plays have to stop filming.

Jiang Wusheng, Managing Director of Beijing United Entertainment Partners Culture & Media Co., Ltd., said that the impact of the epidemic on the cinamas was unprecedented. "Two days before the Spring Festival, we were still having a meeting to discuss a point and try every means to arrange a certain film, but suddenly we didn\'t have to do anything. Our industry has never experienced things like this in the past ten years or so. However, experiencing this history together can make us calm down and think about something. It is still an old saying: if the heart is still there, the dream is still there, there is still hope. "

After the cinema was closed, ticketing websites began large-scale refund work. Zheng Zhihao, CEO of Maoyan Entertainment, recalled that Maoyan Entertainment refunded more than 5 million tickets in three days, involving more than 200 million yuan. However, the sense of responsibility to consumers and cinemas will not disappear. "Today, we should calm down more deeply, improve our own services and works, and have patience to produce excellent products. I believe that no winter is hard to pass, and no spring is hard to come."

A good sign is that after the cinemas nationally resumed work in an orderly manner since July 20, Zheng Zhihao originally predicted that the weekend box office would exceed 10 million yuan, but surprisingly the national total box office would exceed 30 million yuan on July 25.

The Emperor Entertainment Group Limited originally had a film to release at the Spring Festival. Zhang Yimou\'s Impasse is also being filmed. But these movies had to stop because of the epidemic. The General Manager Liang Lin said: "Zhang Yimou wanted to give everyone a two-day holiday during the Spring Festival, but he didn\'t expect it to be 70 days. These 70 days seem to be holidays, but they are the busiest holidays for my production team. For our first-line producers, this experience is very rare and we have learned a lot."

The situation in New Classics Media Corporation is very similar. Li Ning, president of New Classics Media Corporation, said that at that time, two films of the corporation were all stopped, and the film and television bases such as Xiangshan and Hengdian were all shut down. "The epidemic caused great damage in the screening terminal, the publicity terminal and the production. However, the hearts of our filmmakers are still hot. Our creation and publicity will not stop, and the return to normal in the future is just around the corner."

Legendary East CEO Liu Siru said that the impression of the New Year movie season can be described by the word "thrilling", but it does make filmmakers calm down and make a summary of the past. "In the past few years, we have been saying that China will become the world\'s largest film market. I think the epidemic has actually accelerated the process. We can see that after nearly 180 days of unopened cinemas, the opening of cinemas is such a good situation and one ticket for the film festival is hard to find. These are all particularly encouraging."

The new mode of watching movies online is changing the traditional mode "one person, one ticket".

During the epidemic period, both at home and abroad, many films originally planned to be released offline were transferred online, and there were also attempts at new business models such as advanced on-demand. Both in terms of box office revenue and attracting members, the performance was remarkable.

However, at present, the movie viewing experience in cinemas is still unmatched by online forms. IMAX China CEO Chen Yuanpeng said that in the future, more good films, good technologies and good content will be produced to attract people into cinemas, such as 1917, Tenet and Mulan and other blockbusters are under planning.

Also in cinemas, KINO China put forward the concept of "interactive movie". The so-called "interactive movie" means that the audience can make choices with their mobile phones in the cinema, and the movie will push forward the plot according to different choices. President Huang Guoxian said that KINO\'s interactive movie Good Night will land one after another next year.

As early as February 2007, shortly after Netflix launched its online movie business, Efe Cakarel launched a video-on-demand service focusing on international and independent movies, which is now MUBI. MUBI\'s biggest feature is to manually select movies and then allow subscribers to watch movies. Founder and CEO Efe Cakarel interacted with the guests from a distance by connecting them. Efe Cakarel said that according to his personal observation, the trend of watching movies at home has become stronger and stronger in the past five years, especially during the epidemic, the speed of watching movies at home has accelerated. "So the number of customers subscribed to video websites is also increasing. As MUBI\'s strategy, we do not intend to replace the cinema, but to complement the cinema to make movies more accessible to audiences." The number of MUBI subscribers has increased by 30-40% every year, while in the first half of this year alone, the number of subscribers has more than doubled.