Author Apo
2023 is undoubtedly the year of recovery for the film and television industry, and the continuous hits and word-of-mouth dramas at the beginning of the year have given the market and the audience a lot of confidence.
In fact, the project broadcast is only a kind of stock release, and the real recovery is slow and long, and film and television companies need to adjust their strategies to deal with a long-term battle. The popularity and positive market feedback of dramas such as "Stars Fall into Sugar", "The Legend of Yunxiang", "Warm and Sweet", "Protecting the Heart", "Chasing the Light", "* Mission" and "Welcome to McNugget Village" show the outside world Perfect World Film's determination to adhere to high-quality output in the future.
Zeng Yingxue, Senior Vice President of Perfect World and Head of Perfect World's Film and Television Business, said with a smile that creators who are still in the film and television industry always feel pressure and difficulties, but when the real work is broadcast and recognized, all the gloom can disappear, which is the reason for love and persistence.
The industry's transformation and recovery after a decade of ups and downs
Perfect World Film & TV has been established for 15 years, and it is a group of people who have truly experienced the rapid and drastic changes in the industry in the past 10 years. Rich experience and strong creator resources are the foundation for a smooth transition during the painful period, and at the same time, relying on market insight to make strategic adjustments that are of great exemplary significance to the industry, this is also the value and significance of the existence of leading companies.
Entertainment Capital: Please describe the film and television environment in 2023 in one sentence.
Zeng Yingxue:2023 is a year of change and recovery for the film and television industry. From subject matter to production, from broadcast to revenue, from word-of-mouth to revenue, all aspects have undergone great changes. In general, under the dual influence of policy background and market demand, the market has picked up, the quality of works has improved, and dramas have been further optimized in many aspects such as project establishment, production, review, and broadcast.
Entertainment Capital: Explain these changes in detail.
Zeng Yingxue:Specifically,From the perspective of policy and market, cost reduction, efficiency increase, and high-quality development are the key words. With the industry consensus of "reducing costs and increasing efficiency" and "improving quality and reducing quantity", the scale and competitiveness of the film and television drama market are constantly improving, and the holding of major awards and platform activities has made the overall market atmosphere more active.
For example, the Notice of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television on Further Strengthening the Content Management of Online Audiovisual Programs regulates the content, duration, broadcast, and advertising of film and television dramas, and the Notice of the State Administration of Taxation on Improving Tax Policies for the Film and Television Industry improves the tax policies and preferential measures for the film and television industry.
From the perspective of subject matter and creation, high-quality and diversified are the key words. In 2022, a considerable number of "epics of civilian life" will emerge on the screen, and TV series adapted from serious literature and realistic themes will be released frequently. In 2023, the literary works of emerging platforms such as Douban Reading and Zhihu will begin to become drama adaptations**, and manga dramas will emerge suddenly;The characteristics of the micro-short drama category with light volume, fast rhythm and short duration are becoming more and more mature, and the main audio-visual ** have promoted the audience's cognition and consumption of micro-short dramas with theatrical operations.
From the perspective of communication and technology, new attempts at overseas communication and AIGC are the key words. The "Opinions on Promoting the High-quality Development of Foreign Culture" issued in July 2022 mentioned that the creation and export of films, TV dramas, documentaries, cartoons, and variety shows will be supported, and film and television production institutions will be encouraged to carry out international cooperation. In 2023, we actively responded to the call and strived to promote Chinese stories to the global stage, and the TV series "Welcome to McNuggets Village", as the first China-Africa cooperative TV series, was filmed in Africa and mobilized more than 1,400 foreign personnel and 190 resident actors.
The development of AIGC technology has brought new possibilities to film and television production. Many platforms and production companies have already explored AIGC technology in script writing, script evaluation, visual effects production, and more.
Entertainment Capital: In the past 10 years, have you felt the ups and downs of the industry?
Zeng Yingxue:The past decade in the film and television industry has been "changing". With the influx and exit of capital, the opening and ending of the traffic era, coupled with the changes in channels, users and social environment, we have witnessed the highs and lows of the industry.
Specifically,2013 2018 is a period of rapid development. Ten years ago, the development and popularization of Internet technology had a significant impact on the film and television industry, not only greatly changing the way content is produced and distributed, but also bringing new audience groups and market opportunities. The industry has moved towards a stage of savage growth, of course, a number of classic works have been created during this period, and Perfect World Film and Television's "Fragrant Honey Sinks Like Frost" is the dark horse of the summer of 2018.
2018 2022 is a period of pain and adjustment for the industry. Since 2018, the film and television industry has ushered in the crisis of de-"bubble", market adjustment, three-year epidemic, etc., multiple difficulties have been superimposed, and most companies have lost money;In 2022, the film and television industry will be listed as an extremely difficult industry by the relevant state departments, and we are also facing unprecedented pressure in the process.
Starting in 2023, the industry will return to the essence of creation and call for self-expression. As the so-called eternal tiredness is accompanied by occasional surprises, at the beginning of 2023, the market has a strong momentum of recovery, and the recovery signals released by platforms and policies have given practitioners confidence.
Entertainment Capital: After three years of great changes in society and industry, what do you think is the next creative trend?
Zeng Yingxue:The film and television industry is going through an important period of transformationAmong them, thematic creations are gradually moving towards regularization and high-quality products. The grand narrative of the future is meeting the challenge, and the "little people" are more favored by the screen. At present, several major theme works we are developing and producing are focusing on the big stories of small people and small stories of big people in the grand historical background, integrating a young narrative style and rigorous and realistic characters, with grand intentions but never empty.
among othersMajor realistic themesThere is "Welcome to McNuggets Village", which has just ended and the theme of the 60th anniversary of the dispatch of China's foreign aid medical team, and "Happy Grass", a key project with the theme of "The Belt and Road" based on Juncao expert Lin ZhanxiMajor historical themesThere is "The Skylark Calling Tianlu", which is based on the ups and downs of the life of Peking Opera actor Tan Xinpei, and "The Forbidden City Like a Dream", which conveys the spirit of craftsmanship and tells the story of the construction of the Forbidden CityMajor revolutionary themesThere are "Nine Bullet Holes" based on the image of real revolutionary generals.
In additionRealistic themesThe industry has been enhanced, and the types of occupations have been continuously expandedCostume dramaThere is a creative trend of small but beautiful, with more stories with small incisions and new perspectives, and elements such as character legends and love growth falling into more civilian life and market culture, and more meaningful content will be injected into it.
High-quality development, quality control upgrading
The progress and change of the times have brought about the increase of experience and the improvement of efficiency, so Perfect World Film and Television has accumulated different teams and strategies, optimized quality control, and expanded the influence of its works through new market changes. The high-quality development of the industry is inseparable from the efforts and progress of each film and television company.
Entertainment Capital: What kind of production capacity can be achieved by the current scale of Perfect World Films?
Zeng Yingxue:For us,"The drama is big".We pay more attention to the quality of the work. We will adjust the output of the current year according to market demand and the company's project reserves, taking this year as an example, we have launched a total of 9 long dramas and 6 short dramas. What we pay more attention to is how to continuously improve the quality of our content and audience reputation while maintaining stable output, so as to promote the sustainable and healthy development of the company.
Entertainment Capital: Nine long dramas have been broadcast this year, and the feedback has been good, is this an accident or is it related to the recovery of the industry?
Zeng Yingxue:I think it's the result of a lot of effort. First of all, it is a reflection of the market recovery, which has led to the many challenges we have faced over the past three yearsA series of optimizations and adjustments have been made from many aspects such as content optimization, talent training, and technology updatingAs the industry environment improves, these efforts are starting to bear fruit. On the other hand, it is also related to our excellent production strength and overall project planning. Regardless of the general environment in the past few years, weWe have been actively preparing projects with diverse themes and formsMany projects have just entered the airing stage this year. This is the result of our long-term planning and judgment of market trends.
Entertainment Capital: Looking at Perfect World Film and Television's projects, the themes are relatively comprehensive, what kind of strategy is it based on?
Zeng Yingxue: The diversity of high-quality products has always been the core logic of our creationAs a mature film and television production company, we have a number of professional creative teams, and we also have enough resources to support them to select and incubate projects in their respective fields, which is the basis for the formation of diversity. In the future, the market will show a trend of more segmentation, and different circles of audience groups have different preferences, so we strive to cover a wide range of topics, improve the company's content planning matrix, better adapt to market changes, and attract and meet the needs of more audiences.
Entertainment Capital: What kind of quality control is there to ensure the output of high-quality and high-quantity works?
Zeng Yingxue:During the whole project production process, our quality control has two keys:The first is the development of the projectWhen the project is screened and incubated by our professional team, we will evaluate it from multiple perspectives such as content, policy, market reserves, and past data, so that the team can clearly know what the competitive environment is at the moment and whether we can move the projectThe second is the establishment of the shooting projectAt this time, the script has been brewed and mature, and it is necessary to approve the budget and spend a lot of money to start filming, and we will review and evaluate it again according to the market environment at the moment, and the evaluation will be officially started.
Entertainment Capital: Are there any works that have exceeded expectations after the broadcast this year?
Zeng Yingxue:For example, "The Legend of Yunxiang" was defined by the audience as a "new martial arts" because of the audio-visual Chinese style of ink painting, which is actually a positive feedback from the market for innovation, which we think is quite interesting;"The Day of Chasing the Light", as a rare realistic drama series focusing on educational themes in recent years, portrays realistic character group portraits in inspirational stories and cinematic expressions, and has received good feedback after being broadcast on CCTV.
Entertainment Capital: In terms of TV stations, CCTV has performed very strongly in recent years, is it a good thing for film and television companies?
Zeng Yingxue:That's right, the so-called "big drama watching the main station", now many dramas hope to be broadcast on CCTV, which is different from the situation three years ago, and I think it is also closely related to the big economic environment. Advertising-based first-line satellite TV has been impacted, and short content such as Doukuai has squeezed out the market space, and film and television companies are also looking forward to more high-quality platform channels. In the past two years, big dramas such as "The World" and "Hurricane" have been broadcast on CCTV, and more and more viewers want to go to CCTV to watch good dramas, which is also a positive effect, and we will also have many works such as "Happy Grass" that may be broadcast on CCTV in the future.
Entertainment Capital: Will it find new commercial channels for film and television dramas?
Zeng Yingxue:Yes, in addition to limited sales channels, film and television dramas also have a feature called "one-shot deal", which is not a friendly model for the producer, we will hope that the project copyright can be long-term, so that we can do more with the help of the power of the project.
For example:Taking content as the origin of all-round development, doing some implantation, peripherals, etc., these are all long-tail effects;There is also serialized content,A better example is "Tales of the Tang Dynasty", which belongs to the full flowering of IP. We will also do some series of content one after another, such as "Dangerous Her 2", "Trident 2", "The Legend of Yunxiang 2";also includes "Rock and Roll Crazy Flowers" broadcast last year, which is a "Crazy Flower Series" in cooperation with iQiyi, and we will continue to do it;We are also moving forward with some projects in the future in a serialized manner.
It's all in the making, and we want to create something that is interconnected and distinctive, find multiple business opportunities, and increase revenue**.
Entertainment Capital: Does Perfect World Film & Television have its own commercialization division?
Zeng Yingxue:Yes, our commercialization department is already under construction.
Long-term experience, rapid response, to "change" to change
In addition to the changes in the social and economic environment, the prosperity of the genre of micro-short dramas has greatly affected the changes in the pattern of the film and television market.
Entertainment Capital: This year, Perfect World Film's micro-short drama "Full-time Househusband Training Program" has achieved good results in broadcasting, and it is also customized by the brand, how did it achieve such success?
Zeng Yingxue:The advantage of a long-form drama company may also be the disadvantage of doing micro-short dramas, and film and television companies usually have two ways when facing micro-short dramas:One is to grasp the pulse of micro-short dramas through research and understand the creative mode, make good use of the short characteristics, and apply the experience of the long drama to it, I understand that the core of the success of "Twenty-Nine" lies in this;The other is to do derivative development on the basis of long dramas, using the long and short drama set shooting mode for IP derivation, such as "Tang Dynasty Legends".
For Perfect World Film and Television, although we have rich experience and a professional team, we are also very aware that the production method of micro-short dramas is different from that of long-form dramas, so we have formed a new young team to deal with this track. Nowadays, micro-short dramas have also gone through the stage of savage growth, and platforms such as Doukuai have increased the demand for high-quality content in order to seek a healthy and good ecology, so we will insist on making high-quality micro-short dramas and strive to improve the cost performance by continuously optimizing the process.
In additionAnother interesting feature of the micro-short drama is that the feedback is delivered in a timely manner, and the interaction and difference between the user and the audience are very strongIf we launch the first three episodes and find out which plot point the data is better, we can also immediately adjust the content of the follow-up, which is related to the characteristics of the micro-short drama. That's how we kept groping, hoping to tell a good short story.
Entertainment Capital: In terms of micro-short dramas, what is the cooperation model between Perfect World Film and the platform?
Zeng Yingxue:We have a lot of strategic cooperation with Douyin, and we communicate closely and explore the ecology and business model. Of course, the industry ecology of micro-short dramas is also iterating very quickly, for example, if we are doing this project now, maybe after three months, we find that it is not feasible or the policy changes, we will immediately adjust it, and cooperate with platforms such as Doukuai, which can make our adjustment more rapid.
In addition, in terms of subject matter, our "Full-time Househusband Training Plan" is a topic that digs deep into 30+ women and families, "Wake Up!".Love Brain is a 20+ female love topicWe will continue to do these two 20+ and 30+ women's tracks. and the recent hits "The Little Lady in the House" and "I'm Going to Do This Villain".It is a horizontal screen micro-short drama with a duration of about 10 minutes, and we will cooperate with a long-** platform like Aiyou Tengmang. We are currently created by different teams for vertical and horizontal short dramas, and we will adjust specific strategies in a timely manner through platform feedback.
Entertainment Capital: This year, mini program dramas have sprung up, is there anything we can learn from in this aspect of the single-chip payment model?
Zeng Yingxue:The single-film payment model of mini program dramas is what the film and television industry is looking forward to, and if the whole industry can realize it, it should have developed to a very healthy state, which may take a long time, which is a very interesting thing for creators.
However, mini program dramas mainly spend relatively high costs on streaming, while long dramas spend a lot on production, and there may be no way to superimpose the cost of streaming, so what can be learned from the model may need to wait for whether long-form dramas can achieve single-film payment in the future.
Entertainment Capital: Last year, we also discussed the use of digitalization, and this year AIGC technology has also been added to film and television creation
Zeng Yingxue:We have been focusing on and researching how to improve the efficiency of film and television content through AI. Now AI is still in the basic application stageIt will only frame a boundary for you in terms of content at present, and the actual creativity still needs human inspiration to fill in, because this requires the creator's personal experience and in-depth understanding of society to complete;In addition, in terms of evaluation, AI can judge works on a business trip, but it is difficult to select excellent works. Therefore, at present, AI mainly plays a basic auxiliary role.
Also at the stage of shooting,AI can quickly allocate actors' schedules according to the volume of the scene and scene arrangement in the overall planning processFor example, for a 300,000-word script, AI can count all the sessions and label them within a few minutes, such as the number of times a scene is used in the whole script and what the number of sessions is, which is much more efficient and accurate than manual production.
In fact, the Ziying Zhizuo system developed by our own team has now entered the stage of testing the basic sub-field and overall functions, and it should take two or three months to go online, which can improve our efficiency in this area to a certain extent.
Entertainment Capital: What projects will be launched next for Perfect World Films?
Zeng Yingxue:"Only This Jianghu Dream", "Red Heat", "Executive Board", "Jewel on the Side", "Today's Them", "Love Haijun Blue", "Dangerous Her 2", "Nine Bullet Holes", "Happy Grass", "A Thousand Peach Blossoms Bloom", "Good Luck" and other works are in the process of production, distribution and broadcasting, and will meet you as soon as possible. In addition, new projects such as "The Night is Thick", "You Are the Sugar of the Time Pie", and "Shhhhh Perfect World Film and Television will continue to keep up with the development of the times, explore multiple genres, and always grasp the texture of high-quality products, pursue richness and innovation in its creation, and create a "serialized" content matrix.
Entertainment Capital: Today's film and television industry iterates rapidly, what kind of new stage may your industry usher in next?
Zeng Yingxue:According to the "2023 China Drama Development Report", the number of TV drama headquarters that have obtained the "Domestic TV Drama Distribution License" in 2022 is only one-third of that in 2012, and the number of TV drama departments has been decreasing for ten consecutive years, and the total number of episodes has also decreased for seven consecutive years. Although the output has declined, the average rating of platforms such as Douban has increased year by year, and in the past two years, there have been a number of peak works in the market that have been widely recognized by the audience. It can be seenThe "quality improvement and reduction" of the film and television drama industry has achieved initial results.
Still, we face many challenges, especially in terms of subject matter and genre innovation. For example, short series have achieved some success in suspense themes, but have not yet found a mature landing mode in other genres. At the same time, the development of account-sharing dramas has not improved significantly. These phenomena point to the fact that while the Chinese TV drama industry is pursuing high-quality development, it also needs to continue to work content innovation and diversity.
I would like to conclude by sayingFilm and television works are not only the carrier of entertainment, but also can bring spiritual power for goodExcellent film and television works play an important role in promoting cultural self-confidence and self-improvement. In the face of unknown challenges, Perfect World Film and Television will continue to devote its energy to creating high-quality products that can not only touch people's hearts but also be widely recognized, and strive to promote China's TV drama industry to new heights through innovation and cooperation, and contribute to the construction of a cultural power.