Production | Tiger Sniff Young Group
Author | Chang Fangfei
The title picture comes from: Oriental IC
On January 31, the Television Production Committee and the Actors Committee of the Federation of Radio and Television Social Organizations issued a “Notice” a few days ago, demanding that during the new pneumonia epidemic, all film and television production companies and production crews suspend filming and filming. So far, it means that the entire film and television industry will stop for a period of time.
“In the first and second quarters, when all crews started, the epidemic situation meant that all projects were shut down,” said screenwriter Li Lei.
Stop shooting, and it ’s difficult to play the finished video.
As of now, three films, “Mystery of Arrival,” “Buckwheat Crazy,” and “Jojo’s Whimsical World,” have announced their withdrawal from Valentine’s Day. Earlier, on January 23, “Chinatown Detective 3” “Winning the Championship” (formerly known as “Chinese Women’s Volleyball Team”) “Aunt Mom” ” All seven films of the Chinese New Year file of Emergency Rescue, “Pioneer”, “Ginger Ziya”, and “Bear Infestation · Wild Continent” have been withdrawn. At the same time, the refund mechanism for Cat Eye and Amoy Tickets has also been activated.
Li Lei is obviously more distressed by these seven films. “ This is the best Chinese New Year file I’ve seen in my career .”
This judgment is based on at least two levels. The first is The type of movie covering all moviegoers (Comedy, Suspense, Theme) , Animation) ; second, high content quality brought by high capital investment . “Tang Tan 3” director Chen Sicheng has confessed in an interview with Tiger Sniff that the investment of this film is double that of “Tang Tan 2” “You can see (a lot of money) at a glance of many shots,” he said. “Emergency Rescue” director Lin Chaoxian said in an interview with the media that the entire movie invested more than 700 million.
But everything was disrupted by the outbreak. In a split second, the biggest advantages of the Spring Festival stalls—high attendance and fully sinking ticket warehouses—have become the biggest hidden dangers at this moment.
According to consulting company AAccording to the data of rtisan Gateway, the box office of the theater that is still open from January 24th to 26th is a total of US $ 2 million, and the box office of the three days before the same period in 2019 was US $ 507 million, which is less than the same period last year.
Comparison of the most affected Hong Kong film industry during SARS in 2003. At the time, Hong Kong’s box office revenue continued to fall. In the worst Easter movie season, the total income of 60 cinemas in Hong Kong for four days was only 9 million yuan, and the average daily price of each cinema was less than 40,000. . Some shows were so bad that they couldn’t sell a single ticket, so they had to cancel the show.
For the mainland film market, although Zhang Yimou’s “Hero” directed at the end of 2002 created a 250 million box office miracle, at the same time, the first SARS patient was also admitted to Foshan for treatment. The vitality of the entire movie market did not slowly recover until the end of the year .
An employee of a front-line film and television company said: “I think the film industry is completely in the cold winter.”
But on the other hand, new opportunities may come at the same time as spring.
After SARS, the film authority has accelerated industrialization. In 2004, it produced 212 feature films, an increase of 51% from 140 in 2003. At the same time, the single-chip box office officially opened the era of 100 million yuan. The total box office of “Kung Fu”, “Ambush on the Ten Sides” and “A World Without Thieves” all exceeded 100 million yuan. The 2003 champion movie “Mobile Phone” had only 56 million box office.
After pressing the Pause button
Pictures from stills
17 years later, the film and television industry is experiencing unprecedented shocks.
“How does the current epidemic affect your work?”
When IThrow this question. Li Lei, on the other side of the phone, didn’t speak for a long time and sighed.
The screenwriter is almost the only front-end job in the industry that can still start. The producers screamed in the circle of friends-“I know you can write a script in two days, and hurry up.” But in fact they are also experiencing the most difficult moment.
The first is the sharp drop in revenue. “This year’s New Year is already early, and many of the expenses last year were too late to settle before the year before.” In the plan, if the project starts as scheduled in the first quarter, she can get the income of the previous stage. But now, all the middle and lower reaches of the film and television industry are shut down, and the payment is even more distant. All this has failed.
She repeatedly emphasized that The screenwriter type of work has no bargaining chips to negotiate with Party A . “Even if it is a well-known screenwriter recognized both inside and outside the industry (has an independent studio) , it will not prevail when negotiating with Party A. The other side Be more polite, but to be honest, you must use it. Because there are more monks and less porridge. “
It is foreseeable that the “less porridge” situation will not be relieved in the short term. The official data is that in 2018, Hengdian received a total of 378 crews. In 2019, this number dropped to 304, a 20% reduction.
Li Lei can only push forward the project while appeasing a partner who is angry because he did not want to get the money back.
In an instant, living in Beijing has become a problem. “There is a lot of pressure. Beijing’s rent and daily expenses are all problems. I can only carry it myself. Of course, everyone has to carry it for a while.” She said.
The front end is tight, and the middle and lower reaches of the industrial chain are also bad.
In several interviews, the consensus of the practitioners is that many small film and publicity companies have long been closed. (as of December 2019, domestic A total of 3,313 film and television companies and 1033 film and television studios were shut down. , and In order to resist risks, capital has long been concentrated on head projects of leading film and television companies .
The items that can be turned on and finished shooting are high-quality head items. This means large investment, many participants, and high publicity expenses. In other words, as long as a key project cannot be released and launched on schedule, it will cause heavy damage to the film and television company.
“downstream