2014-2020, only six years.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat official account “fly second element” , author: Takashi.
Everything in the past is a prologue.
Before and after 2014, in the US Film Studio and CCTV Animation The first generation of domestic animators who worked in CCTV turned over , From an old state-owned enterprise to start a business as a master; the children who watched the animation works of the US Film Studio and CCTV grew up and devoted themselves to the domestic animation industry with their love as the main driving force. A new wave of online animation began after the decline of TV animation.
In the next six years, domestic network animation experienced unprecedented sit-ups, sometimes it was the sweet pastry of the capital market. As long as there is a team, there is a chance to get money, sometimes it is the bottom of the pan-entertainment food chain. Goods, even if the work is done well, getting out of the circle and making money are still the biggest problems. Youku, Iqiyi, Tencent, bilibili and other video platforms continue to bring capital to enter the scene and affect animators The heart, do original or adapt, want copyright or accept outsourcing, Take the money to stand in the team or continue to mediate, the domestic animators are looking for vitality in the game with the platform.
Their living conditions are also twists and turns, sometimes dreaming about painting cakes and talking about it, each financing first is a new hope for domestic animation, sometimes crying without tears, and struggling, the hundreds of people on the team make animations that are not popular or make money , Who knows how many more years will come.
No domestic animation creators are willing to make good works. When “Nezha’s Devil Child Comes to the World” once again opens a window for domestic animation in the low period, when the video platform and animation company form a stable cooperation model, when The animation team burned five years of money and stepped on countless pits, and is still honing the team’s possibility of creating mature works. In 2020, this time the domestic animation industry bottomed out, and it has already accumulated the strength to rebound.
Chinese animation is endless.
“One”
In fact, the domestic animation before 2014 is going through the darkest moment.
In the 1990s, the reforms of CCTV Animation and Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio severely damaged the newly prosperous domestic art films. The sharp drop in subsidies, marketization, and self-financing became the three major survival crit in animation at that time. Immediately after that, talents in the industry were rapidly drained, the first generation of old artists retired one after another, and the animation teams that failed to market were transformed one after another, and the star review of non-younger works became increasingly strict. The continuous impact caused the development of domestic animation to become deadlocked.
As a result, the entire domestic animation industry in the early 21st century began to polarize. On the one hand, all in children’s animation works, making industrial films and selling toys and other peripheral products quickly made profits, and making feature films relied on the annual movie to become the soul; the other side On the other hand, they are receiving outsourcing from Japan, Europe and the United States, and relying on production costs to support the team. Many companies have stable sources of livelihood and very substantial profits.
This situation continued until around 2014. The Internet and mobile Internet have revolutionized the distribution channels of cultural and entertainment content. TV stations are no longer the only one, and the Internet has become a new opportunity for domestic animation dissemination. The user group is dominated by the post-80s and post-90s who have experienced the booming period of domestic animation and smoothly transitioned to the new generation of 00. The video platform’s snatching of live-action content is coming to an end. The bottleneck has emerged. The blue ocean on the demand side is eagerly looking forward to the new generation of domestic animation. arrival.
“Hundred Thousand Cold Jokes” fired the first shot. The latest “Rise of National Comics” in contemporary history has officially kicked off, or more precisely, this time is the advent of the domestic network animation era of domestic TV animation transformation. After the hilarious Japanese-style short animation “Ten Cold”, the domestically-made long-drama comic changes “Brother Corpse” and “Soul Soul Street” followed closely, a large wave of “new” animation categories for adults, with the domestic With the explosion of mobile Internet sweeping the market, animation no longer belongs to children only.
That year, young netizens across the country met an animation team famous for adapting head cartoons, called Lu Hengyu and Li Shujie Studio, which is Al square. This is the second most competitive at the time Dimension Motion The painting company has naturally gained the favor of capital, and it will continue to take With the investment of Innovation Workshop, Tencent, and Wutongshu Capital, the two-handedly grasped animation fan drama animation film, and even started to form a three-dimensional animation team.
A little earlier, the capitals who were new to animation have also successively found original 3D animation companies that have persisted in the TV animation era, the production team of the “Qin Shi Mingyue” seriesMystery Technology, the production team of the “Painting Rivers and Lakes” series Ruosen Digital bears the brunt. Based on this, they took the lead in realizing the transition from TV animation to network animation in content, and developed animated adaptations of live-action dramas and animated adaptations of games, developed into a full-process team of 100 people, and became the preferred material for subsequent storytelling in the entire industry.
It is difficult to make original animations, not only in terms of money and people, which is why we later saw that more than 80% of the entire domestic animation industry are adapted works. However, in the early stage of the development of domestic network animation, the biggest adaptation material came from popular games at home and abroad. The early game fan animations made by the great gods “La La La De Marcia” series, “My name is MT” series, “Look at your sister” series, “Crazy Hero”, etc. continued to be popular, and many game companies were moved. Formally cooperated with animation studios to develop original or adapted content, which is still a classic work until now. For example, Xindong.com and Coastline Studio have collaborated with the original science fiction animation “Nano Core”, Pixel Software, Tencent and China Film Year Cooperative game adaptation animation “The Adventure of the Brave”, Gaia Interactive Entertainment and Seven Creative Society’s original animation “Bump World” etc. /p>
From the creative perspective, the style of this stage has achieved rapid development with reference to the “new” domestically produced 3D animation of mainstream game CG, and has also achieved the original accumulation of talents, laying a solid foundation for everyone to dig out people in the future. For the industry, network animation has also begun to change from randomly dropping short dramas to a stable update mode that can be changed for half a month and weekly.
In contrast, domestically produced two-dimensional animation creation is more concentrated at this time. Except for Aire in ChengduSum of Squares to be as small and beautiful as “Luo Xiaohei Zhan Ji”, persistence A studio with Chinese-style small works in the new year, the old film studio was renamed after its establishment in 1998. Foch Television< /a>With its superb skills in outsourcing Japanese animation, Qilingshi Animation has become the Whampoa Military Academy for domestic two-dimensional animation in the follow-up free shipping area by virtue of its mature fan drama creation ability.
In 2013, Li Hao LingThe guide is based on the popular online game “League of Legends” animation work “Lu Times” made its successful debut, and There is a monsterCooperated with the animation “Bantou Diary”, and then established the Haoliners Dream Painter New Animation Alliance to direct “Ace Royal History” and “Mr. Marvel in China”. In 2015, Shanghai Huijie Culture Communication Co., Ltd. was established, called Dream Animation for short. Director Wang Xin joined, and construction of the largest domestic 2D animation factory started. He cooperated with Youqi on “Young Bee”, with Underwing Wind on “The Rabbit That Year”, with iQiyi on “Spirit”, and with Tencent Animation on “Fox Fairy Little Matchmaker”.
At that time, Tencent Animation was still a paper airplane with “anime without boundaries and unlimited dreams”. AcFun, the “Chinese home culture base”, has experienced the first round of turmoil and moved to Beijing Wangjing. bilibili welcomes its new chairman Chen Rui and enters the right track of rapid development. The battle for daily purchases of major video platforms is in full swing. Iqiyi has spent hundreds of millions to buy the exclusive broadcasting rights of “One Piece”, LeTV, Sohu Video Animation Channel, Youku Animation, Tudou Animation, Station A, Station B They have joined the new panic buying army, striving to be the best platform for animation.
At that time, the video platform did not have the habit of purchasing domestically produced animations. Everyone who made works was uploaded on multiple platforms across the network, and there was no such thing as member payment and click sharing. This makes many works only get a PV or only episode 0 and episode 1, and they enter the indefinite pigeon cage. At that time, the income of domestic animation practitioners was not ideal, the investment in original works was large, and the realization model was chaotic. In order to support the team, except for the very few lucky ones who can receive a package from the game company, most of them have to rely on animation training and post-production outsourcing of film and television to make ends meet.
Compared with the patchwork of fan dramas, animated movies are more for the love of power and rely on crowdfunding to continue their lives. But it is relying on rounds of crowdfunding, “Return of the Great Sage” 900 million box office shocked the world, followed by “Big Fish and Begonia” 600 million box office to tell the still waiting capital and entrepreneurs, let’s end, audience It is indeed possible to pay for domestic non-younger animation. But after all, there are few film teams. For the animators at that time, betting on films is equivalent to betting on hundreds of people’s youthful blood and income for several years. Therefore, they have the ability to produce, and the animation team that says “we also have an animated film plan” becomes The first goal of capital.
” Two “
At the time when hot money is sweeping the pan-entertainment industry, compared with the large financing of platforms, live-action dramas and games, the investment of various capitals in animation companies is only a fraction. They are very willing to spend some money to improve the investment layout, and buy early and cheap To help it complete several rounds of financing, double the valuation and then retreat.
The domestic animation industry is heating up, and a capital game driven by capital kicks off. For a while, the original outsourcing team tried to get to the stage, hoping to take the initiative through financing. The original independent animation industry leader also set up his own company with pride. According to statistics, there were nearly 40 financing events for domestic animation companies in 2016, focusing on early investment in the Angel round, Pre-A round and A round. Dreaming Animation, Zhongying Nian Nian, Virtual Impression Studio, Daqian Sunshine and other companies that have mature works Among them. Early investment to see people, some small animation studios with aura also got start-up funds, such as the “Daily in Female Dormitory” animation. And Xuanji Technology relies on “Qin Shi Mingyue”High-quality works such as “Wu Geng Ji” developed quickly to the B round, and completed Tencent’s strategic investment of nearly 200 million yuan after the 2017 Spring Festival. Zhenlei Culture, a full-Japanese animation company that participated in “Big Fish and Begonia”, “Attack on Giant”, etc., accepted the acquisition of 4 million yuan from Aofei in the first half of 2016, and had a cowardly development with another subsidiary of Aofei Cooperation.
The light that caught up with the last train of “Big Fish and Begonia” went ashore actively to find a good production capacity for the animation film industry in the following years. In 2015, Guangguang established Caitiaoya Pictures, invested in the “Yesterday Blue Sky” manga author Pocket Chocolate Comic Studio Blue Sky Paint Color, invested in the production of “The Great Guardian” in 2017 and participated in a number of two-dimensional animation films Hao Chuan animation, invested in the production company Zhong Chuan Hedao, the production company of “Jiang Ziya” to be released on National Day in 2020, He invested in Ningyu Animation, the production company of Jilin Animation Yizhihua “Tea No. 2 Middle School”, and also invested in the mysterious technology that soon ended the cooperation and withdrew.
Different from 2020, the early stage of the industry did not make many strategic investments in animation companies by film and television companies, game companies, and video platforms. First-line funds and emerging capital accounted for the majority of financial investments. You can’t tell whether they are professional and professional. , Love or charity, after all, investment is a probability event. Later, half of the animation companies that received financing in those two years developed into the most competitive domestic animation pillars, and the other half disappeared after producing one or two tepid works or even just a PV.
But no one can stop, domestic animation is in 201The hottest for 6 years. While financial investors have cast a wide network of almost all companies that can be found on the market, the comic platform and video platform that have entered a frenzied expansion period have opened a new door for animation companies to collect money-making outsourcing animation. After the initial successes in the animation works “One Hundred Thousand Cold Jokes” and “Dian Brain”, the comic platform Tencent Animation, the video platform iQiyi, and Youku Tudou rushed to enter the animation production army. However, when they first involved in animation production, they preferred Japanese production capacity and did not give domestic animation companies much dividends. Sino-Japanese co-operative drama “Dragon Heart Fighting” by Iqiyi, Youku Tudou’s “Samurai Warrior: Generals of the Stars”, Le Elements’s “Star Dreams” began broadcasting in 2016, and Tencent Animation relied on “Once upon a time there was a Spirit Sword Mountain”, “Under One Person”, “Once upon a Time There was a Spirit Sword Mountain 2”, The four masterpieces of “Silver Tombkeeper” praised the “China-Japan Cooperative Animation” as the hottest gimmick of domestic animation that year. It also became one of the most controversial topics in the industry in 2017 because of the poor quality of the film.
After all, I first entered the Japanese market to find OEMs. The Chinese producer can only spend second-rate money to find a third-rate production team. It is understood that the cost of Sino-Japanese cooperative animation that year was 40,000-70,000 yuan per minute, which was domestic at that time. 1.5-2 times the average price of animation production capacity. As the father of a fool, Chinese production has many generation gaps on the Japanese team in terms of language, culture, production process, etc., unable to point fingers, but friction is constant, and several Sino-Japanese cooperative animations have died because of this.
The so-called Sino-Japanese cooperative animation commonly seen in press releases will expand overseas markets and increase monetization channels. The quality of his works is average, and I am screamed by fans in China. When I go to the Japanese market where the animation industry is more mature, I can only spend money to buy late-night broadcasts of local TV stations as a courtesy, and make money only by thinking.
So the mask was torn, and the Japanese tide was defeated. Domestic animation producers began to officially use domestic animation companies to produce domestic animations., The trivial outsourcing of production capacity is also returned to the animation production company, they choose cheaper South Korea or even Vietnam OEM, not as a gimmick, and does not even need to appear in the ending subtitles. But obviously, most domestic animation companies are not ready to take over the whole package demand of the platform. After all, it has been difficult to do animation in the past few years. There are only a handful of companies with full-process production capabilities on the market. It is a battle for animation production capacity. it has started.
The animation production team with complete production experience has become the first choice for platform cooperation, including Xuanji Technology, Dream Animation, China Film Niannian, Foch Film and Television, etc., have successively reached outsourcing animation cooperation with the platform. In order to ensure the basic quality of the works and revitalize the overall value of the IP by the way, platform-led animation works are mainly based on novels and comics adaptations, Tencent Animation, The Reading Group and iQiyi became the best financial father of the year. Under the platform “money + supervision + leading publicity and distribution” model, animation production companies are relatively weak, and the platform’s right to speak controls the direction of the entire industry.
After all, the market is barren and the shortage is in power, the money-spending model is still effective. “Fox Fairy Little Matchmaker”, “Under One”, and “Blood Sky” became Tencent’s animation troika in 2017, and it is still commendable today. The most important thing is that the investment of major manufacturers has quickly promoted the development of the IP industry chain. At UP2017, Tencent Animation announced the news of the mobile game and live-action drama of “Fox Fairy Little Matchmaker” and “Under One Man”. The industry is excited. , Tencent Animation’s animation works totaled 10 billion views, of which 13 animations exceeded 100 million views.
For animation production companies, the outsourcing fee is hard money. In 2017, the investment in domestic animation of the head was only tens of millions. But with the endorsement of the platform cooperation project, the animation company’s financing start-up is obviously much smoother. In addition, the entire industry is still in the trial and error stage, and the imagination of original animation needs to be explored. That year, the domestic animation company had the most complete The story can be told.
To this day, I can still recite the idealized assumptions of domestic animation: by outsourcing the platform, the team has accumulated a wealth of experience, and the response has been excellent after the work was launched. Next, I hope to finance the creation of original animation works, build the top IP of the country through the development of the entire industry chain, and achieve profitability through the linkage of the movie and movie games. Whether it is licensing fees, revenue sharing, or sales of derivative products, costs can be quickly covered and a positive cycle is realized.
After all, there are only a few companies that receive platform jobs. Talking animation companies have a chance to get a share. Benchmark ABC head companies, benchmark ABC head works, refer to the ABC income model, calculate the valuation and investment in equal proportions, in short, the development of the entire industry chain, the linkage of movie games, and animation are the “best way” for IP trial and error This logic is absolutely fine. Of course, the latter facts cruelly prove that most original animation scripts are poorly produced and popular, and have no value for the development of the entire industry chain, or even the value of a complete film. But there will always be works that make people’s eyes bright. In 2017, the original animation “Convex Hero” directed by Li Haoling, the founder of Dream Animation Animation, became popular with word of mouth after nearly 2 years on the line, and became the original light talked about in the circle that year. .
Although good works have the opportunity to make their debuts and welcome the praise of fans and the attention of the industry, the realization of domestic animation is still unclear. Apart from burning investment funds, they can only accept outsourcing to subsidize households. At this time, Dreaming Animation is already cooperating with a number of platforms such as iQiyi, Tencent Animation, bilibili, etc. Every year, it is the king of domestic two-dimensional animation production capacity that launches more than ten or twenty comic/novel works. Try still cautiously. For most animation companies that produce one or two works per year, the investment risk for original works is huge, and long-term, high-cost industrial chain development is a luxury. Although the platform has begun to cooperate in the purchase of domestic animations, the budget is very low, and one million is already top-quality. If it is a work that is not exclusively broadcast on the whole network, it does not have any income, and it even needs to edit hundreds of thousands for the website. Block in exchange for recommended bits to engage in traffic. Compared with live action movies and Japanese animation, domestic animation is far from enough to attract the attention of platforms and users.
Hundreds of waste are waiting to be flourished. 2017 has become the rapid budding period of domestic animation, and it is naturally the most promising and energetic year. After experiencing the naming dispute between Guoman and Guodong, on March 22, the new division of bilibili’s domestic animation was officially renamed “Guo Chuang”, which means “bilibili is willing to contribute to the domestic original animation and comics.” On April 7th of the same year, the animation “Full-time Master” produced by Shimei Classic and adapted from the novel of the same name by Butterfly Blue landed on TencentThe video, bilibili national innovation zone, became the first paid-to-watch domestic animation work. With the original mature script and strong fan appeal, coupled with the top production level of domestic 2D animation that was achieved at a cost of nearly 70,000 yuan per minute, “Full-time Master” was successfully released, breaking the shackles of domestic 2D animation days. Improve the ceiling of domestic 2D animation production quality.
More importantly, the platform members tried for “Full Time Master” to watch free or pay 10 yuan for a season of animation, which has accumulated the first batch of users who are willing to pay for animation content for the entire industry, and also purchase movies for subsequent platforms The opening of the payment model with animation works has established confidence, and this method is still the main source of income for many animation works today.
” Three “
As the only year in which the “Hundred Fans War” has been realized since the rise of domestic animation, another turning point in 2017 is the official entry of the video platform into the battlefield. After a small test of Sino-Japanese cooperation, watching the large investment in the foundry of the comic platform, video platforms with experience in the operation of live-action film and television tried new tricks. The whole process of making books, collecting plates, and staring at the film is too long and troublesome. They prefer to pick up leaks, look for prototypes that are already on the market to vote for purchases, or simply choose a platform that has broadcasted a film with better feedback to participate in the new The production of one season, with lower cost, cast a wider net, and catch more fishes.
In February 2017, the original 3D animation “JuniorJin Yi Wei” became popular after it went live, thanks to the US type The anthropomorphic, sweet-and-sweet CP became the most concerned 3D animation of the year, and it is also a collection of Baiyan Yinghua, Youku, and Caesars Culture produced Fangzhili, the strongest domestic animation works in the ToB field. Looking back from the perspective of industry development, “Youth Jinyiwei” It is the representative work of a new round of original scripts. The video platform Youku participated in the production, which also opened the curtain for the entire industry to enter the era of video platform-driven.
From looking for OEM to issue a package, to looking for works to participate in investment, the change of the video platform’s posture has directly affected the status of domestic animation companies. They ushered in the peak of valuation during the period of financing contact, and they have production capabilities and original capabilities. , Companies that have the ability to make money are especially expensive. For a time, “Dongxuanji, Beiruosen”, as one of the few animation CPs that can calculate valuation with P/E, became a benchmark company that the entire industry is proud of.
Rosson Digital, an old-brand animation company that has created multiple works in the “Painting Rivers and Lakes” series, has completed multiple rounds of large financing and created a valuation of 3 billion by virtue of adapting games with a turnover of over 100 million and low-cost live-action dramas with good reputation. The myth of the domestic animation industry. Holding “Qin Shimingyue”, the first national comic IP, many adapted games have a turnover of over 100 million. The new work “Tian Xing Jiu Ge” continues to be popular, and it has also received the outsourcing of major projects from Tencent and NetEase, and the mystery of healthy cash flow Technology received a 200 million investment from Tencent, accounting for 12% of the shares, with a valuation of 1.7 billion. With this work, Fang Baiyan, the producer of “Young Jinyiwei”, hit a valuation of 1.5 billion yuan and became the domestic animation company with the fastest price surge.
There are continuous financing news, but financial investment is the majority, and strategic investment is relatively small, especially when taking money from video platforms. At that time, the animation company was very reserved. The video platform just started to increase investment in domestic animation.Participating in the production of works, the industry battle is still unclear, and the strategies of various companies are extremely unstable. Taking company-level investment means getting into the game. The consequences of blindly standing in line are very troublesome. Companies with a little bargaining chip will always hesitate again and again.
However, domestic animation companies responded positively when the platform offered to use investment works to participate in production instead of film purchase fees. Not only does the platform pay 10%-20% of the investment money to reduce the cost and risk of independent investment of animation companies, the platform’s resource support in promotion and publicity has brought new breakthroughs to domestic animation. Old animators work from TV stations to the Internet, and content creation takes advantage of the trend, but they obviously have no experience in close dialogue with the audience. So when they realized that in the Internet age, they need to arrange their own promotion resources, do a good job in fan operation and maintenance, and really start to do something called “propaganda operation”, 0 experience caught them off guard, ranging from hundreds of thousands. More than one million investment has also increased the cost burden of animation, and the participation of the video platform is simply a help.
However, the stock of works is still a small number after all, which is far from enough to meet the platform’s demand for long-term reserve of domestic animation users. The quality of the works also randomly drops. Video platforms are starting to worry. They start to buy and make their own hands. According to the platform User structure, hierarchical project input planning. In 2018, Tencent Video officially launched its efforts to create benchmark works “Magic Master” and “Douro Continent” at a cost of 100,000+ per minute, refreshing the domestic 2D and 3D animation quality ceiling and becoming the first national comic platform. At the same time, it has co-produced novel adaptations such as “Fights Break the Sphere” and “Star Change” with China Reading Group, and maintains exclusive broadcast cooperation with many comic animations such as “Inhuman” and “Quickly Take My Brother away”. On October 25, 2018, Tencent and bilibili reached a strategic cooperation to open each other’s film libraries under conditions.
Compared with Tencent Video’s ambition, iQiyi chose to be steady and take an animation content creation route that suits its own ecology. On the one hand, we choose animation works that are generally acceptable to the public to participate in investment or online broadcasting. On the other hand, we deeply participate in the development of animation works adapted from novels such as “Eternal Heaven” and “Whale Riding in the Four Seas”.
The bilibili national innovation zone, which has just been launched for more than a year, is still groping. The high-quality two-dimensional users of the platform have become a bargaining chip to attract animation companies. The in-depth cooperation with Tencent Animation ensures the stable update of its head animation fan drama. “Fox Fairy Little Matchmaker” and “Under One Man” were once the masters of the bilibili national innovation zone. Coupled with the distribution of works throughout the network and the low-cost purchase of old fans, the content of the entire zone is also graduallyFill it up. On the other hand, AcFun finally couldn’t hold on and had no chance to participate in the development process of domestic animation. It sold itself in June 2018. Quick hands , Tu Niu went home.
It was like a dream. The video platform entered the game at the speed of light. He spent a lot of money and soon entered the Buddhist era. Animation companies became the object of competition for capital and platforms, and then quickly fell to the bottom. From the perspective of the animation film market that the public is more concerned about, starting from 2017, in July, “The Great Guardian”, A Tang’s Adventure” produced by the light-following animation, “Cat and Peach Blossom Spring” produced by the light-following animation in April 2018, and “Yesterday Blue Sky” produced by Guangxi in October 2018. The box office of “One Hundred Thousand Cold Jokes 2” and “The Curse of the Wind” is only over 100 million, far from the glory of “The Great Sage” and “The Big Fish”. The entire industry is cooling down rapidly. Companies that could have been able to buy time for animation by drawing cakes are instantly forced to the edge of survival. The gap between ideal and reality is particularly cruel in domestic animation. Even the head IPs “Fox Fairy Little Matchmaker” and “Under One”, which have invested more than 100 million yuan, are still difficult to generate revenue for Tencent Animation. How to make money from animation itself has become the most discussed topic in the second half of 2018.
Some companies have found a way to cover costs and can stick to the challenges of the domestic animation industry in the second half. For example, Chaoshen Pictures’ “Xiongbinglian” covers the cost of revenue sharing through paid viewing on Tencent Video alone, and Qichuangshe’s “Bump World” basically realizes the cost recovery of a single work through the sale of derivative products. Molecular Interaction‘s “Inhuman” makes profit through new media advertising and derivative licensing.
Some teams have taken a different approach, breaking through from vertical categories such as style, duration, and IP source. For example, the low-cost original work “Assassin Five Six or Seven” has become a new hit in 2018 with its unique style, dubbing and good story; “Inhuman”, “Gon’s Marmot”, “Take My Brother away”, “My big brother has a brain hole”, “Please eat red beans!” “” and other films created the era of cost-effective instant noodles of domestic animation, short, savvy and each with their own characteristics; “Jian Wang 3: Chivalrous Hearts and Hearts”, “Onmyoji · Peace Story”, “Canyon Crime Squad”, etc. were adapted from the game’s big IP Fanwai animation is also popular among fans.
From 2017 to 2018, the audience experienced the blooming of domestic animation after the first wave of burning money. They often chattered about the esoteric topic of whether 2D cow or 3D cow, and they rarely paid attention to the difficulties behind the glamorous industry. In the second half of 2018, Bai Yanying’s capital chain broke, and negative salaries, arrears in production fees, bankruptcy and other negatives were successively exposed. The star IP “Young Jinyiwei” was not accepted because of the complicated copyright division. Several pairs of CPs in the film no longer send sugar. The day.
Seeing him rising from a tall building, seeing his banquet guests, seeing his wall falling down and everyone pushing him, the dilemma of Bai Yan Ying’s painting spread all over the animation circle for a while, and the collapse of “Young Jinyiwei” gave the industry a heavy hammer. But it is undeniable that the appearance of this work in 2017 has made a good start for domestic original network animation. Until three years later, there are still few works that can match its popularity and reputation. At this momentAt that time, regrets returned to regrets, the “Young Jinyiwei” incident also severely damaged Youku’s confidence in the animation business. Since then, Youku has turned to children’s animation and withdrew from the domestic animation competition with iQiyi, Tencent and bilibili.
“Four”
The arrogance of the platform is ebb and flow. As the party with more money and resources, the game between them and production capacity has continued. At the beginning, the platform lacked content, animation companies lacked money, and the platform gave a sum of money to find OEMs to make animations and became a father, which was admired by thousands. Obviously, there is no future for OEM. Reasonable animation companies began to ask for part of the production cost to offset the copyright share of the joint investment, join the producer to get a share of the pie, gain reputation and the opportunity to deeply participate in the non-production process.
Animation companies that have accumulated a full set of experience understand the importance of production for the subsequent development of their works. However, there are not many companies that can produce films on time when the platform draws a cake, and even the company is killed by the project. After the survival of the fittest, animation companies with production capacity began to take control, and production costs increased. From 2017 to 2019, the investment cost of head animation works tripled or four times. The platform only paid OEM fees and copyright shares in front of high-quality production capacity. Uncompetitive, and the number of minutes a company produces movies per year is very limited, so platforms have begun to use so-called strategic investments to lock in company production capacity and force animation company teams in exchange for more movie production opportunities.
It seems that every industry has the kind of rejuvenation that takes a cycle of several years. In October 2018, Tencent established PCG to end internal friction, and at the same time greatly reduced the animation budget. Other platforms have successively adjusted their structures and strategies, and the entire industry has become poor again. On the other hand, animation companies with production capacity on the market have long since been divided up by exclusive agreements, so platforms have returned to the initial investment projects to find companies to outsource, and the proportion of self-made content has increased. The capacity binding associated with the investment relationship was tacitly broken, and more cooperation models began to emerge. After all, if you really follow the shareholders, the style of each platform’s work will be too fixed. Each company’s cash flow can only rely on the platform’s account period and the mood of the docking person. Hanging on a tree is too risky. Lose-lose.
Bilibili appeared to be late, and after watching the big fanfare of Tencent, Youku’s silence, and the long flow of iQiyi, it officially joined the battlefield. From 2017 to 2018, bilibili successively invested in more than 20 animation production companies, and became the industry’s largest player in a low-key manner. Thanks to the fact that it was still a vertical community with high-quality two-dimensional user blessings at the time, the animation companies that stood in line with You Aiteng had the opportunity to simultaneously obtain bilibili investment.
Before a hundred million dollars were smashed out without losing money, bilibili laid the foundation for its own national innovation zone and opened the post-bilibili era of domestic network animation. Purchased dozens of novels such as Jinjiang’s “Blessing of the Heavenly Officials” and “Tianbao Fu Yaolu”, and cooperated with each of the animation companies invested in projects. Bilibili opened the “Made By Bilibili” country for two consecutive years in 2018 and 2019. At the launch conference, each time the official announced more than 20 new works, and also established the “Dora B Dream” with Dream Animation. President Rui has repeatedly rectified the name of domestic animation in public, and emphasized to the market that bilibili is a national innovation. determination.
Bold and powerful, but bilibili can’t save the domestic animation. Soon, Guoman rose to become Guoman sit-ups. Those models in investment stories that seemed to be profitable, have been tried and proved to be unreliable, even if the same company makes money on a work. , It is still difficult to copy the success to the next work, and survival has once again become the main proposition for animation companies.
The platform began to use the advantages of its own business department to create brand cooperation opportunities for domestic animation, ranging from three to five million yuan to three to five million yuan, and patch ads became standard for various self-made projects. There are also companies that choose to group together for warmth. Animation companies that can directly connect to the platform throughout the entire process have deployed small production teams in various links to form a production group to improve the efficiency of film production and create more opportunities for new jobs. Some companies have found new fathers of Party A. In the entire two-dimensional circle, there are probably only game companies that are richer and more free. In the past two years, they have been adapted from “Onmyoji”, “Glory of the King”, “Bangbai 3”, and “Girls”. Animations of popular games such as Frontline and Sword Net 3 have been launched one after another, becoming a stream of animations that don’t worry about making money.
Of course there are some operations that are more bizarre. For example, I feel that the wings are hardThe animation tycoon left, relying on the halo of his old owner to make an investment, he jumped from the original animation link and art link director position to producer + producer + director + screenwriter, dreaming of making a masterpiece that surpasses the past. In the end, most of them broke down on the street, and there were no films to follow. Doing animation has never been a battle alone.
There are also some great gods who have created new stories for domestic animation. Go to Cannes, Japan, the United States, cultural confidence, and Chinese comics going to sea. What do foreign netizens think? Wonderful, the work is not very good in the domestic market and it is not tepid. Take it for international competition, buy a video studio out of your pocket, buy a TV station to broadcast late at night, and put a roll-up poster in front of the cafe. In this photo, taking a small trumpet to surpass the wall as a navy, it becomes a rush out of Asia to the world. But how many old gluttons who can still spend money in the animation industry will be deceived by such bluffing tricks? It’s like a joke, so happy.
” Five “
The mentality of domestic animators has collapsed. In the years following the 2016 “Big Fish and Begonia”, their attitude towards domestic animated films has changed from self-improvement to extreme inferiority, and the box office has exceeded 100 million yuan and it can be celebrated. Good news for the circle of friends. But that great piece of “Wind Curse”, which broke 100 million at the box office or lost money, became the last straw to crush the most expensive domestic animation company Ruosen Digital. By the end of 2019, Ruosen Digital laid off nearly 80% of its staff. “Painting the rivers and lakes” gradually disappears.
Humans usually only learn 1% of the lessons from history, while the other 99% are used to eat melons. Not making money is a matter. Spending money is even bigger. Since 0202, the animation dystocia, repeated repairs, and unstable quality caused by the company’s internal processes are still the industry’s biggest stumbling blocks. In the past, it was said that domestic animations were all pigeons, and the animation company Gu Gu Gu, fans smiled and said that the animators also smiled and responded. Now they can’t laugh, they even want to cry, their internal friction is too serious, and everyone is anxious.
But domestic animation is difficult to be defeated, even if the dynamic comics in 2019 were arrogant and once wanted to critique the animation market; even if the two Tencent animations, “Fox Fairy Little Matchmaker” and “Under One Man” were prepared for three or four years Not long after the exquisite skin-changing game was launched, it fell out of the rankings, and it failed to become a stunning work for the game to save animation IP; even though there are still many two-dimensional games launched with high profile and low-key delisting, it hurts the IP being scolded The body is not complete.
We have seen that animation companies are opening up new opportunities based on the actual situation of the team. The previous steps were too great, so it’s better to return to the content and find your unique position in the industry. The quality and quantity of animation production began to be divided, focusing on each. Some companies have become mass production factories, maintaining 3-4 annual weekly updates or even Tuesday updates. Although the quality has become a negative teaching material for fans because of poor quality, the effect of running data and mixing works is very good, and it is willing to make domestic animation. The bottom pacesetter. Some companies have the potential to create explosive works. They choose to explore high-quality products and cooperate with the platform to release 1-2 works above the A level every year or every six months. There are also some companies betting on big online movies, following the model of live-action dramas in the previous two years and developing new revenue on the platform.
There is a basic truce between platforms. Real-life dramas are too difficult to make. Everyone is facing content bottlenecks. The animation market is still small and there are still opportunities to do things in bulk. After the merger of the Tencent department, 2D and 3D are grasped with both hands, and the head novel and head comic have a clearer development model. However, it is a pity that, except for “Douluo Dalu”, which is still hot every year, the sequels of the head works that have come out seem to have insufficient stamina, and there are almost no new hot works. The much-anticipated “Under One Man 3” could not be saved by the first year of the National Manga drama. With the plot, “Fox Fairy Little Matchmaker” also entered a chapter where the original work’s popularity has declined and gradually became a feeling.
Youku is not reconciled, and always wants to give another try on domestic animation. It secured the exclusive broadcasting rights of the old partner Fang Xuanji Technology “Qin Shiming Moon Crossing the Sea”, and participated in the production of China Film Nian Nian’s new work “Xinjue” “, but one or two works obviously cannot fill the gap that Youku has fallen behind during the rapid development of domestic network animation. What’s interesting is that Chen Baiyan, CEO of Baiyan Film, recently appeared in Youku’s offline event. I don’t know if there will be a chance to see the stunning “Kuishi Tower” at the Hangman Press Conference of Baiyan Film in April 2018. .
Bilibili has already crushed Youku in the animation business, but it is still a step away from Tencent Video, and it has not released any popular animation works. The two-dimensional attribute is too strong, the biggest advantage of station B is gradually being consumed. Domestic animation has a growing demand for pan-entertainment users, and there is still a gap between the user volume of bilibili and other platforms. From the perspective of the work, bilibili is too much like the person in the animation circle, and the popular animations are all small-scale breakthroughs. “The Daily Life of the Immortal King” and “Yuanlong” have created many new records on the bilibili platform, but It is incomparable with the nationality of Tencent Video’s head work “The Master of the Demon Dao” and “Douro Continent”. bilibili’s most out-of-the-loop work “Soul Soul Street 2” did not achieve the desired effect. Can the upcoming “Blessing of the Heavenly Officials” replicate the success of “The Great Master”?
The relationship between platform and production capacity is very delicate, and integration seems to be the next move. In 2020, Tencent acquired Baiman Culture, a producer of “Westward Journey”. Bilibili’s acquisition of Dream Animation, which has been in preparation for more than a year, has also begun to change its equity in the near future. Short video platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Watermelon Video covet the trend of domestic animation, and I wonder if they will spend money to set off the next wave.
But there is always some good news. In 2019, the animated film “White Snake: Origin” gave new hope to the light-following animation. “Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes to the World” 5 billion box office is exciting, 2020 “Jiang Ziya” 15 100 million box office set a record for the box office growth of domestic animation movies. Domestic animated fan dramas have also been bombed this year one after another, bilibili “Daily Life of the Immortal King”, “Yuanlong”, “Ling Cage” raised the data ceiling of the platform, and Tencent video “Douluo Continental Star Fight Sacrifice” opened with high fire, ” The second season of “Full-time Master” returns. Xuanji Technology’s “Qin Shiming Moon Crossing the Sea” also went live as expected. In addition, Xuanji Technology Co., Ltd. was restructured in September 2020, with revenue of 200 million last year, and the listing is nearing. We look forward to the first share of domestic online animation.
So we watch domestic animation, just like the head teacher in elementary school and junior high school, always saying “you are the worst session I have ever brought”, but still loves ourselves and chooses to support, trust and maintain. Even though the industry is hard sometimes,No money, few works, and there are always mixed disruptors, even if we are moved and excited for the rise of Guoman again and again, and regret and anxious for the cold winter of Guoman. Looking back on the long history, we are both bystanders and participants. Each exciting work may be small, but every step is to light up the domestic animation industry that is moving forward. Behind the lighting, there are Chinese animators who are determined look.
How lucky, domestic animation has never been knocked down. He doesn’t believe in tears, but he gives us the courage to move forward.