Internet Plus Brings About Great Changes to Chinese Film Industry

　　I was a witness to the prosperity of Chinese films in the past decades. 24 years ago, I was working on the 1st Shanghai International Film Festival. I can clearly remember that there was a film distribution meeting (not named "forum" then) scheduled for an afternoon of 1993, but regrettably 20 of more than 50 managers we had invited from provincial and municipal companies across the country with difficulty left secretly. Why? There was a press conference for Sophia Loren in a cinema that afternoon. They did not keep the distribution meeting in their hearts. Today, we also have a lot of press conferences, and many stars and tycoons are meeting our friends in the filmdom across Beijing, but I was so amazed and moved that today's forum is packed. This shows that Chinese film industry has been developing in a rational way, and a must step with distribution as the key has been formed. 

　　Since the 21st century, mobile Internet and big data have developed rapidly. The growth and coverage of the new economy represented by mobile Internet are beyond imagination. What life will be like without mobile phones or Internet? Internet is indispensible to all Chinese and all filmmakers. "Internet Plus" is posing a new challenge to industrial transformation and upgrading at a whirlwind speed. Let's take the express of "Internet Plus" for in-depth transformation, cross-border integration, integration into the era and constant development.

　　The diversification is formed upon self-optimization and constant improvement and is an inevitable result and stage during the development of film industry. It is the profound change of the overall environment that gives birth to the diversification of film distribution. 

　　The diversification is mainly reflected in the following aspects: 1) Diversified subjects. China Film Distribution was the leader of the industry. With the advent of market economy, the subject is changed. Despite of the several thousand filmmaking institutions, the new forces engaged in distribution are emerging. A lot of new distributors have made great achievements and distributed many successful films. 2) Diversified capitals. There are more and more capital operations across industries, especially in Internet and finance industries, and more and more investors, including state-owned, private and mixed-economy institutions as well as film distributors. 3) Diversified marketing methods. In the past, the film posters were only labeled on the guideboards, materials were only sent to cinemas and media made some reports. For now, the marketing methods, traditional or innovative, are emerging in endlessly, such as box office subsidy, minimum guarantee and advance payment for publicity. 4) Diversified competitions. The BJIFF 2016 witnessed fierce competitions among distributors for over 700 films in various aspects, such as the scale for market occupation, capability of distribution in major cinemas, retention period in cinemas and the acquisition of desirable films. In addition, cinemas also start competitions. In some flourishing region, there are five to six cinemas within one kilometer, showing highly fierce competitions. 

　　Under the diversified environment, film distribution should be developed in depth with broadened thinking based on Internet, such as the intervention and follow-up at the initial stage of filmmaking. 

　　Speaking on the rostrum as a guest, I am a perfect reflection of the diversified Chinese film industry. In 2002 when China launched the reform of cinema line system, private capital entered the market, and then Wanda made a great success. 

　　The film diversification is mainly determined by several aspects: 1) Interest. The diversified film contents are now highly obvious, and different types of films have their own living space. 2) Audience. Contents are at the front end while audience at the rear end. In the future, the age distribution of Chinese audience will be more diversified. For now, the tendency of diversification of Chinese audience is still poor. A good film may record a box office of RMB 3 billion, such as The Fate of the Furious now being screened in China. But the box office for the other Chinese films may be deficient due to the poor diversification of the audience. 3) Method and terminal of distribution. The major Internet platforms started the film distribution and production from e-commerce. All the companies are striving to open up the upstream and downstream of the industry chain. The diversified and orderly competitions facilitate the rapid development of Chinese film industry. 

　　I started film distribution in China since 1997 when I visited over 30 cities without any assistance. Therefore, considering the diversification, it is important to say that the partners are diversified. In the past nine months, we are lucky to see three films earning a box office of over RMB 1 billion, which is very rare. I believe the success is owing to their high-quality production and artistic standards. Chinese viewers are very picky. 

　　Secondly, our team members are from different places of China instead of the world and professional in making domestic films, which is beneficial for our operation. 

　　Thirdly, we have many partners in the three films, including China Film Group Corporation, Huayi Brothers and LeEco. We are a Chinese company, and our campaign teams should make success in dealing with different companies through different channels. In the past, it was enough if the media or materials are good. Now the diversified environment is very complex in fact. Especially for the companies like us depending on a small number of films for survival, diversification requires a good coordination of many participants. For now, a film company or distributor is difficult to have all done. The ticketing website is of greater significance and also an important issue for now. 

　　Diversification boasts significant advantages and complexity 

　　I will talk about the development of film industry in the past few years from the angle of a producer. When Hero was distributed over a dozen years ago, the conditions were totally different from today. With the time passing by, I get more and more confused. Because of the intervention of Internet, the changes of film distribution in China are the fastest.

　　When we are about to distribute a film in the US, we still use some traditional methods, such as advertising a lot on TV. But in China, a lot of distributors don’t buy advertisements on TV, because the choices of Chinese viewers are completely controlled by the Internet. As a practitioner in the film industry, I think if we want to know how to distribute films in China, we have to be aware of how the viewers spend their money. If an Internet company knows how to control the consumption of film viewers, it will be well-placed in the film distribution industry.

　　Our viewers rely heavily on the Internet, and the relationship between Internet companies and film distribution will become closer and closer, because they are the media platform with the most viewers. I have rich experience, but now we really cannot use what we used before. These are my opinions and thoughts about future.

　　Films, in nature, feature irregularity, fluctuation and risks. The users’ platforms and data capacity in our hand, including exploitation in users’ behaviors and tracks actually help us enhance the forecast and judgment to the operations of the whole chain of the film industry and share the capability of forecast and judgment to the industry to improve the industry recognition and understanding, which is actually a valuable work we are doing. Specifically, at the initial stage of film publicity and distribution, the intentions or viewing tracks by users can actually help conclude many instructional and predictable behaviors and judgments helpful for publicity and distribution, which are very meaningful. 

　　We would like to become a film company closest to Chinese viewers with full exploitation. Since filmmaking has high risks, we have been emphasizing internally that no second chance is given to film, in all links like creation, production, publicity and distribution. We are striving to make the accumulation of data and users become an effective tool and measure for us to strengthen accuracy. 

　　In the 112-year Chinese film industry, we are just two years old. Besides the features mentioned just now, some new market features are highlighted by the diversification, such as fragmentization and decentralization. In the past, an advertisement in the cinema caught the viewers of the next film. But now, it is totally changed. We need to know where the viewers are. 

　　Viewers are scattered in the ocean, while the online ticket booking channel may be a river. As in the case of the migration of Alaskan salmon, if a brown bear is squatting on a proper rock, it is the best way to touch the shoal. 

　　Internet provides an opportunity under the decentralization and fragmentization. We hope to share our capacity in dealing with data and users with the industry to achieve a win-win outcome. 

Released on:April 19,2017