Cui Yan, Director of the Beijing International Film Festival Operation Center (BJIFF Operation Center) of Beijing Radio & Television Station (BRTV) and Executive Deputy Director of the Organizing Committee Office of the 11th Beijing International Film Festival, and Sun Zheyi, President of Sunac Culture Group and Executive Director of Sunac China, attended the forum and delivered speeches. Hiromichi Masuda, Anime Industry Researcher and editor-in-chief of the Anime Industry Report from the Association of Japanese Animations, and Zhao Guodong, Assistant to the President of Sunac Culture Group, delivered keynote speeches; Cheng Teng, film director of BingD Pictures, a part of Sunac Culture Group and director of the animated film Legend of Deification, Liu Wenzhang, president of Chengdu Coco Cartoon and producer of Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child, an animated film, Shang Linlin, Executive President of Fantawild Holdings Inc., Si De, President of the China Region of Beijing POP MART Cultural Creative Co., Ltd., Yu Zhou, Co-founder and President of Light Chaser Animation, Zhao Fang (Gillian Zhao), President of Warner Bros. China, and other industry elites attended the forum and participated in the roundtable discussion. Professor Zhang Gedong, Deputy Dean of School of Digital and Art, Communication University of China, presided over the forum.

 

 

Cui Yan, Director of the Beijing International Film Festival Operation Center (BJIFF Operation Center) of Beijing Radio & Television Station (BRTV) and Executive Deputy Director of the Organizing Committee Office of the 11th Beijing International Film Festival, said in his speech that animation films and works will play a key role in strengthening cultural confidence, building a strong culture and telling Chinese stories. "With the maturity and upgrading of domestic animation content, production technology and its derivative industry operation mode, domestic animation film industry is showing a new trend from high-quality IP creation to the coordinated promotion of the whole industry operation, and non-box office revenue is gradually becoming the key battlefield of the development of the animation film industry".

 

Sun Zheyi, President of Sunac Culture Group and Executive Director of Sunac China, shared the thinking and layout of Sunac Culture Group in view of how to realize the whole industrial chain operation of the animation film industry in the era of new consumption and new scenes. He said that as a firm industrial investor and professional operator, Sunac Culture Group takes IP as the foundation and content as the amplifier to integrate new consumption and new scenes into the expansion of commercial value, and has always been actively exploring the operation of the whole animation industry chain. He hopes Sunac Culture Group can explore a more diversified IP creation and operation path for China's animation film industry, improve the commercial value and competitiveness of animation IP, and integrate technology and art to create more high-quality animation films, so that Chinese stories can move the world and enhance the global influence of China’s animation film industry.

 

 

Hiromichi Masuda, Anime Industry Researcher and editor-in-chief of the Anime Industry Report from the Association of Japanese Animations, delivered a speech titled “International animated film trend in the next five years”. From an international perspective, he discussed the trend of the animation industry in the next five years in the world and the Asia-pacific region through the comparison of the development of the animation film industry between China and Japan and the sharing of specific cases. Based on the data analysis of the international animation film market in recent years, he believes that the performance of Chinese and American animation films in the Chinese market is still strong, but in the future, the market share of China’s animation film industry will be greatly increased and will gradually surpass that of American animation film industry. The reason, according to Hiromichi Masuda, is that a large number of excellent animation creators born in the 1980s have emerged in China, such as Tian Xiaopeng, director of Monkey King: Hero Is Back, Liang Xuan, director of Big Fish & Begonia, and Jiaozi, director of Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child. These talented young animation creators have become the main force of The Chinese animation film market, and they will continue to improve the quality of China’s animation films in the future.

 

Zhao Guodong, Assistant to the President of Sunac Culture Group, delivered a speech titled “Exploration of animation films as Chinese animation emerges”. Based on the cultural phenomenon of "Chinese animation emerging" in recent years, he analyzed in details the reasons for it, introduced the exploration and development of Sunac Culture Group in the field of animation brands, and the thinking and strategy of Sunac Culture Group in the development of the whole IP industry chain. Sunac Culture Group aims to be an innovator in the animation industry, make use of back-end development talents and the new way of forward thinking, and find the maximum certainty of content value development. IP long-chain operation can endow animation works with longer vitality. With the adjustment of the film and television industry, it also increasingly emphasizes the income in the non-content field, that is, how the content makes use of its cultural influence to obtain more commercial derivative value. As China’s animation works emerge, a number of excellent young directors have created a number of good works, and the IP long-chain operation such as IP authorization, trend derivative development and offline real scene is gradually maturing.

 

 

In the roundtable discussion, each guest discussed a series of issues such as how to grasp high-quality resources, create "valuable" IP and achieve long-chain development in the era of big IP, taking their own unique industry experience as an example and combining with the new Chinese-style animation favored by Generation Z. In view of the development of animation film industry, the industry elites put forward a long-chain mode of "IP+ content + new consumption and new scenes" from a single "content consumption" mode from the prospective of their professional and unique thinking, so as to upgrade China's animation film industry and enforce IP with long-term vitality.

 

Cheng Teng, film director of BingD Pictures, a part of Sunac Culture Group, is the director of the animated film Legend of Deification, and has won many animation awards at home and abroad. Cheng Teng said that increasing the variety of cash channels in the later stage of a film might slightly free the film from its cash-oriented nature and make it more content oriented, increasing the writer's creative freedom. At the same time, the creator will have a lot of time to think in the early stage to create a story with enough particularity, memory points and imagination space， and use a film language that young people like to narrate, so that they can resonate with it.

 

Liu Wenzhang, president of Chengdu Coco Cartoon and producer of Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child, an animated film, said that only by making sound creation, which involves scriptwriting and directing capabilities of the team as well as good contents, can we have the opportunity to increase the IP value. First of all, while meeting the audience or market preference as much as possible, the director should try his/her best to make good works; while from the perspective of production, it is very important to meet the needs of the director as much as possible under the extremely limited cycle and budget, which requires the mutual trust between producer and director. The “Film Universe” is a strategic goal. The current objective of Chengdu Coco Cartoon is to use the Chinese culture deposits for secondary creation and integration, so as to express the existing traditional elements and contemporary values, as well as the way of life we know, in a more acceptable way.

 

Shang Linlin, Executive President of Fantawild Holdings Inc., took the animated film Series Boonie Bears as an example to share Fantawild's efforts in tapping the potential of IP. She said the three essential elements of a valuable IP are intellectual assets, communication and fans. As one of the earliest enterprises to do derivative authorization in China, Fantawild has been involved in many categories. As the brand party, we should stand together with the authorized party and cooperate with it to create good products and good channels, so as to truly achieve the development of industrial links. In addition, IP needs to be nurtured rather than over-used. It is like a bank account, which needs to keep creating more and better works to "save money and recharge" rather than simply consume the value of IP. The main character of an animation film needs to grow and be cared, which is something we all have to think about.

 

Si De, President of the China Region of Beijing POP MART Cultural Creative Co., Ltd., offered his insight into how consumers' minds are changing when it comes to IP.IP producers, authorizing parties, authorized parties, theme park operators or retail channels are all part of the whole industrial chain, and they need to find ways to participate in the entire production cycle of the film from the beginning to the release. At the moment of the release of a good product, it is necessary to do a good joint marketing, theme park or theme IP authorization exhibition, so as to promote the film continuously; it is also necessary to provide good products and good contents to keep the IP popular before the next film is released. 

 

Yu Zhou, Co-founder and President of Light Chaser Animation, took the animation film series white Snake as an example, and said that the success of IP is also accidental, for example, the supporting role "Owner of the Baoqing Workshop" was more popular than leading actors white Snake and Green Snake, becoming the most popular role unexpectedly. To create IP, theatrical films are one of the most important forms, which is also the belief that Light Chaser Animation always insists on making animation films. With every film, Light Chaser Animation tries something new, for example, Nezha has an "Oriental punk" vibe, and some new elements have been added for such roles as white Snake and Green Snake, giving today's young people a different feeling.

 

Zhao Fang (Gillian Zhao), President of Warner Bros. China, analyzed the development trend and characteristics of sino-foreign film cooperation in the future based on his experience of cooperating with Light Chaser Animation in the animation film White Snake. Zhao fang (Gillian Zhao) said that the animation field is now in great need of creative talents in literature and art, and animation film is a comprehensive art display, including music, dance, modeling, clothing and other aesthetics. The quality of Chinese animation film production is close to that of Hollywood, but in other aspects, especially in the rhythm of music, dance and other artistic expressions, there are still some deficiencies, and more talents are needed to join.

 

The seven animation studios of Sunac Culture Group were presented together. Director representatives Cheng Teng, Li Xia, Xu Han and Yuan Zhichao came to the scene and introduced their animation studios respectively. This "dream team" of Sunac Culture Group, mainly composed of the post-80s generation, will rely on their enthusiasm for the industry and rich imagination to create more high-quality animation works, which will impress young audiences and show the story charm of original Chinese animation.

 

 

In 2019, Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child became the first domestic animation film to top the annual box office in the Chinese mainland, grossing nearly 5 billion yuan. In 2020, despite the impact of the epidemic, 34 animation films were released in China, with a total box office of more than 2.7 billion yuan. The animation film Legend of Deification led the way with a box office of 1.6 billion yuan. In the first half of 2021, a total of 31 animation films were released in China, including 18 domestic animation films, and three domestic animation films earned more than 100 million yuan at the box office.

 

At a time when rich local Chinese cultural elements are integrated into the storytelling way of contemporary animation, rapidly developing production technology is helping the animation industry to achieve standard industrial processes. The IP-oriented long-term operation of the whole industrial chain will become the only way for the animation industry to integrate consumption and scenes in the new era, and Chinese animation will enter the life of the world audience in more ways.