2019-06-11

Listen to Them Talk About Why Shanghai Attracts Good Projects and Talents. Leaders Share New Expecta

Over the past year, the film and television industry has faced both opportunities and challenges. Shanghai, which is building a global film and television creation center and consolidating its leading position in the domestic network culture, why can it attract good projects and talents?

At noon on June 11, 2019, the Shanghai International Film and Television Festival Internet Summit Dialogue was held in Putuo District. In this thematic meeting on Shanghai\'s film and television business environment policy, leading figures from the Internet and film and television fields such as Fan Luyuan, Cheng Wu, Gong Yu, Zhao Yifang, Hou Hongliang, Ma Zhongjun, Ye Ning, Sun Zheyi, Wu Wenhui, Li Haifeng, Zheng Huaping, Hong Fei, Zeng Xiulian actively shared their understanding of Shanghai\'s film and television environment and expressed their expectations for the current industry development.

Why Shanghai? This is the source and the dock.

"We chose Shanghai because we really feel that Shanghai is an international film and television front. We hope to move from the stage of Shanghai to the whole country and to the world." Cheng Wu, vice president of Tencent Group and chief executive officer of Tencent Pictures, has participated in the Internet Summit Dialogue of the Shanghai International Film and Television Festival many times. Every year, Tencent\'s layout in Shanghai has also continuously upgraded: three years ago, Tencent Pictures was registered in Shanghai, and Tencent\'s plans in the fields of cultural creativity, games, and electronic competition are flourishing everywhere in Shanghai, "For our cooperation with overseas countries, Shanghai is also an important bridgehead and front."

Many leading enterprises hold the similar opinion. Ali Pictures and Taobao Film have already settled in Shanghai and have continued to carry out in-depth cooperation with the Shanghai International Film Festival in recently years. On June 8, tickets for the 22nd Shanghai International Film Festival were sold officially. One minute after the selling, 40,252 tickets were sold online, and more than 200,000 tickets were sold in 30 minutes. The experience of ticket snatching was very smooth. Therefore, Fan Luyuan, partner of Alibaba Group, rotating president of Alibaba Culture and Entertainment Group, board chairman &CE0 of Ali Pictures, president of Youku, spoke frankly: "When the enterprise settled in Shanghai, it also brought new technologies and skills to Shanghai. In the future, the integration of science and technology with Internet film and television will be the general trend of the industry. "There may be problems in the development of the industry at present. For all people, reform and change are necessary, and the development of the industry must closely follow the national strategy."

Chen Rui, chairman of bilibili, who claims to " be born and grew up in Shanghai", said that Shanghai is a place where people "do not want to go when they come" and that the rapid development of the Internet has given the platform more room for innovation. "For example, we are now the platform with the highest concentration of Internet video bloggers. Many videos are about 10 minutes, but the quality is good. It should be said that the Internet greatly promotes creativity and the growth of creators.

Of course, Shanghai can become a source and a dock, which naturally cannot be separated from the city\'s strong comprehensive strength. Dr. Gong Yu, founder and CEO of iQIYI, who participated in the Internet Summit Dialogue for many times, said that the continuous development of Shanghai film and television was a natural result. "A very small detail is that many of our actors and directors live in Shanghai, and Shanghai\'s comprehensive strength and environment are very attractive to them." At the same time, he believes that Shanghai\'s film and television industry facilities are constantly improving and the city\'s excellent business environment is also very attractive to enterprises. "Shanghai has done a very good job, especially in setting up projects and declaration of film and television content," he said.

Expect high-quality enterprises to tell more "Shanghai Stories"

As a result of active film and television policies and production services, Shanghai has attracted a large number of high-quality film and television projects while gathering high-quality enterprises. Hou Hongliang, chairman of Daylight Entertainment Film and Television Co., Ltd., revealed that the process of cooperating with Shanghai to create LIKE A FLOWING RIVER was exceptionally smooth, and the competent authorities in Shanghai can often think of problems ahead of time. "We spent three years with Shanghai to create LIKE A FLOWING RIVER 1, and there will be the second, third and fourth. He also said that the Daylight Entertainment would consider set in Shanghai in the future, "hoping to develop more stories related to Shanghai and strive to do a good job in the content".

There are never too many good stories to tell. At the meeting, many guests said that there are still relatively few works about Shanghai, but this topic is worth digging into. For example, the opening film of the 22nd Shanghai International Film Festival, THE EIGHT HUNDERD, attracted wide attention for its in-depth exploration of Shanghai\'s history. Ye Ning, vice president of H.Brothers Media Group, general manager of H.Brothers Film Co., Ltd., and chairman of Huaying Tianxia (Tianjin) Film Distribution Co., Ltd., said: This movie has won the full support of many filmmakers from planning, shooting to its upcoming release. It is the new hope of Chinese movies. In his view, the fusion of film and television and the Internet is like the relationship between fish and water. He hopes that every year in the future, a Shanghai movie will demonstrate on behalf of Chinese movies.

Of course, when facing the constantly changing film and television policies, many leaders including Gong Yu, Ma Zhongjun, Hou Hongliang, Li Haifeng and others also coincidentally talked about the fact that the film and television market is in a stage of drastic transformation, and more clear policy guidance and interpretation are urgently needed. In order to encourage creativity, they hope Shanghai will regularly communicate with enterprises and strengthen information interaction while providing hardware support for the film and television industry.

Shanghai film and television show high quality development trend

Under the participation and efforts of many institutions, Shanghai\'s film and television industry has made remarkable achievements. Last year, Shanghai topped the annual national box office cities for urban films, with a total box office of 3.571 billion yuan and 87 million movie viewers, making it the second largest city in the world in terms of film audiences. Last year, 35 films "produced in Shanghai" were released in cinemas across the country. Nine films grossed over 100 million yuan, totaling 10.4 billion yuan, an increase of 110% over 2017. A number of excellent domestic movies such as DYING TO SURVIVE and RUNNING TO THE SPRING have produced good social and market benefits. Earlier this year, SO LONG, MY SON had won two awards for Best Actor and Actress at Berlin Film Festival, which is also very rare in the history of the Europe\'s three biggest film festivals.

In TV series, Shanghai also has a lot of highlights. At the end of last year, the National Radio and Television Administration announced a Special Fund Script Project for TV Series Guidance and Support in 2018. Of the 8 key support projects and 27 general support projects, Shanghai has 2 selected projects each, leading the national TV industry. The four selected works of LIKE A FLOWING RIVER, IN THE NAME OF PEOPLE 2, LOVE OF YISHUI and TRUST are all produced by private film and television companies, which have tested the effectiveness of Shanghai in providing service guarantee, policy implementation and optimizing the business environment for private film and television companies.

There are also been new changes in Internet movies and TV dramas. Starting from February this year, key network TV plays shall be filed by the production organization to the local radio and television administrative department. This year, Shanghai has accepted 287 planning and filing projects, and 78 of them have passed the examination and obtained the planning and filing number. Shanghai is striving to introduce more and better Internet movies and TV productions in Shanghai.

Building a global film and television creation center is a top priority

At the end of 2017, Shanghai Municipal Party Committee and the Shanghai Municipal Government issued the Opinions on Accelerating the New Development of Cultural and Creative Industries in Shanghai ("50 Articles of Shanghai Cultural and Creative Industries"), explicitly proposing to build a global film and television creation center. This year, it is further proposed to build "two centers and two cities" (Global Film and Television Creation Center, Asian Performing Arts Capital, Art Exchange Center and Global E-competition Capital), and made it clear that Global Film and Television Creation Center is the top priority.

The construction of the Global Film and Television Creation Center has clearly defined the development pattern of "1 +3 + X" film and television industry. "1" refers to the construction of Shanghai Hi-tech Films and Televisions City, "3" refers to the construction of three types of characteristic film and television production service functional areas, such as talent training and incubation, film and television production investment, film and television scene filming, and "X" refers to the integration of a number of film and television industry resources.

With more than 6,000 film and television enterprises gathering, Songjiang film and television industry is rich in resources. It has four municipal cultural and creative parks, including Shanghai Cangcheng Film and Television Cultural Industrial Park, "Three Zero Shanghai" Cultural and Creative Industrial Park, Fashion Guchuang Park and Innovation Workshop, and four shooting bases, including Shanghai Film and Television Park, Shengqiang Film and Television Base, Tugong Underwater Photo Studio and Yancang Shooting Base, which has a good film and television industry foundation. At present, Songjiang has released the overall development plan of the science and technology film capital and the supporting policies for film and television talents, pushing forward the phased progress of Haopu Film and Television Base, Shanghai Film and Television Park Phase II, and CTV Ruyi Television Base. In the future, the Science and Technology Film Capital will be planned to build 24 high-tech film studios with a total area of not less than 65,000 square meters. During this film festival, Science and Technology Film Capital will hold a conference and theme forum. At the same time, it has also vigorously promoted the construction of key industrial projects in key regions, namely, the "3+X" part, including the construction of the Huanshangda Film and Television Industrial Park, "Shanghai Vision-Jing\'an Pearl Film and Television City", Putuo Jinshajiang Road Internet Film and Television Industrial Cluster Zone, Pudong International Film and Television Industrial Park, etc.

Building cultural highlands together to promote cultural creativity in the Yangtze River Delta

In fact, after the "50 Articles of Shanghai Cultural and Creative Industries" were released, Shanghai also issued the "Implementation Measures on Promoting the Development of Shanghai\'s Film and Television Industry" and "Implementation Measures on Promoting the Development of Shanghai\'s Online Audio-visual Industry" last year, specifying the supporting policies in various aspects such as encouraging industrial innovation and development, making the industrial subject bigger and stronger, and building a highland for industrial talents. Shanghai set up the Shanghai Film and Television Financial Trading Center to actively explore the integration of finance and film and television development. Shanghai has the first national network audio-visual industrial base-China (Shanghai) Network Audio-visual Industrial Base, which has established a whole industrial chain covering film and television creation, content dissemination, technological research and development, and achieved remarkable results in industrial agglomeration, and has introduced nearly 700 enterprises.

Shanghai has actively promoted and implemented the Yangtze River Delta\'s integrated development strategy of higher quality. At present, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces are building a cultural development highland, strengthening the mutual benefit of cultural policies, promoting the optimal allocation of cultural resources, and comprehensively enhancing regional cultural creativity, competitiveness and influence. Next, the Yangtze River Delta film and Television Shooting Base and Shooting Location Alliance, the Yangtze River Delta Film and Television Consultation, Coordination and Cooperation Mechanism, and the Yangtze River Delta Film and Television Copyright Trading and Financial Services Platform will be established one after another. In addition to these encouraging measures, Shanghai will also make efforts to promote the construction of a global film and television creation center and the development of the Internet film and television industry by focusing on high-quality products, technologies, talents, copyrights, and consumption so as to make outstanding achievements.