2009-06-10

No Pain No Gain

Zhang Tianxiao started pitching animated projects at the Shanghai TV Festival with the simple aim of achieving “common prosperity” within the Chinese animation industry. Now, thanks to the joint endeavors initiated by Zhang and other Shanghai TV festival supporters and organizations, a group of Chinese animation makers are now achieving their dreams of reaching out to the outside world.

Animation Project Pitching: The Original Idea of Shanghai TV Festival

Daily News: As we all know, you were the jury chairman for the “Baiyulan” Award in the Animation category last time. How was that experience?

Zhang: The most important thing was that evaluations must be made in a fair and square way, so I made sure that we had a very international panel of judges. We had jury members from France, Japan, all over the world. I also made sure that the jury members would only be allowed on for one year. In my mind, it was the best way to ensure that the contest would be judged fairly and honestly.

Weak Points in the Chinese Animation Industry
Daily News: What do you think is holding the Chinese animation industry back?
Zhang: In my opinion, there is something wrong with the structure of the Chinese animation industry. The biggest buyer of animation films are TV stations, which normally show 80% TV series and 20% films. TV stations aren\'t willing to put in competitive bids for animated films, and if that continues, the structure of the animation industry will never change for the better.

Gaining Marketing Experience from Past Failures
Daily News: How can the Chinese animation films bring themselves up to the standards that international audiences have come to expect?
Zhang: That is exactly why “Animation Today”, a joint venture between the Shanghai Animation Development Centre and the Shanghai TV Festival, will be so important. We hope that this project can attract a lot of good ideas, and that we will be able to get some of these ideas the funding they need. This last point is especially important. Just look at movies like Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf. They were inspired by good ideas but were eventually sunk by a lack of financial backing. Workable marketing strategies are also crucial. Chinese animated filmmakers have a lot of work to do in this area before they can really succeed. But it\'s a process that takes time-even the internationally renowned director Mr. Zhang Yimou had some growing pains. One has to grow through failures and learn from them. The market is out there, and it\'s on the filmmakers to go out and find success for themselves.

The Key: Creation of Good Environment
Daily News: Is the Chinese animation industry lacking in talent? What kind of opportunity has this project brought to them?
Zhang: There are some great artistic talents in China, but most of the time they don\'t have the opportunity to show what they can do. So I\'m hoping to use my experience to help them find ways to showcase themselves. It would be great if I could find a protégé who could help me carry the torch when I move on……I\'m especially concerned that we won\'t be able to keep up internationally in the long run. We\'re slowly losing the huge leads we once had over others like India and Vietnam, who now have the advantage of much lower labor costs. They\'re also making steady progress because they\'re collaborating more and more with other countries, with better backing from their governments. They\'re getting more funding from up top, and India, especially, is using that to build their IT edge over China. We\'ll have to work hard to keep up.