Listen to the manager of the only art cinema in the mainland talk to you about the announcement of literary films.
Special feature of 1905 film network The summer file in July, also known as domestic protection month, saw eight domestic films released on July 8 alone. Among them, there is a literary film "Winter" with little publicity before, which will "go to war" on the same day as "Chill 2", "Rock Tibetan Mastiff", "Big Fish Begonia" and "never gone", and the box office prospect is really not optimistic.
The film released on July 8
Looking at the literary films in the summer file, Winter is not fighting alone. The Roadside Picnic, which will be released on July 15th, will also face fierce challenges from other major rivals, such as The Great Reversal starring Xiao Wa, day trader the Quick Shooter starring Zhang Jingchu and Kenny Lin CP, and the article director Virgo Lu Yao Zhi Ma Li.
The film released on July 15th.
It seems to be a right thing for literary films to hide in the domestic protection month, but it can only be said that the risk is small in the schedule. How does the literary film break through the schedule dilemma and get higher film arrangement and box office? Is it difficult for every literary film to kneel like Fang Li? In the final analysis, this should be combined with the promotion of literary films themselves and the development status of mainland art theaters.
In the Mainland, there was a real representative of the cinema, who explained the discovery of literary films and the development dilemma of art cinemas. She was the program and promotion manager of Beijing Broadway Film Center — — Yang Yang.
Program and Promotion Manager of Beijing Broadway Film Center — Yang Yang
The survival status of art cinemas is inseparable from the prosperity of the literary film market, so Yang Yang’s viewpoint is also representative, which is difficult to copy, because there is only one art cinema in the mainland. "The Broadway Film Center has done statistics. The ratio of literary films to commercial films is 1: 10, but the attendance rate is only 1:3. It can be said that all the money is earned from commercial films." From these words, it is not difficult to see that it is almost impossible for a cinema to maintain its operation only by literary films, even if it is an art cinema.
Beijing Broadway Film Center
Then the question came, and people began to think whether literary films should be shown in art theaters for a long time. But from Yang Yang’s words, we can see that after the establishment of the Art Cinema, there seems to be no improvement in the "way out for literary films". What’s the problem? Is it that the publicity of literary films is not in place, or is it unreasonable to arrange films in cinemas? Why do we see so few literary films when there are art cinemas in the Mainland?
With these questions, Zi Shijun specially went to Beijing Broadway Film Center and had a good chat with Yang Yang about the announcement of domestic literary films and the operation of art cinemas.
[See the manager of the art theater talking about the myth of domestic literary films]
Broadway Film Center, established in December 2009, is a Hong Kong-owned art cinema, located in a residential area of Xiangheyuan Road in Dongzhimen, operated and managed by Hong Kong Anle Film Co., Ltd. Before the opening of this one in the Mainland, Anle had successfully operated an art cinema in Hong Kong called Hong Kong Broadway Film Center. With the experience of successful operation, the founding concept of Broadway Film Center in the Mainland also wants to be consistent with it, to provide screening for high-quality literary films at home and abroad, and to expand the exchange of film culture.
Yang Yang’s job is to select excellent films from the domestic literary films every year, and implement the corresponding film arrangement and post-screening exchange activities. During this period, she also saw the problems faced by mainland literary films, large and small. She told us that "several small partners in her team can even be regarded as a small company for the publication of mainland literary films for a long time".
Earlier, we were equivalent to a literary film publishing company.
In the early years, some domestic literary films with relatively small volume did not try to be released nationwide at all, such as Cao Baoping’s Glorious Wrath. Before its release, Beijing Broadway Film Center was almost equivalent to their publicity company, which did everything from posters to brochures, as well as writing all press releases and inviting media.
The implementation of Yang Yang’s various ideas was completed on this desk.
Q: Does this mean that for these small-scale literary films in the early days, do you still announce them here?
A: In the early days, this movie was very small. I think there was a big difference in the past two years from "Fireworks by Day", but "Fireworks by Day" is a special case that can’t be copied. Since then, plus the rapid growth of the whole China movie market, everyone wants to go to the national release, hoping to replicate a miracle in it.
You cann’t just lay out the whole line at every turn.
Q: You said earlier that the team was unprofessional, such as selling dog meat by hanging sheep’s head?
A: Isn’t that what commercial movies are all about? Just find a selling point, whatever it is, just drag it there first.
Q: What do you think are the unprofessional behaviors of domestic literary films in propaganda?
A: The announcement of an art film is a difficult thing to do all over the world. Its idea is not for profit, and it is not made for the maximum benefit. So when you announce it, you have to be patient and take a long line. Is there anything better that can bring out its commercial benefits? Like now, there is no particularly good model. I have also asked Anle’s colleagues in Hong Kong, who also bought some small non-Hollywood films in Hong Kong very early, but I feel that they don’t have a particularly good model, including Taiwan Province, but they are all very small. If you follow that, the distribution of these films in China is not particularly bad.
Q: Do you think that these domestic ideas of putting on a full-screen screening are actually wrong?
A: I think this idea may need to be changed, because before, only the film center was on the long line, and this volume was a little too small. I understand that they are not satisfied with only showing it in one theater, and I also think it needs to be expanded, but it is unrealistic for you to really compare it with commercial films, even with Fireworks in the Day.
Q: Before "Fireworks in the Day", there was a saying, why not learn from the United States, first show it on a small scale, and then expand it? Do you think it is difficult to realize this?
A: To a certain extent, the current publicity companies can’t settle down to do this. If it’s small, you have to choose a cinema and talk about it one by one. Now there are so many publicity weeks for a film, and there are so many cycles for a film. After this project is over, he will immediately enter the next project, no matter what happens to the film in the later stage, but these films must be fermented by word of mouth for a long time before they can be done slowly.
Many literary films will be wasted if they do this.
But generally speaking, it is hard to achieve any box office miracle, that is, you accumulate slowly, but now no one is doing this, and there are not even a number of cinemas, even if only 20 or 30 people want to do this, and now it is Broadway, with at most an intermediate cinema. I don’t know what other cinema companies are like, but there are a few cities in Broadway that are suitable for our own company, and then the managers are willing to cooperate. They also know what to do, but they still can’t become a mass.
In fact, many domestic literary films may not be publicized, and many cinemas simply don’t arrange them. Zi Shijun interviewed some cinema managers when "A Hundred Birds at the Phoenix" was released. Their first reaction was, I haven’t seen it, I don’t know about it.
There is a horse on the other side of the mountain, with a domestic box office of 240,000.
For example, there is a horse on the other side of the mountain released in May, and the number of films is even lower. The Broadway Film Center has never seen the film, because Yang Yang is familiar with Huang Lu, and she took the initiative to find the producer through her, and then told them whether to come and have a post-screening exchange. "But they haven’t done some movie-watching activities before, and the director happened to be going to other places, and then Huang Lu couldn’t come because he had to shoot, feeling that they gave up on propaganda, and many films would be wasted."
Next page:Is the art cinema really the savior of literary films?