Crowdfunding movie industry fish in troubled waters

Li Lei

This is an age when any industry can crowd-raise, including the consistently "tall" movie industry.

Recently, the giants of the Internet have all along burned their way to the cultural industry. Following the launch of Entertainment Bao by Alibaba Group (hereinafter referred to as "Ali"), Baidu also launched its crowdfunding platform called "crowdfunding channel." When people still talked about the first phase of entertainment treasure, Jingdong's crowdfunding business was also launched in full swing.

Even the more "outsider" financial groups, investment agencies and so on come to "get along" and Shanghai Kuailu Investment (Group) Co., Ltd. ("Deer Group") is one of them. Last month, the main microfinance, guarantee, pawn and other businesses launched P2P "Today's Loan" for cultural film and television works, providing a new Internet finance platform for film investment.

These crowdfunding films all have a common "selling point" in the way that "ordinary people can become movie investors." People only need to invest a small amount of money to participate in the investment of a movie, the movie will be released after a successful return, why not?

On the other hand, although the concept of "crowdfunding movies" is rapidly gaining prominence, the real practice is still limited to a relatively small minority.

CIC consultant culture industry researcher Shen Zheyan on the "First Financial Daily" said that film production is still mainly to film studios or get "filming license" of the enterprise, through its own funds or access to other people's investment to shoot.

"The current crowdfunding method is not yet capable of subverting traditional film production methods, but it has increased the financing channels and platforms for the development of the film industry, which is conducive to the development and prosperity of the entire industry," said Shen Zheh-yen.

Get together "crowdfunding"

Although Ali has always claimed that the essence of entertainment treasure is not "crowdfunding", but it is undeniable that this product does start the crowdfunding filming precedent.

By the end of March this year, the entertainment industry was born. After a few days, the first four investment projects including "Era 4" and "Wolf Totem" were all sold out. 223,800 users through the entertainment platform to participate in investment, a total of 785,000 copies, the total amount of 73 million yuan.

And this also means that by means of the platform of entertainment treasure, there are 223,800 "movie investors" in China instantaneously, and the real connection between the film industry and grassroots capital is realized.

This concept obviously stimulated the rapidly developing Chinese film industry, which in turn further enhanced the popularity of crowdfunding.

June, followed by entertainment Po launched the second phase of the product. Ali vice president, digital entertainment group president Liu Chunning revealed in an Internet movie high-end forum, the second phase of the amount of 92 million yuan worth of products have been sold out within three days.

Almost at the same time, "crowdfunding channels" and "co-sponsors" went on-stream. The former focused on crowdfunding investment in film and television works, while the latter took aim at pop culture and smart hardware in two major areas. Crowdfunding methods were used to raise project funds .

Deer Group is also involved in film crowdfunding at this time. Shi Jianxiang, chairman of the board of directors of the company, said in an interview with the reporter of "First Financial Daily": "Kuailu hopes to provide funding solutions for the domestic film and television culture industry with new internet tools."

This "solution" is the day loan. It is understood that the day loans mainly for online video works and art collections investment transactions, the amount of funds raised for each project, the rate of return is different, the platform for evaluation released on the line. After the official operation of five days, the total amount of investment loans that day has reached 4300 million yuan.

Stir the fulcrum of the movie industry

For the general public, "investing in the movie industry" used to be a distant idea, but the emergence of a new crowdfunding model offers the possibility of its realization.

As Shao Yonghua, the founder of the day, told the "First Financial Daily," crowdfunding investment has brought them a special experience for fans. "For example, a white-collar fan who invests 1,000 yuan, 5,000 yuan, and invests in a movie star can get other rights, such as exploring the class and participating in the premiere rights, even if not making money, some fans are willing to .This is the Internet to bring The new model, which meets the different needs of the two sides of the fund lending.

Liu Chunning also said that Ali's real intention of making entertainment treasure is the fan economy. "We play the fan economy because the biggest value comes from consumers and then to consumers."

In fact, this new model based on "fan economics" and "internet thinking" is a pivotal fulcrum through which it can even leverage the entire traditional film industry and rebuild the commercial path to growth in the cultural industry.

First of all, the crowdfunding model allows people to invest in the films and movies that they are really interested in, and to some extent even decide on the theme, director and performer.

Zhang Qiang, director and deputy general manager of China Film Co., Ltd., also disclosed at the forum that when the film "China Partner" was initially planned, a story about shooting a new Hope Group was proposed. However, the company eventually chose New Oriental, which has a wider circulation on the Internet .

"This is the data that the internet has given us and the Internet helped us solve the movie's number one problem - what to shoot."

In addition, crowdfunding has also spawned a large number of micro-movie series. Over the past year and a half, over 100 films and television programs in the Mainland have successfully raised their production costs through crowdfunding platforms. Among them, about $ 1.37 million has been raised in the movie "One Hundred and Fifty Swords," animated film "Big Begonia" Raised funds reached 1.58 million yuan.

Shen Zhe-Zheh said that this new model can not only understand consumer demand in advance, but also to some extent, to protect the late box office receipts, the structure of the film and television O2O commercial closed loop, "can be described as double benefit."

However, Liu Chunning also said that entertainment treasure is only a platform that will not make content. The essence of "internet entertainment" lies in the entertainment industry, with content, production and quality as the king.

"The Internet has only played a role of integration, improvement, optimization and promotion, but we can never replace China's excellent film production team and producer." Liu emphasized several times at the forum.