Can China movies only be shown to Chinese when they go out to sea？

"Wonderful!" "We all think it is better than Marvel Comics movies." "I am very much looking forward to the next one." The French audience who saw "Feng Shen" said in the video of UP master Yang Tiantvt.

(French audience feedback (Source: bilibili)

On February 11th and 12th, "Feng Shen" was shown in more than 140 cinemas in France, with a total of over 400 screenings. It was only shown for two days, and the film market responded enthusiastically. The person in charge of the Max Linder Cinema in Paris said, "Feng Shen broke our early release record." UGC Les Halles Cinema, the world’s largest cinema, revealed that on the first day of the release of "Feng Shen", all the largest theaters in the cinema were sold out.

The market performance of "Fengshen" exceeded the expectations of Chen Xing Qin, the founder of Heylight, a French publishing company. "At that time, I felt that the results would not be too bad, because we did do a lot of work in the early stage, but the result was so good that it really exceeded our expectations."

("Feng Shen" (Source: Douban)

Heylight’s "Deep Sea", which was jointly released, was also released in France recently. At present, the number of people watching movies has reached 150,000, setting a new record for Chinese movies in France in the past three years. In just one month, many Chinese-language films performed strongly in the French market.

("Deep Sea" (Source: Douban)

Not only in France, but also in North America, "Article 20" was released on February 23, and it topped the global weekend box office champion in the first weekend, and its popularity and word-of-mouth quickly fermented. According to Lin Zhao, vice president of Chinese film industry and head of international distribution who is in charge of the film distribution, the attendance rate of the film in key business districts in various regions is as high as 80% after the overseas pre-sale.

YOLO, released by Sony, was released in North America on March 8th. According to Deadline, YOLO performed well at its premiere, earning $840,000 at the box office on 200 screens, ranking among the top five on the first day.

In recent years, the overseas distribution of Chinese films has been in full swing. Compared with the period of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero 20 years ago, has there been any new change in the overseas distribution strategy of Chinese films?

Poison Eye had several in-depth dialogues with three publishing companies: Chinese Film, Trinity CineAsia and French Heylight. In the dialogue, we learned that simultaneous screening at home and abroad is still difficult, and extreme operations often occur; Although Chinese films have long focused on Chinese groups, there is still the possibility of developing incremental users, and accurate user positioning can bring a lot of market repercussions; The star effect is no longer effective in the current environment, and the content has become the only direction for Chinese movies to break through.

To "limit the file" and "convince the cinema"

When talking about the achievement of "Feng Shen", Chen Xing has always stressed that this project is "very lucky". In her view, the success of "Feng Shen" now mainly benefits from three points: the activity planning of "French Spring Festival File" is attractive; The film market has reserved opportunities for new films to break out; The weather, holidays and other objective conditions provide the audience with an opportunity to watch movies.

In December last year, Heylight signed the French distribution rights of "Feng Shen" and decided to release it. Because it is similar to the Spring Festival in year of the loong, Chen Xing decided to release it in the Spring Festival to create a "French Spring Festival file". In her view, not only Chinese people are familiar with the concept of "Spring Festival stalls", but also many French people have always been aware of the Spring Festival in China, so they can take advantage of the situation to carry out corresponding cultural activities.

The special release schedule has opened a gap for "Feng Shen". Because French new films are usually released on Wednesdays, and February 10th and 11th are French weekends, several blockbusters originally scheduled to be released before the 10th have chosen to postpone the release time, and are scheduled to be released on Valentine’s Day on February 14th. In this case, there is no strong film in the film market to grab the market attention of Feng Shen.

The sudden extension of the blockbuster was unexpected by Heylight, and even more unexpectedly, there were many objective factors that added fuel to the popularity of Fengshen. "Generally speaking, few people go to the movies on weekend nights, because we have to go to work on Monday, but next Monday is a holiday, so our box office on Sunday sells higher than that on Saturday." Chen Xing Jiao mentioned. France is divided into three districts for holiday arrangement, and Paris, which is located in District C, just started its 16-day holiday on February 10th.

Just at this time, the weather in France is in a cold wave, and it is very cold. Many people have no suitable outdoor entertainment activities, so most people will choose to watch movies.

Under the blessing of various factors, the success of "Feng Shen" can be called "the right time, the right place and the right people", and finally it achieved the market effect of full market and hard to get a ticket.

(French cinema shows "Feng Shen" (Source: CineAsia)

However, in Chen Xing’s view, the seemingly smooth announcement process was more "near misses". The limited release time makes their work often hasty, for example, material copyright, contact with cinemas, media publicity and other actions are required to be promoted in a very short time.

Not only Heylight, "limit" and "hurry" are also a state repeatedly mentioned by several other publishing companies.

Lin Zhao also mentioned, "Most films consider that the time of overseas distribution is usually relatively late, the announcement period is short, and the execution time is usually limited. However, the arrangement of overseas distribution is not as fast and efficient as that of China. How to balance the realistic factors on both sides is a major problem encountered by many distributors."

Limited by the schedule of domestic films, overseas distribution is often passive. On the one hand, it is necessary to collect film information and promotional materials, such as stills and posters, to localize them, and it takes some time for material design and film review; On the other hand, different local film policies and market habits also make it necessary to adjust the distribution strategy at the time of overseas distribution, and overseas distributors will hope that China producers will cooperate and contact with the distribution earlier.

Zhang Qin, the PR and Media Commissioner of Trinity CineAsia, also told Poison Eye that CineAsia made a premiere of Wandering Earth 2 in the UK on the first day of last year, and it was released in the UK on the sixth day of last year, which was the most ideal limit they could do.

This can be done largely because Wandering Earth 2 is different from other films, and it was announced two years in advance, which gave them enough communication time for overseas release. "If the official announcement is made early and the copyright matters are negotiated, the subsequent announcement action can be more spare."

("Wandering Earth 2" (Source: CineAsia)

Zhang Qin said that the "Golden Finger" was officially announced in August last year, so that their subsequent announcement work would not be too tense. "We also won the road show trips of Andy Lau and Tony Leung Chiu Wai to let them come to the UK for publicity, but unfortunately they didn’t arrive, because they will go to Malaysia later, so they won’t come to Europe."

In addition to the matching problem with the domestic filing time, there is also the problem of overseas grading evaluation. Zhang Qin said, "Some rating systems in the UK have some special standard systems. Before the release of each film, it must be rated by the British Film Rating Committee (BBFC). It takes time and cost to make an appointment, upload the source and review the film."

("Fengshen" UK rating (Source: BBFC)

Even if the preliminary work goes smoothly, persuading local cinemas to announce the film will often face some practical resistance.

Chen Xing Jiao said that persuading the local cinema to show "Feng Shen" on the first and second days of the New Year’s Day was the most difficult part of the whole work. "The difficulty of this matter far exceeded our imagination." She explained that the weekend golden field is the most precious time of the week in a cinema, and the cinema will be more cautious in its decision-making, especially "Feng Shen" is a Chinese-language film that is unknown to both the director and the locals in Cass.

During the whole communication process, Chen Xing and his team made a detailed analysis of the advantages of "French Spring Festival", and at the same time showed the French media’s reports on various dimensions of "Feng Shen". After a long period of communication, we finally reached a cooperation. At the same time, Xuanfa also let the cooperative cinemas use their own social media to provide certain exposure for the film.

Zhang Qin also said that the company will keep in touch with local cinemas, and every film released will send posters to introduce the propaganda points of Chinese films and provide some convincing distribution proposals. "Because many times, cinemas like to put Chinese films in some non-golden venues, and the filming time is very embarrassing, so we need to strive for some better times."

In North America, the arrangement of films in the film market will refer to the distributor’s publicity plan and the ideas and suggestions of local cinema managers. Among them, domestic market data will play a decisive role. Lin Zhao, for example, said, "For example, the popularity of social media and the popularity index of related platforms are all their criteria. If the film has been released in China and then released overseas, the theater will also arrange the film to a large extent according to the domestic box office situation. " Therefore, in the view of Chinese film industry, if it is not a large-scale and commercial film, they do not tend to release it simultaneously.

In addition, Lin Zhao also mentioned, "For overseas cinema distribution, it is often earlier to get the material of the feature film than in China. For the filmmakers, it is still a risky and prudent decision to deliver the material in advance. Although we can ensure the confidentiality and security of the materials from the perspective of our overseas publishers, and we understand the considerations of the film as a production company, it will still be a long-term process that requires both parties to build trust. "

It can be seen that the problems faced by overseas distribution, whether for large film companies or independent distributors, have their own troubles in different countries and regions.

The audience of Chinese films is no longer limited to Chinese.

For a long time, the overseas audience of Chinese films is mainly Chinese groups, which also makes overseas distribution companies pay more attention to the maintenance of Chinese groups.

Zhang Qin said that CineAsia has established a relatively stable relationship with the local Chinese community. For example, it will get to know the heads of local overseas students and scholars associations, KOL and China Chamber of Commerce, and once a new film is released, it will inform relevant film information in time; Set up fan group chat on common social software, so as to inform relevant film information and introduce related activities.

In addition, overseas distribution companies will also contact the mainstream media to create word of mouth, hold a premiere, invite people who have the right to speak in the film and television industry to watch movies, and attract local audiences through word-of-mouth fermentation. For example, when CineAsia promoted Wandering Earth 2, it invited Tony Nicholson, an actor who participated in the filming, and ChristianRandPhillips and Ye Jintian were invited to the premiere of Gods. This kind of live exchange activity had a certain influence and led to the local box office.

(ChristianRandPhillips and Ye Jintian (Source: CineAsia)

Only by ensuring the basic disk of existing users will the publicity team consider mining user increments. The incremental population needs to be targeted. For example, Zhang Qin said that in addition to paying attention to movie information through social media, it is the habit of the local market to receive information through mail, so they will also send movie information by mail.

Different from the division of cities in first, second, third and fourth tier cities in China, the audience groups faced by overseas distribution are more diverse and complex. The audience’s different cultural backgrounds often make them have different interests in movies, which requires overseas distribution to be more accurate and fully tap the publicity points of all aspects of movies.

For example, when promoting Article 20, the Chinese film industry has a targeted publicity strategy. "For new immigrants and student groups, we should fully highlight the cultural resonance and familiarity with the legal system in the film. For the old immigrants and the second generation of immigrants, we should highlight the entertainment of the film and the attraction of the cast. At the same time, for bicultural and western groups, the cross-cultural elements and international jokes of the film are particularly important, which can stimulate their resonance and thinking. "

However, Article 20 is a comedy set in China law, in which "China law" and "comedy punch line" still have certain cultural barriers to western audiences. Therefore, when facing local western audiences, creating and explaining cross-cultural punch lines has become the focus of Chinese film industry.

("Article 20" is overseas (Source: Weibo)

Lin Zhao mentioned that on the one hand, they provided enough background information and used social media short videos, cooperated with "overseas social media influencer", especially those who focused on film, culture or legal issues, introduced the jokes and legal knowledge in the film in a humorous and easy-to-understand way, attracted a wider audience, and established the spread of local multi-dimensional word of mouth.

On the other hand, according to the activity of the target audience on different social media platforms, content delivery plans are made, online and offline community activities and movie viewing meetings are held, and film critics, media, legal experts and other ethnic groups are invited to increase the audience’s understanding and interest in the theme of the film.

But the situation in the French market is completely different.

There are many Chinese groups in Britain and North America, but the number of Chinese groups in France is limited, which cannot support the whole market and cover the distribution cost. "There are about 30,000 international students in France and 600,000 people in the entire Chinese community, half of whom are not highly educated." In Chen Xing’s view, under such a demographic portrait, if you want to get considerable box office income, you can only open up the whole market, not stick to the Chinese community.

When promoting "Feng Shen", Heylight put more energy into the promotion and recommendation of local audiences, and only turned the promotion to the Chinese community two weeks before the release. "In fact," Feng Shen "has already spread to the Chinese community. We don’t need to plant grass for them, we just need to complete the information transmission." Chen Xing Jiao said.

According to statistics, 70% of the audience of "Feng Shen" are French, which means that the film basically touches the local western audience and covers the whole market.

(French achievement of "Feng Shen" (Source: Weibo)

Facing the western audience’s propaganda in the French market, it is not as difficult as Chen Xing thought. One of the special reasons is that the French have mature movie-watching habits, which is almost the highest frequency crowd in the world. "The French film market basically follows the’ 442 principle’, with 40% Hollywood movies, 40% local French movies and 20% non-English movies, so French audiences have always liked foreign movies. Moreover, most audiences in France are cardholders of cinemas, and they have formed the habit of watching movies every week, so in comparison, their choice cost is not so high. "

In this cultural environment, what Heylight needs to do more is to determine the basic user portrait of the film and make an infiltration announcement according to the habits of the target users.

Chen Xing introduced Feng Shen as an example, saying that they usually find the target users according to big data, and then classify the users. For example, for habitual movie users, they will promote it on the vertical website of movies. In addition, they will also look for game media to promote, because this spectacular film will attract the interest of such users. In addition, people who can watch Japanese and Korean films themselves and are interested in Asian culture will also have a high degree of acceptance of "Feng Shen" by putting the information flow of "Feng Shen" in front of movies such as Godzilla -1.0.

("Godzilla -1.0" (Source: Douban)

This strategy is completely different from the way of relying on short video in China. In overseas distribution, short video is not the best choice. "We do more targeted publicity, not some general traffic of short videos."

In Chen Xing’s view, "the domestic publicity strategy is to complete video planting, then social discussion, go to the cinema to watch movies, and then social discussion to form a radioactive publicity chain, but in foreign countries, such flood publicity is expensive for overseas distribution."

Therefore, the budget is also doomed to the need for accuracy in overseas publicity. Lin Zhao also said that the budget is an important factor in the publicity strategy. "The communication in the international market, especially the localized communication in many countries and regions, often requires a higher budget. However, in view of the volume limitation of overseas Chinese film market, the effective allocation and utilization of budget has become particularly important. The communication team needs to plan the budget very accurately to ensure that the communication effect is maximized with a limited budget. "

Of course, there is also the copyright issue, which has always been the core of curbing the diversification of overseas publicity materials. Lin Zhao said, "The issue of content copyright is a long-standing propaganda obstacle, especially when it is necessary to carry out secondary processing based on domestic propaganda materials, or when there is a demand for independent material production. Copyright restrictions may hinder the innovation and use of communication materials. Therefore, while ensuring that the content does not infringe copyright, it maximizes the locality and creativity of the materials. "

Chinese movies with a long way to go

In 2020, when Parasite won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Bong Joon ho said in his acceptance speech, "Once you cross that one-inch high subtitle barrier, you will be exposed to more excellent movies." This sentence points out that language contradiction has long been regarded as a reason why non-English films have been blocked on the international stage.

("Parasite" (Source: Douban)

According to some analysis and research, the difficulties faced by overseas distribution of non-English movies are largely due to the fact that western audiences don’t have the habit of reading subtitles, and the gap caused by language and culture makes these audiences leave the scene or turn to non-English movies with more body language, such as action movies.

Faced with this statement, Chen Xing doesn’t quite agree. "We can’t attribute the failure of overseas films to the fact that western audiences are not used to watching subtitles, because it is reasonable to say that all small-language films have this problem. Then how do you explain the Korean film fire? I think the core is the content itself. "

Since Parasite, the influence of the Korean Wave has been continuously enhanced, and Japan’s cultural soft power has been successfully exported to European and American countries. In the non-English film market, Japanese and Korean films have always occupied the top spot with their content strength, and they are the most sought-after films in the distribution and trading market. For example, Zhang Qin mentioned that when Monster premiered in Cannes last year, many international distribution cooperation was negotiated at that time, and this word-of-mouth influence left sufficient preparation time for their subsequent market promotion.

("Monster" (Source: Douban)

Twenty years back, the Chinese movies at that time were the most powerful among non-English movies. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon grossed $128 million in North America, a record of 24 years ago that has not been broken until today. Zhang Yimou’s Hero in 2004 still ranks among the top ten foreign language films in North America.

The change of the status of Chinese films overseas is not only due to the decline of content, but also the failure of star effect and the high translation barriers.

Movies such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero have left Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Zhang Ziyi in the hearts of overseas audiences, and their star effect has also driven the box office achievements of Chinese movies. When Huo Yuanjia was released overseas, it translated its title into Jet Li’s Fearless, and deliberately put Jet Li’s name in the title to attract the audience’s attention. In the end, the film did achieve good results, with a North American box office of 24.63 million US dollars and DVD rental and sales income exceeding 40 million US dollars.

("Huo Yuanjia" (Source: Douban)

After that, Chinese films faced a long gap, no famous Chinese stars appeared, and the appeal of old Chinese stars was gone. Therefore, in today’s overseas film market environment, distribution companies can only focus on the content of the film, which also affects the film selection criteria of distribution companies. Both CineAsia and Heylight said that at present, their film selection criteria tend to be high-quality Chinese films, mainly taking the content of "universal emotional resonance and values" as the leading factor. CineAsia has issued a number of awards to nominate Hong Kong films, and used awards, box office performance and media reputation to persuade cinemas to arrange films and audiences to enter.

In the face of the gap between Chinese-language films today, in Chen Xing’s view, the reason is that China has changed and no longer produces works with elegies of the times. These films with the times are no longer applicable to the current environment. "Our films are undergoing an upgrading stage of film industrialization."

Industrial blockbusters are also a way to win the love of overseas audiences. Last year, the Japanese film Godzilla -1.0 won $100 million at the global box office with excellent visual effects, including $56.41 million in North America, which beat the box office results of Parasite and Hero and became the third foreign language film at the box office in North America.

(Godzilla -1.0) (Source: Weibo)

Its achievements clearly prove that the market still welcomes commercial films with big special effects. Especially in the case that Hollywood blockbusters that have occupied the public’s field of vision for a long time are getting tired in recent years, industrial films with other flavors are needed to make up for it. Chen Xing Qin mentioned, "At present, there is obvious aesthetic fatigue in the French market for Hollywood blockbusters, and French audiences hope that other visual blockbusters can fill the genre gap. This is a good opportunity for non-English movies to break through and a good opportunity for cultural propaganda. "

On the other hand, in order to catch up with the "French Spring Festival", "Feng Shen" was shown on February 10th and 11th with original subtitles, which made subtitle translation more important. After repeated proofreading of the 12 editions of subtitles before and after, Heylight strives not to cause the audience’s cognitive burden from history and culture to the relationship between characters.

Chen Xing cited an example for the improvement of the French subtitles of Feng Shen. In the film, there is a pun between "Huan" and "Huan", so the French translator chose "boucle" and "bouclée" instead, one meaning Yuhuan and the other meaning going home. This kind of translation of similar words strives to achieve the "faithfulness and elegance" in translation and also conveys the essence of the film. It can be seen that cultural differences exist, but universal values and emotions can also cross the barrier of language and impress the audience.

("Feng Shen" (Source: Weibo)

Lin Zhao also mentioned that distribution companies should actively deal with cultural differences, which is not a big obstacle, but more opportunities and challenges. "Appropriate types and universal content are important starting points, because they directly affect the acceptance and recognition of films in the international market. If possible, it is best to integrate international perspectives and talents from the development stage, and make and promote films directly for the global market. In order to succeed in such a market environment, we should not only pay attention to the localized publicity and distribution strategy, but also start from the story itself. Therefore, not all China films are suitable for the international market. The key lies in the judgment of the international market. We cannot blindly think that all Western audiences will accept any works unconditionally. "

"Going out" has always been an important measurement dimension to realize the film power, but behind the slogan is the effect that each specific practitioner can achieve by taking every detail seriously. "Content" is of course the essence of the film’s popularity, but the efforts of all the staff who have worked hard in the industrial chain and made policies according to local conditions can not be ignored. They are the core to make the film finally seen by more people.