Author: Yuan Yuner
40 days after its release, the three Beijing-produced films “The Wandering Earth 2”, “Man Jianghong” and “Deep Sea” are still popular. Among the 6 new films released during the Spring Festival in 2023, 3 were produced in Beijing. Among them, “Man Jianghong” and “The Wandering Earth 2” became the most popular films in the Spring Festival due to their high reputation and high box office. As of February 16, the box office reached 44.81 respectively. 100 million yuan and 3.933 billion yuan. The animated film “Deep Sea” created an underwater visual feast with “particle ink” technology, and the exploration and portrayal of “spiritual dilemma” resonated with the audience.
“Changjin Lake”, “Wolf Warrior 2”, “Hello, Li Huanying”, “Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes into the World“, “The Wandering Earth”… These phenomenal works that have continuously broken box office records in recent years all have a common theme behind them Name – Beijing-produced film.
In recent years, Beijing has continued to lead the country in film production and creation, and has produced a series of well-received and well-received boutique masterpieces. Films produced in Beijing are constantly climbing the peak of artistic creation.
The main theme work has a double harvest at the box office
On the tense and busy set of the movie “The Great War: Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea”, the young screenwriter Zhang Ke is working. The film is directed by Chen Kaige, and the announced cast includes Zhang Ziyi, Zhang Songwen, Zhang Zifeng and others. The film will show the great deeds of the Chinese People’s Volunteers in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea in a panoramic and multi-layered manner. This is not the first time Zhang Ke has participated in the creation of a Beijing-produced theme film. Before that, he also wrote works such as “My Motherland and Me” and “The Revolutionary”.
In Zhang Ke’s view, it is an inevitable trend to integrate the main theme movies with commercial genre movies. “As a popular art, movies should not only achieve better social benefits, but also have strong economic benefits. To make more audiences, especially young audiences, willing to watch is a goal that contemporary main theme movies must achieve. The main theme The combination of values and the narrative and audio-visual language of genre films is a major achievement made by Chinese films in recent years.” He believes that it is necessary to create vivid characters based on the creative concept of “the big things are true, and the small things are not limited”. For example, Li Dazhao in “The Revolutionary” combines different identities such as father, husband, and teacher.
“Changjin Lake” and “Shuimen Bridge of Changjin Lake”, which will be released on September 30, 2021 and February 20, 2022 respectively, have continuously detonated the movie market, breaking records in terms of box office and number of viewers. “Changjin Lake” has won the total box office list of Chinese film history with a cumulative box office of 5.775 billion yuan, and it has been firmly ranked as the champion. . Both films were created, supported, produced and distributed by Beijing.
If the “Changjin Lake” series of movies follow the path of commercial blockbusters with a panoramic theme, then the two Beijing-produced movies “Sniper” and “Revolutionary” have a unique temperament and style in terms of style. “Sniper” starts from the microcosm, dares to cut out the complicated and simplify, and focuses its attention on a small corner of the battlefield to resist US aggression and aid Korea. The time does not exceed half a day, but the story is wonderful and emotional. “The Revolutionary” tells the story of the revolutionary pioneers represented by Li Dazhao who carried out the revolution with a sincere heart. Structurally, it unfolds with a countdown timeline of “38 hours from Li Dazhao’s martyrdom”. The relationship is quite innovative, and the film style is romantic and freehand.
In order to produce more masterpieces that disseminate contemporary Chinese values, embody the spirit of Chinese culture, and reflect the aesthetic pursuit of Chinese people, Beijing focuses on the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, and commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Chinese People’s Volunteers going abroad to fight against the United States and aid Korea. Anniversary and other major time nodes, carefully organize the creation and production of key films, and provide “one-stop” butler services in terms of guidance, planning guidance, tracking and support.
Since 2019, the Beijing Propaganda Culture Guidance Fund has supported many key projects with excellent social and economic benefits, such as the movies “Changjin Lake”, “The Wandering Earth 2”, “Deep Sea” and “Above the Cliff”, and the blockbuster projects supported by the fund “The Great War Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea” and others are being created. The annual key project release mechanism of the “Beijing Cultural Quality Project” has been launched since 2014, and a total of 51 quality films have been released so far.
In recent years, batches of excellent Beijing-produced thematic films that eulogize the Party, the motherland, the people, and the heroes have performed brilliantly, achieving both box office and word-of-mouth harvests. It has played a positive role in the society and played a demonstration role in the whole country.
Type breakthrough provides rich experience and reference
Astronauts from all over the world sit in the car and take the space elevator called “cosmic highway” to directly ascend from the ground to the space station. This space elevator with an exposed structure is 90,000 kilometers long, soaring into the clouds, and it can make people realize the displacement between the ground and outer space with a swish… This is the “Wandering Earth 2” in the movie “Wandering Earth 2″ famous scene”. Audiences who have watched the film will be deeply impressed by the spectacular and shocking space elevator in the film. This Beijing-produced film brought the space elevator that appeared in many science fiction novels to the big screen.
Film critic Yan Peng said that “The Wandering Earth 2” is not inferior to Hollywood sci-fi commercial blockbusters, and has made significant progress in sci-fi imagination and special effects presentation. “And the more significance of “The Wandering Earth 2” is not only reflected in the maturity of genre films, but more importantly, the establishment of a production system, just like products, with control processes and technical standards. This is what director Guo Fan has always wanted to do. One thing. The reason why science fiction films are called “the ceiling of the film industry” is because they involve a lot of management standards. For example, after “The Wandering Earth”, director Lu Yang directly used “The Wandering Earth” when he made “Assassination of Novelists”. “Related technologies. So this series will play a role in promoting the entire industry, promote the improvement of film industry standards, save a lot of energy and time for future shooting, and let them know how to shoot and how to control it.”
From “Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes into the World” in 2019 to “Deep Sea”, which is currently in theaters, the continuous exploration of animation in the genre of Beijing-produced films has made people see the huge market potential of animated films and Chinese animation. Human ingenuity and tenacity.
“Deep Sea”, which took seven years to create, pioneered the “particle ink” technology, combining traditional ink animation with 3D animation to create a colorful underwater world like an oil painting. Tian Xiaopeng, the director of the film, said that since his previous “Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage” has allowed him to harvest more resources, he also hopes to bring more possibilities to animation through “Deep Sea” and provide more opportunities for future directors or works. much experience. “In “Deep Sea”, we have done a lot of character model development, using live-action photography directors to present more cinematic images, and a huge amount of special effects production… All these content innovations and technical attempts can at least be used by us. In the next project, it can help us shorten the exploration time, which is a kind of industrial progress.” Wang Jing, the producer of the film and CEO of Caitiaowu Films, said.
Pan Ruojian, a professor at the Beijing Film Academy, said that Chinese films have been exploring genres for many years. The reason why Beijing-produced films such as “The Wandering Earth 2” and “Nezha: The Devil Comes into the World” can be successful is that they respect market laws and audience. “The so-called type means that I want to watch a science fiction film, which will have an imagination about the future world. Each type has a basic narrative mode and a complete set of audio-visual languages that match it. If you can have something that exceeds the audience’s expectations, you can win the market.”
The “Wandering Earth” series of movies have become milestones in domestic sci-fi blockbusters. “Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes into the World” and “Deep Sea” have set up the banner of the rise of Chinese comics through Chinese stories and oriental aesthetics. “Wolf Warrior 2” and “Operation Red Sea” “continued to write new glory of action movies with shocking and exciting scenes. “Man Jianghong” successfully integrated commercial genre elements such as comedy, suspense, and history… In terms of genre film creation, Beijing-produced films are excellent in action, science fiction, animation, comedy, etc. A significant breakthrough has been made in genre, which not only brings a bumper box office harvest to the Chinese film market, but also provides rich and practical experience and reference for the genreization of Chinese films.
Art exploration condenses the ingenuity of filmmakers
Generally, the production cycle of an animated film is about three years, but to the surprise of Wang Jing, the producer of “Deep Sea”, it took the main creative team seven years for this film to finally welcome it on the big screen. gorgeous bloom. The beauty of the film and the maturity of animation technology have moved many fans.
The reason why “Deep Sea” has been in development for so long is because a lot of research and development time has been invested, and many links are a process from 0 to 1. In terms of subject matter, the film abandoned mythical stories, the “traffic code” of animated films in recent years, and boldly developed original stories of small characters with modern themes; in terms of production volume, the film has thousands of extremely beautiful special effects shots, accounting for nearly 70%, while the general movie is about 50%. One of the nearly one-minute shots was completed by 16 animators; the dubbing of the film alone lasted five years. The long voice line has changed, and the crew has re-selected voice actors…
Guo Fan, the film director of the “Wandering Earth” series, told a detail: When filming “The Wandering Earth 2”, in order to make the grand and magnificent sci-fi world real, the team worked overtime and made a total of 5,310 conceptual design drawings and nearly 10,000 sub-shots Drawing drafts, and invited a scientific advisory team of 19 people to control the logical structure of science fiction throughout the process, even the details that passed by in a flash, were repeatedly deliberated.
Director Zhang Yimou, who is over 70 years old, was still full of passion when creating the film “Man Jianghong”, and the script alone took four to five years to polish. He specially built two houses in Taiyuan, Shanxi, and opened them up to form the entire scene of the film’s story. At the beginning, Zhang Yimou even thought about using the method of “one shot to the end” to shoot. At that time, Shen Teng, Yi Yang Qianxi, Zhang Yi and other actors were also very excited, and they set aside a one-month schedule for rehearsal. But when Zhang Yimou studied many “one shot to the end” movies, he finally dispelled this crazy idea, “Compared with showing off skills, characters and stories are the most important. It’s wrong to grasp it.”
In recent years, Beijing-produced films have become more diverse and in-depth in terms of artistic exploration, which not only enriched the market supply, but also gained a lot in word-of-mouth and awards. This is inseparable from the ingenuity of the majority of filmmakers who devote themselves to creation and painstaking efforts.
The ingenuity is exchanged for word-of-mouth from the audience and trophies in the industry. From 2017 to 2020, many Beijing-produced films won important national awards. “The Wandering Earth”, “Operation Red Sea”, “Zhou Enlai Returns to Yan’an”, “My Motherland and Me”, “Changjin Lake”, “Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes into the World” won the “Five One Project” award. In the selection of the Golden Rooster Awards for Chinese Films in the past four years, the “Beijing Team” has made great achievements, and “The Wandering Earth”, “Winning the Championship” and “Changjin Lake” won the Best Feature Film Award. Two Beijing-produced works such as “Operation Red Sea” and “Changjin Lake” were on the list of the Best Film Award of the Chinese Film Hundred Flowers Awards in the past three years.
Policy support contributes to building a powerful film country
Looking at the total box office list of domestic films in China, one will find an astonishing discovery: the top eleven works on the list are all dominated by excellent films released by Beijing, including “Changjin Lake”, “The Wandering Earth”, “Warrior” and “Warrior”. Wolf 2″ and other series of films.
Regarding this statistical result, Rao Shuguang, president of the China Film Critics Society, expressed no surprise. In terms of film creation, Beijing leads the country, he said. “Compared with other provinces in the country, Beijing has concentrated various resources in the development of the film industry and has unparalleled advantages. Whether it is pre-planning, shooting, post-production or distribution promotion, Beijing has a very complete and mature film industry chain Most of the country’s film industry’s leading companies are located in Beijing, and the best and most active film creative talents are also in Beijing, and even many filmmakers from Shanghai and Hong Kong have set up studios in Beijing; Beijing Film Academy, Central Academy of Drama, etc. Film and television colleges are also located in Beijing; Beijing is also one of the most important markets for the national film industry, known as the bellwether of the box office…”
Since 2019, Beijing has successively issued the “Implementation Opinions on Promoting the Prosperity and Development of Beijing’s Film and Television Industry”, “Implementation Plan on Deepening the Comprehensive Reform of the Film and Television Industry to Promote the Healthy Development of Beijing’s Film and Television Industry”, “The 14th Five-Year Plan” Beijing Film Development Plan, etc. The document provides policy support for promoting the high-quality development of Beijing films.
After the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, the Propaganda Department of the Municipal Party Committee immediately coordinated a rescue fund of 20 million yuan to subsidize films and companies that were seriously affected by the epidemic, and boost the confidence of the film industry in fighting the epidemic.
In order to promote the prosperity of the market, Beijing also launched a movie-watching benefit event in the Spring Festival, using “real gold and silver” movie-watching subsidies to directly benefit citizens and encourage them to go to theaters to watch movies.
Up to now, there are 4,101 Beijing enterprises registered on the national film e-government platform. Since 2018, Beijing has completed the filing of more than 3,000 film scripts and produced more than 1,000 films.
“It can be said that Beijing is the national film creation center and the first phalanx of film production and production.” Zhao Weifang, director of the Film and Television Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Arts, commented. (Yuan Yuner)
[
责编：陈凡玉 ]