Chapter 2591: Pointing the direction for art films

Boss Zhou's words sounded better than his singing, but in other people's ears, he felt a little weak.

What does it mean?

Do you want to save the literary film market?

Why are you?

As Hollywood commercial films take the world by storm, artistic films are becoming more and more niche. Especially when more entertainment options such as TV series and game consoles appeared later, it became even more difficult for literary and artistic films to survive.

This is a problem that has plagued every independent filmmaker around the world for decades.

You said it can be solved by solving it?

Not many people believe it.

Someone asked, "Is it relying on the new streaming media? Netflix?"

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "Yes, the Internet is the solution."

Someone raised a very sharp question that has troubled the entire industry, asking: "Are streaming movies still movies?"

Someone immediately followed suit, "Twenty years ago, Americans also came up with new tricks for TV movies. Are TV movies really movies? I believe every filmmaker disagrees!"

The so-called TV movies are mainly produced by HBO.

Find a team and make a movie.

This movie will not be released in theaters, but will be exclusively broadcast on HBO.

It's a type of movie made exclusively for television.

However, this kind of movie is basically not on the stage, and cannot be included in the selection of major mainstream film festivals. It is classified as a "TV series" in the industry.

How different are streaming movies from TV movies?

Then someone else said, "Only movies shown in cinemas are movies!"

Zhou Buqi actually completely disagrees with this old-school view of movies.

Why are only movies in cinemas called movies?

In his previous life, he had watched thousands of movies, most of them on the Internet, and the viewing effect was even better than in the cinema. There are many deep movies, and every line is worth pondering over and over again. In the cinema, the plot advances without interruption, leaving no room for thinking.

Watching movies on the Internet is different.

When you see something complicated, you can pause.

If you don’t understand it, you can go back and read it again. Even some wonderful scenes, such as the ten minutes of stunning sex scenes in "The Life of Adele", can be watched over and over again.

There is no such advantage in the cinema.

In Zhou Buqi's view, you must go to the cinema to watch commercial blockbusters. Only cinemas can provide the best audio-visual experience and experience the sensory stimulation brought by commercial blockbusters;

But if you are watching a literary film, you must watch it on the Internet through a computer. Only after closing the door and quieting down, letting everything go without external interference, can your thoughts be sublimated along with the theme of the film and feel the humanistic spirit conveyed by the director. .

However, Zhou Buqi couldn't reason with these filmmakers.

For these people, showing a movie in a cinema is like a ritual. Just like getting married, you only need to get a certificate to be considered married, but you must have a wedding to be considered married.

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "There may be some misunderstandings here. Streaming media and cinemas are not contradictory at all. Streaming media replaces the part of the movie ecosystem after the theater chain. There is no need to find channels to produce DVDs and sell them. We need to find ways to promote it to some paid on-demand channels, and there is no need to recommend it to TV broadcasters. Streaming media platforms like Netflix have solved all these follow-up problems."

After a pause, Zhou Buqi continued: "After the movie is produced, it can be released in cinemas according to the established process. When the movie is offline, the streaming platform will take over all subsequent processes."

Spielberg stood up and said something fair, "Whether it is a commercial film or an artistic film, the most important thing is to recover the cost."

Zhou Buqi said: "Yes, recover the cost. The reason why literary and artistic films face survival difficulties is because there is no return on investment. Many excellent film projects have been shelved because of the risk of income and the inability to get start-up funds. This has a great impact on the film industry. It would be a huge loss."

Spielberg said: "Actually, there are more heartbreaking things."

"oh?"

"Many excellent works have to modify the plot or even change actors because they have to consider market efficiency. Many producers will edit the film beyond recognition, completely losing the meaning that the director wanted to express. This is reasonable for commercial films, and uses Treating art films the same way is a blasphemy against art."

"That makes sense!"

Zhou Buqi fully agrees with Spielberg's statement.

And this also speaks to the heart of every filmmaker.

Everyone has their own artistic aesthetic and creative ideas.

But many times, for the sake of survival and profit, filmmakers have to adjust their works. Especially when facing channel vendors, they often have to hand over the editing rights together.

For example, the Japanese film master Hayao Miyazaki once sent a samurai sword to Harvey Weinstein and told him clearly that if you dare to edit my movie, I will chop you down!

However, the vast majority of filmmakers have no ability to resist when faced with powerful distributors, and watch their beloved works being arbitrarily cut and edited by them, leaving them unrecognizable.

Of course there are some who are successful.

For example, Lao Mouzi's "Hero" became a huge hit and became the most popular Chinese-language film because it was edited by Harvey Weinstein and made it more in line with the aesthetics of the North American market.

Zhou Buqi said: "I think every artist should be given full respect, especially European avant-garde films, which must be preserved as they are. So, I want to solve these two things at the same time. First , so that art films will no longer be troubled by business; secondly, so that art films can fully express themselves, and the channel party should not have the right to edit the film. My answer is the Internet streaming platform."

A French director said with a smile: "If this happens, European movies will really be saved."

Zhou Buqi said: "There must be a way. We cannot watch the film art wither. Ziweixing Global has this responsibility and obligation to make some contributions to the long-term development of the film industry. I also had a meeting with President Hollande at noon today. During the meeting, we talked about French movies. I told him clearly that Ziweixing Global planned to invest in about 10 French literary films every year and give the director the greatest independent creative rights. Streaming media is a membership system, which follows the sales logic of past channels. Totally different. For art films, we have a better solution!”

These politicians in Europe and the United States make promises that are just like farts.

Once you are aware of it, implement it.

Hollande is out of office, so it doesn't matter if he refuses to comply.

Let’s just say that what was promised to Hollande will be invalidated by the next president.

In contrast, the domestic system has a lot of continuity. If you make some promises with the top management and then forget about them after a few years and treat them as a fool, then you are really Became a fool.

For streaming media like Netflix, the most important thing is content, which is the content based on the Internet traffic method.

There should be new films constantly.

And if you want to promote it to the whole world, you need to have content in a variety of different languages ​​to cater to local needs. Whether it's French, German, Italian or Spanish movies, you can get them all.

The biggest attractions and traffic hot spots for movies from these European countries are really art films.

When watching commercial films, everyone goes to Hollywood.

Local commercial films really don’t have much hype, so they can’t bring much traffic.

In contrast, European art films are the consensus of the world.

One of its biggest features is its large scale.

Miss Adele in "The Life of Adele" had just turned 18 when the film was made, but she was tricked by the film director into stripping off her clothes for a sex scene for artistic reasons.

The opponent in the sex scene is another girl!

This kind of movie is something that Europeans can play, and it's more powerful than South Korea's Kim Ki-duk.

When Sophie Marceau first debuted, she broke the hearts of many innocent boys.

This is a gimmick.

It has more hype than European commercial films.

Boss Zhou really talks better than he sings.

He spends money.

The movies he invests in are bound to have a certain focus.

It is impossible for every European film to apply for funding from Ziweixing Universal with its script and be approved. It must have enough hype points and gimmicks.

No matter what kind of business, it has to be surrounded by pornography, gambling, and drugs. This is the right direction that Boss Zhou has pointed out for European movies.

A movie of the caliber of "The Life of Adele" would make even a person like him, who has read countless movies, excited. This will become the driving force to attract viewers to become members of its own streaming media platform.