Chapter 2716 Audio and video synchronization

The next morning, Zhou Buqi had another formal meeting with provincial and municipal leaders. In the large conference room, media reporters took photos and videos, and the meeting was broadcast on the evening news of the provincial station.

Basically a general idea has been determined.

Zhou Buqi will do everything possible to bring Hynix's project to Liangxi City.

The current SK Group is very unstable, and the stock price keeps falling. Boss Zhou is their life-saving straw. As long as there are no problems in Liangxi, this 2.5 billion US dollar investment project will most likely be settled in Liangxi!

This impassioned statement in a formal occasion naturally attracted the attention and gratitude of provincial and municipal leaders. They said that China finally had a big entrepreneur who could speak for itself in the world. This is a national treasure like a giant panda!

Speaking of pandas, Zhou Buqi left Liangxi for the Magic City at noon to actually see pandas.

Not to the zoo.

Instead, go to Jieyu Media’s Animation Center in Shanghai.

Jieyu Media's Animation Center will cooperate with DreamWorks Animation, a subsidiary of Ziweixing Global, to jointly produce the first Sino-US co-produced animated film in history - "Kung Fu Panda 3".

If it is an imported film, the domestic box office share is only between 15% and 25%; if it is a co-production, the domestic box office share can reach 43%.

So co-productions are a big trend.

The so-called co-production film mainly consists of three elements -

One, investment.

The proportion of Chinese investment cannot be too low. Of course, there is no problem. Whether it is investment from Jieyu Media or DreamWorks, for the big bosses behind the two companies, it is a right-hand relationship.

Second, framing.

There must be enough scenes in the film to be shot in China, and there is no obstacle to this. Pandas are originally national treasures, and their living places are all in China. The famous domestic mountains and rivers are shown in the form of animation.

Three, actors.

Some roles must be played by domestic actors.

It's easier.

The actors in cartoons are all voice actors. Just find a few domestic actors who are good at English.

But this time it’s different. “Kung Fu Panda 3” has a full-time Chinese director team and dedicated Chinese dubbing actors... For normal imported films, the distributor invites a group of professional dubbing actors from the dubbing company. It doesn’t matter whether it’s compatible or not, let’s wait and see.

It’s all dubbing for the sake of dubbing.

As a result, many viewers who are picky about movies cannot tolerate Mandarin dubbed versions when watching foreign films, and would rather watch subtitles than listen to the original sound.

This time "Kung Fu Panda 3" is different. It has a dedicated director team and a dedicated cast of dubbing actors to achieve a perfect audio-visual connection for the domestic version of this cartoon.

The domestic film market is booming.

It can be said to be the fastest growing industry in the country.

However, animated films have always been the weakest link among domestic films.

Zhou Buqi attaches great importance to this and hopes that Jieyu Media’s animation studio can accumulate experience and learn advanced processes and technologies in the process of cooperating with DreamWorks Animation to create truly excellent original domestic animations.

He is not here to guide the work, he is here to investigate.

To show the importance to this business and to express encouragement to this team.

The general manager of the studio is Tang Tianhua, who is in his forties and has been engaged in the animation industry for twenty years and 3D animation for more than ten years.

Tang Tianhua introduced himself: "In the past, animation was mainly outsourced work."

Zhou Buqi didn't know much about the domestic animation industry, so he asked: "Outsourcing? What is the outsourcing method?"

Tang Tianhua said: "If some big TV stations and companies want to make cartoons, they will give us some complex shots that are technically difficult. There are also some game companies who will also come to us to make 3D animated promotional videos. When Changyou first launched "Dragon", I was the one who made the promotional animation. For this reason, Mr. Zhang introduced it to Mr. Xu and recommended me to join Jieyu Media."

"Mr. Zhang?" Zhou Buqi really didn't know the relationship between this, "Zhang Chaoyang?"

Tang Tianhua smiled and said, "Yes, Mr. Zhang is very nice."

Zhou Buqi nodded and asked: "Have you been doing outsourcing for so many years? Didn't you ever think about starting a project yourself and making an animated movie?"

"Think about it, this is my dream!" These words really spoke to Tang Tianhua's heart. "For this dream, I went to the United States three years ago. I went to DreamWorks Animation and Lucasfilm and studied for two years. . This time "Kung Fu Panda 3" is the first project I took over after returning to China."

"Why didn't you do it before?"

"There is no market and no money."

"No money?"

Zhou Buqi raised his eyebrows.

Tang Tianhua said: "Well, I really have no money. If I want to make a 3D computer animated film, no matter how much I save, it will still cost tens of millions of yuan. To recover the cost, the box office will have to be 200 to 300 million yuan. But domestic animation films It’s not popular, it has no box office at all, and it has never even had a domestic film with a box office of 50 million.”

Zhou Buqi nodded and expressed his understanding, "Without box office, there is no investment."

Tang Tianhua said with a smile: "But it's better now. Mr. Xu is very supportive of domestic animated films. She has acquired an animation company in the capital and is also producing a wonderful "Journey to the West" type animated film. I went to watch it. The demo is very good! It’s no worse than Hollywood movies! If this movie can be successful, then the spring of domestic animation will really come.”

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "Is it just the cartoon about the return of the Monkey King?"

"Yes, that's it!"

The distance between Tang Tianhua and Boss Zhou was too far, and the one he looked up to the most was Mr. Xu Baihui. Little did he know that behind Mr. Xu, it was Mr. Zhou who was directing.

Zhou Buqi said: "Well, it's good. I believe we can make a good start. What is the name of your studio? Jieyu Media Animation Center?"

"right."

"not good."

"ah?"

Tang Tianhua felt a little guilty.

Zhou Buqi said: "A special film industry should be established to develop and produce animated films, and include the Return of the Great Sage project and your project of "Kung Fu Panda 3". With these two Based on high-quality animated films, we will develop more and better domestic films."

Tang Tianhua didn't know much about the major events at the group company level, so he tentatively said: "Mr. Xu's side..."

Zhou Buqi didn't say this to him in the first place. He looked back at Sun Wanran and said slowly: "The production cost of animated movies is too high. A live-action movie can be made by saving hundreds of thousands or millions." Shoot it. CG animated movies cannot be cost-compressed in this way, and the production cost will be tens of millions at least. It is still necessary to establish a company specializing in animated movies. On the one hand, it is to develop original animation projects, and on the other hand, it is to introduce foreign films. High-quality cartoons can also provide funds and investment for other excellent domestic animations in the country that lack production funds."

Sun Wanran pursed her lips and said, "Okay, I'll note it down."

Tang Tianhua's heart was shaken.

It seems that the rumors are true. The reason why Jieyu Media has risen rapidly in recent years and become the largest film and television company in the country is because Boss Zhou stands behind it.

As for the relationship between the young and beautiful Mr. Xu and the young and handsome Mr. Zhou, it is not easy to make random guesses.

Zhou Buqi turned around and said to Tang Tianhua with a smile: "Lucasfilm has an AI software that can automatically connect the mouth shapes of animated characters with their lines. Did you know?"

Tang Tianhua said excitedly: "Yes, this is it! This time "Kung Fu Panda 3" will use this new technology. This will be the first Hollywood-level animated film to use this technology. If this If you do it well the first time, you can set a good example in the future.”

Speaking English, French, Japanese, Spanish, and Chinese have different mouth shapes.

Once the words being spoken do not match the mouth shape, there will be a certain sense of disengagement and dubbing, and it will be difficult to perfectly coordinate the audio and video. Lucasfilm is the originator of audio and video processing technology and the most technologically advanced company in this field. Its technical strength is stronger than that of Silicon Valley giants. The powerful imaging technologies of Apple, Adobe, and Pixar are all descendants of Lucasfilm.

As early as when Zhou Buqi visited Lucasfilm, the staff introduced him to such a technologically outstanding AI software.

Of course, this function will be nothing at all when generative AI will shine ten years from now. Many powerful artificial intelligence companies can do it.

But it's only 2013, and artificial intelligence is still in a chaotic period. Lucasfilm's technology is undoubtedly world-leading, not to say unique, but it must be the best and most mature technology in the industry.

For this set of technology, when Tang Tianhua and his three friends were sent by Jieyu Media to study in Hollywood, they went to Lucasfilm to study for more than half a year.

Using this technology, the animated characters in "Kung Fu Panda 3" can change their mouth shape from English to Chinese mouth shape when speaking, so that the image and sound can achieve a deep fit, greatly improving the The viewing experience makes this cartoon more like a domestic film.

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "Korea and Japan also like giant pandas. I went to Everland in South Korea a few days ago. It is the largest amusement park in South Korea. You know that Everland is the most popular place. What's the project? A giant panda named 'Ai Bao' rented from China. Not to mention Japan, where many girls wish they had to spend half a month's salary to queue up to see the pandas. This software can be used to switch lip syncs in the Korean and Japanese versions of "Kung Fu Panda 3" and connect them to their languages."

Tang Tianhua said seriously: "This is impossible."

"Um?"

"The cost is too high. The budget we are doing to switch the Chinese and English lip syntax will reach 10 million US dollars. "Kung Fu Panda 3" will only switch the lip syntax to Chinese lip syntax for the domestic market. In addition, The English version of the lip sync is still used all over the world.”

"Ah? 10 million US dollars?" Zhou Buqi was surprised, "That much? How much money does it cost to make a 2-hour movie and do some simple AI processing?"

Tang Tianhua said: "Really, this kind of movie-level image action processing requires unimaginable computing power. When we were making demos, several of our computers burned out."

Zhou Buqi frowned slightly, "Is your computing power provided by the CPU or the GPU? Are you using an ancient AI computing power solution?"

"ah?"

Tang Tianhua was stunned for a moment, and he didn't understand.

As a film maker, how could he understand the principles of artificial intelligence behind it, especially since this is the most cutting-edge technological direction in the industry.