Alibaba Pictures Li Jie： Creating countless ＂weekend files＂ with the supply of good films

Special feature of 1905 film network "The audience loves to watch, the theater makes money, and investors are rushing to vote. This is what I think is the real spring of the film industry."

Walking into Alibaba Pictures, the most intuitive experience is full of sense of science and technology. In the massive industry data, Li Jie, vice president of Alibaba Group and president of Alibaba Pictures, has a keen insight into the audience’s enthusiasm for watching movies in China.

Faced with this enthusiasm, Alibaba Pictures chose to build powerful tools and platforms, and responded by investing in the production of high-quality content. With the strategy of "technology+content", he helped China films to go to the future and the world.

In order to thoroughly publicize and implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, on the occasion of the convening of the two sessions of the National People’s Congress, the film channel will launch at 22:00 every night from March 4th.》“Meeting room "is specially planned for the two sessions — — Dialogue spring.Lan Yu, the host, talked with the heads of China film leading enterprises and wrote a new look of China film from different angles.

In this program, Lan Yu talks with Li Jie, vice president of Alibaba Group and president of Alibaba Pictures, focusing on how to empower movies with science and technology, and talks about a new chapter in the development of film industrialization in China.

1.

Data insight industry

Accurately interpret the present and predict the future.

When it comes to Alibaba Pictures, the first thing that comes to mind is undoubtedly its Internet attributes.From the Taobao Film ticketing platform familiar to the users, to the data analysis of Lighthouse Professional Edition commonly used in the industry, the powerful network announcement ability not only provides Alibaba Pictures with an opportunity to understand the current changes in the film market, but also makes it possible to accurately predict the future trend.

With in-depth insight into the industry, Li Jie predicted last year that "the Spring Festival in 2023 will return strongly", as he expected.In 2023, the total box office of the Spring Festival reached 6.758 billion, ranking second in film history, with a total audience of nearly 130 million.

"The reason why we made this prediction is because we found through data analysis that although affected by the epidemic, the audience’s enthusiasm for watching movies has not declined. Last summer’s summer movies all achieved good results," Li Jie said."But in the end, the performance of this year’s Spring Festival file exceeded the expectations of practitioners and started the first shot of returning to work!"

The Spring Festival has ushered in a "good start", and the film market has recovered strongly, which has become a consensus in the industry to promote the overall development of the industry. Li Jie has provided an accurate interpretation from three dimensions: cinema, audience and creators.

First of all, from the cinema side, the total number of Spring Festival files is basically the same as the historical peak; Secondly, from the audience’s point of view, since the beginning of this year, the annual per capita number of movies has stopped falling and stabilized, which means that more and more audiences have returned to the cinema and regained their enthusiasm for watching movies.

Third, from the creative point of view, with the recovery of the market, filmmakers continue to strengthen their confidence, and the number of film and television projects that have entered the preparation, project establishment and shooting has also increased significantly.

Li Jie said with relief: "From the three dimensions of cinema, audience and creator, I feel that the spring of movies has really come!"

2.

Strengthen content construction

When the new film will be shown.

"Alibaba Pictures’s mission is to add technology and content."According to Li Jie, Alibaba Pictures has always insisted on continuous annotation and accurate control of high-quality content.

In 2018, Alibaba Pictures released the "Golden Orange Co-production Plan" based on high-quality content co-production, and announced that it would release 20 high-quality films in the next five years and four major schedules.

Now, in the past five years, the number of films has already exceeded 20, among which there are many excellent masterpieces that are applauded and hit the box office.When it comes to Alibaba Pictures’s new films to be shown this year, Li Jie is even more familiar.

On March 10, a comedy film directed and performed by itself will be the first to appear, directly hitting the hot topic of cyber violence and giving the audience warm and healing positive energy; On March 24th, a new work will also appear. As the first Japanese animated film introduced this year, it is expected to incite the market by word of mouth.

On April 7,The spirit of the dragon and the horse will be shown.In which he plays a former action star, not only as a true character, but also as a tribute to all the dragon and tiger martial artists in the film industry.

The next May Day stalls and Dragon Boat Festival stalls will have "The King of the Sky" respectively.And new films such as "Disappeared She" are coming strongly.

"King of the Sky" focuses on the test pilot group, showing the blood and responsibility of the younger generation of China Air Force. Li Jie revealed that during the filming process, the crew overcame many difficulties and introduced virtual shooting technology. The creative process also embodies the strong willpower of filmmakers to overcome difficulties.

"Unfamiliar Road of Life" will explore the type of "road comedy" and lead the audience to "go on the road" happily; "She Disappeared" will deepen the creation of suspense films and is expected to continue to push up the type ceiling.

As the second largest schedule in the whole year, summer vacation is also a battleground for all families. Films with diverse themes and types will be presented together to continuously meet the audience’s viewing needs.

In Li Jie’s view, if China’s film industry wants to achieve a comprehensive recovery, it can’t just rely on the Spring Festival file to stand out, but use a steady supply of excellent films to create countless "weekend files". "We should use good works to let the audience enter the cinema every weekend and regard watching movies on weekends as a sense of ceremony. This is what we filmmakers should do."

3.

Technology-enabled movies

Promote the industrialization and upgrading of the film industry

It was born four years ago, which marked the rise of science fiction movies in China, and made "film industrialization" become the focus of industrial attention. This year’s Spring Festival file has achieved good results again, and behind the shocking visual effect is the rapid take-off of China’s film industrialization level.

Li Jie concluded: "In recent years, China movies have been talking about five words — — Film industrialization’. " In his view, how to realize industrialization should be divided into two major paths.

The first is the shooting and production of heavy industry films. In recent years, the domestic heavy industry sci-fi films represented by The Wandering Earth and Moon Man have been comparable to Hollywood blockbusters in terms of special effects, which has also promoted the comprehensive innovation of the whole industry in shooting technology and projection technology.

In the future, Alibaba Pictures will continue to support the creation of domestic heavy industry films, and it is expected to cooperate with China Film again to launch another domestic sci-fi blockbuster in the Spring Festival three years later.

Second, film industrialization should also be reflected in the process and systematization of film production management. Alibaba Pictures also hopes to provide tools and platforms for practitioners through lighthouse, Yunshang production and frame-sharing virtual shooting technology, so as to improve the industrialization level of production management.

Report to the 20th CPC National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to strengthen the influence of Chinese civilization, stick to the position of Chinese culture, tell the story of China well, spread the voice of China well, show a credible, lovely and respectable image of China, and promote Chinese culture to the world better.

Li Jie also revealed that Alibaba Pictures will launch a selection plan for young Chinese directors around the world this year to support young directors with international vision and overseas film education background to complete the creation of the first commercial feature film in China.

"Let people who know the world audience tell the story of China well, encourage them to combine Chinese culture with international vision, and really push China films out," Li Jie said.

Looking to the future, Alibaba Pictures will continue to adhere to the two-wheel drive strategy of "technology+content", serve the industry with powerful tools and platforms, respond to the audience’s enthusiasm for watching movies with fine content, promote the industrialization of China films and tell the world the story of China.

As Li Jie described it, spring is not far away, and we will have a fiery summer and a bumper autumn.