Entertainment is not a snack box. The essence of the film and television industry should be industry and industry.

IP is only raw materials after all. In the industrial field, raw material manufacturers are never the core enterprises in the production of high-end industrial products.

in 1976, Daniel Bell, an American critical sociologist, wrote a paragraph about the post-modern entertainment and health industry in his book the coming of the Post-Industrial Society:

"if the definition of an industrial society is based on the number of commodities as a standard of living, the definition of a post-industrial society is based on service and comfort-- health care, education, entertainment and literature and art. It is determined by the standard of quality of life measured. "

the theory of unorthodox Daniel Bell was controversial at the time. But those who criticize Daniel Bell, not even Daniel Bell himself, would never have imagined that his ideas would be confirmed on a business level 41 years later.

in an interview with New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, Chinese businessman Jack Ma said, "five years ago, we had a big debate about what China needs most in the next 10 or 20 years." The final decision is happiness and health. At least watching movies makes people happy. I think we should work with Hollywood. "

this may be the core reason why Silicon Valley and Chinese Internet giants enjoy it in the entertainment industry today.

strong > the essence of the film and television industry is industry and industry / strong >

in today's environment where Internet companies are all competing for IP, IP seems to be the only standard to measure whether an enterprise can do entertainment and film. As a result, there is a trend for Internet companies to speculate IP. But speculation in IP is more like a speculative act, like a "tulip bubble"-tulips became popular among the Dutch in the 17th century, and the crazy pursuit of numbers, herding and total loss of reason led to the final bursting of the bubble.

the Beijing News published a comment entitled "IP is dead, please let film and television return to art itself" on August 23rd. There is such a sentence in the comment:

simple treatment of reality, single world outlook of values, too much emphasis on the so-called elements of love, falling into nothingness of beliefs, and no aesthetic taste and value guidance to the audience. And these works are empty and worthless behind the story, and only a monetized price is publicizing themselves, which is tantamount to spiritual opium. A masterpiece handed down from generation to generation still depends on the ideological and artistic nature of the work.

although the purpose of film and television is to satisfy people's illusory "happiness", it is actually "industry". The film and television industry has a strong professionalism and logic, and the production process is so rigorous that the term "film and television industry" was born.

the reason why it is described as "industry" is that the film and television works have a complete system composed of a series of industrial chain links, manufacturers and related services, such as production, marketing, distribution, post-product development and so on. The system is as rigorous as an industrial assembly line.

if you only want to rely on IP to make money in a short time, although it will achieve certain results in a short time, it will certainly lead to bad films, and it is difficult to leave too much impression on the artistic level.

therefore, Yu Yongfu, chairman of Alibaba Culture and Entertainment Group, has said that it is very accurate to do industry with the mentality of "raising her daughter". The word "industry" almost names the nature of film and television. Ali Great Entertainment is also with an industrial mentality, aiming at the pain points and shortcomings of the industry in the field of entertainment, to carry out targeted infrastructure construction, and finally help partners to produce good works.

in the eyes of the outside world, retail e-commerce enterprises doing entertainment is a "tonality very strange" thing, especially retail e-commerce enterprises do not get rich from entertainment families, and the stock of IP is a long way from that of some enterprises that rely on IP rich mines. However, after all, IP is only raw materials. In the industrial field, raw material manufacturers are never the core enterprises in the production of high-end industrial products.

countless cases have proved this theory. Earlier this year, Amazon, which won three Oscars, won tickets to Hollywood, which means the retail giant's film strategy is successfully landing. Amazon chooses the film or distribution strategy, is to complement and respect the attitude of slowly integrated into Hollywood, do not have a direct competition with Hollywood.

strong > the core of the Internet transformation of the film and television industry / strong >

at present, the shortcomings of traditional film and television companies are mainly two. the first is that publicity channels and means are limited, and the second is that there is no data support, production, publicity and market research can not be done thoroughly.

just like today's industrial enterprises need to seek Internet transformation-products must enter the Internet channel, logistics sales need to be digitalized. The same is true of film and television companies.

on August 25th, Alibaba Pictures announced that it had formed a strategic partnership with Beijing Culture, the producer and distributor of Wolf Warriors 2. According to Song GE, chairman of Beijing Culture, Amoy accounted for 40% of "Wolf Warriors 2" at the box office. Taobao behind Wolf Warriors 2 is the exclusive Internet joint distribution platform. Alibaba Pictures, as the producer and issuer, has invested money and has great support in publicity, ticketing and other aspects.

the traditional ticketing platform is located in the middle and lower reaches of the food chain and is only the sales channel for upstream producers of cultural products, either as a primary agent or as a secondary distributor. In essence, this kind of business has no advantages and lacks core barriers. As a result, in the face of crisis, many ticketing companies choose to seize upstream content production, or operate downstream theatres, or even invest in films across borders.

now the three major ticketing platforms basically follow this line of thinking. Among the top 10 domestic films at the box office in 2017, Amoy participated in the joint release of seven films and created "the Mission of a Dog" and "Wrestling!" Dad, these two films are dark horses at the box office.

with ticketing as the core, the upstream and downstream layouts are arranged separately, participating in investment from the film production stage to subsequent publicity and distribution, online promotion in the previous period, and ticket sales in the later stage. This set of industrial chain operation is becoming the entrance to the film industry.

the data, channels and the combination of Internet companies are the core competitiveness to upgrade the domestic film and television industry.

strong > Big entertainment is not a fast food box but a wine jar / strong >

in this financial quarter, both Ali and Tencent have suffered certain losses in the entertainment sector, but the entertainment industry is not a fast food box, but a wine jar.

the pursuit of income in the short term is definitely not the proper way to create a healthy and long-term entertainment industry. If Internet companies choose to get involved in the entertainment industry, they should be psychologically prepared for long-term investment. After all, this is an industry.

in terms of industrial maturity, at present, no Internet company in China has been able to form a complete and shaped ecological closed-loop model. Tencent, which has China Literature Group and a lot of animation resources, has not formed a complete and mature IP industry chain. Ali's achievements at the film industry level today are largely based on the result of resource business integration.

domestic film and television companies need to be transformed by Internet giants a little to make the industry more mature. This process cannot be achieved in three or five years, and it is likely to take ten or even decades or even a hundred years to dig deeply.

what we really expect is that the Internet giants can gradually incubate the star IP that can be retained and developed for a long time in their own system, and display more high-quality pan-entertainment content according to IP extension, rather than the fast-food homework of many enterprises now.

these days, Feng Xiaogang's remark that "there are junk movies is because there are junk audiences" has caused controversy, and we have no intention to tell who is more rubbish. However, it must be admitted that there is no such phenomenon of speculation in IP even in Hollywood. The six major Hollywood production companies have always collected screenplays regularly, and after many rounds of screening, they have repeatedly polished an IP to make it shine, instead of snapping up and hoarding a large number of worthless IP in China's capital market.

fast food is not nutritious, so that wine can become more and more mellow. At this point, many domestic enterprises may really want to learn from Hollywood.

in 1911, American director David Griffith chose to travel north from Los Angeles in order to find a natural place to shoot films. When he discovered Hollywood, he decided to move the crew to this town. This move also directly promoted Hollywood to become the cradle of the film and television industry.

just hope that Chinese Internet companies will be able to create China's Hollywood.

Edit: mary