On June 13rd, the 8th Global Film Industry Chain Development Forum, one event of the 24th Shanghai International Film Festival, co-hosted by ICCI and the Motion Picture Association of America, was held in the general office of Xuhui Campus, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Multiple distinguished guests in the film industry home and abroad converged to hold online-and-offline conversations about the annual theme of “the development and outlook of film industry in the convergence media era”, centering on the development course of Chines film to spread the voice of Chinese film professionals and explore the next technology peak for the future development of global film industry.

Zheng HUANG, Vice Principal of Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Charles H. Rivkin, Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America

Hong ZHANG, Vice Chairman and Secretary of the Branch Party Group of China Film Association

Zhonglun REN, Vice Chairman of China Film Association

Ruoqing FU, Deputy Chairman and General Manager of China Film Co. Ltd

Zheng HUANG, Vice Principal of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Vice President of Shanghai Political Consultative Congress, Charles H. Rivkin, Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, Hong ZHANG, Vice Chairman and Secretary of the Branch Party Group of China Film Association, Zhonglun REN, Vice Chairman of China Film Association, and Ruoqing FU, Deputy Chairman and General Manager of China Film Co. Ltd made speeches in the forum.

Weimin ZHANG, Dean and General Party Secretary of ICCI

Wei FENG, President of the Greater China and Vice President of the Asia Pacific, Motion Picture Association of America

In their remarks, it was mentioned that, in May 2021, President Xi made the deployment of enhancing China’s international communication capability. He expressed that “it is an important task to enhance our international communication capability through telling Chinese stories, spreading Chinese voice and demonstrating the real, full-dimensional and all-sided China.” At the historical 100th anniversary of the founding of Communist Party of China, the film, as an important product of cultural and ideological export, should lay emphasis on expressing the current era, shoulder the social responsibility, show the world our excellent cultural heritage with Chinese features, Chinese spirit and Chinese wisdom and spread our local customs in a multi-dimensional, authentic and vivid way to the oversea audience.

Shanghai is striving towards the important development goal of becoming the global film and television production centre, which means that in the future the film industry is bound to have a huge talent gap. It is a crucial problem for current higher education to ponder on that how we can cultivate professional film talents for the industrialization of Chinese films who have a good understanding of the film and television industry system and solid knowledge of international communication methodology and are qualified for key roles in the industrial chain, who are expected to contribute their wisdom and power to promote the development of film industry in Shanghai and even nationally.

Xuehua HU, Director, Honorary Professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University

With the development of film industry, new technologies emerge in an endless stream such as augmented reality, virtual reality, virtual shooting, artificial intelligence, etc. They not only bring audience visual enjoyment and enhanced sensational impact, but also provide basis and driving force for development and innovation of the film industry chain, enabling revolutionary changes in the mode of film shooting. With Xuehua HU, Director, Honorary Professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University acting as the host, guests home and abroad had discussions about the cutting-edge film production technologies, introduced the most advanced production techniques of films globally and communicated about opportunities and challenges that film industry face home and abroad.

Xinsen CHENG, President of the Asia Pacific of the Cameron Pace Group

Xinsen CHENG, President of the Asia Pacific of the Cameron Pace Group, briefly introduced the development of global film industry and the most advance 3D technology of Avatar 2. He also talked about how the Cameron Technical team changed the development of the global film and television technology industry through Avatar, turning the beautiful New Zealand into one of the major global digital film production centre. President Xinsen CHEN said that China’s film technology market is booming. He wished to work with first-class Chinese universities like SJTU and top film and television technology enterprises to explore and develop more advanced technology to empower future Chinese film and television products especially in the production of sci-fi films with technologies that are “made in China”.

Philip Galler, Co-founder and CEO of Lux Machina introduced the leading film and television production technology such as display technique, rendering technique, and computer technology. Philip also presented the shot “inner canvas” designed for the film Oblivion. This technology saved a large amount of production cost for the producer and showed great development potential.

Lvwei LING, Chairman of Wuxi Digital Film Industry Co., Ltd.

Lvwei LING, Chairman of Wuxi Digital Film Industry Co., Ltd., talked about how to enhance the post-production team of Chinese films. He briefly introduced his experience of working with the post-production special effect firms and expressed positive attitude about the future technology to promote the development of the film industry.

Cliff Plumer, CEO of Prysm Studio analyzed the long-term strategy of virtual production for current film companies and steaming media and expressed the vision of working with collaborators to develop and promote the industry standards.

Joe Russo, Famous Director of Hollywood

The famous Hollywood director Joe Russo once directed many sci-fi blockbusters such as Captain America and The Avengers. He shared his experience of applying advanced technology like AI and virtual shooting, which had huge impact on the film industry to greatly improve the production efficiency.

Zheyi SUN, President of Sunac Culture Group

Zheyi SUN, President of the Sunac Culture Group introduced the company business layout “IP+ content + new scene of consumption”, the possibility of AI reducing the production cycle of animation, the facilitation of VR, AR and MR, in particular, in enhancing the link between film and offline scene. Last year’s film The Sacrifice had significant promoting effect to the industrialization of the national film industry. He hoped that various cutting-edge technology can be new driving force for the continuous development of the film industrialization in China.

Leiguang HUANG, CEO of Zhejiang Hengdian Film and Television Crew Services Co.,Ltd.

Leiguang HUANG, CEO of Zhejiang Hengdian Film and Television Crew Services Co.,Ltd,  briefly introduced Hengdian World Studios, the famous film and television base in China. He expressed that FILM was a kind of technology-driven art and kept upgrading with the development of technology, so we could see the tremendous vitality of film industry, which greatly aroused people’s attention on it.

During the dialogues, the guests explored on the development of Chinese film industry for the post-pandemic era. Hosted by Ran BAO, Secretary of Beijing Netcasting Services Association, the guests discussed about the streaming media for the post-pandemic era, like the online VOD(Video-On-Demand), and also the influence it brought on future development of Chinese film industry.

Ran BAO, Secretary of Beijing Netcasting Services Association

Richard Gelfond, Global CEO of IMAX

Richard Gelfond, Global CEO of IMAX, attended the dialogues via the remote connection. Speaking of the ever-shortening window period and the relation between streaming media and theaters, Gelfond insisted that the film industry had over a hundred years of history, and one year’s interruption couldn’t change anything permanently. The strong recovery of film industry in Asian countries, represented by China, had proved that the public would return to theaters soon. The pandemic has been gradually controlled so that the number of releasing films on streaming medias was dramatically decreased. Generally speaking, the streaming medias would play a more important role in releasing fairly uncommon films or low-cost films. For those major films, they would definitely choose to release in theaters firstly, and then the streaming media platforms, and this would bring more values to the films. Gelfond felt confident about the long-term growth of high-end viewing experience for the post pandemic era, such as the IMAX, because it has exerted great influence on the box office of major films.

Jie LI, CEO of Alibaba Pictures Group Limited

Jie LI, CEO of Alibaba Pictures Group Limited, expressed his opinions on current situation of Chinese film market: compared with American film industry with the characteristic of gambling cooperation, Chinese film industry showed its particularity in the process of development. The internet is quite a good platform for theater films as a way of releasing. Double-line releasing is an important business mode which requires a complex business modal that includes the cooperation of film contents, theaters and online platforms.

Xianghua YANG, CEO of IQIYI Membership and Overseas Business Services

Xianghua YANG, CEO of IQIYI Membership and Overseas Business Services, briefly introduced the business mode explorations on domestic online theaters. He thought that the internet has been through from free to free-and-charge, and the latter has now become mainstay income for streaming media platforms. He also shared his opinions towards the development tendency of business modes on streaming media theaters.

Chao YIN, CEO and Founder of TMENG PICTURES

Chao YIN, CEO & Founder of TMENG PICTURES, indicated that all network film companies are now facing not only challenges but also opportunities, and both of which will make them more energetic and creative in the process of making IP.

Bai WU, Director and Founder of GIVE ME FIVE

Bai WU, Director and Founder of GIVE ME FIVE, expressed that there is still huge gap for Chinese film industry going forward to “industrialization”, which indicates the film productions in the future requires not only excellent scripts but also the co-efforts from all different fields like the art direction, technology and so on. Meanwhile, he stated his expectations on future censorship of online films and talents grading.

Zhihao ZHENG, CEO of Maoyan Entertainment

Zhihao ZHENG, CEO of Maoyan Entertainment, analyzed the development tendency of culture and entertainment industry, during which he expressed that both of the theaters and the streaming media will be co-existed in the future, not replaced by each other but seek chances to have perfect cooperation. Besides, Zhihao ZHENG indicated that the film and television companies should bear the social responsibilities to produce more economic benefits and help valuable films come close to the public.

At the meeting

Finally, China’s Reality Entertainment Development Investigation Report—Film and Television IP Empowers Reality Entertainment, (The Report is hereinafter referred to this), is officially launched in the forum, a joint production by ICCI and Huayi Brothers Research Institute. In the context of combination of cultures and tourism, The Report conducted multi-faceted studies on the development of reality entertainment industry, the market situation, policies and rules, industry features, core advantages, tourists expectations and feedbacks; and also included suggestions on cultivating film and television IP, building reality entertainment projects as well as market development. The Report aims to provide reference and support for development of Chinese reality entertainment.

At the meeting

As one event of Shanghai International Film Festival, the Global Film Industry Chain Development Forum devotes to build a high-quality home-and-abroad communicative platform for both engagers and practitioners in film and television industry. In the future, the Forum will continue to display the development tendency of Chinese film industry to the whole world, to seek explorations on next peak of technology development, and to build a win-win future.