Chapter 428 Technology Development Gap
After its premiere at the Shanghai Film Festival, "Pirates of the Caribbean" was officially released in the mainland film market.
As the introducer of this movie, China Film has naturally spent a lot of resources to promote the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean".
Various posters of "Pirates of the Caribbean" can be seen everywhere in bus stations and on large screens in commercial plazas in major ticket-rich cities. These posters are different from those in North America. Little Gilbert's name is placed the largest.
The reason is simple. In mainland China, little Gilbert's name is much more famous than the leading actors. Even Orlando Bloom, who is popular around the world, is not as well-known in China as Little Gilbert, not to mention that he has not yet arrived.
Johnny Depp had a very true comment: "I thought it was Tom Cruise coming, these fans are so crazy."
In fact, although Tom Cruise has a certain popularity in China, he is really not as good as Gilbert Jr.
Many movie fans have said that Gilbert Jr.'s movies were the inspiration for their Hollywood blockbusters. How many people fell in love with Hollywood blockbusters only after watching his movies.
In fact, with the exception of "Shark Beach" and "Dead Man", Gilbert Jr.'s other films have never been absent from the Chinese market. Although there are sometimes deletions, they are all within a reasonable range.
"Saving Private Ryan" and the "Lord of the Rings" series filmed in China have been highly praised.
The media will also focus on promoting little Gilbert, his legendary experience and life. With large-scale exposure, it would be difficult for little Gilbert not to become popular in China.
After attending the opening ceremony of the Shanghai Film Festival, Guo Fan and Liu Ji chose to go to a cinema in Shanghai to watch "Pirates of the Caribbean" because they were not qualified to watch the opening film.
While waiting to enter, Liu Ji talked about his fate with Little Gilbert's movies: "My favorite movie is "The Island". I watched the pirated version with my brother at that time, and I was immediately attracted to it.
Later, I came into contact with movies such as "Speed of Life and Death" and "Iron Fist".
But the most shocking thing was when I went to the cinema to watch "The Matrix" when I was in high school. It was the first time I went to the cinema to watch a movie.
From then on, I fell in love with movies and little Gilbert. "
Guo Fan also said: "I was a little earlier than you. After watching "Iron Armor", I came up with the idea of becoming a director, and I am a science fiction film director."
"Turns out that I'm not the material at all?"
"Not really," Guo Fan shook his head and said, "I found that with our domestic environment and technology, it would probably take twenty years to reach the level of others."
"Indeed," Liu Ji patted Guo Fan on the shoulder and said, "I'm optimistic about you, young man. You have potential. Come on."
Guo Fan smiled bitterly and said: "Don't praise me. Even a director like Guoshi can't make a science fiction film. How can I do it?"
"Hey!" Liu Ji disagreed: "The national master can't take pictures? That means he doesn't have the ability, you know? We are different, we are still young!
There will always be opportunities in the future. "
"I'd like to lend you some good words," Guo Fan knew that his classmate had always been an optimist, commonly known as a big mouth, and very confident. Sometimes Guo Fan doesn't know where this confidence comes from.
The movie started soon, and the two followed the crowd into the cinema, ready to watch the movie.
Today, the fan base of the Chinese film market is nothing compared to its huge population. Maybe in a big city like Shanghai, there will be a larger base of movie fans.
Therefore, this movie theater located in the center of Shanghai has a good flow of people. The attendance rate of the movie Guo Fan and Liu Ji watched was about 60%.
Unlike North American theater chains, in North American theater chains, when movie fans go to the movies, they usually have popcorn and Coke in their hands.
But here in China, movie fans only go to the cinema to watch movies, and a small number of people have such things as popcorn and Coke.
After all, the things sold in cinemas are not very cheap, which is indeed a bit of luxury for Chinese movie fans who do not spend much on entertainment at this time.
Liu Ji was rich. According to him, his family had a mine, so he bought popcorn and Coke.
But Liu Ji and Guo Fan didn't expect that except for eating two popcorns and taking a sip of Coke, they never touched the popcorn or Coke for the rest of the time.
It’s not that the popcorn isn’t sweet, or that the Coke doesn’t taste good.
It's just that the movie was so beautiful that the two of them couldn't bear to take their eyes away.
Logically speaking, both of them are film school students, so they should have read a lot and watched a lot of movies.
But in fact, seeing "Pirates of the Caribbean" in the cinema, especially the part where they turned into skeletons under the moonlight, still shocked the two of them.
This is true for students about to graduate from both film schools, not to mention ordinary viewers who have little movie-watching experience and are even entering a cinema for the first time.
Guo Fan was still interested in observing the reactions of the fans around him. Almost all the fans finished watching the movie with their mouths wide open. What is undisguised on his face is the excitement caused by the adrenaline secretion while watching the movie.
For many Chinese viewers, this is a fresh feeling they have never experienced before.
Things are better here in Shanghai. As the city with the largest ticket sales in the country, going to the cinema to watch movies is still very popular.
In fact, watching movies is an activity that is not unfamiliar to Chinese audiences. However, compared with the huge population base, those who go to the cinema to watch movies are a minority.
Most Chinese audiences watch movies from pirated discs, especially Hong Kong movies.
After watching the shocking "Pirates of the Caribbean", Guo Fan and Liu Ji walked out of the theater and could hear several peers like them discussing in front of them.
"I used to watch "God of Gamblers" and "A Better Tomorrow" by renting discs. I never thought that watching a movie in a cinema would be so enjoyable." Another young man expressed his thoughts: "This is As shocking as Hollywood movies are, if you allow our domestic movies to be released in cinemas, it will not feel that way at all.”
Guo Fan listened from behind and couldn't help but nodded in agreement.
Indeed, to watch Hollywood visual effects blockbusters, you have to watch them in a cinema. You can't find that shocking feeling when watching pirated discs.
In fact, the cinema where Guo Fan and Liu Ji came is a theater chain owned by China Film. The projection technology used in this cinema is the most advanced projection system introduced in North America, and the experience is very good.
From the layout of the theater to the sound effects and the large screen with full picture quality, they are all the best configurations in movie theaters in the world today.
This is one of the contents of the cooperation between China Film and several theater companies in North America to introduce the theater system and transform the domestic theater market.
Hollywood has not restricted the export of this technology for the simple reason that the Chinese market still needs vigorous development.
At present, the potential of the Chinese market still has a lot of room to explore. The first issue is how to expand the fan base and attract more movie fans to the cinema.
This is not only related to the development of the Chinese-language film market, but also helps Hollywood enter the Chinese market and harvest this market.
If the market is not big enough and there are not enough movie fans, no matter how attractive the land is, it will not be enough for Hollywood. Therefore, developing the Chinese market is a consensus reached by all Hollywood companies and even the North American cultural community.
Moreover, this is also related to the export of ideology, and the gentlemen in Washington also support it.
Therefore, something that is considered advanced but insensitive, such as cinema projection technology, was boldly introduced into China.
Now, several cinemas in Shanghai have completed the renovation and are running as a pilot. Once good results are achieved, China Film will promote it to its own cinemas across the country.
In this regard, although Hollywood's purpose is to cultivate the market first and then harvest it, it has still done good things, so it is not a matter of merit.
But there is still another problem, and that is the technological innovation of film shooting methods. This aspect is more restrictive in North America.
For example, the large-screen projection quality of this Shanghai cinema can reach 2K, but due to the shooting technology of Chinese-language movies, the images captured by the camera can only reach 1080P.
This means that the picture quality of the movie is not good enough for the 2K big screen, and it looks like a low-quality product, which is very bad.
In this regard, several state-owned film companies have been working hard, either spending a lot of money to buy mature cameras from others, or developing them themselves.
At the end of the filming of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, little Gilbert left several superficially damaged photography systems for China Film Group Corporation to study.
China Film Group has indeed conducted research, but research is research, and many parts still need to be imported from island countries and Germany.
For example, no domestic company can manufacture camera lenses that meet the requirements, so you can only buy them from Germany or Taiwan.
But people are raising prices so much that the price of one lens is enough to manufacture several old cameras.
China Film is not a charitable company. After the camera is copied, the price of a single unit will inevitably increase, or the rent will increase.
Too high sales prices and rentals will usually discourage other film companies and crews, thus forming a vicious circle.
But for China Film, the more fatal problem is not this, but that their imitation photography system quickly became obsolete in Hollywood and was replaced by a new generation of technology.
In other words, a photographic system that costs a huge amount of money to imitate is already an outdated technology, not to mention not making a dime.
This is not over yet. Before the lecture of Shanghai Film Festival, Lao Tian made a special trip from the capital to have a meal and chat with little Gilbert.
During the meeting, Little Gilbert revealed that there is an IMAX company in North America that has developed the IMAX photography system and projection system, which are now mature and have commercial value.
Gilbert Jr. also said that his next movie will be shot with IMAX cameras.
In fact, there was the first IMAX cinema in Shanghai as early as 2001, but not many people went to experience it and not many people knew about it.
Hearing so many new gadgets made Lao Tian worried.
Foreign technology is developing, but domestically it is struggling. The film market has been commercialized for almost ten years, and there are not even one or two decent commercially operated films.
If this continues, when will Chinese-language films be able to stand up?
What Minister Tian didn't know was that little Gilbert hadn't revealed to him yet that James Cameron had made great progress in researching 3D photography systems.
James Cameron has made great progress in documentaries and underwater photography in the past two years.
Currently, James Cameron has returned to his studio in Los Angeles and is preparing a large project, planning to invest US$200 million to US$300 million.
But in fact, three to four billion have been burned just to develop new technologies.
James Cameron was afraid that the film company would not trust him, so he asked Gilbert Jr. to endorse him so that he could attract investment for his new project.
Gilbert Jr. has agreed to James Cameron's request. If nothing else happens, Gilbert Jr. will become the producer of this film tentatively named "A".
And this "A" doesn't need to be guessed, it is the famous "Avatar".
However, given James Cameron's slow pace, as well as many technical verification issues and the construction of 3D cinemas, it is still a little early for this film to come out.
(End of chapter)