How long can eroticism, horror and bad taste sustain online movies?

On July 13, the online movie "The Scarecrow" was launched on major video websites. As of 11:00 a.m. on July 14, the number of views had reached nearly 30,000. The reason why this film with low data has attracted people's attention is that it recently won the "Best Screenwriter Award" of the Peking University Film Academy Award.

This is the first time in the 118 years since Peking University was founded that the "Best Screenwriter Award" has been awarded to a suspense film. This is also the first time that an online movie has won an academic award.

Since its birth, online movies have been the darling of capital, but have been criticized or even ignored by traditional filmmakers. When director Jia Zhangke was asked about his opinion on online movies, he replied, "What is that? I haven't heard of it." Does the fact that "The Scarecrow" won an academic award indicate that online movies can get rid of the embarrassing public opinion situation and enter a new development cycle?

With low barriers to entry and fast revenue generation, online movies have become the darling of the market

The prototype of online feature films first appeared in 2013, and many people believe that it is an upgraded version of micro films. iQiyi defines online feature films as those with an investment of between 500,000 and 3 or 4 million yuan, a duration of more than 60 minutes, a relatively short production, shooting and distribution cycle, a relatively complete core story, and distributed on the Internet.

The biggest difference between online movies and cinema movies is that they have a low threshold for production, a short production cycle, and fast revenue generation. Take the online movie "The Taoist Comes Out of the Mountain" as an example. It only took 280,000 yuan to shoot the first part. The producer revealed that it took less than a week to write the script, plus 10 days for preparation, 10 days for shooting, and 10 to 12 days for post-production. Although the filming time did not exceed one month, "The Taoist Comes Out of the Mountain" recovered its costs within two days of its release. In ten days, the box office of the entire network exceeded 3 million. Baidu ranked first among all major cinema movies of the same period, and broke the payment records of major video websites.

The short-term and rapid return on investment has made online movies a favorite in the market. According to data previously provided by iQiyi, the number of online movies released on the Internet is expected to reach 2,200 in 2016. Among them, the number of films with a revenue share of more than 2 million will exceed 200, an increase of nearly 6 times compared with 2015. It can be foreseen that 2016 will be a year of explosive development of online movies. Some people estimate that in 2016, the market size of online movies will reach 1 billion. Stimulated by the low entry threshold and huge market dividends, many new media companies and entrepreneurial teams have set their sights on online movies, eager to get a piece of the pie.

Although favored by investors, the online movie market still has many problems. Just like when the WeChat public platform was first launched, there were good and bad players. If it is not adjusted in time, the prospects of online movies will still be full of crises.

Internet movies encounter embarrassment

At first, online movies gradually formed a unique positioning and attributes with the characteristics of "low cost, high return and short cycle", creating a new industry with deep integration of the Internet and the film industry. However, unlike online dramas such as "Go Princess Go", which have phenomenal reputations, online movies are full of vitality, but they are shoddy and there are almost no phenomenal works.

Whether in relevant film review groups such as Douban and Time.com, or question-and-answer platforms such as Zhihu and Baidu Knows, there is almost no discussion or rating of specific online movies. The lack of an evaluation system shows that online movies have not yet entered the mainstream. Although "The Scarecrow" has been recognized by the academic community, due to the following reasons, people's negative impression of online movies has solidified, and the current situation is still somewhat embarrassing if they want to achieve long-term development.

1. The subject matter is vulgar. Since there are no strict censorship standards for online movies, many themes that traditional movies dare not shoot will be realized in online movies, such as horror thrillers, zombie themes, gambling films, erotic films, etc. Due to the lack of supervision, the content of online movies has fallen into a vicious circle in terms of subject matter. The more vulgar the subject matter, the easier it seems to attract the audience. In order to attract traffic and obtain high returns in the short term, vulgar themes will inevitably become a shortcut for online movies.

2. Rough content. To make profits, most online movies are currently paid-for-viewing, so both the title and the subject matter are intended to be eye-catching, and pornographic and violent content is not uncommon. Moreover, the current online movie payment sharing model is becoming more and more mature, and the paid membership system represented by iQiyi has taken shape, giving film producers hope of making huge profits. Under the dual pressure of short time and high returns, it is also expected that the content is shoddy.

3. Catering to the audience's bad taste. From the title, we can see that the subject matter of online movies is basically still based on the aesthetics of Hong Kong movies in the video halls in the 1980s and 1990s, mainly to satisfy the audience's curiosity and desire for private life, such as "Zombie Prince", "The Taoist Comes Out of the Mountain", "Mr. Yin and Yang", "The Legend of Gamblers", "Night Raid on Widow Village", "Naked Female Agent", etc. "Peach Era", "Admit Game", "My Wife is Underage", "One Night Crazy", etc., are all the usual themes of Hong Kong's third-level movies in the early years, coupled with the extremely provocative posters on the cover, which makes it impossible for people to click in and earn all the attention. Others directly correspond to the current popular movies, TV series, and online dramas, playing a marginal ball in the title, such as "The Taoist Comes Out of the Mountain", "Australia", "The Beauty President's Personal Master", "The Return of the Pen Fairy", etc. The audience of online movies is mainly young people in second- and third-tier cities and towns.

On the other hand, although there are short films with similar concepts abroad, they are very different from those in China in terms of content direction, audience groups, and profit models. In the United States, online movies are mainly concentrated on video websites such as Vimeo, Fander, HULU, and NETFLIEX, and most of them are similar to micro-movies in China. Most of them are less than half an hour long, with serious themes and strong storylines, and the purpose is to share. There is another type of online movie with a longer duration and a clearer storyline, which is intervened by investors. They are not shared on video websites for a long time, but are selected as films at various film festivals to gain more professional recognition. This type of film is screened at film festivals. Once it is favored by big capital such as Warner, it is possible to go to theaters and make box office money, and there are mature peripheral supporting facilities such as DVD distribution to realize returns.

Therefore, major American filmmakers or independent filmmakers who upload their films online often have to treat their works carefully in the hope of being noticed by investors or theaters. Therefore, the minimum cost of shooting a feature film is about US$1 million.

The United States has a relatively complete film rating system, and works with vulgar themes also have the opportunity to be released. They do not have any special demand for large-scale online movies to fill the gap.

In contrast, domestic online movie teams are often emerging new media film entrepreneurial teams. Many of them lack professional background and quality, and even less pursuit of film art. Even if they are invested, they rarely think about how to gain more peripheral benefits from the content.

Marketing is a dilemma, quality is the key

In China, precisely because of its humble origins, more and more gold diggers are pouring into the online movie market. If one wants to produce a phenomenal online movie, one must have a good marketing strategy, like the online series “Go Princess Go”, to seize the topics of character complaints and poor crew, and build oneself into an IP with high attention.

But compared to online dramas, the marketing of online movies is doomed to be a dilemma. On the one hand, most of the content is shoddy and skirts the line. Whether it is the scale or the story, it is not convenient to promote it with great fanfare, and it is difficult to really impress people. On the other hand, most investors come to make quick money, and they are not looking for phenomenal works, so they don’t intend to spend too much energy on operations.

Many operations nowadays are basically self-promotion by video platforms. Many PR articles exaggerate some online blockbusters, but in fact the content is disgusting. Even the so-called award-winning "The Scarecrow" is actually a work full of flaws.

Without an objective evaluation mechanism system, it is difficult for creators to get a correct assessment of their creative direction.

Under such circumstances, the entry of high-quality IP is extremely important. Once professional companies try to improve quality and create works with good reputation, the quagmire will be stirred up, and the attitude of producers to follow suit and make vulgar films and investors to follow suit and make quick money in the current online movie market may change.

At a time when some works have received professional recognition, high-quality online film content is still worth looking forward to. However, there are not many opportunities for new grassroots businesses. More and more online blockbusters are being institutionalized and invested in. Their content will not always be vulgar, and inferior products will inevitably face elimination.

In particular, the government will become increasingly strict in controlling the Internet. When the policy fence is tightened, the existing environment of online movies will be overturned. The real beneficiaries should be those who work hard to create content.

Nanqidao: Founder of Nanqidao New Media and producer of Hushuoqidao. For reprints or cooperation, please follow the official account: Nanqidao. This article was written by Huachen.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.