How far is the spring of film crowdfunding?

There is a crowdfunding boom in the film and television field, with low barriers to entry and short crowdfunding cycle, but high returns face high risks-

How far is the spring of film and television crowdfunding?

Following The Return of the Great Sage on the Journey to the West and The Big Fish Begonia, two film and television works, Love Without a Temporary Residence Permit and Peach Blossom on Monday, will meet the audience through crowdfunding. Recently, with the approval of Jinling Cultural Property Exchange Center, Nanjing Kangmao Cultural Communication Co., Ltd. took the lead in crowdfunding the film and television copyright crowdfunding project "Movie Legend" and purchased the copyrights of two TV series "Love without a temporary residence permit" and "Peach Blossom on Monday". Crowdfunding people will benefit from the copyright development of TV dramas.

According to reports, film and television copyright crowdfunding generally means that professional film and television institutions take the lead in raising funds, film and television investment enthusiasts follow the fund-raising, and participate in the filming and production of film and television programs, including movies, TV dramas and TV programs. , so that investors can get a certain income, and at the same time have the opportunity to participate in the related activities of this film and television work and obtain the peripheral products of the film and television. Including film and television copyright crowdfunding, film and television project crowdfunding has the characteristics of low entry threshold and short crowdfunding cycle. Although film and television crowdfunding started late, it is still a "newborn" in the field of crowdfunding, but it has developed rapidly because crowdfunding people can get high profits and have the opportunity to participate in the creation, development and operation of film and television works. However, film and television crowdfunding also has problems such as high income, high risk and insufficient user motivation. Experts suggest that in order to solve these problems, film and television companies can make up for the losses of investors by implanting advertisements, and crowdfunding parties should segment the crowd market and encourage more users to join film and television crowdfunding.

Crowdfunding model is favored

Before Nanjing Kangmao Cultural Communication Co., Ltd. initiated this film and television copyright crowdfunding, many film and television companies had already explored film and television crowdfunding, and some successful cases appeared, such as the animated film The Return of the Great Sage on the Journey to the West, The Big Fish Begonia and the documentary My Poetry.

Why do many film and television companies favor film and television crowdfunding? According to Zhang Hua, managing director of Beijing Ruifengxing Art Exchange Co., Ltd., film and television crowdfunding is a new business model explored by film and television companies to adapt to the development of new technologies, which has positive significance for subscribers, film and television companies and even the film and television industry. On the one hand, through crowdfunding, film and television companies can not only raise the funds needed for film and television production, publicity and distribution, but also interact with sponsors and adopt their suggestions on the creation, development and operation of works. On the other hand, from the perspective of fund-raisers, with the help of crowdfunding, we have the opportunity to participate in the creation and operation of film and television projects, which enhances the film and television experience. If the film and television box office gets good results, they can even get rich economic returns. "Of course, film and television crowdfunding must comply with relevant national laws and regulations and cannot cross the border." Zhang Hua stressed.

Taking My Poems as an example, the film adopts crowdfunding mode from production to distribution, and encourages users who participate in crowdfunding to participate in the creation and announcement of the film. Cai Qingzeng, the producer of My Poetry, said in an interview with China Intellectual Property News that the film was initiated by Shanghai Ito Film and Television Culture Co., Ltd. Before the film started shooting, the company used the Internet to publicize, attract netizens' attention, participate in crowdfunding, let them know about the film creation process, conduct in-depth exchanges, and make creative adjustments according to their feedback. This interactive mechanism has achieved good results. As soon as it was released last year, the film won the Golden Goblet Awards Award for Best Documentary at the 18 Shanghai Film Festival and was shortlisted for the Golden Horse Award at the 52nd China Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival. In addition, in order to solve the problem of film distribution and screening, Shanghai Ito Film and Television Culture Co., Ltd. launched the "Crowdfunding Watching" activity, aiming at finding the accurate target audience through crowdfunding activities, locking the audience before the film is officially scheduled in the cinema, solving the cinema's concerns about the box office, and solving the problem of distribution and screening. At present, the company has organized 8 10 "Crowdfunding Movie Watching" activities nationwide, and is making every effort to promote the "Hundred Cities Crowdfunding Movie Watching Action" to complete the goal of thousands of screenings, thus promoting the final release.

Many problems remain to be solved.

With the rapid development of film and television crowdfunding, there are also some problems such as high income risk and small number of participants, which restrict the development of this model.

Take the crowdfunding movie "Female Man True Love Formula" as an example. 2015438+065438+1October, Guangying Workshop launched the equity crowdfunding project film "True Love Formula for Women" on the equity crowdfunding platform, and sold 18% equity. After raising 5.04 million yuan, crowdfunding participants signed an investment agreement with the project party Guangying Workshop in June+February last year. According to the agreement, the project party of "Female Man True Love Formula" should disclose the income to the film crowdfunding investors and pay the relevant rights and interests. However, the project did not disclose the progress information after it entered the contract signing period on February 22 last year. In July this year, because the dispute with the project party could not be resolved, crowdfunding people launched a war of words on the Internet. It is worth noting that the ultimate box office of The Formula of True Love for Women is only about 63 million yuan, while in the business plan of the early project roadshow, its expected box office is 200 million yuan.

In order to solve the problem of investment risk, Zhang Hua suggested that film and television companies should explain to fund-raisers when raising funds: any follow-up is risky, and it is suggested that fund-raisers determine the subscription amount according to their own economic ability. If the box office of the film is not good and the sponsors can't recover the cost, the film and television company can make up for the losses of the sponsors with goods and solve the disputes between the two sides by cooperating with the manufacturers who put advertisements. For example, if the sponsor subscribes to a movie 300 yuan, but the box office of the movie is not ideal, which is far from the expected box office, then the film and television company can let the advertising producer produce products worth 300 yuan to the sponsor, so as to resolve the dispute. At the same time, the amount of funds raised by film and television companies can be smaller, so that followers can bear the losses. Cai Qingzeng also believes that film and television companies should clearly explain the possible risks of participating in crowdfunding when signing investment agreements with fund-raisers.

In view of the small number of film and television crowdfunding users, Analysys analyst Huang Guofeng analyzed that film and television crowdfunding has really developed rapidly in the past two years, and many successful film and television crowdfunding projects have emerged, especially "The Return of the Great Sage of Journey to the West", which won a double harvest at the box office and injected a shot in the arm for film and television crowdfunding. However, this does not mean that film and television crowdfunding has become a recognized financing solution for film and television projects in the industry, mainly due to insufficient user motivation. For example, he introduced that compared with "Entertainment Treasure", an insurance wealth management product that is closely related to users, many film and television crowdfunding does not promise the amount of income, and some fans and fund-raisers can only get opportunities to participate in film and television conferences and receive movie posters, which are not highly relevant to most audiences, and the scale of users' participation in crowdfunding is small. How to promote the rapid development of film and television crowdfunding? He suggested that the crowdfunding platform needs to subdivide users, carry out more detailed operations, and let more people participate. For example, student groups, many of whom pay attention to film and television, are also an important source of box office contributions. However, the current crowdfunding platform is not strong enough to cover the student groups. Students who want to participate in crowdfunding of film and television projects may not be able to participate because of financial problems. Therefore, the government can support some crowdfunding platforms specifically for student groups and promote the development of film and television crowdfunding.

Some insiders pointed out that although film and television crowdfunding is favored at present, because this model is still in its infancy, it faces many problems, and it is necessary for film and television companies and other leading parties to communicate and interact effectively with sponsors to avoid potential risks and create high-quality content to achieve mutual benefit and win-win results.

Related links film and television crowdfunding success stories

The animated film The Return of the Great Sage of Journey to the West

Before the release of "Return of the Great Sage of Journey to the West", Lu Wei, the film producer and general producer, had a whim to distribute publicity funds for the film, which was initially scheduled to be released in the Lunar New Year file, so he sent the idea to a crowdfunding alumni group on his WeChat for inquiry, but he didn't expect to get the support of several alumni immediately. Later, he sent this message in a circle of friends and got a warm response. In just over four hours, more than 70 group friends have joined the specially established "Westward Journey Movie Crowdfunding Group", raising nearly 5 million yuan. Later, more people joined in, and the last 89 investors invested a total of 7.8 million yuan. After The Return of the Great Sage of Journey to the West was released, it achieved good box office results. With the word-of-mouth effect, the box office of the film exceeded 600 million yuan in half a month, and the per capita investment income of investors was 250,000 yuan. At the end of The Journey to the West, these investors all signed the names of "crowdfunding producers".

Animated film "Big Fish Begonia"

In 20 13, the production team of "Big Fish Begonia" tried to launch crowdfunding on the crowdfunding website, and the maximum amount of crowdfunding support was limited to 500,000 yuan. According to the agreement of crowdfunding, crowdfunding people with different investment amounts will get different product returns such as movie tickets, posters and DVDs. At the same time, they will also get the certificate of "honorary producer", and can show the movie "Big Fish Begonia" for relatives and friends in designated cities and places, and the creative staff will also visit the screening site. In the end, crowdfunding won the support of more than 4,000 people, and * * * raised 6,543,800 yuan, exceeding the target amount of 6,543,800 yuan. Crowdfunding participants contribute at least 10 yuan and at most 500,000 yuan. Although millions of crowdfunding funds are like nine hairs of Niu Yi for the production of a film, the crowdfunding action of the production team of "Big Fish Begonia" attracted the attention of the light media, won the investment of the light film industry, and finally completed the production of this film at a cost of about 30 million yuan.

Animated film "100,000 cold jokes"

In 20 13, the popular online original animation "100,000 cold jokes" was raised through the crowdfunding platform "roll call time". In less than half a year, it attracted more than 5,000 film micro-investors, raised more than 6.5438+0.37 million yuan, successfully entered the shooting stage, and was released on 20 15, with a box office of over 100 million yuan.