Why did China Animation suddenly fall behind?

This question has been fully answered in the similar question of China Animation Label. Don't bother to look through it yourself, here is purely a supplement and summary.

1. Irreconcilable contradiction between audience demand, animation (diffuse) positioning and official requirements for animation production.

In this regard, it is clear to quote some explicit announcements on radio and television.

State Administration of Radio, Film and Television on Printing and Distributing Domestic TV Cartoons for the Record

Excerpts-

Requirements for filing and publicity management of domestic TV cartoons;

2 radio, film and television administrative departments at all levels should effectively check the domestic TV cartoons that apply for filing. The ideological tendency and content of domestic TV cartoons should conform to the party's principles and policies, the propaganda spirit of the central authorities and the requirements of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

Notice of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television on Implementing the Recommended Broadcasting Mode of Excellent Domestic Cartoons

Excerpts-

To recommend excellent domestic cartoons, we must adhere to the guidance of Deng Xiaoping Theory and Theory of Three Represents, adhere to the direction of serving the people and socialism, adhere to the policy of letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend, and adhere to the principles of being close to reality, life and the masses, so as to truly select excellent films with profound thoughts, exquisite art and excellent production.

Animation approval requirements (mainly recommended)

Because there are too many slots, please find them yourself. Many requirements seem to be politically correct, but because they can be light or heavy, life and death are completely determined by the mental state, openness and even personal preferences of the censor.

For example, "The Third Rule of Breaking Feudal Superstition: Avoid the Mixing of Ghosts and Ghosts in Contemporary Real Life." It is entirely possible to kill such subjects as God and Huo Ying (of course, the word death alone is estimated to be dead), and even if the censor is willing, Lotus Lantern on a Journey to the West, Passage of Things, Legend of the Book of Heaven and Cucumber Baby are all in born to die. . .

In short, political animation is just like letting leaders go first, and it has nothing to do with any flowers of the motherland or animation audiences of other ages. Moreover, in my opinion, the more unrestrained, the more beautiful the unrestrained animation is. Shut your mouth and tie your hands and feet as soon as you come up. It's really hard for ordinary people to turn around!

Second, the recovery method of production cost is inherently insufficient.

On this issue, because there are too many factors involved, it is no problem to take out a book and a half. Let's briefly talk about it for the time being.

First of all, we should understand that it is almost impossible to recover the cost of original animation simply on the video side (including TV stations and networks) due to the competition mechanism of China TV stations. Almost all major TV stations (including animation channels) only rely on advertising to make money, but there are too few advertisements that can be inserted in animation, and the price of their own broadcast is not high, which leads TV stations to buy animation broadcasting rights at a very low price for their own profits. In Europe and America (Japan is unknown), one link of optical TV broadcast is enough to recover the cost to support the team. Under the premise that animation does not lose money, naturally some people are willing to make better animation to earn more benefits, and natural masterpieces will appear frequently.

In China, if you want to recover the cost only by video terminals, there is only one way-infinitely reducing the cost. This is actually one of the main reasons why TV is full of all kinds of shoddy animations.

Supplementary material: What is the purchase cost of excellent domestic cartoons of CCTV and Shangxing Children's TV? What is the buyout fee for new media? )

So if the video terminal doesn't work, is there any other way? Yes.-derivatives. Derivatives include but are not limited to toys, trademarks, brand images, authorizations, etc. For example, "king of the children" makes Transformers and sells toys, in which animation rights are not the focus of making money, but the subsequent production and sales in transformers toys and even the various authorizations of Transformers are the ultimate weapons to attract gold.

In this case, we can simply understand animation as "advertising".

However, coming back here brings out the most painful problem of China's cultural industry: copyright. . . (This question can be written in half a book. Everyone can understand the word roughly, so I won't elaborate. ) Because of weak copyright awareness and weak protection mechanism, it is very difficult to make money from derivatives. So far, only two original animations have been made and achieved results: Happy and Happy and Blue Cat (good or bad). In fact, these two departments are completely realized by attacking a large number of people under the premise of certain quality assurance. Because since it is an advertisement, it must have an attribute: there are repeated reminders to spread and even brainwash. To do this, without the support of an angel investor with deep pockets, it is probably just wishful thinking.

Simple sentence: lack of money (say that students in a certain industry in China are not short of money, wash and sleep, do you really think that just as the news said, an animation Expo can reach billions of turnover? )。 This is also the reason why China animation can be basically divided into two kinds of animation: toy films and subsidized films (the privileged cultural films funded by the government are not discussed). Not to mention bad movies, only Orpheus can barely maintain the type of toy movies for the time being.

Three: lack of talent and technology.

There are two reasons for the shortage of animation talents:

First: the failure of Chinese university education (there are too many reasons to elaborate). Let's talk about the so-called animation major in colleges and universities.

The whole country is blooming everywhere, but there are only a handful of schools that really have the ability to teach you real kung fu. Therefore, many animation graduates may not even be able to draw basic sketches.

Second: you can't stay when you meet talents. From my personal experience and the experience of colleagues around me, the monthly salary of college graduates in the first year of animation is generally around 1500-2000 (Shanghai market, almost all other areas are known to be decreasing), and overtime pay and various subsidies do not exist in the case of overtime. This wage level is a matter of conscience in Shanghai. You will make more money if you wander around the subway with a loudspeaker on your back every day. It's just that the starting salary is low and the room for growth is not high. Generally, they are struggling in the pie that the boss has repeatedly scratched. (The low salary is related to the above reasons except that animation itself does not make money. Because of the government's vigorous propaganda, the animation major has long been known as a sunrise industry, which directly led to the disorder of the profession and the explosion of the number of people. In fact, animation in China can't consume so many graduates, which greatly lowers the salary level of animation practitioners. Animation major has become a red high-risk major, and the publicity is not enough (from the intermediary landlord to the previous tenant last month, I praised animation for doing well and could only laugh silently), which has become the reason why the status quo of low-paid and high-skilled workers cannot be improved to some extent, a vicious circle)

Of course, if you are still young, you should be afraid of low wages. Eat less to lose weight and do more accumulation. As long as there is a good form ahead, it doesn't matter that it is not a problem to support your wife, children and parents in the near future. Unfortunately, most of those who make processed films are driven away by long hours of work and unequal returns, while those who make original films are driven away by domestic films that are more shoddy than university works and have no technical content. How do you tell people who are still doing animation to see the future?

As long as they are not fresh out of school, they all shake their heads with a wry smile.

If someone has leisure to do a survey, I will arbitrarily say that animation graduates can stay in the animation industry for less than 10% a year, and it is definitely decreasing year by year.

There are only two things to do in a young job-either to have money or to learn a skill, and neither of them. Sayonara will leave without saying goodbye.

What can really stay, or not, or true love (BOSS level is not described here).

As for the lack of technology, it is obvious. If the vast majority of people in an industry jump ship to other industries in a short period of time, and no one accumulates experience year by year, the industry can only rely on newly graduated college students to survive, and there must be no technology at all. After all, technology cannot be acquired by long-term trial and error and accumulation of learning. People with a little foresight will find that even if they don't look at the artistic level, the technical level has been thrown out.

To sum up, the decline of China animation is not inevitable. After all, commercialization is a double-edged sword, and playing some bad tricks will inevitably attract people to hurt themselves. Moreover, it obviously doesn't make much sense to say that there are many classics in China animation in the last century. After all, those animations have not been commercialized, and they are almost completed without the restrictions of production cycle, production funds, theme selection and commercial competition. You can think that those classic animations are just the graduation works of a group of people in the art studio, and there are all good graduation works these years.

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Let's get another hint. Last year, I did the preliminary research of the project, and searched the types of animation being broadcast and about to be broadcast in the market and the operation modes of different animations. Then, I found a feature on official website by the biggest TV station in China (you know which one). I forgot the specific name, and it is the excellent selection list of China native original animation. The topic is very detailed, and there are many specific classifications and animations, so I swept the winners one by one.

Ignore what is too rough, write down what is good, and then search the production company and the company's operation direction. Of course, I don't know without searching. A search is simply a variety of tricks. Because the quality is not good, and quite a few of them are not original by China company, at least three of them are Korean animations (two of them are famous at international animation festivals and trade fairs). Of course, China companies may participate in some outsourcing, but outsourcing is outsourcing, and it has nothing to do with originality! If this counts, how many blockbusters are going to China? Which animation in the Transformers trilogy has no production link in China?

Then what should I say? When a department or someone holds all the power of life and death in an industry, black and white, good and bad, right and wrong have nothing to do. When you watch every domestic animation broadcast on TV, the rougher it is, the fewer people have power, and the more benefits you may get from this kind of film. Do you think the 40 million in Lei Feng's story is really not 40 million? It's just news hype. Although the words stop, do you know what quality films 40 million can produce for a real animation team?

Finally, to tell the truth, the current situation of China animation is that people who care more about the industry can't survive and struggle at the bottom, and they don't care that the fatter they eat, the higher they climb. Those who always wave flags and say something illusory are actually people who don't care about the life and death of China animation.

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The above words have nothing to do with venting anger, complaining, singing bad songs and despair (this word is too big, but I didn't come up with the right one).

I just want more people to think about why this is so, rather than the frankness and indiscriminate in the first picture. I also hope that the creative environment in the industry can be gradually improved and better things will appear. After all, there are still so many people fighting for it. You can see what all kinds of forces on the network are trying to do for this, and things worth looking forward to are constantly entering the network's field of vision. For example, I am very much looking forward to the follow-up commercial performances and development, as well as the long-awaited big fish Haitang and the upcoming serial version of Kung Fu Rabbit.

In short, although there is occasional weakness and loss ahead, as long as we think that 100 people are still fighting, we can still ignite hope. Perhaps, this is the best wealth that animation has given me in my life.