Article type: spoony message
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The past year of 2006 has been recognized by the industry as a turning point in the animation industry. In the process of gradual marketization, the animation industry is seeking new profit points under the guidance of policies.
However, under the new opportunities and the newly formed industrial chain, the animation industry in China is still facing the puzzle of finding a suitable profit model.
"In the next five years, the animation and game industry in Beijing will maintain an annual growth rate of 50%, and the output value will reach 4 billion yuan by 20 10. We are very confident to achieve this goal. " Yesterday, at the animation and game industry development forum of the first China Beijing International Cultural and Creative Industry Expo, Sun Xiangdong, director of Beijing Press and Publication Bureau, said in an interview.
According to statistics, in 2005, the market size of animation publications and TV/Internet communication in Beijing was 89 million yuan, with an annual growth rate of 6%. "On June 1 day this year, the National Online Game Animation Industry (Beijing) Development Base was formally established in Zhongguancun, which marked the development of Beijing animation game industry to a new stage." Sun Xiangdong said.
Insiders also pointed out that 2006 will go down in history as a turning point of China animation industry. However, under the new opportunities, the industrial prospect of animation is still unclear. "At present, the development of domestic animation industry has gradually changed from policy orientation to real scale and market development, but it still needs a process." Yan Yan, chief operating officer of China Original Animation Network, told reporters that the development of domestic animation industry is still at work with the "tangible hand", and the animation industry has not yet formed its own industrial chain.
The animation industry chain has been fragmented.
"Compared with other industries, animation is not a high-input industry, but once it is successful, its return period is unimaginable." An animation industry veteran commented on this emerging sunrise industry. The source said that a classic cartoon image will last forever, and the consumption of audio-visual products, toys, books, games and other derivatives will snowball. "It may be an exaggeration to describe it once and for all. For example, Mickey Mouse has been popular for nearly a century, and Disney's cultural media empire is based on this cartoon image. "
The domestic example is the cartoon featuring Blue Cat in recent years. This "blue cat" has brought a long industrial chain and formed a commodity group covering more than 4,000 varieties in toys, beverages, clothing, daily necessities and other industries. There are 2,400 "Blue Cat" stores in China, and the annual sales of related products exceed 400 million yuan. Now this cartoon has an annual income of more than 6.5438+0.6 million yuan only under the authorization of the brand.
/kloc-China, with a population of 0/300 million, has no doubt about the future of animation. Although the animation market contains great potential, the domestic animation industry is still faltering when Japanese and American animation products flood into the China market. "For a long time, the profit model has always been a common problem in the domestic animation industry." According to Yan Yan's analysis, the fragmentation of the industrial chain of animation industry in China is the fundamental reason for the slow development of animation industry in China.
Yan Yan introduced that after years of development, the animation industry in Japan and the United States has now formed a complete animation industry chain. Take Japan as an example, the foundation of Japanese animation industry begins with comics. First of all, in Japan, there are a large number of comic original teams, mainly individuals, creating comics, and then their works are serialized in comic magazines in stages. If the market responds well, some publishers will publish cartoons, animation production companies will select suitable books from high-quality books as scripts to shoot cartoons, and related books, audio-visual products, games and other derivative products will also be produced in large quantities.
Looking for the Breakthrough of Animation Profitability
Facing these bottlenecks, how will China animation industry make a smooth transition to marketization? Yan Yan suggested following the Japanese model and taking comics as the basis, that is, focusing on developing enterprises such as comic magazines, encouraging the innovation of individual original works, and then promoting the development of related animation derivative industries.
10 years ago, South Korea's animation industry faced a double "confusion". On the one hand, a large number of animation talents are processing Japanese and American animation films, on the other hand, the domestic animation industry is slow to develop due to the impact. After fully considering that comics and anime movies have been seized by Japan and the United States, South Korea has chosen a new road-online games. Through the development of online games, the development of related derivative products will be promoted, and even cartoons will be created according to the game characters. Through such a new road, South Korea's animation industry has developed rapidly. Today, South Korea's animation products account for 30% of the world's output value, second only to the United States and Japan, and it is one of the six pillar industries of South Korea's national economy.
In addition, some animators tend to use TV as a breakthrough to string together the whole animation industry chain-TV stations, as investors, develop animated films with animation companies. They believe that with the participation of TV funds, the difficulty of insufficient investment in domestic animated films can be alleviated to some extent. At the same time, because the TV station has a strong broadcast platform, its participation means that the future broadcast channels of animated films will be guaranteed, which can also enhance the confidence of advertisers.
It is understood that following the State Council's approval of "Several Opinions on Promoting the Development of China's Animation Industry" by ten ministries, Beijing has also issued 36 implementation measures and related supporting policies to promote the development of animation industry. In addition to the special funds set up by the state finance to support the development of the animation industry, the policy will be inclined to encourage original enterprises, and policy banks should provide financing support to eligible animation enterprises, giving priority to supporting domestic listing and financing of eligible animation enterprises.
"On the road of marketization, the government will make every effort to make the animation industry work." A government official said.
successful case
The Secret of Animation Giant Disney
At the 2006 International Forum on Cultural and Creative Industries held yesterday, Zhang Zhizhong, Executive Vice President of Walter Disney, told the media that the key to Disney's success lies in the company's full interaction and communication with different consumers on the platform of value chain, which is also the key to Disney's firm position in the global entertainment market.
Zhang Zhizhong said that Disney has participated in the value chain of every entertainment industry, from entertainment content to content editing and distribution, to the licensing of products such as mobile phones and MP3 players.
Among the four driving factors that affect the whole market, such as consumer demand, technology platform, content guarantee and legal environment, Disney's strategy is to create characters and stories that make the audience feel great about singing. When the audience has a good experience of the content, they will naturally like the characters in the story and hope to use these images to buy some goods. Then, Disney will continue to look for this kind of entertainment product that consumers like on DVD, mobile phone and all other platforms. Later, Disney will organize live performances such as stage plays, or let consumers go to Disney Resort to experience the happiness in fairy tales.
"With this continuous development, we are getting closer and closer to the audience and consumers." Zhang Zhizhong believes that Disney attracts most consumers through their favorite entertainment content in the entertainment industry value chain on the corresponding platform. Zhang Zhizhong said that in order to meet the entertainment experience cycle and play its greatest role, Disney is constantly looking for ways to better understand consumers' needs and how to meet them every year.
"We let consumers know the value of our brand and their views on various products. Consumers' ideas have a great influence on our business decisions." Zhang Zhizhong said.
In addition, the authorized publishing house can also sell the copyright of comics to animation companies, and the publishing house can get a profit of about 10% of the whole chain income in the future, and they will give part of it to the original author. After the animation company buys the copyright, it will attract investors such as TV stations and advertisers to cooperate and bear the production cost, and at the same time contact the authorized party to develop derivative products.
However, the development and operation mode of domestic animation industry is not the case.
Original animation lacks professional production.
AARON Li is high flyers from the Graphic Design Department of Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts. After graduating from college, she worked in a newspaper in Beijing. It is her job to send cartoons to the news every day. But she is keen on comics and prefers to create comics as a career. "But there is no way. If you choose comic creation as a career, it is difficult to make a living. " AARON Li was very helpless when interviewed by reporters. AARON Li used to be a full-time comic writer for a while. Although he has produced some works, it is difficult to translate them into actual income. "It is said that it is difficult for migrant workers to ask for wages, but after I contribute to many magazines, the manuscript fee is often owed."
In Beijing, there are many people who have comic ideals like AARON Li, but most of them have not put all their energy into comic creation. "Many of my classmates are like me. They really want to create their own comic works, but for the sake of life, most of them have stable jobs at present, and creating comics can only be used as a part-time job. " AARON Li expressed the feelings of many people who are interested in full-time cartoonists at present.
"In China, as the bottom of the pyramid, the comic industry is insufficient relative to the demand." Yao Feila, one of the most famous professional cartoonists in China, said that except for some famous cartoonists, it is difficult for other cartoonists to get stable salaries, which directly led to the brain drain in chinese comic.
Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer platforms for comics. On April 20th this year, Beijing Cartoon, founded in 1995, was closed due to continuous losses. Previously, many comic magazines, such as King of Comics, Pioneer of Comics, and Juvenile Comics, have withdrawn from this stage.
Low quality after low cost input
"The imperfection of the original comics in the whole industry chain directly determines the downturn of domestic comics." Yao Feila said that TV stations buy cartoons at extremely low prices because they lack the basis of cartoons. At present, the producers, distributors and subsequent derivative developers of cartoons have not really combined, which leads to the producers being very passive, so the production costs of cartoons have to be borne by the producers, and the acquisition of TV stations has almost become the only way to recover the costs.
A person in charge of an animation company revealed that the investment of a 26×26 cartoon (that is, 26 minutes per episode and 26 episodes per episode) is generally around 6,543,800 yuan, and the production cycle takes four years. The purchase price of TV stations ranges from several hundred yuan to 1000 yuan per episode, which simply cannot recover the cost. In this case, many animation companies are forced to give up originality and instead "process" foreign cartoons-contract the production of some links of foreign cartoons. "Because the core creative part is always done abroad, domestic enterprises can only play the role of followers."
In addition, in order to reduce the risk of loss, some original animation companies mostly calculate the cost according to the purchase price of TV stations, thus repeatedly lowering the production cost, and some production costs have to be reduced to the original 1/3. "For creative industries like animation, the consequence will inevitably be the decline in the quality of cartoons."
Yan Yan said: "Because there are few high-quality works in domestic animated films and the ratings are low for a long time, the result of a vicious circle is that it is more difficult to attract advertisers." As we all know, if the advertising volume does not improve, it is difficult for TV stations to "raise wages" for the acquisition of animation films.
Another bad result of the lack of high-quality domestic cartoons is the lack of follow-up derivative product development. According to industry insiders, even popular animated films, only about 10% of the works can be developed into derivative products.