In recent years, under the great attention and support of various countries, the animation and game industry has been developing rapidly, and the global output value exceeded 500 billion dollars in 2004, showing a new development trend. First, the animation and game industry has become an important pillar industry in many countries and regions. At present, the animation and game industry of the United States has exceeded the movie industry for four consecutive years and become the largest entertainment industry; the creative industry including animation industry of the United Kingdom is the first major industry of the country; the export value of Japan's animation products is much higher than the export value of iron and steel; and the value of South Korea's animation and game industry is not comparable to that of the automobile industry. Secondly, the Internet has gradually become the main production and dissemination channel of animation and game products, realizing the optimal allocation of heterogeneous resources and bringing about the rapid expansion of the market scale. Thirdly, under the role of high technology, it has interpenetrated and intermingled with other industries, and constantly formed new forms of culture and entertainment. Fourthly, animation and game enterprises have realized transnational development, enhanced the internationalization level of the industry, and also become a means and form of cultural export.
China:
In fact, Chinese animation has come a long way. 2006 happens to be the 80th anniversary of the birth of China's first animated film, which was a short film called The Big Foolish Drawing Room produced by the Wan Brothers in Shanghai.
In the 1940s, they also produced the first animated movie director in Asian history, called Princess Iron Fan. These show that China had a fairly early start in the animation industry.
The beginning
After the liberation of the Northeast, the government took over the Manchurian Film Studio, the predecessor of the current Changchun Film Studio. From then on, it can be said that it was the beginning of the new Chinese art movie. Before the liberation of China's animation industry started from Shanghai, but after the founding of New China, it started from the northeast.
In 1956, a group of Northeastern art film studio backbone was ordered to Shanghai to set up the Shanghai art film studio, and in 1957, China finally set up a very sound, professional animation film studio - Shanghai art film studio.
Until the end of the Cultural Revolution or even until the mid-1990s, China's animation industry was disconnected from the market and completely planned economy: there was only one professional animation studio in the country, Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio (SAFFS). At that time, there were two forms of animation, one was a feature film such as "The Palace of Heaven" and so on, and the other was a short film such as "Tadpole Looking for Mom", but they were all shot on film and the output was not high.
Change
But much changed after the 1980s, especially after the reform and opening up. The television industry developed rapidly, and many domestic cartoons began to be broadcast on TV.
In fact, foreign countries have long had TV cartoons, this kind of cartoon is not an episode, but continuity, a do is a unit. In the past, the state stipulated that the length of animated films broadcast by the American Film Studio each year was 300 to 400 minutes, and 300 minutes was equivalent to the length of a dozen or more episodes to two dozen episodes, which was far from enough for the demand of television. Therefore, some foreign cartoons were slowly allowed to enter China. The earliest ones are "Astro Boy", "Smart One" and "Transformers".
The concept of what became an animated series in China was "Black Cat Sheriff" by the American Film Studio, which was influential but only had five episodes. It was followed by the filming and production of "Gourd Brothers" and "Gourd Little King Kong," which added up to 26 episodes, a production number that was still far from adequate for the amount of demand for television.
So after the 80s, on the one hand, the introduction of more foreign animated films. On the other hand, TV stations other than the American Film Studio began to pay attention to this style of animation, and began to invest in the production of animation, and a number of animation production companies were also slowly born.
The TV stations were the investors, responsible for finalizing the scripts and then finding production companies to produce the cartoons. Another phenomenon is that the processing industry of animation began to appear. Globally, as the demand for animated cartoons on television skyrocketed, the cost of production from the United States in the 1970s began to rise, and the need to find a lower-cost production area led to Japan, so it is said that Japanese animation was also borrowed from the United States.
Japan with and the United States began to do their own cartoons later, with its original deep cartooning skills, to make their own national characteristics. From helping the United States to process their own slowly formed a unique style. When we see Japan and the United States of America's cartoons will find obvious differences, a difference is that the United States of America cartoon is concerned about the smoothness of the action. That technically requires quite a lot of animation to accomplish. For example, 10 minutes he has to do 8,000 to 10,000. The more sheets the more detailed action, the higher the cost. Japanese cartoons have more still images and are more beautiful, but they don't move as much, and the smallest Japanese 20-minute cartoon is only 1,500 sheets, which is obviously a lot different.
Later Taiwan also became a very important base. Taiwan's Hongguang as early as the 1970s used to be Asia's largest animation processing base. Hongguang once reached a scale of more than 1,000 people. Then it contracted the processing and production of many important clients in the United States. Then the U.S. also found a processing center in South Korea. In the 80s of last century, the processing was transferred to China, and many animation processing factories began to appear here in Shenzhen. But such production has no intellectual property rights, no branding, and is just a link in the chain in China.
China has gone through a transition from a planned economy to a market economy, and the animation industry has suffered a huge challenge. In the 1990s, China's movie industry underwent a major reform: on the one hand, it began to introduce foreign blockbusters. On the other hand, there was a reform of the distribution system. Previously, only the China Film Corporation (CFCC) was responsible for approving and distributing films after production. All the distribution of domestic and foreign films was done by China Film Corporation (CFCC). Prices were not set according to the market box office, but by the state. A movie studio is really not an enterprise but a simple studio, and sales are determined from the beginning of production. Good or bad shooting has nothing to do with sales.
Status quo
After 1993, China's animation market opened up, and the state no longer limited production but also canceled government acquisitions. This also made the domestic animation industry began to be challenged from two aspects, one is foreign animation films into the Chinese market is no longer restricted, but the production of Chinese animation is small, original works only adapt to the planned economy to do short films, a large number of market demand can not be met. However, the United States and Japan animation industry has been developed for 20 years, far more mature than China, and the number is also a lot, and the domestic formation of a strong contrast, China's animation industry presents a clear disadvantage. On the other hand, there is no real market in sales in China, TV stations are monopolized and there is only one price in sales. In the face of such a huge consumer potential, the domestic unilaterally did not form a market, this disadvantage also led to a considerable part of the flow of talent to the field of processing and production.
In a sense, the 10 years of transition from a planned economy to a market economy are also the 10 years of marketization of Chinese animation.
China's animation industry has undergone many changes in these 10 years, first of all, the number of production and practitioners has expanded, the production time, for example, from the original 300 minutes to 40,000 minutes last year, it is understood that only in the General Administration of Radio, Film and Television to apply for the project of the animation has reached as many as 700,000 to 800,000 minutes.
Now the national animation industry involves hundreds of enterprises, ranging from hundreds of production companies to a dozen studio teams. In addition, in addition to the relevant central management departments have introduced some supportive policies, the local government in the past two years for the animation as the representative of the cultural industry also have some support, including Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shenzhen and so on.
Another sign is that now the country has more than 200 colleges and universities specializing in animation, with more than 20,000 students enrolled.
The new term now called animation is to merge the two related contents of animation and comics together, covering at least three aspects of animation, comics and games. This concept has also been formed in China in the past two years, but there is too little that is truly original. Although there are official statistics that the number has reached 40,000 minutes, there are very few truly influential works, which shows that our ability to be original is relatively weak. In addition, China's animation industry has not formed a complete industrial chain.
There is a lack of influential works due to insufficient originality. Therefore, producers and investors are very cautious about investing in this industry. Although they all know that this is a potential market, they lack a more mature profit model. On the other hand, the animation industry chain is also relatively long, belonging to the medium and long-term investment, from investment to recovery needs a relatively long cycle, so in terms of capital is still very lack of.