On the morning of the 21st, the Beijing International Film Festival Industry Forum: Building and Breaking Under the Changing Situation of the Film Industry was held at the Langyuan Station punctual theater. Photo by Beijing Daily reporter Gan Nan
What impact will artificial intelligence have on the film and television industry? What do you think of the new short drama format that has exploded recently? Yesterday, the 14th Beijing International Film Festival Industry Forum was held. Focusing on “establishment and destruction under China’s industrial changes”, domestic and foreign guests spoke freely and sparked many sparks of thinking.
The film industry needs to try to “embrace” AI
At the beginning of this year, the birth of the Sora model aroused heated discussions throughout the industry, leading the film into a new era to a certain extent. Talking about the changes AI will bring to the film industry, Wang Changtian, chairman of Beijing Enlight Media Co., Ltd., believes that overall, AI will become a major tool available to the industry. “First of all, AI can improve the efficiency of film production, especially animated films; second, it may reduce costs, which will be a huge boost for the film industry with a high loss rate; third, as a technology, AI “It can improve the quality of film production and avoid the emergence of low-quality products.” But he also said that AI makes good creativity and unique aesthetics more and more difficult, and produces a large amount of homogeneous content, which also makes good content more difficult. stand out.
”Movies are produced by technology, not by art.” Director Huang Jianxin traced the history of movies from a single shot to multiple sets of shots, from silent to sound, as well as the several changes brought to movies by visual effects, IMAX and other technologies , believes that technology is the support and driving force of movies. He bluntly said that AI is a “good thing” and “it will only benefit us to establish a good relationship with it, so we must embrace AI.”
Actor Chen Chong was deeply moved by the recent news about AI “resurrecting” the dead, and her views are quite philosophical. In her view, if AI can generate a person’s appearance and behavior when he was young, will this corrode human memory of the past and cause people to “lose” themselves? In addition, she feels that the biggest danger of AI is that it trains humans no less than humans train AI. Will this lead to human thinking getting closer to AI? “It’s not that AI has replaced me, but that I’m becoming more and more like AI.”
Improving movie viewing experience to cope with the impact of short dramas
Talking about the new short drama format that has emerged recently, the forum guests all held an open and inclusive attitude. They believed that the existence of short dramas has made the industry richer and more diverse in terms of content, channels, etc., and the overall view was relatively positive and optimistic.
”There will always be popular products, but no product can be popular forever.” Wang Changtian said with a smile that short plays are the hottest trend at the moment because they are easier to produce and the business model is smoother. He encourages young people to make short plays. But he also stated that Enlight Media’s current positioning is purely to make movies, and they want to challenge “the most difficult content to make.”
Cameron Bailey, CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival, said that there is a difference in consumer experience between short plays and movies. Film creators hope that their works can provide audiences with a collective viewing experience, while short plays are usually for users alone. Consumption. Therefore, the two products are significantly different in technology, creative ideas, and business models. Chen Chong believes that there should be no “chain of contempt” between audio-visual products, it’s just that the media are different.
Under the impact of short videos represented by short dramas, how should traditional movies respond? IMAX China CEO Meng Danqing proposed that theaters should try various innovations to improve the audience experience. “We have recently tried showing sports games and concerts in theaters, and the results have been very good. For the audience, a theater has delicious popcorn, comfortable seats, appropriate air conditioning, and a large and clear screen… In addition to pure content, these “Detailed experience is so important and will affect the entire industry,” he said, hoping that his words would be heard by theater bosses and taken seriously. (Beijing Daily reporter Yuan Yuner)