Chapter 358 Future Hidden Dangers

Chapter 358 Future Hidden Dangers

Chapter 358 Future Hidden Dangers
What Wang Hao and the top leader said is actually a very common phenomenon in the Chinese entertainment industry in the next few years or even decades.

This phenomenon is not just limited to the entertainment industry, but has also expanded to many other areas, such as anchors, internet celebrities and many other aspects.

This problem can be summed up in four words: the gap between the rich and the poor.

The most famous example is the popular “Daily Earning” on the Internet, where one can easily make two million yuan a day, and this is just the tip of the iceberg in the entertainment industry.

For example, when Angelababy was filming "The Princess Weiyoung", she was able to earn 8000 million yuan in salary just by photoshopping and cutting out pictures.

When Sun Honglei was recording "Go Fighting", his salary was calculated on a daily basis, and he made 300 million a day.

There is also Yang Mi, whose income in 2013 alone reached 4 million.

Those so-called top stars can easily earn hundreds of millions of yuan in pay for a film, and can earn tens of millions just by showing up casually.

Is this reasonable? This is reasonable because it is a normal market economic behavior.

Is this reasonable? This is not reasonable either, because this kind of market economic behavior is just a "bubble" generated by the country's rapid development. Those actors and stars who receive sky-high salaries do not have the strength to match it.

Wang Hao can't say that he has a big objection to the sky-high pay for actors and artists, because he himself is a member of the entertainment industry and a well-known director. His director's fee or producer's fee is actually not low.

But he still chose to speak out this matter in advance today, not because of any other complicated reasons, but simply because compared to his real purpose, the sky-high pay and the chaos in the future of the entertainment industry can make the leaders understand the importance of the matter more intuitively.

Yes, if you talk to your leaders about cultural invasion, or the stagnation and decline of the domestic film and television industry, the senior leaders actually don't feel deeply about it, and don't think it's a big problem.

But if you talk about the sky-high pay of stars, and say that the money they earn from a single performance is more than the salary of a big boss in several years, that is enough to make them think about more things.

“In fact, there are many reasons for the sky-high pay of actors.

First of all, I just mentioned the first point. Since Huayi went public the year before last, coupled with the rise of video websites, a large amount of hot money has poured into the film and television entertainment industry, and the market size has expanded rapidly.

Domestic demand is expanding, but the development of the industrialization system of our domestic film and television industry has not kept pace with the expansion of domestic demand.

Or rather, the industry did not expect that the film and television entertainment industry would develop so rapidly.

You have to know that ten years ago, it was already a remarkable thing for a domestic movie box office to exceed 100 million. At that time, who would have thought that an actor's pay could reach tens of millions or even hundreds of millions.

The productivity of the industry itself cannot keep up with the pace of the times, and in terms of talent cultivation, it is unable to quickly replicate and iterate artists that are popular with the market like Hollywood, Japan and South Korea.

This will result in that for a long time in the future, the cultivation and iteration of the production factor of "high-quality artists" in our domestic film and television industry will be much slower than the needs of the manufacturing link.

Director La should also know the number of films and TV series that are registered with the bureau every year, right? Compared with the year before, the increase in film and television projects last year was very surprising, wasn't it? "

Faced with Wang Hao's sudden question, Director La did not panic. After thinking for a moment, he actually gave some more detailed data.

"According to the statistics of the bureau, our domestic film production in 2011 was 791, compared with 2010 in 526, an increase of 50.3%, setting a new record since 2003.

As for TV dramas, more than 1000 were put on record last year.”

Wang Hao was not surprised by this data, because their Galaxy Group also had an industrial development investigation team, and the same data had also appeared on his desk.

“Yes, such a large number of works need to be distributed to major TV stations, video platforms and theaters for digestion.

And in this entire entertainment industry chain, all parties will face tremendous pressure.

Investors face pressure to recover costs; producers face pressure from investors, advertisers, broadcasting platforms and cinema chains; platforms face pressure from advertisers; cinema chains face pressure to operate; and advertisers also face pressure to convert their own brand effects.

All of this pressure ultimately points to the ratings, playback volume, box office, and market response of film and television works.

When there is not much difference in the script concept, production level, publicity level, etc. of most domestic film and television works, using more famous and popular stars at this time is undoubtedly the biggest selling point and the option with the least risk and the highest cost-effectiveness.

Therefore, in order to avoid risks and ensure maximum profits, investors, TV stations, producers, distributors and even video platforms who have spent a lot of money can only bet all their chips on popular artists.

This further deprives emerging artists of opportunities to show their talents and slows down their iteration.

The end result is that the supply and demand system of the film and television industry has become unbalanced, with the side that is scarce resources creating a price chase and bubble. Actors' pay has increased significantly, with crazy premiums. Producers would rather offer higher pay to snatch popular artists than use newcomers.

The high cost of film remuneration will further reduce the cost of costumes, sets, props and behind-the-scenes staff in the film and television production process, thereby reducing the quality of the film.

In this way, the higher the actors' pay, the worse the quality of the film and television drama. The worse the quality of the film and television drama, the more dependent it is on big-name stars, and the higher the pay for the actors, which forms a negative cycle.

If this continues, the production level of the domestic film and television industry will be difficult to upgrade, and there will always be a small number of familiar stars active in the market. The public will also be more attracted to the film and television entertainment industry because of the sky-high pay and the glamour on stage.

The dream of young people in the future is no longer to study hard, but to become famous and popular as an artist, and everything depends on traffic and capital. "

What Wang Hao said later was quite serious, and the top leader, Director La, and Han Sanping could not help but take it seriously.

Because the propaganda department is not only responsible for managing and reviewing film and television dramas, its main functions also include guiding public opinion, directing the production of spiritual products from a macro perspective, deploying overall ideological guidance tasks, and working with relevant departments to study and improve the ideological education of the masses.

If there really is a "traffic era" in the future, it will be a mistake in their policy management.

But even so, the big leader did not rush to speak. On the one hand, people like them have already cultivated their qi well enough, and what Wang Hao said was just a phenomenon in the future, which was not enough to make them lose their composure.

On the other hand, of course they still have more trust in Wang Hao. This young man has achieved what he has today, so he is not someone who can only talk big.

Since he dared to raise this issue in person today, he must have considered everything in advance and should have come up with his own solution to this problem.

Sure enough, after Wang Hao paused, he continued:

"As a science fiction film director, I certainly hope that the actors' pay can reach a reasonable ratio with the production cost of the entire film, so that I can invest more money in the research and development of film technology, equipment and special effects, and invest money in the behind-the-scenes team.

Just like my movie "Inception", even the Hollywood superstar Leonardo DiCaprio only received a maximum salary of 2000 million US dollars, which accounts for 10% of the total production cost of the film. Instead of paying at least 50% of the funds to the actors, and 50% of this 80% goes to the stars.

However, for now, appeals in society, supervision of star pay, and official issuance of "salary cap orders" for stars have very limited effects.

Because things like "sky-high pay for films" are, after all, commercial phenomena and economic behaviors.

There are many reasons for this problem. If it is not solved fundamentally and only restricting the actors is done, the effect will not be significant.

After all, every policy has its countermeasure. If you limit my salary, I can make up for it from other places, such as letting the actors take on more positions in the crew, receive more salaries, bring their own team into the crew, and increase publicity and roadshow expenses. These are all feasible.

Of course, the good news is that the current situation of "sky-high pay" for actors in the film and television industry is only in its infancy, and we still have time to prevent this problem from continuing to develop and become more serious."

"So what should we do?"

Han Sanping asked at the right time. As the head of Huaying Group, their company also has many film and television projects every year. It is natural for them to be concerned about the issue of actors' pay.

"In this regard, our Galaxy Group has actually been working hard."

Wang Hao smiled slightly and did not give a direct solution. Instead, he talked about the work that the Galaxy Group had been doing in the past few years.

“There are two directions for our efforts: one is to work hard on internal strength, and the other is to attract strong external support.

In order to develop the domestic film industrialization and prepare for the filming of domestic science fiction, our Galaxy Group has focused on the accumulation of talent and technology behind the scenes of film and television from the very beginning.

In terms of technology, in addition to cooperating with Sony Pictures and special effects companies in Hollywood to introduce and purchase their technology and equipment, we have also established cooperative relationships with some domestic universities and equipment manufacturers to jointly carry out research and development in this area.

As for behind-the-scenes talent, our Xingdou Culture is the first agency in the country to sign contracts with behind-the-scenes personnel.

In the past, the behind-the-scenes staff of the crew, such as lighting, photography, props, art, makeup, and dubbing, often followed a workshop-style system of teaching, helping, and guiding. Their job was to sign a contract with the crew. Few film and television production companies were willing to train behind-the-scenes staff. Most of them would recruit through acquaintances when they had a project, and disband the crew when the project was over.

Our Galaxy Group has signed contracts with a large number of behind-the-scenes talents in the film and television industry, providing them with five social insurances and one housing fund and basic wages, providing basic protection for those behind-the-scenes personnel at the lower levels of the industry. At the same time, we also provide training for these behind-the-scenes personnel through cooperation with the Beijing Film Academy.

Today, there are more than 10,000 behind-the-scenes workers signed to Galaxy Group. It is these talents that provide a solid foundation for domestic science fiction films such as "Source Code", "Wolf Warrior" and "Inception".

Yes, although the leading actor of "Inception" is a foreigner, the entire behind-the-scenes work of the crew, including the special effects, is handled by our employees of Galaxy Group.

Even now, in the neighboring Galaxy Studios, there are many Hollywood film crews coming here to shoot and produce, just for the behind-the-scenes workers here who are much more affordable than those in Hollywood.

With a large number of outstanding behind-the-scenes talents as the foundation for producing excellent works, the appeal of actors is no longer that important in our Galaxy Group's projects.

Of course, this is only for now. With the development of Galaxy Group in the future, our demand for talents will also be huge.

According to statistics from our subsidiary, Good Production Network, among the behind-the-scenes staff currently registered on our website, there are only 28 S-level behind-the-scenes practitioners, that is, the top talents in the industry, 117 A-level behind-the-scenes practitioners, 863 B-level people, 21924 C-level people, and about 3 D-level people.

From this data, we can see that in terms of the composition of the talent echelon, the domestic film and television industry is currently in a situation where high-end talents are scarce, mid-level technical talents are lacking, and the quality of grassroots personnel is worrying.

I am not exaggerating, because our Good Production Network has already occupied 70% of the market share, which means that 70% of the behind-the-scenes practitioners in the film and television industry across the country have participated in our rating assessment and registered on the Good Production Network.

The rest either work in other film and television companies or cannot even pass the skill level assessments organized by our company, the three major domestic film and television schools, and the film and television associations.

In the future, as the scale of the film and television industry expands rapidly, talent shortage will become a bottleneck restricting the development of my country's film and television industry, and a serious problem in China's transformation from a major film and television country to a film and television power.

In response to this issue, our Galaxy Group has also contacted several film and television schools in the past few years.

In the past, these film and television schools were the main force in cultivating film and television talents. Professional schools represented by Beijing Film Academy, Central Academy of Drama, and Magic Film Academy, as well as film and television majors offered in other schools, have provided a large number of talents for the film industry.

However, the speed at which these universities output film and television talents is far behind the rapid expansion of the market.

At the same time, there is still a clear gap between the capabilities of a large number of fledgling film and television school graduates and the expectations of film and television companies.”

Wang Hao picked up the document at hand and signaled his secretary to hand it to the three leaders.

"According to the data our company has obtained from several major film and television schools, less than 40% of students from various schools can actually enter this industry and engage in related work after graduation.

According to what our company has learned from research at other film and television production companies, graduates from film and television schools, including several well-known schools, are unable to meet the requirements of the jobs.

This also reflects that there is still a huge gap between the education provided by our domestic film and television schools and the actual needs of the industry.”

(End of this chapter)