Web Movies to Show Better Quality in 2016
Take me away, mom Animals on the Road	“Water Margin” on eggs Cat the occupier Adorable animals pose like stars Cuddle up together, battling against blizzard Sunshine in the life

 

Dou Lili, General Manager of the Investment Department at iQIYI Pictures, delivers a speech on April 19, 2016 at an online movie forum, a key section of the Beijing International Film Festival. [Photo: CRIENGLISH.com]

Anchor: Today, people spend countless hours surfing the Internet to find the best sites to watch high-quality movies.

This trend generates a new market demand in China for movies only available at a time when users are streaming with their own accounts.

Now the development of web films is under deliberation at a web movie forum, a key section of the Beijing International Film Festival. Shen Ting has more.

Reporter: This web movie forum has already become an integral part of the Beijing International Film Festival for three consecutive years.

Wang Xia is the deputy secretary-general of the organizing committee of the sixth Beijing International Film Festival,which just concluded on Saturday.

"The Internet has become an important part of China's movie industry that cannot be ignored. When it is an open and convenient platform, it will promote the film's development. I hope this discussion would help clearly define web films, as well as its measures of distribution and its future trend for development. We may also consider exploring the huge market potential in this area."

A web film is a film taking advantage of the Internet for distribution. With a much smaller investment, a web film usually requires a shorter production period and is reckoned to be of lesser quality than those films released in theatres.

According to Dou Lili, General Manager of the Investment Department iQIYI Pictures, the Chinese video streaming giant iQIYI now receives around 40 web films projects on a weekly basis.

However she's optimistic about the quality of the web films to be made this year and explains the reason:

"Some old flagship filmmaking companies began paying attention to this online movie market. As they started to invest in making online movies, I believe the budget for online filmmaking would increase accordingly and therefore may lead to progress in the quality of online movies."

Web films in China witnessed a robust growth in 2015. This attracted some directors to shift their attention to web films and away from those films made for cinema.

Director Wang Guangli is one of them. Wang Guangli, a director who is more widely known for two comedies Karmic Mahjong or Xue Zhan Dao Di(血战到底) in Chinese and Dangerous Games or Bang Zi Lao Hu Ji (棒子老虎鸡) in Chinese, directed a web film named "Yi Wei Shi Lao Da" in Chinese, which is about to go viral on April 28th.

He's participated in the discussion and talks about where a web movie's charm comes from.

"In my eyes, the most attractive feature of an online movie is that it allows me to focus on very basic issues, such as plot and character development. Those movies released in cinemas usually take a lot of the director's energy, for instance, to consider the cast and a favorable date for its release. I think as more energy is spent on achieving these goals as the movie itself. Hence, I think an online movie enables a director to concentrate more on the story, its characters as well as their emotions, and all these elements actually stay at the core of a movie.

In addition to this advantage from a director's perspective, Dou Lili thinks web films open a new world of possibilities for young directors.

She cited a documentary film "Ta Ren Chu Le Feng Bao" (她认出了风暴) as an example. This documentary is based on the life of legendary Chinese writer Xiao Hong and kicks off from a related film The Golden Era.

"However, there's little space for similar films like this to co-exist in cinemas. We hope our online platform will give these movies a channel and a platform that may enable audiences to watch it."

With a nickname as the B-type film in China, web films provide a perfect complement to cinema films, which movie industry insiders think give movie fans one more option in deciding whether to go to theatre or stay at home to enjoy themselves.

Dou added that her company, Iqiyi, would generate around 2200 web films this year.

 

Author： 　　　Source：CRI　　　 Editor：Yang Fan