At 3:30 p.m. local time in Los Angeles on October 10, the lecture hall of the UCLA Film School was full. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

At 3:50, under the guidance of the school, Zhang Ran came to the lecture hall on time.

The entire hall was crowded with people, and nearly a thousand people gathered.

When the UCLA students present saw Zhang Ran coming in, they immediately let out an excited shout: "Robin, Robin!"

The Hollywood people present were shocked, they didn't expect Zhang Ran to be so popular, it was almost like a celebrity meeting.

In fact, the reason why Zhang Ran is so popular, in addition to the pride of UCLA, is that UCLA lost again in the same city war just past, so everyone misses Zhang Ran very much, and they all believe that if he is there, it will definitely make USC suffer.

Before the formal speech, Terry Schwartz, the director of the film school, made a cheering speech, briefly summarized Zhang Ran's achievements in recent years, and then praised it fiercely, causing the students in the audience to cheer again. After the cheers, Schwartz smiled and said, "Now I have today's guest speaker, Mr. Zhang Ran." ”

Zhang Ran got up and walked to the podium, straightened the microphone, and while he was tidying up the microphone, the entire auditorium was completely silent.

Zhang Ran didn't play any tricks, and started his speech with a smile: "Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. It's not the first time I've stood here, but it's the first time I've given a speech, and I'm a little scared. Today, I mainly want to talk about Chinese films and Chinese opportunities. ”

The audience present looked at Zhang Ran, the average Chinese speaking in the United States, are mostly Chinese audiences, but 80% of the people present today are white, and there are many Hollywood film people, they hope to understand the Chinese film market through Zhang Ran, understand how to make money in the Chinese film market.

"Let me first talk about the data of Chinese films, the total box office of Chinese films in 2002 was 920 million, equivalent to 150 million US dollars, and the total box office in China last year was 3.95 billion, and the box office has increased three times in five years. The total box office in the first half of this year was 2.58 billion, and the annual box office is expected to be close to 6 billion. Ten years later, in 2017, the box office of Chinese films will reach about 60 billion, plus the appreciation of the yuan, about 9 billion US dollars, and the entire market will be close to the United States.

There is a ceiling in the market, and I believe that by about 2017, the growth rate of Chinese films should slow down, but it will still remain at about 20%, according to this forecast, by 2027, the Chinese film box office will reach 30 billion US dollars, accounting for about 40% of the global film box office market share. The basis for this inference is that the United States has a population of 300 million and watches movies per capita about 4 times a year, while China has a population of 1.3 billion, so the figure of 30 billion is not an exaggeration. If the average viewing of movies by Chinese reaches the current level of the United States, it should be 40 billion! This is a huge market, no one can ignore it, as a film company, if you don't pay attention to the Chinese market, it means that you lose the future of competition!"

The auditorium was quiet, only Zhang Ran's voice echoed, and everyone was listening carefully; the Chinese audience felt the strength and pride of the motherland, while the Hollywood businessmen's eyes were sparkling and they all smelled money.

Zhang Ran continued: "The Chinese film market has huge potential and faces many problems. Now for those of us who are practitioners of Chinese films, the biggest headache is the lack of professional talents. If nothing else, let's just talk about the lights. As you may know, I also have an identity as a Nortel teacher, but I haven't attended classes well in the past two years, and I am suspected of selling dog meat with a sheep's head. ”

The auditorium burst into good-natured laughter.

However, Zhang Ran couldn't laugh a little: "We Nortel originally had a lighting class, but later because the graduates all went to be photographers, the lighting class was canceled." More than 70% of the lighting engineers are from a place called Yanling, a place where many people will join the crew when they reach a certain age. Chinese gaffers are basically masters and apprentices, but many masters themselves are not professional, and the apprentices they bring out often do not know why. Although these apprentices know how to make light through a long period of training, many can only do lighting, and it is more difficult to get them to do ambient lighting. ”

For ordinary audiences, they may not know who the gaffer is, but they can still feel whether the light is good or not. Take Tang people's TV series as an example, the TV series before "Step by Step" were all very beautiful, but "Step by Step" had many audience complaints, the actors were oily, and even Liu Shishi's head full of beans was filmed. The reason is very simple, after filming "The Legend of Sword and Fairy III" in 08, Mao Jianxin, the gaffer of the Tang Dynasty, was poached by Yu Zheng, and the level of the gaffer who replaced him was not enough.

In the United States, there is no such problem, one gaffer is gone, and the other is replaced, and the level is the same, but in China it is very troublesome, and it is difficult to find someone of the same level to replace the good gaffer when he leaves.

In fact, not only gaffers, but also almost all other positions, there are too few excellent professionals. Many people mention that domestic movies are bad, and they blame the General Administration. Of course, the General Administration of the largest pot will definitely not be able to shake off, but even if the General Administration really liberalizes censorship, the situation of rampant bad movies can be changed?

In Zhang Ran's view, there is only one way to solve many of the problems faced by domestic films, whether it is the classification system, or the special effects of five cents, or other problems, that is, industrialization;

Zhang Ran's black-eyed and black-haired compatriots in the audience said solemnly: "Not only the lighting, from producers to directors, from photography to art, from pre-production to post-production, from completion guarantee to debt collection, there is a shortage of professionals in all fields and links of Chinese films. According to my estimates, there is a talent gap of 50,000, and with the rapid growth of the film market, this gap will further expand and may eventually reach 200,000. So we built a film academy to cultivate talents, but it is a drop in the bucket for the entire Chinese film!

After graduating from New York University, Ang Lee struggled in planning purgatory for six years, constantly writing scripts and revising them, but no film company gave him the green light, in order to support himself, he could only go to the set to see the warehouse. This is not an isolated case, but a situation that many of you will face after graduation, and many of you have exhausted their enthusiasm in planning purgatory and finally chose to change careers. I saw that there were many Chinese students here, and I suggest that everyone come back and develop, because the Chinese market is big and there are more opportunities than in the United States. Of course, I would like to sincerely say to other American students, instead of exhausting their enthusiasm in the midst of waste, why don't you come to China to try it, not to try it at the peak of the century? After saying this, I saw that many Hollywood managers in the audience were a little unhappy and thought that I had come to dig into the corner. ”

The audience burst into laughter, and Zhang Ran waited for the laughter to pass before continuing: "I will now talk about how Hollywood shares the cake of the Chinese market, and I think we must do two things, first, strengthen cooperation with Chinese companies." If Hollywood wants to share the Chinese market, it must first understand China, and Hollywood does not understand, since you don't know China, then you should strengthen cooperation with Chinese enterprises, which can be cooperation at the capital level, product level, or technology level. We all know that Chinese films have a quota system, and the only way to bypass the quota system is to co-produce films, and co-productions can get 40% of the share, while pure Hollywood films only have 13%, and in order to become co-productions, they must cooperate with Chinese companies.

The Chinese market is not big enough right now, and the highest-grossing film is just over $40 million, but I dare say that within five years, there will be Hollywood films grossing more than $200 million in China's film market. If it is a pure Hollywood movie, then the share is only 26 million US dollars, and if it is a co-production, it can get 66 million income. I don't need to remind you of this gap!"

The eyes of everyone present, whether it was Hollywood managers or UCLA students, were a little hard to believe that there would be a film in China that exceeded $200 million in five years. Only the boss of Fox smiled, and the box office of "Avatar" exceeded $200 million, but it was written into the contract with Zhang Ran.

"Second, we need to pay attention to the Chinese audience. Zhang Ran held up two fingers, "The purpose of making commercial films is to make money, if you want to get a piece of the Chinese market, you must understand what the Chinese audience likes, and you must find a way to please the audience." There may be some media that want to talk about politics again, but I want to say, you can't say that I go to your market to make money, but I don't care about your tastes, I don't care about your audience. If you don't pay attention to the audience, then the audience must vote with their feet! There are many ways to win the hearts of the Chinese audience, you can add Chinese elements and Chinese stars on the basis of not destroying the movie, and insert a little China-related topics into the plot...... you can also come to China during the publicity period to make the audience feel that you value me very much."

In fact, Zhang Ran is not particularly confident about how to best cooperate with Hollywood, Sino-US co-productions are not like Anglo-American co-productions or American-Canadian co-productions, they have a common language, common assumptions, common experience and common staff, and they are different in national culture and viewing habits, and it is difficult to please the two countries at the same time, and it is likely that both sides will not please each side.

However, although there are many uncertainties about this cooperation, it is a must for both sides, and Hollywood needs the Chinese market, and China needs Hollywood's technology and talent, as well as Hollywood's distribution channels.

In Zhang Ran's memory, the films cooperated between China and Hollywood are often relatively unsuccessful, and he has only achieved one success, so he has not much experience, so he can only tell his experience and thoughts from the failed examples in his memory.

What Zhang Ran said may not be correct, but for the Hollywood filmmakers present who have no understanding of the Chinese market at all and have not worked with China, they have a cheerful feeling, and they all feel that they have come to listen to Zhang Ran's speech this time.

An hour passed in Zhang Ran's gushing speech.

After all the talk was done, Zhang Ran began to wrap up: "The cooperation between Chinese and American film companies is a bit like the hero and heroine in "My Grand Greek Wedding", the conflict brought about by different cultures must exist, and it will take a long time to run in, but I think the integration of the two major markets of China and the United States, the exchange of the two major markets, and the cooperation of the two major markets are inevitable, the future is bright, and we are standing on the road to a bright future. That's all I have to say, thank you!"

At the end of the speech, the audience gave a standing ovation. There are many celebrities who come to UCLA to speak, but there are not many who can give everyone a standing ovation, especially with many Hollywood people in attendance, so it is even more difficult to get them to give a standing ovation.