Su Xiao, founder and president of Ningmeng Pictures, said that on the basis that everyone knows the importance of head content, we must work hard to make the head content and continue to produce successful products. Content companies are more valuable. Ning Meng Yue Xin: Create high-quality costumes with modern values ????and oriental aesthetics
All over the world, costume dramas represent the highest level of a regional film and television industry. Costume dramas have great influence on clothing, aesthetics, special effects, Technology and even historical perspective have very high requirements. Shooting usually requires the mobilization of a large amount of manpower, and the management difficulty and technical barriers are quite high. In China, in the past year or two, super idol actors have favored and participated in costume dramas, which has also placed higher demands on producers' ability to integrate resources. "Lonely Empty Courtyard" aired in the first quarter of this year was widely welcomed by the audience, breaking the ratings record for Spring Festival dramas. The filming of "The Legend of the Destiny" that has been completed further demonstrates Ning Meng Yuexin's professionalism and precise market research and judgment. This drama is a model in the industry in terms of its main creation and cast configuration. As the most popular young idol on the market, Lu Han made his TV debut in this drama, which is quite interesting. "The flexible combination of new and old drama characters not only meets the market's consumer demand for young idols, but also increases the weight of the work and greatly improves the quality of the drama." Yang Xiaopei said.
As the most popular genre among the Internet and young people, the challenge of ancient costume is that audience preferences and market changes are unpredictable, and the genre of costume fantasy still needs to be tested by the market. Yang Xiaopei is well aware of this, "There will definitely be a blowout under the hot wind. Projects claiming to invest over 300 million yuan are no longer a problem. Funding is indeed no longer the bottleneck in the industry, but the requirements for drama, aesthetics and values ??will be higher. In addition to Oriental aesthetics and youthfulness, the work must reflect the depth of culture and the depth of family and country feelings, and convey current values. However, the current lack of imagination, innovation and effective execution in this type of works is the key to production. You must always be vigilant about your self-requirements.”
Therefore, for Ning Meng Yuexin’s next works such as "Fuyao" and "Jiuzhou Piaomiao Lu", Yang Xiaopei places special emphasis on the word "feelings", which are already in preparation. "Fuyao" will be a work based on the oriental magical worldview. Yang Xiaopei said, "The characters and plot of "Fuyao" are extremely modern and convey the values ????of today's young people. There are not only ups and downs of power and intrigue, but also an expression of evenly matched love."
Yang Xiaopei firmly believes that high-quality ancient costumes are still the most popular dramas. "Nowadays, the number of homogeneous products has increased, which in turn highlights the nature of content as king. High-quality film and television works will not only bring visual pleasure to everyone, but more importantly It is the core of the work that should trigger the audience to resonate emotionally and convey positive energy. This is my ultimate goal and self-requirement for "Swinging" and other works."
"In the future, Ning Meng will delight the heart. We will focus on high-quality costumes, focus on creating high-quality content products for young people and the Internet, and cultivate a professional elite production team. Thanks to the complementary collaboration mechanism between Ningmeng partners, I will personally devote more to Ningmeng as a whole. In the project, we participated in core aspects such as CASTING and production." Yang Xiaopei said. Ning Meng Kai Xin: Injecting new content into realistic-themed works
"Ning Meng Kai Xin", established in 2016, is a content company focusing on the creation of high-quality reality-themed films and televisions. It is headed by Ms. Zhang Yiyun, a well-known domestic senior film and television producer. CEO. Her team has created many well-known and well-known masterpieces such as "Dwelling", "33 Days Out", "Red", "Captain Detective", and "Chinese Relationship", and has rich experience in the production and distribution of film and television dramas and industry resources.
The reason why the new company is named "Kaixin" is that Zhang Yiyun said that she regards joining Ningmeng Pictures as a new start in her career, in order to find new ideas in the blue ocean of the ever-changing film and television market. Breakthroughs and open up new situations. Zhang Yiyun said that as the film and television industry becomes more and more market-oriented and professional, content companies must work together to achieve success through the integration of professional divisions and highly integrated teams in each link.
Ningmeng Pictures has a complete overall structure, with a very strong literary department, rich project reserves and professional script research and development capabilities, as well as a capable marketing, distribution, publicity and promotion team, including the newly established Ningmeng Digital, allowing Ningmeng to open up a new world In future creations, it can produce linkage effects in various chain links such as film and television drama production, distribution, and broadcasting, and get more help.
Zhang Yiyun said that another very important reason for choosing to join Ningmeng is that she very much recognizes Ningmeng and Ningmeng partners’ creative concept of creating high-quality products, their serious and down-to-earth attitude towards work, and everyone’s creativity in creation. The concept of paying attention to the cultural value of the work is very consistent. Therefore, when talking about the future content creation direction of Ningmeng Kaixin, Zhang Yiyun said that Ningmeng Kaixin’s positioning is consistent with that of Ningmeng Pictures, which is to create high-quality film and television dramas with high market influence and only produce top content. We will also pursue innovation in creative methods and creative thinking. For example, the company will focus on the production of original online dramas in the future. Targeting the psychological and aesthetic appeals of young audiences as well as the future development needs of the film and television market, the company will focus on character creation, story and plot narration on the basis of adhering to the rules of creation. Explore and use more diverse and innovative methods.
In terms of themes, Ningmeng Kaixin pays more attention to real life, focusing on reality-themed dramas. In the short term, criminal investigation themes are the focus. For example, "Operation Fox Hunt", a criminal investigation-related masterpiece that is currently being created, will for the first time show a panoramic view of my country's public security organs' heavy blows against economic crimes and the arrest of criminal suspects abroad. It is planned to premiere at the end of next year. In the future, Ningmeng Kaixin will maintain the creation and production volume of one to two dramas per year. Currently, Ningmeng Kaixin has four or five TV series projects and web series in the planning and creation stages.
When asked about her many years of experience in creating high-quality dramas, Zhang Yiyun, who pays attention to originality, particularly emphasized the excellence of her scripts. She patiently polished each of her scripts, such as the cost of writing the script for the recently aired "Chinese Relationship" In three years, there were more than a dozen drafts of scripts. Last year's hit "Captain Detective" took nearly four years to write the script, and it went through five screenwriters and changed drafts several times. Zhang Yiyun emphasized, "A good script must have a work attitude. It must not only have a good-looking story and vivid characters, but also an expression of values." In addition, she said that a good work is a comprehensive reflection, starting from the main creative staff , actors, art, music composition, service and post-production, etc., all aspects of creation must be the best they can in order to create high-quality products.
Finally, Zhang Yiyun said that after working in the industry for nearly 20 years, what attracts her most to this industry is that every creation is a new starting point, facing new breakthroughs and challenges, and every work may create new standards. and height. It is expected that the grafting of "Kai Xin" and "Ning Meng" can create new vitality and bring a new breath to the content of future film and television dramas. (Zhu Yuanli) Ningmeng Digital: Technology grafted with super content
Founded in 2016, Ningmeng Digital is positioned as an original content company supported by CG technology, which is an important step in the strategic deployment of Ningmeng Pictures. Han Lei, partner of Ningmeng Pictures and CEO of Ningmeng Digital, is a master of technology who has returned from overseas. After receiving a master's degree in computer graphics and animation from Texas A&M University in the United States in 2004, he worked at DreamWorks Animation Company in Hollywood for more than 7 years. "Kung Fu Panda", "Madagascar", "Shrek", etc. all have Han Lei's deep participation.
In 2013, Han Lei, who returned to China to start a business, became the target of competition among major domestic visual effects companies. Many large Internet companies have extended an olive branch to him. However, Han Lei finally chose to join Ningmeng Pictures. The main reason was his recognition and praise of Ningmeng's consistent quality concept, accurate judgment of content and market, and excellent production experience, and hoped that Leverage the content advantages of Ningmeng Pictures to provide help and support for Ningmeng Digital to develop self-content products based on CG technology in the future.
On the other hand, Ningmeng Pictures has been very forward-looking in its own development process to realize the importance of technology to a film and television company with content as its core, and has taken the lead in cultivating and expanding in the field of technology. as the company’s strategic direction. Acquiring technical talents like Han Lei has become the key to Ningmeng opening up the situation on the technical side. Today, he has become one of the partners of Ningmeng Pictures, leading the technical sector of Ningmeng's business territory, and is committed to the future development of self-content products based on the development of CG technology.
Currently, Ningmeng Digital is focusing on the technical development and visual effects production of Ningmeng Pictures' own large-scale projects, such as "Jiuzhou Piaomiaolu" which is in the preparation stage, and the upcoming "Fuyao", etc. . Ningmeng Digital is deeply involved in the visual effects design and production of the company's own projects, and is committed to making the company's costume magic and modern science fiction film and television dramas a benchmark for domestic TV drama visual effects production.
In the long run, Ningmeng Digital hopes to develop its own content supported by CG technology. There will be no restrictions on the subject matter, and it will mainly rely on technical difficulty to set thresholds and classify categories. In the future, the self-content film works developed by the company may include films that combine real shots with CG character visual effects, full CG animated films, or any other new technology form of content products.
“In the past, the technical threshold and value of CG visual effects have always been ignored by the capital market, and were regarded as the icing on the cake or intensive labor to repair shortcomings in shooting. Visual effects have become the bottom of the creative industry chain, and actual production The profit margin is extremely limited." Han Lei believes that the technical research and development required for CG visual effects and animation is very cutting-edge technology, and at the same time requires superb artistic imagination, which can be said to be the highest level of combining technology and art. CG technology provides more possibilities for art. Art and technology are not antagonistic. New technologies greatly broaden the boundaries of film narrative language.
Han Lei summarized the process experience in Hollywood and China, optimized and adjusted it, and streamlined and integrated more than ten specific execution departments resulting from over-divided functions. Traditionally, large animation companies have many departments such as pre-storyboarding, design, models, materials, rigging, LAYOUT, animation, special effects, character effects, clustering, lighting, digital matte painting, compositing, and repair. Ningmeng Digital merged these departments into four to five core departments, namely CG assets, animation, special effects, and lighting synthesis. Such a minimalist architecture connects the entire production process to improve work efficiency, speed up internal iterations, and achieve a more flexible and scalable process.
“In terms of content selection, the concepts of Ningmeng Digital and the parent company of Ningmeng Pictures are very consistent. They follow the premium strategy. The company only produces the most difficult and challenging super content and participates in production and design. In large-scale projects, we only focus on the core parts, and provide production samples and quality control for external contracting companies. "Han Lei hopes that in three years, Ningmeng Digital will be able to produce self-content film products directly for C-end audiences, and directly use them. box office and derivatives to realize the company’s profit value. (Zhu Yuanli) Mengyang Culture: Creating a "Young Elite Alliance"
Ningmeng Pictures has developed to a certain scale and has the ability to incubate artist brands based on high-quality content products and attract more first-line talent resources to assist drama series Content creation capabilities. Therefore, comprehensive management of talents has become an inherent necessity and has risen to the company's strategic level. It is in this context that Mengyang Culture came into being.
Mengyang Culture is a new entertainment company with the goal of building a "young elite alliance". It mainly focuses on comprehensive brokerage operations for talents in the pan-entertainment field. The company officially announced its establishment on December 9. As a senior planning entertainment agent in the industry, CEO Zong Shuai is one of the earliest professional managers in China to advocate professional operations. He is good at engaging in scalable strategic planning, as well as the planning and research and development of brokerage business.
Zong Shuai, who has more than 15 years of experience in the cultural industry and was the co-general manager of Huayi Brokerage, is well versed in artist management. In his opinion, the operation model of many domestic brokerage companies today is relatively single and more like artists. agency. Production companies that simply rely on establishing artist departments for basic management, publicity and planning, and promoting people through dramas have already hit the "ceiling" of the industry.
With the rapid update and iteration of the film and television industry, the service classification of artists to the management team has reached a much-needed state, and a truly professional artist management model is about to emerge. Zong Shuai believes that managing a celebrity's personal brand is by no means as simple as taking on a few dramas, activities, and advertisements. Brokerage companies must open up their minds and explore a new model and new path. How to break through the industry bottleneck is a challenge that every brokerage company has to face.
At this time, Zong Shuai discussed with several Ningmeng partners, hoping to use Ningmeng’s high-quality production and high-quality content resource operation methods to extend to the brokerage field and explore a new path and business model. The company is unique in its content strategy and takes an eccentric approach.
In terms of business, Mengyang Culture focuses on three major sections.
First, it is a newly upgraded traditional artist management business and the implementation of comprehensive artist brand operations. By connecting the strong production strength and industry resources of Ningmeng Pictures with artists, we not only comprehensively plan the development direction of the performing arts career for high-quality artists, but also strive to continue to discover new blood for the industry.
Second, carry out external cooperation in the form of projects to serve top artists: for example, the audiobook story machine jointly developed with Zhou Xun, and next year will also promote another one based on the copyright of the super cartoon character Thomas the Tank Engine Children's charity projects. Mengyang Culture is more like a brand consulting company for artists. It identifies the attributes of the artist, matches the right projects, effectively completes the connection between artists and projects, and achieves the shaping of the artist's brand.
Third, create a "genius alliance" mainly composed of young elites and connect them with business fields such as film and television, music, drama, cultural creativity, and business cooperation. Talent resources are not limited to artists and stars in the film and television industry, but also include "Talents" with outstanding talents and personalities in various fields. At present, the company has included two internationally renowned talent elites in the negotiation and signing stage. One is the youngest super A-level composer in Hollywood and has participated in the creation of film music and soundtracks such as "Zootopia" and "Star Wars"; the other is a 30-year-old designer from Hong Kong, China. Next, the company will also introduce Michelin three-star handsome chefs, cartoonists, illustrators and other talents with unique talents and personalities.
For Ning Meng and Zong Shuai, Meng Yang Culture is gradually exploring in the industry, exploring more feasible brokerage models, and establishing a brand brokerage company with industry characteristics. In Zong Shuai’s plan, Mengyang Culture hopes to become a star segment in Ningmeng’s business landscape. (Zhu Yuanli) Dialogue with Su Xiao: Be loyal to quality and grow together
Reporter: What do you think are the main factors affecting the development of the film and television industry at the moment? What role did it play?
Su Xiao: At present, the two forces affecting the film and television industry are capital and the Internet. The advantage of capital is that it has rapidly increased the concentration of the industry, raised the industry threshold, and accelerated the connection between the industry and the capital market; the disadvantage is that capital only looks at immediate interests. Now in the market, whether it is companies, screenwriters, directors, or actors, many people are tempted. Lost direction. The Internet's subversion of the film and television industry starts with subverting users, focusing on young people, and shifting the industry from 2B to 2C. User preferences and viewing patterns directly affect content production, and it increasingly dominates the film and television industry. I am happy about this change. A see-it-will attitude.
Reporter: In such an environment, Ningmeng Pictures has developed from a newbie in the industry to a "remarkable" business territory today. What are the secrets of success?
Su Xiao: Last year, Ningmeng Pictures proposed the positioning of "super content to connect the new public", insisting on transforming to the Internet and insisting on producing top content. Over the past year, the industry has gradually understood the importance of top content. Regardless of video websites or TV stations, only 10% of the content is purchased through competition. Real super content cannot be produced by simply buying resources and piling up resources. Even if a big-name artist only relies on himself to star, there are many cases of Waterloo at the box office. In the same way, relying solely on big IP to support an entire TV series will also lead to "frustration". Being at the forefront in all aspects of IP incubation, main creation, production, technology, and marketing is the real leading content and industry recognition.
From another perspective, Ningmeng Pictures places great emphasis on shifting from ratings thinking to traffic thinking. The traditional thinking about ratings is to use ratings to verify the quality of a product, and then learn from experience and improve it in the next product. Today’s traffic thinking is to verify the quality of a product on the Internet, but there are many factors that affect product traffic. Consumers may choose to watch a drama because of a Weibo post they saw, a piece of gossip, or a favorite artist. Therefore, for content providers, in addition to ensuring product quality, they must also pay attention to actor CP, topic placement, marketing rhythm, channel layout and other aspects. They must be more professional and meticulous, and fully consider the effect of overall content matching and user acceptance. Habits etc.
Reporter: As a content company, what is the core competitiveness of Ningmeng Pictures?
Su Xiao: The core competitiveness of Ningmeng Pictures is IP, talent, and technology. How to draw this triangle and how to layout it are the foundation for creating super content. Everyone knows the importance of head content. Content companies that continue to produce successful products will be more valuable if they work hard to become the leader in top content and can continue to produce successful products.
The current market environment determines that it is difficult to support the company only by the ability of one person. It is necessary to build a system and a culture to ensure that everyone can form a synergy. Ningmeng Pictures strives to have systematic capabilities. Relying on a big IP alone, or a good director or actor cannot guarantee the success of the product. We will not blindly pursue quantitative expansion, but focus on making each product bigger and stronger, and equip each producer with an excellent literary incubation team, marketing team, artist management team, production team, and technical team. .
"Be loyal to quality and grow together", this is the root of Ningmeng. "Loyalty" means persistence and perseverance, and a mentality of admiration and awe for quality.
Reporter: Ningmeng Pictures always insists on producing head content. How many elements are needed to complete the head content?
Su Xiao: The first is high investment. Now the content industry is developing towards a mature industrialization system. This is a global trend. Only when investment reaches a certain scale can the entire industrialization level be guaranteed and the probability of success be guaranteed. higher. The second is high quality. Whether high-quality content can be produced with high investment is a great test for the team. The third is market testing, whether the content can achieve good results in the market. These are the three elements of header content.
Reporter: What are the advantages of Ningmeng Pictures’ partnership system?
Su Xiao: The partnership system is the institutional guarantee for Ningmeng to continue to produce high-quality content. The company is positioned to produce super content and must invest heavily. Everyone's knowledge structure determines the strengths and weaknesses of the market judgment and their own abilities. There must be differences in the focus of judging a project. The Ningmeng team is not just thinking about things. , but rely on professional judgment. Everyone discusses decisions in an open atmosphere. They will discuss together at key nodes of the project. Everyone checks in from various angles, such as artistic creation angle, market angle, user change angle, and technical angle. wait. I will not overstep my authority and use my personal will to influence the direction of the product. I strongly believe in the professional judgment of the leaders in each sector and the power of professionalism.
Reporter: Do you think Ningmeng Pictures is now a mature company or an entrepreneurial company? Being in the ever-changing film and television industry, have you encountered any difficulties in the development of your company?
Su Xiao: From the perspective of products and performance, the scale of Ningmeng Pictures has broken through the exploratory stage of a startup company. From the perspective of team spirit, the company should retain the status of a startup company and not be too step-by-step or too stable.
The biggest confusion currently is that user needs are always changing, which is a challenge that all content companies face. Young people's demand for content is always changing, and their requirements are getting higher and higher. Companies must be forward-looking and able to see market changes in two years. Content companies will never get out of following the trend.
Reporter: Compared with when the company was first established, what changes have you made in your mentality?
Su Xiao: There will be changes in mentality. In the early days of establishment, every day I was thinking about how to further expand the company and how to connect with the capital market. But now I can calm down and focus more on the product itself. After the strategic layout is determined, it is necessary to be sensitive to changes in users and then project it onto specific product requirements. When "Little Farewell" was released, I watched it episode by episode in the office every night. If there was anything that moved me, or there was room for improvement in the production, I would take notes and grade it, and compare it with user feedback when it was broadcast. , the process of making content is intoxicating and enjoyable, I enjoy it very much.
Reporter: What is the most correct decision made in the past two years?
Su Xiao: Judgment of the market. When we first came out of the system and determined to be a content company, we were very determined to move closer to the Internet and younger people, and we also focused on product positioning of top content. Looking back now, the original choice was the right one. (Qin Huoran)