Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

In just one month, the style review of bilibili animation has experienced roller coaster ups and downs.

On December 10 last year, the high-profile announcement and the much-anticipated animated version of "three-body" was launched, and then experienced a word-of-mouth collapse faster than the meteorite fell. Douban's score dropped to 4.7, and 35.6% of the more than 110000 scored 1 star.

At a time when a large number of bad reviews have not yet receded, a Chinese fantastic Tan, also produced by bilibili, was quietly put online. With its unique Chinese aesthetic style and imaginative plot, it scored 9.6 Douban with almost no publicity, and received almost unanimous praise from the whole network.

It is also an anime series produced by bilibili, one is that netizens have a good reputation and bring their own dry food to "Amway" treasure masterpiece, and the other falls off the altar with strong support. The reasons behind the polarization of "Chinese fantastic Tan" and "three bodies" point to the same direction:

The dilemma of commercialization.

"it's good, but it's the same name as Liu Cixin's novel." In the past month, bilibili has almost made an effort to promote the animated version of "three-body".

Open-screen advertising, home banner display, recommended page diversion, and even the App icon also added the word "three-body". In addition, tidbits in front and behind the scenes, detailed interpretation of colored eggs, and various related videos also bombarded users' home page in turn. It can be said that only you do not look, do not let you do not know.

The early investment is not too high. It is rumored that the production cost of the animated version of "three-body" is as high as 200 million yuan. Looking at the entire Chinese animation industry, this is also a lot of money-by comparison, the production costs of "the Devil Child of Nezha" and "the Great Holy return of Journey to the West" are both more than 60 million yuan.

With such a high intensity of publicity and input, coupled with the huge topic of the original work itself, the animation of "three-body" reached 100 million views in its first week. Heat is there, however, after the "three-body" animation with the actual results of the interpretation, what is called rotten mud can not support the wall, even with universal glue can not help up.

What's the problem?

The animated version of "three-body" can be traced back to 2019. At that time, the right to adapt the trisomy IP was in the hands of the tourist CEO Lynch. He was optimistic about the ability of bilibili and Yixiu Kaitian and decided to jointly develop the animation adaptation of IP with the two parties.

Before that, Lynch had actively paved the way for the film and television of the "three-body". Prior to this, the "my three-body" team of bilibili, who made three-body animation based on the "my World" game, was attracted by Lynch, giving him sufficient budget and relatively free creative space. Mind wandering in all directions also lived up to expectations and made a 9.6 high score "Biography of Zhang Beihai".

After the success of the team, Lynch wanted to do a formal three-body animation.

▲ Photo Source: "three-body" animation "three-body" animation is mainly produced by bilibili, jointly produced by the tourist three-body universe, and jointly produced by art painting Kaitian. Bilibili is not only the broadcast platform and investor, but also the controlling shareholder of art painting. Although the three-body universe is the beneficiary of the "three-body" copyright, it only participates in animation as a content consultant. It can be said that, as the management and production side, bilibili has the greatest decision-making power in the "three-body" animation.

In 2019, the first version of the "three-body" animation was released, although the production is rough, but the atmosphere has been recognized by netizens. However, in the final film, the trail of this edition disappeared without a trace. From the beginning of the official production, the "three-body" animation has gone wrong, which can be called a chicken feather.

Not long ago, screenwriter Li Yaling revealed on Weibo that Gu Yi, a good friend who is also a screenwriter, had been writing the screenplay for the animated version of "three-body" for three years, when suddenly the new production team parachuted in and changed the original screenplay beyond recognition. After the broadcast, Gu Yi's signature only ranked eighth. The No. 1 screenwriter surnamed Zhao is a pure rookie who graduated in 2016 and has not written any works for six years.

In the film, netizens also found a large number of signs of rush to work-the production team used a large number of models, darkening the environment and other operations, the only explanation is to reduce the production cycle and save production costs.

Paradoxically, although the positive film has a lot of rough workmanship, the advertising segment of the Changan Deep Blue car implanted in it is extremely excellent. Compared with the "three-body" animated feature, it is improved by more than one order of magnitude in terms of map quality, resolution, and color saturation. It seems that advertising and animated feature films are not done by the same team, forming a very fragmented contrast.

In addition, netizens also found that the episode of eating biscuits in the show was not suitable, suspected to be an exclusive Oreo joint product, and then cancelled the implantation for some reason.

Reduce the cost in the production of animated feature films, but pay attention to the implantation of advertisements, so putting the cart before the horse, it is no wonder that animated films are so.

In addition to the overwhelming commercial implantation, the adaptation of the "three-body" plot is even more disappointing to the original party. The first film was cut by nearly 80%; the main characters were distorted to varying degrees; all kinds of illogical and common sense passages; and the near future world in the novel was brutally transformed into wasteland and cyber punk by the creator. Director Lin Minghao even directed an interview against the original author Liu Cixin: "(Liu Cixin's) words are not consistent."

CCTV6 once pointed out the shortcomings of the "three-body" animation in the film review program: emphasizing the scene, neglecting the literary drama, and did not restore the confrontation between the sci-fi setting and the game of the human heart; the characterization was faceless and lacked imagination for the sci-fi scene, indicating that the art painting did not understand the original work at the beginning of the day, so it could only form a path dependence, copying the old routine of animation to adapt the "three-body".

Summed up with a high praise from Douban: "the animation is very good, but it has the same name as Liu Cixin's novel."

Excelsior, Qitan, which belongs to "Chinese Aesthetics", while the word-of-mouth of "three-body" animation has declined all the way, another animation "Chinese fantastic Tan" produced by bilibili has become popular in just two weeks with its updated four episodes.

This work takes a completely different production process from the "three-body" animation.

▲ Photo Source: the project of "China Qitan" animation "China Qitan" began at the end of 2021, when the Shanghai Art Film Studio began to contact bilibili. In mid-2022, the two sides reached a cooperation. Bilibili provided financial support for China's Qitan and set up a joint production and production team with Shanghai and the United States.

Li Zao, chief producer of "Chinese fantastic Tan", said that the project was originally designed by Shangmei to welcome the 100th anniversary of Chinese animation by giving directors a "semi-propositional" composition title related to strange ideas. Regardless of subject matter and direction, the core expresses Chinese culture and "Chinese imagination". "We hope to tell Chinese stories and present Chinese aesthetics based on the times. At the same time, we also hope to carry forward the IP of Shangmei in today's relatively commercial environment."

General director Chen Liaoyu said: "from the beginning, this planning has two levels: one is to have Chinese characteristics in terms of overall culture, aesthetics and style, and the other is that its theme should be specific and open."

Not only to fit the semi-open proposition, but also to liberate the creativity of the creators, then the form of short dramas has become the best choice.

The animated series Love, death and Robots, which went viral on Netflix two years ago, is an excellent practice of this model. The theme of "Love death" is broad thinking about the future and human nature. Dozens of different directors are each responsible for a short story, and the script is based on science fiction selected according to the director's style.

After determining the form of the short film collection, Chen Liaoyu found 10 directors with different artistic styles, providing an opportunity for this group of creators who are in the most creative stage to give full play. In addition, Chen Liaoyu is very familiar with the character, creative habits, advantages and disadvantages of diversity directors. "We may have known each other for more than five years, and some have known each other for more than ten years, or even more than 20 years."

Because of the tacit understanding among the creative teams, there are no major twists and turns in the production process of "Chinese fantastic Tan", and the whole process is smooth and full of vitality.

In addition, the adaptation of the original work by the unit short play of "Chinese Strange Tam" is just right. Despite the dramatic changes in the plot, the film focuses on content quality rather than commercial placement, and does not feel like paying for pearls or icing on the cake.

In the first episode, "the Summer of the Little Monster," with Journey to the West as the background, the director chose a little pig demon at the bottom of Dawang Cave as the protagonist. The true story of the vast number of social animals is told in the way of Journey to the West, which resonates with the migrant workers. Just like the English title of this episode, "Nobody", the stories of unknown people are more likely to trigger the true feelings of the masses.

Hu Rui, the director of the second episode of Goose and Goose, has a unique and in-depth understanding of Chinese strange culture. The script of "Goose and Goose" is adapted from "Yang envy Scholars" in "continued Qi Harmony". Although the style of ink painting is expensive and not accepted by everyone, the artistic color and praise of Goose and Goose prove the success of the adaptation.

Shangmei is completely responsible for the creation of "Chinese fantastic Tan", which makes the task of commercialization does not affect the creators. In the time of animation production, "No Party A" allows directors to give full play to their creative talents.

Compared with ordinary commercial animation, the creation cycle of "Chinese fantastic Tan" is not long. Yu Shui, director of "the Summer of the Little Monster," said that when he did other animations before, it took more than half a year to drive out 12 episodes. The little monster did it for 22 minutes in a year and a half.

In the process of creation, the creative space of "Chinese fantastic Tan" is more relaxed, and the production team and Shangmei do not set too many content restrictions on diversity directors. Chen Liaoyu believes that Qitan is a bizarre story, but it is very open, and it is not limited to traditional works and themes. "everyone, every creator can have their own understanding of the story of Qitan."

"this is not a very commercial project." Zhang Shengyan, chief producer of China Qitan and vice president of bilibili, said, "it is a very innovative animation form, and then retains the characteristics of Shangmei classic animation."

Content quality, publicity, commercialization-bilibili animation's "impossible triangle" talks about the domestic animation industry, bilibili is an unavoidable topic.

As one of the few ACG industry unicorns in China, bilibili has mastered stable film and television adaptation resources through the layout of the upper and lower reaches of the animation industry, and even achieved the resource advantage of crushing other producers, realizing a complete chain from comics to IP film and television adaptation.

Earlier, Li Mi, chairman and COO of bilibili, revealed that there are about 120 domestic companies that can produce high-quality animation, and bilibili and 90% of them have reached a deep cooperation.

The animation industry in the United States and Japan takes the route of cartoon-IP film and television-surrounding industry, using mature industrial chain to produce IP continuously. And rely on a steady stream of follow-up derivatives. However, the domestic IP derivatives market has not yet formed a scale, and can not obtain considerable profits, therefore, IP film and television adaptation has assumed more responsibility for commercial realization.

Bilibili as a typical Internet enterprise, if he can not make fast money on the IP project, he will lose the continuous support of investors. This leads to bilibili, who holds the IP, pays special attention to the results of commercial realization in the process of film and television adaptation, strives for quick success and instant benefits, and neglects the quality of the content.

In addition, bilibili has also exposed some management problems in the rapid expansion in recent years. Insiders revealed to slow release that bilibili's game, animation and other content production departments have an obvious sense of separation with the publicity and distribution operation department. "the newly formed publicity department in recent years does not understand two-dimensional and subculture, and they have a strong ability to realize business, but they know too little about the core user groups."

The scale of bilibili has increased rapidly since its listing, and while the plates are getting bigger and bigger, more professional members have objectively contributed to the formation of inter-departmental barriers, so it is often difficult to achieve effective cooperation between bilibili's internal content production and publicity.

A typical example is the anime drama "capsule Project" released by bilibili not long ago, which is also a short series model, with a score as high as 8.60.What is more important is that the production team is all organized by bilibili. Such a "pro-son" level work, however, paradoxically does not get the tilt of resources in the station.

Bilibili's original animation seems to have fallen into the "impossible triangle" that content quality, publicity and commercialization cannot have at the same time. If a work has excellent content and commercial potential, then the publicity department will try its best to intervene in content production and tap the value of its commercial realization, so that the content of the work will be adversely affected.

If foreign counterparts are creating IP, then today's bilibili is more like a huge machine that uses IP as fuel and relies on the flow of IP to run and realize cash. This operation may lead to short-term commercial success, but it is still the quality of the work that determines the fate of the core user base.

As Chen Liaoyu, director of Strange Tam of China, said: "I think producers, producers and investors will sum up the secrets of popular styles." But as a creator, I still insist to this day, first, I create this work, I will not pursue to make a popular style. The most I can say is that we want it to be a good work, or what kind of work it is, and what I hope it will bring to the audience. This is not empty talk. As creators, we should pay more attention to the work itself and solve all the details in the creation. "

Reference:

① "China Qitan Chief Director:" the audience is honest and generous "New Hunan

An exclusive interview with the production team of China Qitan, ② China Youth Daily

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:manfangsd, author: transition

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