No doubt! This year’s National Day file is the most neglected good movie!
Special feature of 1905 film network "The film arrangement is too low". After the animated film was released, many netizens expressed such feelings.
Abominable, the first original animated film of Oriental DreamWorks, was jointly created by Oriental DreamWorks and American DreamWorks Animation.
Under the upsurge of three major gift films sweeping the National Day archives, the topics and popularity of the films are slightly insufficient. As of October 5, the film’s five-day box office reached more than 70 million, which was not as good as expected.
Despite the poor box office, the word-of-mouth achievements of Cat’s Eye 9.4, Taobao Film 9.1 and Douban 7.4 are quite eye-catching, and the performance of overseas markets is in sharp contrast with that of China. After landing in North America on September 27th, the film won the first weekend box office title in North America. The freshness of rotten tomatoes is 80%, and the popcorn index is 96%. These data are enough to show the quality and level of this Chinese-foreign co-production animation.
Is Abominable the most underrated work in this year’s National Day archives? In addition to box office and word of mouth, the Chinese-foreign co-production mode it presents and its influence on the local animation film industry in China are actually the most important aspects to be discussed.
Chinese and foreign co-produced animated films are not popular?
In 2016, "Kung Fu Panda 3" created a box office of 1 billion in mainland China, occupying the top spot in China animated film box office for three years, and it was not until this summer that it was won by "Nezha".
The emergence of Kung Fu Panda 3 has led to the rise of Chinese and foreign co-production animation, with a large number, but the box office and quality have been "sluggish". Among the top ten Chinese and foreign co-produced animated films at the box office, only three have exceeded 100 million.
Although Kung Fu Panda 3′ s billion-dollar scale far exceeds other rivals, its success largely depends on the accumulation of IP fans of the previous two series.
Looking at the evaluation, half of the works on the list are below the passing line on the Douban platform.
Therefore, if we compare these ten co-produced animated films horizontally, the achievements of Abominable are not bad now.
Before "Abominable", this year’s co-production animation was also released. The film was originally scheduled to be released last year and was postponed until July this year. Another co-production animation has also changed its schedule four times, and now it has been postponed to October 13th.
It can be inferred from the achievements of Future Machine City that the finished product of Ugly Doll, which was also co-produced by Alibaba Pictures, is not expected to be very satisfactory.
The douban scores of "Future Machine City" and "Ugly Doll" are also below 6.
What’s the problem?
China only invested capital and did not participate in the production; The Chinese team’s participation in content creation is very shallow; Inaccurate audience positioning; The story is routine and younger; Problems in the cooperation mechanism are the reasons why these co-produced animations have not been favored by the market and the audience.
By chasing light animation and Warner Bros. together, it is a more successful co-production animation in recent years.
The light-chasing animation, which has always focused on creating family fun, has been created from China fairy tales after successive encounters and failures of other works.
Warner Bros. put forward targeted opinions on stories, editing, personnel design and commercial selling points during the production process. For example, the role of "puppy" was added to strengthen the comedy elements, and it was especially suggested to design a wonderful bridge of Little Fox Fairy.
Little fox fairy stills
The success of "White Snake" benefits from the continuous improvement of Chinese creation in the co-production mechanism. The story is also different from many previous co-production animations. It is not the traditional "general mobilization" adventure family fun, but draws nutrition from China fairy tales and adapts it.
The story of Abominable takes place in present-day China.
"Abominable" still chooses the type of family fun, and puts the main story world in the present China, and all the contents should be original.
So, how did the animation produced by Fang Dongfang DreamWorks and American DreamWorks create a mutually acceptable China story? In the interview with the main creator, we not only got the answer, but also found that this co-production is closer and deeper than many previous co-produced animated films.
Is there a new atmosphere in the production mode of Abominable?
"Abominable" tells the story of Xiao Yi, a little girl from China, and her friends, A Jun and pengpeng, crossing the motherland for 3,000 kilometers and escorting the snowman "Da Mao" back to his hometown of Mount Everest to reunite with his family.
According to Zhou Peiling, producer and chief creative officer of Oriental DreamWorks, the preparation of the film began in 2012, and the strategic decision-making and specific creation were discussed and decided by both teams.
"The whole artistic creation team is basically in Shanghai, and the post-production is mainly in the United States," Zhou Peiling revealed. The only challenge is the time difference. "Today, people here finished and handed it over to people on the other side of the world, so we joked that someone was working on this film for 24 hours, which turned the disadvantage into an advantage."
At the same time, Zhou Peiling will also hold regular weekly meetings with American executives and behind-the-scenes personnel to exchange ideas and listen to them, and then complete the production step by step through repeated revisions.
Producer Zhou peiling
The film mainly expresses the theme of returning to the family. jill culton, the director and screenwriter, said frankly that "China culture emphasizes the importance of family more than American culture". Therefore, along with the main plot of the snowman going home, they also set up the auxiliary line of the relationship between Xiaoyi and his mother and grandmother from estrangement to bridging, trying to make more China audiences feel empathy and substitution.
Co-director jill culton and Todd Vildman
In addition to the balanced transmission of values, compared with many previous co-productions of animation, the localization of "Abominable" is indeed more steady and steady.
Although the traditional "adventure" narrative mode is adopted like many family animation, the film is integrated with the unique scenery of China, such as Qiandao Lake, Huangshan Mountain, rape field, Leshan Giant Buddha, etc. These magnificent mountains and rivers have not been reduced to simple background boards or postcards, but have become story scenes to promote the effective progress of the film.
"When I started writing the script, I had a map of China in front of me. The story originated in Shanghai and the final destination was in Himalaya. The distance between the two places was 3,000 kilometers, so I was looking for scenic spots in this distance." jill culton told us that due to the length of the film, I originally wanted to put three or four more scenic spots, including Rainbow Beach and Blue Waterfall.
In addition, she and her team also insisted on not letting go of world-famous China monuments such as the Great Wall, "because everyone knows the Great Wall, but not everyone knows Leshan Giant Buddha."
Leshan Giant Buddha is an important scene in Abominable.
In order to create a more authentic "China flavor", Oriental DreamWorks provided more input and support in details, including the street environment of Shanghai, the overall appearance of residential buildings, Chinese’s food culture, table manners and so on, from which the Hollywood production team also got a lot of inspiration.
As Carlton said, "In the previous version, everyone threw away metal cans on the road, but Oriental DreamWorks told us that there was no such rubbish, so we deleted all these metal cans."
Chinese consultant directorShuhuan
The screenwriter Shu Huan is the Chinese consultant director of the film. He joined the team when the film was about 70% completed. On the one hand, his job was to adjust the localization details.
He suggested adding billboards unique to China, such as "cram school for college entrance examination", and adding food landscapes with China characteristics, such as Shaanxi snacks and Shaxian snacks, "to make the whole story more like the present China".
In the role design, both teams have also made great efforts. Co-director Todd Vildman said that in order to make the character of Grandma more authentic, China has given many suggestions.
"Grandma is very nagging. Xiaoyi doesn’t want to listen. Will she close the door or keep it in front of her, or how much? How much is this? These are all to be discussed together." Producer Zhou Peiling also mentioned such creative details to us about the display of characters’ psychology and behavior.
Not only in the content production level, the film also launched a Mandarin version for China audiences, with Zifeng Zhang, Chen Feiyu, Cai Ming, Wan Qian, etc. as dubbing, and Shu Huan was also responsible for dubbing and directing. This dubbed version of Mandarin will also land in the North American cinema, which is the first time in the North American film market.
"Many expressions in the English version are American, but the audience in China will know at a glance that this is not Chinese’s way of speaking." Shu Huan revealed that in order to conform to Chinese’s communication style and expression habits, he helped to adjust many Chinese dialogues to make them more grounded. However, it is also a pity that the film did not specifically change the mouth shape of the characters for the Chinese version.
Four voice actors
It can be seen that from the upstream to the downstream, from the plot, the theme, the details of the scene, the character design and the dubbing release, Abominable tries to be close to the local reality of China and meet the needs of China audiences.
"China audiences know more and more about movies now," said Zhou Peiling. The reason why many Chinese-foreign animated films have failed is that the market positioning is unclear and the stories are mechanically copied. "Maybe it was only aimed at overseas markets at first, and suddenly it was necessary to join the characters and plots related to China in the China market, which is very unnatural and unsmooth."
The key to the success of Chinese and foreign co-productions lies in finding a universal story with cultural value, highlighting the elements of China, bringing forth the new, and achieving a win-win situation in an effective cooperation mechanism.
Both director Carlton and director Shu Huan emphasized that Abominable is not a Hollywood story, but a story suitable for the whole world, and that the China market is not the whole story. The film should not only show the beauty of China culture, but also start from China, aim at the global market and finally go to the world.
What does co-production bring to China native animation?
Looking to the future, there are a large number of Chinese and foreign co-produced animated films on the road. Oriental DreamWorks and American DreamWorks Animation will jointly launch the "Oriental Dream Trilogy": "Abominable" is the first one; The second "Running to the Moon" will be completed next summer and is scheduled to be released in autumn. The third part is the Monkey King, which was developed by Stephen Chow, and it is also in the preparatory stage.
In addition, the Legend of the Erect Elephant (China, New Zealand), Animal Secret Service (China, France) and Dragon Keeper (China, Spain) will also appear one after another.
Zhou Peiling introduces the Chinese-American co-production animation "Running to the Moon"
"Use our script story, Hollywood production management experience and excellent animation technicians from all over the world". In Shu Huan’s view, such a global production system can be the main creative direction of China animated films in the future. "Let’s work together. After coming out, 80% is not good, 10% is good, but 10% is explosive, so every little makes a mickle."
With the increasing number of co-produced animated films, we have reason to believe that the mode of co-production will be deepened, the quality of animation will be more mature, and the continuous accumulation of co-production experience will also benefit the creation and development of local animation in China.
Chinese and foreign co-production animation to be released in the future
Nezha, White Snake: The Origin, etc. are all born out of China’s fairy tale system. At present, adventure family fun is more in line with the mainstream of world animation films, but the quality of this type of animation independently produced by China still needs to be improved.
The appearance of "Abominable" is not only a co-production animation in the future, but also provides corresponding reference for the creation of domestic animated family movies.
Zhou Peiling said that the benefits of co-production can help local animation filmmakers in China learn foreign production methods, story content and animation technology, and also help China’s animation industry gradually realize industrialization and scale, and further expand the international market.
Looking forward to the future, China native animation can become the earliest and fastest film genre among all films in China, as predicted by Shu Huan.