In the early years, film distribution and film schedules were all arranged uniformly by relevant national departments.
At that time, the film industry was underdeveloped, and there were not many cinemas in the country. Most cinemas were considered public institutions, units funded by the state in order to increase entertainment activities and cultural promotion for the people.
Since it is a public institution, the leading relevant departments will give instructions to arrange the number of films for each movie, and all theaters across the country will follow the obtained standards.
This was the first era of film distribution and scheduling.
In the 1990s, the people's livelihood economy began to develop rapidly, and the potential of the film industry began to emerge.
China Film Group, a state-owned enterprise, took the lead in gathering together the country's former public institution theaters and took the lead in establishing China Film New Line and China Film Star America, two theater lines in the north and one in the south. The former's theaters are concentrated in the north, while the latter's theaters are concentrated in the north.
south.
The capital entering the industry in the north is aligned with China Film New Line, while the capital entering the industry in the south is aligned with China Film Star Beauty.
China Film Group has established such a two-theater chain distribution in order to better lead the capital entering the industry across the country to vigorously develop the theater chain industry. Only when the theater chain industry develops, will the film industry have more room for survival and development.
In this regard, in accordance with the standards set by Huaying, entering capital either acquires institutional theaters and converts them to private operations, or invests in the construction of new theaters to develop this emerging industry.
At that time, there were no standards for establishing theater chains. With the support of China Film Group Corporation, the first batch of companies that entered the industry could easily obtain a theater chain license.
In this way, major cinema chains were established one after another in the 1990s, including Dadi Cinema Chain, Pacific Cinema Chain, Shenghai Guangming Cinema Chain, Chongqing Poly Cinema Chain and several other major cinema chains today. They all started out at that time.
enterprise.
At the same time, the power of film arrangement and distribution is decentralized, arranged by China Film Group and distributed to major theater chains, which is equivalent to the official transition of the state-owned film economy to private ownership, completing the upgrade of the entire industry, and establishing the transformation of the film market economy into people's livelihood development.
There were few movies released at that time. Basically, China Film took the lead in major theater chains to discuss and judge the market effect of a movie and how much should be allocated to the initial schedule. Then a unified initial schedule was negotiated.
.
This is the second era of film distribution and scheduling.
In the years of the late 1990s, the film industry developed, and more films were released every year.
When there are so many movies, it’s obviously unrealistic to discuss how much time is available for each movie. It’s obviously unrealistic to discuss the scheduling of movies like before.
At this time, big directors and big production companies have the right to speak, and their works are by default regarded as the first movies in the schedule, that is, movies worthy of discussion and scheduling.
The rest of the directors and production companies are not well-known, so there is no need for a group of big bosses to discuss their works, confirm the filming shares of the first few films, and then divide the remaining shares between these films.
This has resulted in the emergence of clear strata in the film market, which has also dissatisfied directors who are new to the industry and production companies that have few good works.
Every director and every production company thinks that their movies are very good, but because they are not famous and have no qualifications, they default to low film schedules? Do they default to the fact that their works are not as good as those of big directors and big companies?
In order to resist oppression and resist this rule, piracy appeared.
At that time, for many movies that were being released, pirated resources such as CDs and tapes entered the market. This was done deliberately by the production companies behind them, in order to disrupt the unfair rules set by a group of big capital and thus disrupt the theaters.
online market.
To a certain extent, it is indeed difficult for people to believe in the market value of a work produced by a new director or a production company with no previous experience. This is the thinking of theater capital.
However, as a state-owned enterprise, as an enterprise that wants to lead the development of the industry, in order to appease and be as fair as possible, Huaying took the lead in making suggestions with relevant departments, including road shows, screenings, screenings, pre-sales, and premieres.
.
Since theater capital does not believe in the value of your work, then it is better to take your work to the above links and walk around it before it is released. It is better to explore the market feedback and judge the approximate market value.
Use your mouth to argue, and silently resist the strong.
Cinema capital has no grudge against the director, nor against the production company. As long as your work shows value, they are eager to schedule more films for your work, because they rely on selling movie tickets to make money.
These steps are not compulsory, but they are still a fair approach and can also be considered as opening up the path for new directors, unknown directors and some production companies to become famous.
In this way, there is an industry standard for the film release process.
This is the third era of film distribution and scheduling.
However, the industry is becoming more and more complete, and production companies no longer engage in piracy to fight against the superstructure, but pirates are not happy.
When your production company engaged in piracy in order to gain profits, I spent all my money to follow you. Now that the source of piracy has been cut off, should I go drink the northwest wind?
Birds die for food, and people die for wealth.
Around the turn of the millennium, pirates were rampant. They either colluded with the manufacturers and obtained the film sources directly, or hired young people to steal them. In any case, they were rebelling against Tiangang, causing a group of production companies to complain again and again.
The DVD came out before the movie was even released. This pirate is really awesome!
For the healthy development of the industry, crack down on these pirates.
In 2005, China Film Group announced that it would fully enter the digital film era. This is also the fourth era of domestic film distribution and scheduling, and it is also the current era.
Digital movies completely abandon vinyl production, release film sources through secret keys encrypted by computer technology, insert the hard disk into the computer to obtain encrypted film sources, and use a new digital projector to generate a unique encrypted light and shadow template on the theater screen for protection
, and then unlock the film source through the secret key obtained from the computer, so that the movie screen can be displayed in the encrypted light and shadow template.
As a result, all movie pirates went bankrupt, and domestic movies officially entered the digital movie era.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Today, cinemas across the country basically have digital projectors, and they are basically digital cinemas. The total number has reached 2,000, and the number of screens is about 8,000.
, this is the theater data of the admission line.
If you include fully independent private theaters that do not have admission lines, or theaters that do not meet the admission line standards, incomplete statistics suggest that there are about 2,400 theaters nationwide with over 10,000 screens, which can be said to be a rapid development.
Because of the secret key and the source code for film distribution, the status of the producers and theaters has been vaguely reversed.
It’s no longer a vinyl release, it’s no longer arranged by Huaying. The password for my movie distribution is completely in my hands. If your theater wants to release my movie, it depends on my face.
?
Of course, not all producers are so bullish, unless the film in the hands of the producer is very popular and the market value is judged to be huge, so great that the theaters are just waiting for you to put money into their mouths.
In this case, the producer is the boss.
…
——Huaying aggregation digital film distribution.
This is a distribution company under China Film Group and the only company in the country that can distribute movie keys.
Unlike overseas capital countries, many private distribution companies can issue movie keys. However, in China, only the distribution company under China Film Group has issued keys that comply with laws and regulations.
There is only one company, no semicolon, which further strengthens the authority of China Film, a state-owned enterprise, in the film industry.
Without Huaying's distribution key, the movie cannot be screened at all. This is not authoritative.
As for the Cinema Alliance, an organization for communication, its original base was located in the company that distributes vinyl under China Film Group. After the establishment of this digital distribution company, the organizational base was moved there.
One is to communicate and schedule films, and the other is to obtain the secret key to film distribution. All major theater companies have branches in Beijing, and there are professional managers who act as agents for the theaters.
At this moment, the early morning night is quiet.
In a conference room on a certain floor of the company building, a group of people were sitting, also in silence.
Hu Hanguang, chairman of Bright Times Cinemas, represents the publisher of "Skyfall".
Wei Haolong, general manager of Bright Times Pictures, was once the head of Tang Jili's team. After Tang Jili became the chairman of the film company, he merged the team. Wei Haolong has since become the general manager of the company, and now represents the film's producer.
The dozen or so theater representatives present remained silent, flipping through the documents in their hands. The two family members looked at each other, and then each drank a sip of tea without disturbing everyone, waiting for everyone to finish reading the documents.
Fu Ruoqing, the secretary-general of China Film Group, is also likely to be the future chairman of China Film Group Corporation, but he is still the secretary-general at the moment. Representative Han Sanping also represents China Film Group Corporation as a film producer and came to this meeting late at night.
He was also flipping through the documents in his hand, going back and forth several times, and came to one conclusion: Brilliant Era is really good at playing.
This is a movie box office agreement that gives each major theater chain a 5% share of the box office, but each major theater chain must give Bright Times a sum of money in advance.
According to the strength of each major cinema chain, Dadi Cinema Chain will give 3 million, Poly Cinema Chain will give 2 million, Shenghai Guangming Cinema Chain will give 2.4 million...all of them add up to 22 million.
22 million is only 5%, which means that if these theater chains sign this guarantee agreement, the total box office of the movie must exceed 440 million to make money back.
440 million, which is 120 million more than the 320 million of last year’s record-breaking box office champion "Red Cliff". Is this possible?
One year has passed, and with the development of the market, the current popularity of this movie, and the extraordinary screening data, this is not impossible.
Why did Bright Times come up with such a guarantee agreement? Want to recover the cost of 22 million in advance?
For the Brilliant Era, 22 million is nothing.
For the investment of more than 200 million in this movie, this 22 million is nothing.
The intention of Bright Times is not to recover costs in advance.
According to the rules, a movie is split 50-50, with theaters and producers splitting it 50-50.
Now theaters can get 5% more, but they have to pay a certain price in advance, but this price may be recovered and overflowed when the movie is released. This is a temptation similar to gambling.
If the bet wins, the extra 5% of the box office share will make the theater chain more money.
Did Bright Era lose money by releasing 5%? Of course not, the 5% is a bait, just to stimulate major theater chains.
If the major theaters get an extra 5%, then they have to find ways to make the movie better at the box office so that they can earn more.
To make the movie's box office better, the movie's schedule must be infinitely higher!
This is the meaning of "Brilliant Era". After entering the conference room, the agreement was thrown out not long after the discussion, with the attitude of "I won't talk to you about arranging the film, but I will ask you whether to sign this agreement."
If you don't sign, we'll talk about arranging the film.
If you sign the contract, there is no need to discuss the film schedule. It is up to you, the theater chain, to decide on your own.
"Who came up with this agreement? It's amazing." Fu Ruoqing chuckled inwardly.
The fact that Bright Era can come up with this guarantee agreement is also the confidence brought by the current popularity of the movie.
If it were another movie, the major theater chains would probably ignore it, and this agreement would be a joke.
But in this movie, it is undoubtedly a temptation.
Do you believe this movie is estimated to have a box office of over 440 million?
Do you believe that 5% of the box office profit will allow theaters to make more money?
Fu Ruoqing raised his eyebrows and glanced around. Judging from the interested expressions of agents from all major theater chains, these people were probably falling into the "trap" of the Brilliant Era.
This is not a trap. Bright Times is trying its best to get major theater chains to increase their film schedules. When major theater chains sign agreements, they will be more concerned about the box office performance of this movie after high-scheduling.
The profit-seeking direction of both parties is the same, but this agreement has a sense of IQ crushing, allowing Bright Times to firmly occupy the initiative.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content that follows! At the same time, once the major theaters take the bait, it will have an effect. While improving the film schedule for "Skyfall", it is also equivalent to
Suppressed competitors at the same time.
This agreement of the Brilliant Era is not unscrupulous. If you use the hands of theater chains to suppress your competitors and make way for your own movies, and make way for your own movies, you may be able to skyrocket.
"The third master also asked me to speak for Bright Times, but that's not necessary. Bright Times' methods are very clever. Needless to say, these theaters will probably take the bait themselves." Fu Ruoqing was very interested.
He said in his heart.
There was a sound of "Whoosh", and the sound of the paper being closed was very sudden and loud in the quiet atmosphere.
Everyone looked up and looked at a woman.
Fang Hong, the agent of Huaying New Line, a short-haired and baby-faced woman, said to Hu Hanguang: "This agreement is very interesting, but I need to take it back to discuss it."
"It should be." Hu Hanguang nodded.
"I also need to take it back for discussion." Zhou Tong, the agent of Huayingxingmei, said. The other theater agents nodded and said they would take it back for discussion.
Hu Hanguang didn't take it seriously. It was impossible to sign such an agreement right away. It was normal to go back and discuss it with his boss.
He said: "This agreement is about matters after the release. There are still six or seven days until the release. There is no rush at the moment."
Everyone nodded, everyone knew what was going on.
"Then do you have anything else to say?" Fu Ruoqing said: "Just follow what we just discussed? The pre-sale will start at 4pm tomorrow, and the film will be scheduled based on the 26% of the first day's screening attendance rate, which is 52%.
The baseline is to sell pre-sale tickets, and the pre-sale range is three days on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, and then start with 26% halved to 13% plus a total of 39% of the film schedule."
"That's very good." Wei Haolong said with a smile: "We base everything on effective actual data and make arrangements in a fair and just way."
Judging from the situation of a conventional cinema with one theater and three halls, the average number of shows per day is about 24, which means that each hall shows an average of 8 movies per day.
26% is calculated as a quarter, which means that 6 of the 24 games are used to sell advance tickets. Whether it is 2 games per hall or 6 games per hall, or something else, is decided by the theater chain itself.
As a starting point, 39% of the film schedule is calculated as two-fifths, which means that among the 24 movies shown in the cinema every day, 10 or 11 will be on October 1st, October 2nd, and October 3rd.
Tianyao releases "Tianmu: The Soldiers Arrive at the City".
How to schedule and adjust movies starting from October 4th will be decided by each major theater chain based on the market and the theater's business situation of this movie.
This is the result of their preliminary discussion.
"It's absolutely fine to have 26% of the film scheduled for pre-sale." Guangming Cinema's agent said: "But 39%, we still have to look at the pre-sale situation."
The 26% pre-sale schedule is very reasonable. After all, the real data on ticket sales and attendance at the screenings are here. It is no problem to cut the attendance rate in half according to the market to pre-sell to give a 26% guaranteed starting schedule.
But there are eight movies released on October 1st, and one of your movies will account for 39% of the final initial schedule. So the other seven movies must not be left in the dust?
It's normal for movies to be in the dust, but you have to give a reasonable explanation. If your movie's pre-sales performance is as good as the screening data, then it's reasonable to let movies with poor pre-sales performance be in the dust.
Therefore, if your screening results are good, it is no problem to give you a 26% guaranteed film schedule. If you still want to get your expected 39% final starting film schedule, you have to come up with good pre-sales data.
Fu Ruoqing glanced at Hu Hanguang. Hu Hanguang and Wei Haolong didn't say anything. The most important thing at the moment is the pre-sale stage. This is also the core issue of today's meeting. Now that 26% of the pre-sales have been obtained, it is equivalent to a guaranteed starting schedule. This is also very important.
Not bad.
There's still a week left before it's released, so let's talk about the rest slowly.
Seeing that the other colleagues remained silent and agreed with the agent of Guangming Cinema, the agent of Poly Cinema said: "Then the pre-sale situation is like this, that's it, then Hu can always give the key
Gave it to us?”
Hu Hanguang glanced at Wei Haolong, who picked up a bag of hard drives and stood up: "Then please sign."
The template contract of the pre-sale agreement only filled in the negotiation data, and each company has not yet signed it.
Seeing that Wei Haolong was handing out the hard drive with the key, the House of Representatives staff picked up a pen to sign and stamp it.
"The film source is in the first folder, and the key compression package is in the second folder." Wei Haolong said while sending the hard drive and collecting the contract.
The hard drive is a solid-state drive, the kind that is used exclusively in the industry. After all, it is sold by the company Huaying, and everyone in the middle and lower reaches of the industry chain must give some face to take care of their business.
The key is encrypted in a compressed package. It is not a string of passwords, but a file, a blank book page image file that cannot be opened by double-clicking it on a computer.
Information such as expiration date and password are hidden in the file. Before loading the movie into the projector for playback, this key file will automatically run to verify that the expiration date and password data are correct from the server of the distribution company Huaying.
Take this movie as an example. The statute of limitations is from October 1st to November 1st. If it is not within this time period, the verification will fail and the movie will not be released.
And if the password and the movie encoding do not match, the movie will not be played.
In order to avoid being attacked by hackers, passwords are randomly and automatically generated. Playing a movie once will generate one password, and playing a movie a million times will generate a million passwords.
The password is generated from the server, so even if the key file is cracked, it will be useless.
After each major theater chain obtains this hard drive, it needs to log into the unique software produced by the distribution company Huaying on the computer. After analyzing it through the software, and only in this software can the film sources and keys inside be obtained.
Copies of the file are distributed to affiliated theaters.
This series of procedures is truly a 100% killer of piracy.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! "Then I will take the first step, Mr. Hu, Mr. Wei, Secretary Fu, we will keep in touch at any time..."
The pre-sale arrangement has been finalized, and the film sources and key hard drives have been obtained. The major theaters have left one after another. The day is almost dawn, but I can’t sleep yet, because the film is hot enough to bring everyone a
For a movie with huge profits, they must speed up what they have to do.
Nowadays, the fourth era of film distribution and arrangement is similar to the third era of film distribution and arrangement. The first film still has the right to negotiate and arrange the film, and the remaining films can only passively accept the arrangements of the theaters.
Of course, with the addition of road shows, screenings, etc., the works of unknown directors and unknown production companies also have the opportunity to be estimated as the first film by theaters. In addition, film movies are moving towards digital.
The reform of movies and the greater voice of production companies that hold digital keys are the biggest differences between the two eras.
Fang Hong from China Film New Line and Zhou Tong from China Film Star Beauty stayed temporarily. After seeing the rest of their colleagues leave, they met with Fu Ruoqing, Hu Hanguang and Wei Haolong in the conference room to communicate.
"Mr. Hu, Mr. Wei, this agreement of yours is really high-end. I wonder which expert came up with it?" Fang Hong crossed her arms and walked to Wei Haolong and asked with a smile.
Wei Haolong glanced at Hu Hanguang, and everyone understood the origin of the agreement.
"Mr. Hu, Gao." Zhou Tong gave a thumbs up.
"As long as you sign this agreement, you don't have to worry about the movie schedule." Fu Ruoqing picked up the tea cup and took a sip of tea.
"Absolutely." Fang Hong was very sure: "Among all the movies with a 50% share, there is only one movie with a 55% share. In the eyes of the money-seeking capitalists, those theaters should not be so fond of this movie.
?Don’t even mention the row of films, they will adjust it themselves.”
"If this agreement spreads, it will be more interesting in the industry in the future." Zhou Tong said with some fun.
"Then what movie should I watch? If I change the movie, it is estimated to be 440 million?" Fu Ruoqing put down the tea cup: "This makes Libo's gameplay free of charge. All major theaters have to pay in advance.
, including your two families."
"Yes, only popular movies can play like this." Zhou Tong nodded.
"Mr. Hu." Fang Hong said: "The agreement requires our New Line to have 3.2 million. Is this too much? Can we reduce it? With the relationship between our two families, not to mention that your brilliant theater is owned by our New Line.
Let’s just say that after you get the license and separate, we must also be strategic partners, or will the 3.2 million be waived?”
Hu Hanguang didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "Sister, let's give 5% profit. It's free of charge. How should I explain it to Mr. Wang and Mr. Chu?"
Wei Haolong said: "Peripheral has given you two a few more points for picking up goods. You can earn more from Peripheral. It's the same."
"That's right." Fang Hong stroked her hair: "You guys have also started selling peripheral products. You guys are really good at it. Let's see how the sales go."
"Let's go get something to eat. Just have it for breakfast." Wei Haolong looked at the sky outside and saw that it was almost dawn.
"Let's go, let's go, please, please," Hu Hanguang said enthusiastically immediately.
"No need, I have something to do when I get back, and I have to arrange for your movie to be put on the pre-sale module of the ticketing network." Fang Hong yawned.
"Don't I have something to do? Some people from the theater chain are not here. Agreements and pre-sale contracts have to be arranged to be sent to them. Without wasting this time, let's go for a walk and have breakfast." Hu Hanguang took Fu Ruoqing and Fang.
Red goes away.
Not to mention the relationship between Bright Times and Huaying, nor the fact that these people were all greeted by Han Sanping.
Let’s talk about the quality of the movie, the significance of the movie as “the first domestic science fiction”, which is enough to promote the diversified development of the industry and the development of special effects technology. The Chinese Film Department, which has been given the responsibility to drive the development of the film industry, will also be more in line with the bright era in this movie.
In order to be close, I also have a stance.
Seeing how enthusiastic Hu Hanguang was, the three people from the Chinese Film Department stopped being polite and left the conference room chatting and laughing to have breakfast.
