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Producing FilmandVisual Media

PP 561

When Film Capital Meets Internet Capital. IP Movies or the New Trend of Blockbusters in China

E. Benecchi

, Z. Zhang

Università della Svizzera Italiana, Institute of Media and Journalism, Lugano, Switzerland

University of Southern California, Annenberg School of Journalism and Communication, Los Angeles, USA

When 'Intellectual Property”(IP) was borrowed into the Chinese Film Industry in 2014, the meaning changed greatly. 'IP Movie”refers to film productions

adapted from original novels, video games, TV programs, popular songs that could profit from a high quantity of fans of the original work. Thus, the pro‑

duction of 'IP Movie”is a development on the 'intellectual Property”of other forms of works, and it combines cooperation among internet capital, targeted

audience (fans), social media platforms, online group-buying (as marketing strategies) in all the terms to make sure its success in Box Office. This new trend

of blockbuster smashed the Chinese film market in both 2014 and 2015 as the top-selling domestic film productions were mostly 'IP Movies”, and it also

changed the traditional film production chain: big-data analysis were embedded in each step of the film-making, fans’ opinions and fans practices were

taken into consideration, internet PR were used for film promotion in early advance, pre-sell tickets through online group-buying were combined into Box

Office share, and the interactive audience-participation among fans on different social media platforms was accelerated by the producers to gainmore space

for film distribution. As it is one of the most up-to-date phenomenon of the Chinese media landscape, this paper will try to discuss the characteristic of 'IP

Movie”under the theoretical framework of media political economy (Zhang, 2014; Richeri, 2012), fandom theory (Jenkins, 2013; Benecchi, 2014) and film

studies (Cucco, 2010; Benecchi, 2012) to investigate: 1) the background and impact of 'IP Movie” to the growing Chinese film market; 2) the uses of fans

in order to grow the hype and spreadability of those productions; 3) its illustration to other Asian countries as a new model of blockbuster production by

combining film capitals with internet capitals; and 4) the weaknesses of Chinese film productions that was disclosed from the 'IP Movie”myth. --- --- Bib‑

liography: Benecchi E. (2014) L'economia del Fandom. La trama dei media. Carocci Benecchi E., Richeri G. (2013) Tv to talk about. Engaging with American

tv series through the Internet. in Abbruzzese, A., Fortunato L. (eds),'The New Television Ecosystem', Peter Lang, Bern Benecchi E., Colapinto C. (2012) Movie

Industry goesViral. in Ibrus, I., Scolari, C. (a cura di), Cross Media Innovation, Berlino/NewYork, Peter Lang Cucco M. (2010) Il film blockbuster. Storia e carat‑

teristiche delle grandi produzioni hollywoodiane. Roma, Carocci Cucco M. (2009) The Promise is Great. The Blockbuster and the Hollywood Economy, Media

Culture & Society, 31(2) Jenkins H, Ford S., Green J. (2013) Spreadable Media. New York, NYU Press Richeri G. (2012) Economia dei media. Roma, Laterza

Zhang Z. (2014) I media in Cina: La strategia del Soft Power e le politiche culturali del going out. La Trama Dei Media: Stato, Imprese, Pubblico nella Societa

dell’informazione. Carocci editore Richeri G., Zhang Z., (2014) The latest Look at media studies in China (A special issue of journal publication co-organized

with Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Studies in Communication Sciences, 13/issue 2

PP 562

Diversity and the Film Industry. An Analysis of the 2014 International UIS Questionnaire on Feature Film Statistics

L. Albornoz

CONICET/University of Buenos Aires, Institute of Research Gino Germani, Buenos Aires, Argentina

This paper is intended to make a review of the results of the last edition of the ‘Questionnaire on Feature Film Statistics’ administrated by the UNESCO

Institute for Statistics (UIS), which offers data for the years 2012 and 2013 for 97 countries, with an emphasis on the relationship between cultural diver‑

sity and the functioning of the film industry. Additionally, it presents some selected indicators from the data for the 2005–2013 period, with the goal to

enable a better understanding of the recent evolution of the film industry at global level. It should be noted that cultural diversity, the concept advocated

by the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (UNESCO, 2005), is one of the principles that guides the efforts

of numerous States in terms of audio-visual policy. The notion of audio-visual diversity is a complex one, and when applied to the film industry, it can be

broken down in three basic components, with their respective subcomponents (Napoli, 1999): 1) diversity of sources (subcategories: diversity of content

producers and distributors, and diversity of the labour employed by companies); 2) diversity of and in feature films offered (subcategories: diversity of film

genres; demographic diversity – racial, ethnic and gender differences of the people involved in feature films – and diversity of ideas –points of view and

social, political and cultural perspectives – present in feature films); and, 3) diversity of audience exposure to feature films offered (subcategories: diversity

of horizontal exposure and diversity of vertical exposure). The paper delve into certain dimensions of the film industry based on the outcomes of the UIS

Questionnaire and other complementary sources of information: the annual surveys of the MPAA, documents released by the UNESCO and its Institute for

Statistics, the Lumière Database of the European Audiovisual Observatory, the Film Federation of India (FFI), the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), and aca‑

demic and specialized publications in the film industry (Box Office Mojo,The Hollywood Reporter), among others. A review of the data on the film industries

of 97 countries during the 2012–2013 biennial period resulting from the IEU 2014 Questionnaire leads to a summary of the findings on diversity of film

sources, diversity of feature films made, and diversity of feature film screenings. For example, its worth be noted that despite the sustained growth of global

production of feature films during the 2005–2013 period, it has not undermined the weight of the main production countries: India, USA, China, Japan and

a set of Western European countries including the UK, France, Germany and Spain. Or that there is a very strong geographic concentration of the revenues

from the commercial screening of feature films in theatres. The ten main markets –led, in the following order, by USA/Canada, China and Japan- concen‑

trated three-fourths of the global revenues during the 2012–2013 period.