This year’s 73rd Cannes International Film Festival was blocked by the outbreak, and Cannes, as one of the world’s largest film markets, also moved online. Every year during the Cannes International Film Festival, tens of thousands of film practitioners from all over the world fly to this sunny corner of South France, where they communicate, exchange and conduct various trading activities around 3,000-4,000 film projects, from which we can see the large scale and wide capacity of the Cannes film market.
This year, under the special circumstances of the pandemic, the huge film market was moved online, and all of the usual market activities can only rely on the network to carry out, though the opening time for the market is a month and a half later compared with the previous situations (film market shares the same opening period as the festival does, which is all in mid-May, and the holding time for the online film market this year was from June 22 to June 26), the film market held online no doubt reflects the necessity for the existence of the market, and the online method also seems to be an attempt and exploration for the holding mode of the film market in the future.
So, how did the Cannes online market go this time? What are the similarities and differences between the online market and the offline markets that have been operating for more than 60 years? After this Cannes Online market, what ideas will it provide for the future exploration and development of the film industry? Yiqipaidianying also inquired into some practitioners, trying to restore the ecology of the Cannes online market.
Fewer projects and fewer companies — New changes in the online film market of the post-pandemic era
The Cannes International Film Festival was founded in 1946, and the Cannes film market was founded in 1959. With the growing influence of Cannes International Film Festival, Cannes film market has also developed into one of the largest film markets in the world. Over the years, The Cannes International Film Festival and the film market have formed as two sides of the same coin, and the combination of the two has made Cannes one of the centers of the world’s film industry.
A number of figures can show you the enormous size of the market. Last year’s Cannes International Film Festival saw a record in the number of participants, with 12,527 people attending and 2,768 film rights being sold. At the same time, with the surge of domestic approved film market in recent years, Cannes film market has already become a hot place for Chinese buyers to pursue copyright sales. Two or three years ago, there have already been descriptions of the crazy behaviors of buying up films for Chinese film and television companies, and the Cannes film market was further known for its. It can be said that compared with Berlin, Toronto and other film markets, Cannes is undoubtedly the closest international market to China’s film industry.
If it had not been for the large-scale outbreak of the pandemic around the world at the beginning of this year, the Feast of Cannes in May this year would still have held as scheduled. But now, the film market which ought to be crowded and lively in the past has been transferred to the online, with the profound impact of the pandemic crisis, this Cannes film market has become much more special now.
Projects have become fewer, which is the consistent common feeling of several online market practitioners participating in Cannes this year. “There are not that many projects. Because of the pandemic, all countries have been delayed their projects, so we are still (waiting),” said Da Lei, head of a copyright distribution company of the film industry.
It is true that the outbreak of the pandemic at the beginning of this year have delayed the progress of the global film industry. There is no need to mention the domestic situation. The current severe pandemic situation in the United States, Europe and other places also directly led to the progress of film projects in various countries into stagnation. “The pandemic crisis officially began this year, and some films could theoretically be finished in the first half of the year, just to attend Cannes, but if the schedule is delayed, we won’t be able to catch up with the market,” said Hao Le, who is now helping a film company find partners in the market.
Since the opening of the online market this year, Hao Le has been searching for films suitable for domestic import. Compared with the previous segment of watching movies in the offline market, this year, the online market has also directly turned watching movies into “watching movies in the cloud”. After becoming a registered guest in the market, you can log on to the market page and click to choose the movie you want to watch according to the movie showing time. Of course, this is only the most elementary operation, because of different registration identities and levels, the access to watching films is also different, and the viewing permission of each film is marked on the market platform.
According to Hao’s estimate, the online market is currently showing between 250 and 260 screenings a day, with two or three screenings of the same film typically. This gives an estimated of more than 600 films in total to be screened over a five-day period. That compares with the figure of 857 last year.
In addition, films in the main competition in Cannes in the past can be seen in the offline cinema, but of the 56 films in Cannes this year, only 10-15 can be viewed on the online market. The reason behind this is that there is no Cannes International Film Festival to support Cannes Market this year. Competition films have always been the highlight of the film festival, and because of the cancellation of this year’s film festival, many competition films are equivalent to directly give up the activity plan of Cannes, so it is understandable that many films will no longer participate in the market screening segment. As Hao Le puts it: “If Venice or Toronto also decide to choose these films later, that producer might have felt it was better to go to a substantial film festival than to go to one in name only.”
As projects shrink, so too do Chinese companies. Hao Le’s intuition is that “there are too few companies”, while a statistical list from the Sino-European Projection Lab also shows that 204 Chinese companies had signed up by the beginning of June. Of course, some big companies with deep roots and some others in professional fields still came to report, and the internet film industries are also acting actively there.
Signs of changes can be seen in the activities jointly hosted by Sino-European Projection Lab and the Cannes Market. Based on the market online, this year’s film exchange and cooperation activities led by Sino-European Projection Lab are also turned online. According to Zhang Fan, a Chinese director of Sino-European Projection Lab, the types of companies in the Chinese camp that signed up for the event this year have changed significantly, with fewer production companies and more distribution and economic companies compared to the past.
As for The participation of Chinese films in the Cannes film market, there are not many large volume films in terms of the projects exposed so far. According to the China Movie News, “more than 200 Chinese-language films have sought international sales”, which includes LOVE AFTER LOVE, YIN-YANG DIVISION, THE MISTAKE OF THE RIVERSIDE, A NEW STORY OF FENG SHEN BANG: NEZHA’S REBIRTH, THE LEGEND HUNTERS, STRIDING INTO THE WIND, and so on.
In addition to the above changes, because the film market relies on the Internet to develop, Cannes film market organizers also try their best to provide convenient and personalized services for participants around the world. For example, there is the problem of “wall” in the domestic Internet service. Before the opening of the market, everyone was worried about whether it would affect the participation in the market activities. In fact, the Cannes Film Market organizers have also provided the most extensive and convenient Internet platform services according to the network conditions of the country and the region. Cannes also partnered with spotify, an music platform that offers free music services in online marketplace that allow participants to work while listening to music (as well as original sounds from movies).
In the case of the cloud watching segment, two of the movie’s offline theaters were also turned online, with “ARCADES” or “OLYMPIA” marked in the bottom column of the screenings. Although there is no substantial cinema, the ritualistic design also warms the hearts of participants.
Efficiency, convenience and cost saving — “Cloud Office” experience in Cannes
In the Internet era, modern people’s life and work are becoming more and more inseparable from the Internet. However, in this year’s pandemic crisis, more people are also forced to interact with the Internet more frequently and intensively. This Cannes online film market is also another close cooperation between the film industry and the Internet. This cooperation has its joys and, of course, its annoyances.
For His part, Da Lei is a strong proponent of the online marketplace as a venue — “I had a really good experience.” Compared with the experience of traveling across the ocean with his team every year, paying 20,000 to 30,000 Yuan per person for business trips, and working around the clock when he can’t eat or sleep well in the local area, Da lei thinks the online movie market this year is a good thing that is both efficient and economical. “For buyers, I don’t even think it’s necessary to go offline,” he says. “We can just make it online.”
For example, during the online market this year, Da Lei held a number of “cloud conferences” with partners around the world. In addition, some “cloud office software”, which have been rising rapidly in the “cloud office” ecology of the pandemic crisis, have also become the preference of the online market this year. People can enter the cloud conference room during the appointment time and directly communicate with each other about work and business. In his opinion, this way of working “reduces the time cost and improves the communication efficiency, so that people can schedule work and focus more on the buying and selling of films, without dealing with so many messy things”.
Of course, as for the cloud film watching, he also says, “You don’t have to wait in line at the cinema. If you click on the Internet, you can watch it directly. Even if you are late, you can still go in and watch it. If I have something urgent to deal with, I can just click to pause and deal with my work. It’s not as annoying as answering emails with the screen on in the cinema.”
Indeed, the ubiquity and timeliness of the network ensured the convenience and efficiency of each participant’s work process during the marketing campaign. In Zhang Fan’s experience, she also believes that the holding of the online market actually makes the market threshold relatively lower and the cost reduced, and also gives more people a way to truly participate in the Cannes Market. For example, this year’s event hosted by Sino-European Projection Lab has attracted 320 companies, including 261 international companies and 67 Chinese companies. In the past, the maximum number of companies could only reach 50 or so due to space restrictions. As for the company meeting activity, Sino-European Projection Lab could probably facilitate about 200 offline meetings in previous years, but this year, the number of online meetings has reached 582. Behind the doubling of the number, it can be seen that with the attribute of the Internet platform, more people did participated in the Cannes Market activities.
At the same time, Zhang Fan also mentioned that some foreign film companies will directly open the live links of exchanges, forums and other activities during the market on YouTube, so that the whole world can see the progress of the market activities, which is undoubtedly more open compared with the previous activities held in a fixed physical space.
In terms of safety, Hao Le also said that Cannes market is very strict in controlling. As he has been watching movies these days, he often encounters the situation that the permission level is not enough for him to watch movies smoothly. Therefore, he will ask for help from some peers with higher authority, hoping to get the viewing link from the movie side through them. All of the links that his peer had given him are all in a website with an extremely high encryption system. Meanwhile, the video screen will not only show Hao Le’s personal account information, but also contain the personal account information of his peers, so as to ensure that the film source will not be leaked.
It can be seen that the online Cannes film market is also a huge project. There are about 2-3 server providers providing technical support behind each unit. Zhang Fan and her colleagues once said with laughter that this Cannes online market is really a gathering of all European forces.
Reduced concentration and network conditions can be inherent- offline mode is still irreplaceable
Looking back at this year’s Cannes Online market, the original intention was to be “forced” by the pandemic. But because of the industry demand, the offline market chose to try to operate online. At the same time, as it is the first time for such a form of marketing activities, various problems will naturally be exposed. However, for more people, after participating in the online market, they will miss the offline life even more.
The first is the hard condition of network condition. Several interviewees all mentioned this problem at the same time. Because of the different network conditions in different countries and regions, the depth and breadth of market activities are also different. As Zhang Fan said, they just can’t open or use some window pages, which also make them unable to participate in some market activities smoothly. “As long as your Internet is good, any problem can be solved,” says Da Lei, who is a strong supporter of online marketing. These days, he and his employees spend 14 to 15 hours a day in the office. They stay online because the company’s Internet service is much more stable and smooth than that at home.
On the other hand, Hao Le, who has been watching the film in the cloud, said, “Online watching depends on your Internet. You can’t watch it at double speed on the website. This annoys me a lot, but in the cinema, the experience is totally different. You can just sit there and watch the film, and can become more concentrate to the film that way. It may be convenient for moviegoers to watch movies online, but it also destroys the sense of ceremony to some extent. After all, movie is an art made for the big screen, and just a computer screen cannot solve the problem.
In addition, Zhang Fan also mentioned that compared with the past offline meeting, the online office has made people’s the concentration level lower — “Now the online office is more free, but people’s attention degree is not so good, they are always disturbed by things around them, and they cannot work continuously in front of the computer.” Take online meetings for example. Participants may be in different regions and different network environments, so it is inevitable that the microphone will lose its voice in the middle of the meeting and the other party will be disconnected. At the same time, the office environment behind each person is also different, and there may be more influencing factors, which will directly affect the quality of the whole meeting. However, in the previous offline face-to-face communication, everyone was concentrated in the same environment and could discuss about a problem of unification more efficiently. Therefore, online work mode can never replace offline communications, because face-to-face communications can generate more sparks in many cases.
After working online for such a long time this year, Zhang fan also missed the past memories of Cannes, “Without offline activities and various parties, everyone had lost the nights in Cannes.” In the substantial film festivals and film markets, enjoying the life of the film and socializing under the name of films is also a big part of it, but as all the work has been moved online, the more romantic parts have largely disappeared. One thing that made Zhang Fan feel very interesting was that she had received an invitation letter from Norway a few days ago, in which it invited everyone to attend a “cloud party”. There will be a DJ at the party, and everyone could enjoy music and drink together by turning on the computer. I have to say, this crazy and romantic thing, is really in line with the European tonality.
From the perspective of development, there is both contingency and inevitability behind the emergence of such an online market activity in Cannes this year, and such an attempt undoubtedly opens new ideas and provides a new model for the future development of the industry. With the expansion and deepening of exchanges and cooperation in the global film market, activities in the global film market will inevitably become more frequent in the future. Although the online market cannot replace the offline market, it may become a form of market content and activity expansion. After all, with the opening of the market and a large number of participants, the larger the market is, the more it needs to meet the needs of different participants. Cannes, as the world’s leading film market, is also making new attempts between “being forced” and ” trying to be active”.
Original/ Yiqipaidianying editing department
Author/LIU Hui