radicalducati Chapter 52 Talking about cooperation with the platform
Chapter 52 Talking about cooperation with the platform
Qingxiao spent three days polishing the plan to perfection.
He integrated all of Tianmen Film and Television's existing project execution experience, from the expansion path from micro-films to online films, Bai Lu's market data as an actor, the production capacity of the filming team that the company can currently allocate, and the promotional resources of the SUNSA e-commerce system—all of which were transformed into quantifiable commitment indicators.
He spent the entire night sorting out the market data that had been validated since Bai Lu joined Tianmen Film and Television: 200,000 Weibo followers, A-level evaluation, over 700,000 effective views in the first week, and box office revenue is still soaring.
Next to these figures, he added: Among the high-quality projects with Bai Lu as the core actor, the suspense genre is a strategic move to fill the gap in online film genres.
The urban workplace theme, based on her background as a model turned actress, naturally resonates with the audience.
Next, he began to populate the revenue sharing data for the external tracks.
According to iQiyi's annual report on online film revenue sharing, iQiyi officially launched its online film support program in 2014, with the total revenue sharing of the top 20 films reaching 601.6 million yuan.
Qingxiao launched his so-called prediction mode, expressing his great confidence in online movies.
In 2015, the number increased approximately 11 times, reaching 6607 million.
In 2016, it tripled again, reaching 1.98 million.
单部网络电影的票房上限从2014年的60多万，到2016年已突破2500万，三年增长了32.9倍。
He highlighted the data in bold red next to it: "Based on the growth rate of the platform's revenue sharing curve, locking in production capacity a year in advance allows us to capture the traffic weight of the platform's content gap a year in advance."
The analysis of categorical data must also be quantified.
According to a market review in 2016, among the 20 types of online films, comedy, romance, thriller, suspense, and drama accounted for 70% of the market share.
Among them, thriller and suspense genres accounted for the highest proportion, reaching 40.3%, followed by comedy genres at 16%, and youth romance genres at 16.3%.
He noted next to the genre pool: Initial film lineup genre combination: Thriller/Suspense 40%, Teen Comedy 20%, Urban Workplace 20%, Other 20%.
The management structure of the special investment fund is also clearly stated: Tianmen Films takes the lead in investment and production management, Chen Yu serves as art director and chief director, and 5-8 new directors are hired to be responsible for regular themes.
Bai Lu participates in two high-quality online films every year, while also accumulating experience in theatrical performances.
The remaining projects will be completed by new actors and directors recruited through open recruitment by Tianmen Film and Television.
The operational system follows the modular management model of SUNSA e-commerce – script review, casting alliance, filming schedule, post-production acceptance, platform integration, and promotion and launch are all standardized.
Finally, he wrote down the terms of the negotiation.
The goal is to achieve the best revenue sharing and rating weight between iQiyi's online movie support policy and Youku's young director support program, and to use the natural promotion channels of its own e-commerce system as exclusive bargaining chips to secure exclusive recommendation slots for the first batch of 5 online movies within 6 months.
For the first stop in the negotiations, Qingxiao chose iQiyi.
In 2014, iQiyi officially launched its online film support program, providing a platform for financing, distribution, and promotion of high-quality works and aspiring young directors. Combined with the "Sharing the Joy" content strategy launched and successfully implemented in 2013, it has become the platform with the most complete online film ecosystem and the clearest revenue-sharing system in China.
He took out the performance report of the online movie that Bai Lu had previously released on iQiyi, and was assigned to the visitor area of iQiyi's Beijing headquarters.
When Director Liu, the head of the online movie channel, pushed open the door, he was holding a daily report in his hand. He placed it on the coffee table in the visitor area, turned his chair around to face him, and sat down without exchanging pleasantries: "President Qing, I'll get straight to the point. Your online movie's effective viewership in its first week exceeded 700,000, and its rating rose from A- to A—this year, there are probably no more than a handful of projects that have achieved this."
He turned the daily report data over to Qingxiao and asked, "What do you still have on hand?"
Qingxiao spread the proposal on the coffee table. Director Liu flipped through it from beginning to end, stopping at the two pages of the annual film list: thrillers and suspense accounted for 40%, youth comedies and urban workplace films each accounted for 20%, and each genre was marked with its estimated cost and release date.
He flipped through those two pages twice, then took off his glasses and poked the thriller/suspense section with his finger: "Thriller films have always had a high conversion rate in online film revenue sharing, but there aren't many companies in China that can consistently supply this type of film. Most just make one small, piecemeal production and run. You've arranged several thrillers/suspense films here—did you invest in them yourself?"
"Tianmen Films is the main investor. Thrillers require high standards for scripts and atmosphere, but don't need big-name stars, so costs are controllable. Chen Yu personally oversees the scripts for these projects, and they are executed by experienced external directors. But my core focus is not on sporadic film production—it's about stable production capacity."
Qingxiao pointed to the production capacity plan of the film slate for the previous year in the project proposal.
"The first batch of collaborations consisted of 12 films, two of which were high-quality productions starring Bai Lu; at least eight more will be supplied annually thereafter. Tianmen Films uses the same modular management system as e-commerce platforms—script review, casting, production scheduling, post-production, platform integration, and marketing are all standardized. In 2014, iQiyi's online movie channel was still in its growth stage, and production companies with stable production capacity were more in line with the platform's long-term interests than teams that supplied films in a scattered manner."
Director Liu put his glasses back on, remained silent for a moment, then picked up a pen and typed a few numbers in the margins of the two pages: "12 movies? The last time you negotiated with me, you were talking about one or two. President Qing, you're making rapid progress these days."
He put down his pen and leaned back in his chair: "For the first batch of nine films, I'll give you an A-level promotional resource package, covering homepage recommendations, channel page banners, and search suggestions for three months. The prerequisite is that you supply them on time next year, and each film must meet at least our internal rating of B or higher. The two films starring Bai Lu will receive A-level recommendations separately. In addition, I can provide a guaranteed minimum revenue sharing estimate for the first batch of films—two types: suspense and comedy, with different guaranteed amounts, detailed in the contract."
Qingxiao glanced at the draft; the guaranteed profit sharing and prepayment ratio was quite good.
He flipped to the rating resource weighting column of the draft and made a request: the first screen recommendation spot for each new film should be extended from three days to five days.
Suspense genres will have additional coverage for search related terms for one week.
Bai Lu's two films, both starring Bai Lu, received an extra week of homepage banner promotions. Director Liu calculated the overall schedule, added these weighted resources to the letter of intent with a stroke of his pen, stood up and shook hands with him: "Once your first batch of three films has been released and the data has been tested, if the rating is consistently above A, we can discuss the exclusive priority rights for next year."
On the night the BJ negotiations ended, after checking into the hotel, Qingxiao put iQiyi's tentative intention into a memo, and then dialed the phone number of Director Lin of Youku Tudou headquarters.
Director Lin, 35 years old this year, has been working in the video revenue-generating platform and revenue-sharing rule-making field for seven years. His voice was crisp and clear: "President Qing, you just finished talking with iQiyi, right? I've been waiting for your call all day."
The next afternoon, Qingxiao sat in the cooperation negotiation room at Youku headquarters.
Director Lin opened the project proposal, highlighting several descriptions of Tianmen Film and Television's online film production capacity. He looked up at him and said, "A stable supply of over a dozen films per year—there are few companies in China that can promise that. But you probably know the situation at Youku; our self-produced strategy has just been fully rolled out, so our support for you will focus more on promotional resources."