CATDOLL: 2016 Tencent Animation Industry Cooperation Conference held in Shanghai: The two-dimensional economy promotes the rise of Chinese animation

On October 20, the second Tencent Animation Industry Cooperation Conference with the theme of "Crowd Innovation and High Energy" was held in Shanghai. On the basis of the concept of "two-dimensional economy" first proposed last year and aroused widespread attention in the industry, Cheng Wu, vice president of Tencent Group and CEO of Tencent Pictures, announced a formula for "two-dimensional economy" at this press conference, namely "high-quality animation content + crowd innovation platform + pan-entertainment symbiosis = star animation IP". Cheng Wu said that Chinese animation is on the eve of its rise, and proposed four key thinking directions for the "two-dimensional economy", namely: internationalization and localization; front-end pan-entertainment layout; multi-circle symbiosis value-added IP; attach importance to the commercial space of micro-individuals. Focusing on the two-dimensional economy, Zou Zhengyu, general manager of Tencent Interactive Entertainment Animation Business Department, also proposed three major business initiatives: "support for newcomers, new works and new studios, building a two-dimensional alliance system, and creating a diversified IP growth path".

Cheng Wu mentioned on the spot: high-quality animation content + crowd innovation platform + pan-entertainment symbiosis = celebrity animation IP

As an important link and content source in Tencent Interactive Entertainment's pan-entertainment ecosystem, Tencent Animation has widely linked internal and external partners. At this press conference, it also released the following important product information: "Gun Girl" reached an IP cooperation with the famous game "Cross Fire"; Tencent Animation jointly created the popular Japanese animation "Space Detective" in the form of cooperation with the Copyright Committee and announced the relevant videos and broadcast time; and co-produced the animation "Captain Heroes" with CCTV Animation. Zhang Biao, product director of Tencent Animation, also shared the experience of how to use big data to build a platform, and demonstrated how to create a comic that has exceeded 100 million, from 300 days to the fastest 45 days. Li Xiaoting, content director of Tencent Animation, reviewed the process and stages of animation IP creation, and showed the latest videos of four new main animations: "Time and Space Apostles", "Ideal Forbidden Zone", "Once Upon a Time There Was a Spirit Sword Mountain 2" and "Silver Tomb Keeper".

The industry cooperation conference also included a business licensing meeting and an author writing meeting. As the largest animation industry event in China, this event attracted more than 400 industry practitioners, comic authors, ACG celebrities and media from the animation and pan-entertainment fields.

“Two-dimensional Economy”: High-quality animation content + crowd-creation platform + pan-entertainment symbiosis = celebrity animation IP

At the press conference, Cheng Wu, Vice President of Tencent Group and CEO of Tencent Pictures, delivered an opening speech entitled "Together on the Road to High-Energy Chinese Comics". Cheng Wu believes that Chinese comics are on the eve of their rise. There are two important indicators: on the one hand, capital is beginning to rapidly enter the animation field; on the other hand, great comic writers sought after by young people are beginning to emerge.

Cheng Wu believes that Tencent is best positioned to do animation well in China. This is mainly based on the pan-entertainment ecosystem that Tencent Animation relies on. Five years ago, Tencent Interactive Entertainment proposed a pan-entertainment strategy with IP as the core, and launched four pan-entertainment entity business platforms, including animation, literature, and film and television, which are interconnected and coexist on the basis of the game business. Based on this, Tencent Animation will not simply pursue business synergy in its own business exploration, but will try to build a transformation system between different content fields, between niche subculture and popular culture, and better transform animation content into other pan-entertainment content fields.

Based on the concept of "two-dimensional economy" proposed last year with the creation of celebrity animation IP as the core, after a year of business exploration, Cheng Wu further proposed the specific path of "two-dimensional economy" at this press conference: high-quality animation content + crowd-creation platform + pan-entertainment symbiosis = celebrity animation IP.

First, in terms of high-quality animation content, Tencent Animation will not only introduce high-quality external works, but also vigorously support original domestic animation. On this basis, we hope to further enhance the extensibility of content and vigorously promote the development of various two-dimensional derivative content, such as home dance, music, COS, figures, etc.

Next, we will provide an open crowd-creation platform so that all participants can become part of the growth of animation IP.

The third step is to integrate the animation IP into the pan-entertainment system, enter the fields of film, television, games, etc., build mass influence, and create star animation IP.

Four directions for thinking about building the secondary economy

Regarding how to build the two-dimensional economy, Cheng Wu also proposed four key thinking directions:

1. Combination of internationalization and localization. For example, Tencent Animation's previous works "Once Upon a Time There Was a Spirit Sword Mountain" that landed in Japan all have distinct Chinese cultural characteristics, and coupled with foreign technical teams and promotion resources, they have achieved good results.

2. Pre-planning pan-entertainment layout. In the cultivation of animation IP under the two-dimensional economy, creators need to make pre-planning to make IP more suitable for pan-entertainment layout. Taking Marvel as an example, Marvel's comic content creation, as well as subsequent film and television and game development, all have good pre-planning, which makes the pan-entertainment derivatives of IP in various fields successful and value-added.

3. Multi-circle symbiosis and value-added IP. In the two-dimensional economy, the sources of content are becoming more and more diverse, no longer limited to comic authors. Individual users or fans have transformed from passive content recipients to content creators in the core circle and have begun to institutionalize. The core talents in these circles are not only participants, but also gain opportunities and rewards brought by IP value-added. Tencent Animation has also proposed the "Two-Dimensional Alliance Plan" in this regard.

4. Pay attention to the business space of micro-individuals. In the past, only big-name works could survive in the animation circle, but under the long-tail effect of the two-dimensional economy, it will bring more survival space and business opportunities for individuals.

Cheng Wu focused on explaining the four directions of building the two-dimensional economy on the spot

Three major business initiatives help the secondary economy to flourish

Focusing on the two-dimensional economy, Zou Zhengyu, general manager of Tencent Interactive Entertainment's animation business department, announced three major business initiatives on the spot: supporting new people, new works and new studios; building a two-dimensional alliance system; and creating a diversified IP growth path.

Zou Zhengyu announced three major business initiatives on site

Zou Zhengyu also introduced the important progress of Tencent Animation in pan-entertainment derivatives in the past year, including IP licensing and game adaptation cooperation with many well-known game manufacturers such as Caesar, Youjiu, Huogu, and Morning Science. Among them, the mobile games "Once Upon a Time There Was a Spirit Sword Mountain", "Silver Gravekeeper", "Monster List", and "Mr. Marvelous China" will be released in late 2016 and 2017 respectively.

Important performance data of Tencent Animation in the past year were also announced at the meeting: Tencent Animation's monthly active users (MAU) exceeded 90 million, the total number of online serialized animation works was 22,600, 29 comic works had over 1 billion views, 12 animation works had over 100 million views, and the number of new contracted authors increased by 22% to 610 currently.

The three major projects of "Gun Girl", "Space Detective" and "Captain Heroes" deepen the layout of animation and pan-entertainment

At the press conference, Tencent Animation also introduced the pan-entertainment projects that it will focus on with internal and external partners, namely: "Gun Girls", "Space Detective" and "Captain Tsubasa".

First of all, around the image of "Gun Girl", Tencent Animation and CrossFire (CF) will conduct a comprehensive IP cooperation. This cooperation is based on the strategy of CrossFire brand rejuvenation. Xu Guang, the person in charge of CrossFire products and general manager of Tencent Interactive Entertainment CrossFire Cooperation Department, said at the press conference that the future cooperation between Gun Girl IP and CF will mainly focus on game implantation, comics and animation. First of all, Gun Girl will realize the real meaning of roaming linkage with CF games, and Gun Girl will soon meet you in the CF mobile game.

Xu Guang said that the Gun Girl IP will have comprehensive cooperation with CrossFire (CF)

Xu Guang said that in November, the comic book "Gun Girl" will be launched first, and the main writer is Wang Shengwei, the main writer of the well-known comic book "Douluo Continent". In April next year, the animation of "Gun Girl" will also be released, with Shi Tuzi as the script editor and the top Japanese production team responsible for the animation production. "We look forward to the participation of the top domestic and foreign teams, making the cooperation between Gun Girl IP and CF a successful case of the two-dimensional economy."

As Tencent Animation's first cooperation project with the Japanese Animation Copyright Committee, the "Space Detective" project team announced at the conference that the animation will be broadcast in January 2017. "Space Detective" was created by Akira Amano, the author of the popular Japanese manga "Katekyo Hitman Reborn", and tells the passionate adventure story of a boy named Kouta Kunose who thinks he has a dual personality and accidentally becomes a space police officer who maintains peace in the universe. The latest animation PV of "Space Detective" was broadcast simultaneously at the conference, and well-known voice actors Rie Kugimiya and Ayumu Murase also expressed their blessings for the broadcast of "Space Detective" next year through VCR. Satoshi Adachi, the film and television IP producer of Shueisha's Copyright Division, said on stage: "Space Detective is an adventure work that breaks through the atmosphere. I hope that our cooperation with Tencent Animation can also fly in the universe. The power of comics has infinite possibilities."

Satoshi Adachi looks forward to the collaboration with Tencent Animation on Space Detective

Li Xiaojian, deputy general manager of CCTV Animation Co., Ltd., took the stage to introduce the project "Captain Heroes" in cooperation with Tencent Animation. "Captain Heroes" tells the passionate and inspirational story of a football boy. This work is a beneficial attempt to combine Internet animation with traditional media platforms. Li Xiaojian said: "The "Captain Heroes" project is the first benchmark case of CCTV Animation, Tencent Animation and Aha Entertainment to jointly create an original animation IP by optimizing content quality, linking communication channels, integrating market resources, and cooperating under the strategic idea of ​​win-win cooperation and creating high-quality products."

Li Xiaojian introduced the cooperation project with Tencent Animation "Captain Heroes" on the spot

As a partner of the two projects, Ahaha Entertainment founder and CEO Zou Shasha also introduced at the press conference that Ahaha started with the creation of full-bodied characters and tells the story of a boy's reunion with football. And Gun Girl is an original animation project derived from the massive users of shooting games. Zou Shasha believes that with Tencent, Ahaha and many other industry peers participating in the cross-border integration and ecosystem construction of the entertainment industry IP, a new era of pan-entertainment has arrived.

Zou Shasha mentioned that Aha Entertainment will work with Tencent Animation on "Gun Girl" and "Captain Heroes"

Building an animation platform that understands users based on Tencent's big data advantage

At the press conference, Tencent Animation Product Director Zhang Biao also took the stage to share his experience on "how Tencent Animation went from 300 days to as fast as 45 days to create a high-quality comic that grossed over 100 million yuan."

Zhang Biao believes that such achievements are mainly based on three important measures of Tencent Animation: first, vigorously developing mobile terminals; second, intelligent recommendations based on big data; and third, fan operations based on the Tencent Animation community. "Tencent Animation will focus on polishing the product experience of the Tencent Animation APP, and launch an intelligent recommendation system through the use of big data to accurately match content and users, and build the Tencent Animation platform into a "platform that understands users."

Zhang Biao shared his experience in building Tencent's animation platform

Zhang Biao said: "We have launched an intelligent recommendation system to accurately match content and users. Every comic will be discovered by users, and the talent of every author will not be wasted. The recommended content seen by each user is different. If someone likes Danmei, we will recommend Danmei to him; if someone likes fantasy, we will recommend fantasy to him. User attributes, user behavior, and work labels can all help connect anime content and users more accurately, just like when people fall in love. The best state is not that you are nice to me, but that you understand me."

Every successful IP at a certain stage is the cornerstone of the industry's development

Li Xiaoting, content director of Tencent Animation, took Tencent Animation's most representative IPs such as "My Name is Bai Xiaofei", "Mr. China Wonder" and "Under One Person" as examples to review the process of Tencent Animation in creating star IPs and share cases.

Li Xiaoting introduced that Tencent Animation's process of creating star IP can be roughly divided into three stages, "pioneering stage", "development stage" to "primary industrialization stage".

Li Xiaoting introduces the three stages of Tencent Animation's process of creating celebrity IPs

First, when I created the two works "My Name is Bai Xiaofei" and "Mr. Marvelous China", online comics were not widely recognized at that time, and most of the first-line cartoonists were still focusing on serializing in paper media. Tencent Comics itself was also in a difficult stage of internal entrepreneurship.

The second stage, represented by "Fox Spirit Matchmaker", made the core fans of the two-dimensional world fall in love with Chinese comics, and even made everyone in the Korean technical team involved in the production become fans of "Fox Spirit Matchmaker".

The third stage is represented by Once Upon a Time There Was a Spirit Sword Mountain and Under One Person. During this stage, Tencent Animation's works even began to enter the recognized animation kingdom of Japan. "Japan is currently the world's leading animation power. Through such cooperation, we can best learn from the world's most advanced animation industry system, and at the same time, we can use Japan's mature industrial system to improve the quality of our animation as soon as possible." Li Xiaoting said that in the end, Once Upon a Time There Was a Spirit Sword Mountain and Under One Person were both great successes. Among them, Once Upon a Time There Was a Spirit Sword Mountain had more than 100 million animation broadcasts in two months, and It took only one year for Under One Person to go from the launch of the comic to the top of the Baidu Fengyun List of domestic animations.

At the press conference, Li Xiaoting also announced four latest Sino-Japanese co-production animation works, namely "Time and Space Apostle", "Ideal Forbidden Zone", "Once Upon a Time There Was a Spirit Sword Mountain 2" and "Silver Tombkeeper", and premiered related videos. Mi Er, the comic author of "Under One Person", and Wang Xin, the animation director, also appeared on stage.

Group photo of guests

After the press conference, Tencent Animation will also hold a business licensing meeting and an author writing meeting. Hundreds of industry participants in the pan-entertainment field and comic authors, editors, etc. will have a rare face-to-face exchange. It is reported that at the business licensing meeting, hundreds of practitioners in the pan-entertainment field will conduct business exchanges and presentations on works such as "Fox Spirit Matchmaker", "Space Detective", "Once Upon a Time There Was a Spirit Sword Mountain 2", "Spiritual Contract", and "Girls and Science". At the meeting, Zou Zhengyu will sincerely invite every commercial cooperation partner to become a member of the two-dimensional alliance system, hoping to share Tencent Animation's user resources based on Tencent Animation's product platform, and jointly develop IP, co-create content and cooperate on brands. At the author writing meeting, Tencent Animation's editors will also discuss and exchange works face-to-face with comic authors.

This press conference also used CG technology, and Tencent Animation's "banner girl" Penguin Girl hosted the event virtually. The opening also featured a home dance performance, performed by the national beauty girl voice actor Cu Cu and the winner of the Tencent Animation Star Animation Award for home dance. (End)