CATDOLL: The secret realm of "Spirit Realm" is about to open. Revealing the road to top fantasy Chinese comic adaptation. Exclusive interview with Ms. Yang Xiaoxuan, Vice President of iQiyi

The top fantasy animation masterpiece "Spirit Realm", which was created by iQiyi and adapted from the novel of the same name on Qidian Chinese website, has officially been launched. Once the news was released, fans of the novel "Spirit Realm" quickly formed two distinct factions and launched a fierce debate. One faction expressed "serious expectations" for this project, while the other faction said, "Please let our "Spirit Realm" go for domestic animations," and strongly opposed the adaptation of "Spirit Realm" into an animation. Of course, there are also some fans who are on the sidelines, and they have discussions on issues such as "Why did you choose "Spirit Realm" as the prototype for the adaptation?" and "Will the animation work change the original essence of the novel beyond recognition?" With these questions, the author conducted an exclusive interview with Ms. Yang Xiaoxuan, the general person in charge of the project and vice president of iQiyi, and asked her to introduce the creative process of this project to everyone.

Interviewer: Gu Song , PhD in Film Studies from the Chinese Academy of Arts, animation screenwriter and director

Interviewee: Yang Xiaoxuan , Vice President of iQIYI, Director of the animation series “Spirit Realm”

Gu: Recently in the animation field, it seems that everyone has suddenly paid attention to IP overnight. So what made you choose the fantasy novel "Spirit Realm" as the first work of iQiyi animation from among the many IPs?

Yang: Selection is a very painful process. Choosing what kind of IP for the collaborative development and transformation of film, television, animation and games can maximize the greatest advantage of our company's full platform and is the core of Shede. Our selection criteria are: its rights are complete, and a good fan base has been formed; the development path is relatively clear. My team and I conducted a lot of market research and data analysis and found that fantasy, fantasy and hot-blooded themes have the highest recognition among the youth audience of Internet animation, and can also maintain a lot of extension possibilities. In this theme, the novel "Spirit Realm" has been ranked relatively high after it was released on Qidian Chinese Network. It has also been ranked in the top ten in Baidu's novel rankings and even ranked first in China Mobile's reading list. So far, it has more than 4.6 million words, 21.81 million clicks, Baidu index exceeds 300,000, and the rights are kept most complete. Therefore, after sufficient demonstration, iQiyi chose to buy out all the rights of "Spirit Realm" and put it into production. At the same time, it integrated the resources of iQiyi's game platform, e-commerce and distribution authorization resources, and focused on creating a diversified income model for "Spirit Realm", a literary work that is highly compatible with the animation industry, and an animation brand with broad development prospects.

Gu: In the film and television industry, adapting famous works is often a thankless task. When "Spirit Realm" announced that it would develop an animation, many literary fans expressed concerns. So what makes you confident that the animation of "Spirit Realm" can satisfy its loyal readers?

Yang: That's true. What fans fear most is that their favorite literary works will lose their original flavor after being adapted into film and television works. In response to fans' concerns, we have proposed many solutions, which can be summarized into four key measures. First, the animation of "Spirit Realm" completely follows the spiritual essence, world view and character relationships of the novel "Spirit Realm", and has a very high degree of restoration to the original work, which will make readers of the novel in the past not feel abrupt when enjoying the adapted animation; second, it widely attracts domestic animation elites, two-dimensional enthusiasts, and heavy fans of "Spirit Realm" to join the project creation team, ensuring that the source of the adaptation is in line with the appreciation habits of the target audience; third, it entrusts Japan's top animation OEM company to carry out mid-term animation production, and invites domestic well-known CVs such as Shan Xin and Huang Zhenji to dub the "Spirit Realm" animation to ensure the overall quality of the project; fourth, iQiyi launches the Internet animation production and broadcasting mode, so that the audience can interact and socialize with each other and with the creators through the embedded platform developed by iQiyi while enjoying the animation. The audience can express their opinions on the future development of the story and the relationship between the characters. The creator may consider the audience's expectations for a certain character and arrange certain extra episodes, or even really change the future direction of the story, breaking the boundaries between the audience and the creator, so that the audience also has the opportunity to participate in the creation. Through these measures, we are fully confident that we can satisfy the loyal readers of the novel "Spirit Realm" and attract more viewers who have not read the original novel to become loyal fans of the animation "Spirit Realm". We have confidence in the successful similar cases abroad, such as the "Harry Potter" series and the "Chronicles of Narnia" series. Facts have proved that when we first released the trailer of "Spirit Realm" on iQiyi on September 10, many fans said that the effect of the adaptation far exceeded their expectations. We will work hard to make the feature film more exciting.

Gu: Even the best projects need good communication to achieve the desired results. What strategies does Spirit Realm have in this regard?

Yang: As the first domestic animation work led by Chinese people in the early and post-production, and created by a Japanese A-level team in the middle stage, this production model of tracing back from the downstream to the upstream of the animation industry chain indicates that the domestic animation early design foundation has been recognized internationally, and it has a very good dissemination foundation. At the same time, "Spirit Realm" will be launched in the form of weekly updates, which can make full use of the promotion bonus period of the IP and maintain its popularity for a considerable period of time. In addition to the exclusive broadcast on iQiyi, "Spirit Realm" will also be broadcast on the late night slot of the Star Cartoon Satellite TV to ensure that the dissemination range can cover more user groups.

Gu: You just emphasized that the rights of IP must be complete and there must be a clear development path. Does the "Spirit Realm" animation have any plans for this?

Yang: Complete rights can fully extend the revenue chain of "Spirit Realm", and the development space is broader, which will also lead to the early production links to attract more high-quality resources. For example, while producing the animation, "Spirit Realm" has already locked in the best literary resources, production resources, platform resources, etc. at home and abroad, and naturally has a power structure similar to the production committee of overseas animation projects. This structure can form a joint force to comprehensively develop different contents around a valuable star IP, truly achieve cross-border development and release value, which will be the future of Chinese animation. At the same time, because "Spirit Realm" has a clear development path, that is, it can be seamlessly connected with online games and mobile games, so it has proposed the concepts of "film and game linkage" and "simultaneous sale of derivatives", and closely connects the authorized elements such as games, toys, figures, and clothing with the update of animation series, and develops IP in multiple dimensions along the clear development path, and deeply explores its profit potential. It is precisely because of these measures that the animation of "Spirit Realm" has signed a TV broadcast agreement and a toy licensing agreement with Japanese TV stations, becoming the first national comic IP to be truly authorized to broadcast and distribute in Japan, realizing the strategy of "going out" of young people to domestic animation.

Gu: iQiyi has achieved considerable success as an online media platform. So what made you decide to lead the entire team to enter the field of animation venture capital?

Yang: The animation industry is the branch with the largest extension space in the cultural industry. It will have interactive relationships with all aspects of people's social life, such as the cartoon shapes of beverage bottles we usually see, animated safety tips when flying, and emoticons on social software. But the core force of these grafting is IP. Therefore, from an international perspective, the development of the animation industry has two obvious trends. One is to pay attention to the upstream and downstream endpoints of the industrial chain, especially the creation of broadcasting platforms; the other is to break through the upstream of the industrial chain, that is, the ability to hold intellectual property rights. For example, Disney, after its golden age of development, the first thing it did was to focus on operating its animation channel, and TV stations such as NBC and BBC also have their own very strong animation brands. It can be seen that the marriage of broadcast channels and animation IP is a general trend. Our iQiyi animation channel has been operating very well for many years, attracting a considerable number of children, teenagers and two-dimensional people. It is after fully studying the development trajectory and laws of the foreign animation industry that we began to make our own animation IP belonging to our company. Therefore, after "Spirit Realm", iQiyi will continue to launch several high-quality animation brands such as "Heir of the Gods" after October to create a cluster of excellent domestic animation works.