The concept of "Internet thinking" was extremely popular last year in nearly every industry in China. This idea of using big data to analyze the market, consumers, products and the production chain as well as the smartphone generation's preferences was also widely used by marketing directors in the cultural industry, leading to job descriptions normally seen at IT companies also showing up in the film industry.
Last Saturday, Internet giant NetEase and Bravo Entertainment, a leading player in film marketing, held an industrial salon to discuss the role product managers play in film production.
Taking aim
One of the important characteristics of Internet thinking is adopting a fan-oriented mindset when producing a new product.
Therefore, producing and marketing content based on the tastes of target audiences has become a commonly seen tactic. "House of Cards", for instance, is an example of the application of Internet thinking to the production of a TV series. As an online streaming company Netflix had access to data on its users' viewer preferences, which led the company to see the House of Cards novel and actor Kevin Spacey as the perfect fit for its platform.
The concept has also changed the way the entertainment industry views itself. For instance, Le Vision Pictures CEO Zhang Zhao sees author-turned-director Guo Jingming as the first movie product manager in China.
Unlike other directors who are mainly responsible for the artistic aspects of a film, Guo acts more like a product manager when it comes to his projects as he maintains careful control over product development and marketing. As the creator of the mega-hit Tiny Times book series and director of the subsequent film adaptations, Guo knows his target audience better than anybody.
This has enabled him to easily fulfill the wishes of "Tiny Times" fans when it came to the film versions of the books, casting the most popular young idols, creating jokes based on an actress' real name and adding funny behind-scene shorts during the credits at the end of the movies.
In other cases, the concept of product manager seems to better fit with movies that were created as additions to existing TV anime or reality shows.
Chen Hongwei, the producer behind the film version of popular anime "One Hundred Thousand Bad Jokes", said that he found that this particular project could barely be classified as a film.
"Everything [from the first idea to the production team and the brand] was developed online. The film is a product of the Internet," he said. "I joked that my title should be product manager rather than producer, but I don't think I was a proper product manager," said Chen.
At the salon, Ding Bo, chief editor for NetEase's music channel, explained that he felt that the role of product manager was more like that of a coordinator. A good product manager needs to control the direction a project takes, know each team's expertise and know how to introduce a project to the right market.
Zhang Yibai, director of 2014's "Fleet of Time", said during the salon that he initially took on the role of product manager in order to keep more control over his film as in China's entertainment industry just being a film's director isn't enough to control the trajectory a project will take.
Zhang shared his experiences as director of the film "The Longest Night in Shanghai" which he sold to a film company. Since the head of the company felt that romance films generally weren't box-office winners at the time, he didn't want to spend too much on promoting the film.
This experience made Zhang realize how helpless a director can be in an environment filled with unprofessional bosses and people who don't really love film. It was then that Zhang began to get more actively involved in the entire production and marketing process when it came to his films.
"I feel like I made two movies this time - the first was the film 'Fleet of Time' itself and the second was the film presented during marketing," said Zhang.
A matter of taste
A common understanding about the job of product manager is that it is more of a way of thinking than a specific role, and that what actually needs to get done can change from project to project.
At the salon, Zhang Wenbo, the director of Bravo Entertainment, said that the role closest to product manager in the Hollywood system might just be that of creative producer.
"However here in China there are no more than five people qualified for this position," he said, adding that this is also why directors like Zhang Yibai have learned to take tight control of his projects, keeping a tight rein on everything from casting and script development to marketing and distribution.
Zhang Yibai agrees with this opinion. According to him, in the Internet industry, the most popular products are those with clear aesthetics and the same goes for filmmaking. As such a product manager doesn't just need an eye for business, but also possess a certain level of artistic taste.
"The Dad franchise has its own features, such as the happy family subject matter. We'll never do movies with written scripts. How can you expect children ages 3 and 4 to remember the lines?" Zhang says.
While the producers defend the growing trend, some analysts continue to see money as the main motivation behind such moviemaking.
"Movies are for consumption, so it is natural that maximum profits will be pursued," says Zuo Heng, deputy director of cinema studies at the China Film Archives.
Younger Chinese audiences, compared to their counterparts in mature Western markets, have little interest in noting the difference between small and big screens, he adds. Young Chinese form the bulk of the country's filmgoers.
"If the movie can make them laugh and stars their favorite actors, they will buy the tickets and don't care if it's a real or good movie," Zuo says.
"The controversy mainly reflects the elite class' worries over the humiliation of high-end culture and 'good taste'."
(Origin title: "As you wish")