Despite its fast development, China’s film industry still faces
great challenges. The four main difficulties filmmakers have to
deal with are: lack of good screenplays, shortage of fund,
unnecessary modification as well as high ticket price.
Screenplays: nowhere to find
Zhang Yimou, one of the most famous film directors, once
complained: “Do you know what I am doing all the day? Reading. I
read everything I could find: newspapers, magazines and novels hot
off the press – to look for something for a good film script. Well,
I just can’t find any.”
Another director, Feng Xiaoning, often writes screenplays
himself. Actually it is not that he enjoys writing but that he has
no choice because good screenplays are really scarce. According to
an insider who declined to be identified, instead of writing plays
for others, gifted writers prefer to shoot film themselves. In
fact, there are not many screenwriters who really know how to write
a screenplay.
Funds: inadequate
Shortage of funds troubles most Chinese directors all the time.
Despite a few highlighted directors who are able to attract
domestic and overseas investments, such as Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou
and Feng Xiaogang, most directors have to face the problem of fund
shortage. The average expenditure for making a film in China is
only about 4-5 million yuan, a sum that always puts the filmmakers
into financial difficulties. While comparing with his American
counterparts who can easily find hundreds of millions of US
dollars, Feng Xiaoning sighed, “We can spend only 2 percent of the
money the Americans do in the making of a film.”
When a movie is shown, generally speaking, filmmakers can get
one-third of the total income from the box office. This means that
only when the box office makes 15 million yuan can the filmmakers
balance their expenditures. But not every movie can enjoy such good
fortune. As a result, many young directors, including graduates
from film colleges, have to make the alternative films with low
budgets as a beginning of their career.
Modification: too many mothers-in-law
Director Hu An, who shot the film Shadow Magic, has a
unique understanding on the job of directing. “Shooting a movie is
like writing a composition,” She said. “The course of shooting is a
course of writing. From selecting a play, dividing the scenes,
interpreting the story to the actors and writing director’s notes
to working on the advertisement, every step is the work of
composing. We are the students and we have too many examiners.
Everyone in the audience is a strict examiner.”
In a graphic manner, Hu pointed out the suffering of China’s
filmmakers. “Before shooting, we revised it over and over again,”
she said. “After finishing it, we still face many rounds of
amendments. The efforts and time we put in revising is no less than
that in the making of the film.” In short, Hu holds that there
should be fewer examiners, or mothers-in-low, in the process of
filmmaking because the one who has written the play or made the
film should be the one who takes the responsibility of the work. Hu
believes that in many cases, the failure of a film did not lie in
its screenplay or shooting, but in the numerous revisions.
Ticket price: too high
The expensive ticket also causes great harm to the film industry
as a whole. Both filmgoers and filmmakers suffer from it. For the
middle-aged people, a ticket priced at 5 fen (US$0.006) had long
become a faraway dream. Some people hold that in the 21st century,
going to a movie should be a pleasure of high-class consumption.
Going to a five-star luxurious cinema, sitting in a comfortable
chair, enjoying yourself with beverage, popcorn and a wide screen
movie with mixed sound tracks… this leisure life, of course, is
tailored for the white-collar employees and fashion followers. But
others say that after all, movie is a kind of popular art, which
caters to the taste and interest of the common people. How can a
movie survive without the audience of ordinary people? Since the
filmmakers give priority to the common demand of the people, why
should the distributors give them the cold shoulder?
(China.org.cn by Li Xiao, August 3, 2003)