Author: Le Cao Creek
2015 October two men opened have fun looking stylish in the highlands journey. They found Daozi, a college student boss in a bar in Lhasa, to "spy on information" and pretended to be her boyfriend to mix into the Tibetan language class; following the Tibetan University School Huagedan Wangmu, they experienced a micro-film shooting created by a Tibetan youth; At an altitude of 4000 meters, a group of Tibetan youths dressed in fashion brands, dyed hair and tattoos are performing a Hip-hop impromptu dance battle.
and the above are clips from the first issue video "Lhasa Tide" in China. Accustomed to watching the same Tibetan folk customs in documentaries, Lhasa under the lens of director Zhang Neixian is fashionable and young. Last year, he and the musician Sanding founded Erotic China. At the beginning of this year, he officially launched a weekly short video report. The content is Paul Vientiane. The topics from the two-dimensional girl to the gender-friendly toilet are all eye-opening.
talked about the company's positioning. Sanding emphasized that they are not going to be a program, but want to become a video media that pays attention to youth culture like VICE. In the future, they will use content resources to create independent brands. For example, the travel column "Resurrection" has opened offline physical hotels, and another column "Big Guy" will focus on sex toys. How did
get creative from the entrepreneurial road of the two creators?
Entertainment Home: Zhang Neixian Sanding
Established: January 22, 2016
Business: A video media platform focusing on youth subculture, "Interesting China"
Projects: "Lhasa Tide", "Fantasy of Uniformed Girls", "He took a few million to perform boredom to investors", "On the toilet problem of 17 human genders" etc.
Capital valuation: 30 million
Capital stage: Angel wheel
Company size: more than 10 people
Company advantages: The team members are very professional, and each director has the ability to be unique from shooting to editing "We know China better than VICE"
Zhang Neixian, who has 10 years of independent film shooting experience, is well-known in the circle. His works such as "Young Unemployed" and "Strawberry 100%" have even been misappropriated by other entrepreneurial teams to tell stories to the capital market.
"My last entrepreneurial project, Yineng.com, has several employees who are his fans." Co-founder Sanding used to be a music broker and started an Internet business in 2012. "At the time, I wanted to create a red eye circle Artist brokerage platforms such as Pengsier.com, but did not find a suitable monetization model." The entrepreneurial ideas of the two people gradually polished and formed in the days when they were drinking tea together. Zhang Neixian told Xiaoyu that he actually thought about creating content in the vertical field at the beginning: "For example, 1001 love stories, made into a column + web drama form, hatched an IP, listening to this name is also very champion. "
However, the later-born Sentimental China did not adopt a single column format, but became a video media with continuous production of content and innovative forms. "Our distribution company Mars Culture also said, why don’t you highlight a signature feature so that everyone can understand what you are shooting?" In Sanding’s view, cultural products are very uncontrollable, and may be a program. Or if the effect of a film is not good, it will bring down the company, and Erotic China is more hopeful to become a long-term business.
short video is the entrepreneurial direction of many filmmakers, such as Jia Zhangke's Ke Premiere and Ning Hao's Bad Monkey Pictures, both focusing on regular short documentary films. The positioning of Sentimental China is very clear. It is a local Chinese Internet TV station oriented to young people’s subcultures. The content covers music, tourism, life, technology and other pan-cultural fields. The shooting styles are also very diversified. According to Sanding’s words, " Cool", "Not mediocre".
. Most of the videos that have been launched in China are between two and three minutes to ten minutes in length. Many of them are character reports, such as "The Fantasy of Uniformed Girls", "Pingyao Watchers", and "Low-profile version of Luhan" Desire for your love" and so on, in which the Uniform Girl episode only lasted more than 2 minutes, but it became the most-viewed video since its launch, with more than 200 comments below. "Someone left us a message in the background, saying that they have similar feelings to the protagonist in the film."
"The maneuverability of character reports is relatively strong, and we generally do not report.He is already a social elite and a person with a lot of exposure. Sanding told Xiaoyu, "I still hope that by digging into the unknown stories of ordinary people, young audiences can find some resonance in them. Since
emphasizes the nature of the media, timeliness is indispensable. Sentimental China has reported some sensational social news and phenomena. After Fang Li's kneeling incident in "Hundred Birds and Phoenix", they quickly recruited relevant filmmakers to carry out A "wonderful talk" about whether a literary film is equal to a good movie; and amidst the doubts about the UN's promotion of gender-friendly toilet projects, Erotic China used multiple interviews to show everyone how sexual minorities use the toilet in their daily lives. Embarrassing.
"Would you like to go to an island in the sea for an appointment!" "
Regarding the profit model of Fun China, according to Sanding, it will first build a brand through long-term and continuous video content, and at the same time accumulate users with the docked official account "National Fun". The monetization channel of the content itself is mainly copyright export. Xiaoyu noticed that every video of Erotic China is equipped with bilingual subtitles in both Chinese and English. It can generate considerable income through overseas distribution and sales. After all, documentaries reflecting the living conditions of Chinese young people are currently very popular, but the content is scarce.
Although they all seem to be high-cold literary and artistic youths, Zhang Neixian and Sanding do not exclude business. At present, Erotic China has cooperated with Someet and other companies in brand promotion. "We must have our own style in advertising. Don’t shoot the tacky entrepreneurial interviews, or just go around shooting, this is responsible for the audience and the brand.”
For example, Beijing’s famous livehouse MAO is facing demolition, and the video report of "If you can't walk from Drum Tower to MAO" in China It is a work for the occasion, but the viewers who have watched it may be impressed by the DreamVR team in the video. Sanding told Xiaoyu that this is actually the soft publicity they designed for the VR team.
is a content-based derivative, Zhang Neixian called it a juggling Internet monetization model: After the number of video clicks stabilized at more than one million, the two directions of traffic conversion are commodities and offline industries.
Currently, two programs in China have been registered. Trademarks: One is the travel category "Resurrection". Through WeChat crowdfunding, the first hotel chain with the same name opened on Weizhou Island, Guangxi. Currently, online programs have cooperated with Sohu to launch a function similar to Youku while watching and buying. You can place an order for accommodation with one click while the travel video is playing.
"There are many homestays on the island, but the biggest pain point is that life is relatively boring, there is no entertainment and nightlife, and some travelers have booked accommodation for a week, but live Can't help but check out after two days. "Sanding said, "The characteristic of the Spirit Recovery Hotel lies in cultural social interaction. Our public area is more than 1,000 square meters. In the future, we can do a music festival on the island and send some independent bands to perform on the island. "
, another male-oriented character report program "Big Guy", will launch sex toys. On the one hand, they fit the company's name very well, and more importantly, they value the rigid characteristics of the sex industry. However, this part of the business, Sanding said In the early stage, we should first establish a brand and accumulate users through stable video output, and then successively launch derivative products to convert traffic. "Maybe we will be the Foxconn of the video industry in the future."
has been in business for less than half a year. With constant exposure, Sanding and Zhang Neixian became more and more busy, "Many investment institutions came to ask, the rhythm of receiving more than 20 emails a day." This allowed them to decide to take advantage of the trend, which was not in a hurry to raise funds. Sanding revealed that Erotic China’s angel round plans to raise 3 million to 5 million yuan, which is mainly used to increase production capacity and cultivate more filming talents. The
Erotic China team has 13 fixed employees, including 4 directors, and everyone is from The one-man band that can be done from shooting to editing is the most proud advantage of the two. "For example, the entire "Lhasa Tide" continuous filming tape cutting was done by Zhang Neixian alone. Sanding said, "We strongly encourage this kind of individual combat capability. Under a common goal and vision, everyone can be alone. "
team members will get together at the beginning of each month to hold a topic selection meeting. In addition to his own work, he also accepts external material submissions. However, Zhang Neixian has very strict requirements on the content, and even a well-known special author of Lonely PlanetThe film sent was also rejected by them.
The scarcity of professional talents in the content production field is the profound experience Zhang Neixian and Sanding have since started their business. Although the recruits who graduated from university are aggressive, they have no experience; those with several years of shooting or editing experience are often limited by the traditional system and lack the ability to express themselves freely.
In the end, there are only a few "masters" in the short video industry who look up and down, but there are no apprentices under them, and it takes a long time to train a talent. When Zhang Neixian mentioned that he was doing "Lhasa Tide", the mixer was the person who helped VICE be the latter part of Edison Chen's show. Faced with more and more companies that come to the door to have production needs, San Ding said jokingly: "Maybe we will be Foxconn in this industry in the future. 36 Krypton, knowing that these companies have short videos, you can come to us. Foundry.”
This has prompted Zhang Neixian and Sanding to have greater ambitions to take into account the production of human resources while producing content. "We have recently cooperated with journalism schools of various universities and started to carry out college tour lectures." Zhang Neixian told Xiaoyu, "The first stop is Nankai University, and then we will visit the 100 best universities in the country. In the video field, we We have certain competitive resources, and we are willing to open up our experience to everyone, hoping to train more talents for this industry."
only has three years and five years of short-term entrepreneurship, and once the wind is over, the owner will leave behind. There are many children, but obviously, Sanding and Zhang Neixianzhi, who have tigers in their hearts, are not here. "We are going to be the first comprehensive media from China that can be trusted by the world. Of course, what we are telling you now may be a long-term vision in ten or twenty years." At the end of the interview, Sanding said with a smile.
