1905 Movie Network special article 509 directors co-created and shot in vertical screen format. Have you seen such a movie?
Last weekend, the movie "Fireworks World" was officially released. Although the film's box office has just reached 277,000 as of press time, for the mainland film market, the "big screen debut" of this "vertical screen theater" work has achieved a certain sense of innovation and breakthrough.
In recent years, the short video industry has risen rapidly with the further development of the Internet, affecting and changing all aspects of our lives. Data shows that the number of short video users in my country currently exceeds 1 billion, and the number of videos generated and published on the entire network every day reaches more than 30 million.
All you need is a mobile phone, and you can be the director of your own life. The release of "Fireworks World" seems to have made the "movie dream" of 509 ordinary people truly become a reality.
Let’s think about it from another perspective: from the perspective of the audience, how will they accept “short videos” on the big screen in the cinema, and how do cinemas view such “interlopers”? We chatted with them during the opening weekend of Fireworks . Is
vertical screen suitable for large screens?
When we first heard about the concept of "vertical screen cinema movies", our biggest curiosity and concern about "Fireworks of the World" can be summed up in one sentence: play the vertical screen video on a large screen with a horizontal screen ratio, and the visual perception Will it be okay?
This question was answered quickly after the screening started -
Although the collected material content is all in vertical screen format, through the "montage" editing technique, the screen ratio of the film is maintained in the "full screen" state for most of the time. . Sometimes clips of similar types are presented simultaneously, sometimes a piece of content is zoomed and disassembled, and some of the content used as "background" is easily seen as post-production reshoots.
Such "vertical screen to horizontal screen" operation has played a positive role in improving the public's "viewing acceptance". During the interview, most moviegoers did not feel the abruptness of the "vertical screen" on the huge screen.
Ms. Wu said that she was quite immersed in the movie watching process and did not feel out of place due to the "vertical screen and horizontal broadcast": "I think this mode is quite novel." The only "targeted negative review" came from Mr. Ma, He bluntly said that he came here just because of the concept of "vertical screen", "The final frame does not feel like a vertical screen movie."
What surprised the audience Ms. Li was the picture quality. She revealed that at first she had doubts that the clarity of the material shot on the mobile phone would be greatly reduced after being put on the big screen, but in the end the visual experience in the cinema was not bad, including using some aerial lenses to complement and supplement the movie-watching experience. It didn't have much impact.
Are "fragmented" creations compatible with cinemas?
Compared with the representational form of "vertical screen on the big screen", regarding the acceptance of the issue of "fragmented content entering theaters", the feedback we received from the audience was very polarized.
In the movie "Fireworks World", 887 video clips were released on short video platforms at different times. After being arranged and combined on the five themes of "clothing, food, housing, transportation, and home", a documentary-style documentary image was finally formed. . After watching it,
viewer Ms. Wang said frankly that the quality of these short videos is not bad: "If it is used as a year-end summary of a short video platform, I will think it is very good, but if it is viewed as a movie, it is not very coherent. "Ms. Li also feels the same way. Although the five themes chosen for the movie seem to her to be closer to the emotions of the audience, such content (with a weak overall story) may not be suitable for viewing in a theater environment.
Through the movie "Fireworks World", 509 directors used their lenses to completely show the joys, sorrows, sorrows and joys of people's real life, and many clips also left a deep impression on the audience. For example, the story of the long-distance driver and his wife who died unexpectedly deeply moved Ms. Wu, and also made Ms. Li feel the rich texture of documentary images. However, at the same time, Ms. Li also bluntly said: "But before this paragraph, the themes of food and clothing, On the contrary, I didn't quite get the point and logic I wanted to express."
Regarding such "fragmented" content creation, most viewers said that if there are works of a similar style in the future, they may not buy tickets to watch them. It is more of curiosity about experimental works. Some people also said that they After watching it, I still feel that it is not acceptable. Real feature films are more suitable for theaters.
In this regard, Manager Fu, the business manager of a theater in Haidian District, said that as a projector, they are willing to "embrace" different types of works into the theater: "Just like the 'Taylor Swift Movie' during New Year's Day, when we were arranging the film at the beginning, we also thought, will the audience pay for a concert video? The number of movie fans who have come to see the results is quite large, so we will still pay more attention to market feedback. "
However, some cinema managers revealed to us that based on the early discussions and the previous evaluations of "Fireworks World" on some movie viewing platforms, they have predicted that this kind of content innovation may not attract too many viewers. This is also directly reflected in their film arrangement choices: “After all, the content of short videos is not suitable for theaters, and audiences still prefer a complete story. "
Regardless of the final box office performance, "Fireworks" has left us with an issue worth continuing to think about - in the era of "fragmented" communication, how can a movie tell a good story?
