The current status of the film and television special effects industry

Domestic CG special effects have made significant progress in recent years. The more famous companies include Hualong Company of China Film Group, BASEFX Company under the American flag, etc., as well as branches of some foreign special effects companies in China, such as Dortmund, Viewpoint Technicolor, etc. But generally speaking, the level of domestic CG special effects is several levels behind the aforementioned three companies. If Industrial Light & Magic is a doctoral student, then the best domestic companies are at the level of high school or technical secondary school students.

Representatives of Hong Kong special effects companies include Wan Kuan and Xian Tao Digital. FATFACE is also good. Its main works include Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu/Feng Yun Jue/Yangtze River No. 7/Roboman, etc. The level is between college and undergraduate students. between.

For domestic films with large investments and complex special effects, such as Tangshan Earthquake and Red Cliff, the main parts are completed by Hong Kong or foreign special effects companies. Except for a few companies such as Hualong, the vast majority of domestic film and television special effects production companies rely on some relatively rudimentary TV special effects and low-cost movies to survive. The characteristics are low production costs and low requirements, and practitioners can barely survive.

As nearly a thousand universities have opened animation and other related majors, as well as hundreds of MAYA training institutions in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, junior talents have far exceeded the market demand. The average employment rate of animation graduates is estimated to be no more than 100. Thirty-thirds of the time, the wages for newly employed workers are mostly around 800-3,000 (Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou). Countless students spend high tuition and training fees, but are unable to gain a foothold in the industry; while colleges and most training institutions, for their own benefit, spare no effort to advocate that the CG industry and the film and television special effects industry have a gap of 100,000 and 150,000, a sigh.

In the domestic film industry, from investors, producers, to directors, the understanding of film and television special effects is still at a very slow stage of development, although people have seen the impact of American films. Now that we have the capability of film and television production, the public and the media have shown great interest, but this interest is not focused on the entire industry, but on the film and television special effects in American films, while also taking into account the domestic film and television special effects industry. a concern. Except for the practitioners themselves, not many people care about film and television special effects work.

In this environment, the application of film and television special effects basically has the following three situations: (1) The director is interested in film and television special effects and wants to try something. But the scale of the attempt is very small, and it is not part of the entire film production process, so it cannot achieve very profound effects. (2) In films that do not consider returns, film and television special effects have been fully utilized. Such as: "The Flying Leopard" and "The Turbulent Waves". (3) The film creator hopes that film and television special effects will add some highlights and selling points to the film. In "Fatal Strike," some shots that were difficult or simply impossible to achieve were accomplished with computer assistance.

In short, film and television special effects have not yet formed a very standardized commercial operation. There are very few films with practical film and television special effects for commercial purposes, so the film and television special effects production industry has not been formed. The dilemma of lack of professionals also plagues this yet-to-be-formed industry. Few of the people engaged in film and television special effects production are from the film industry, and most of them are computer majors and art majors. My understanding of moving images is not enough, and my ability to tell stories using audio-visual language is not yet strong. However, with the progress of the times, the nature and role of film and television special effects have gradually been recognized and used by Chinese filmmakers.