Online films expand and extend traditional filmmaking in the digital era. However, they represent more than the simple convergence of film and online platforms, as they have their own unique advantages. If traditional films are an art form from the machine replication era, then online films are an art that represents the digital replication era. Since the beginning of the 21st century, China’s online films have undergone three stages of development featuring three different production modes and distinctive artistic characteristics, through multiple interactions between technology, media, and art. 

Short adaptations

Short video adaptations were the first type of online films. These videos adapt existing materials, changing the plot and storylines into new creations made by netizens, in other words, amateur filmmakers, who have uploaded new productions to the internet via their own initiative. They represent typical User Generated Content (UGC) products in the Web 2.0 era.

Often, online short video adaptations are made by splicing and dubbing over scenes from traditional films. As computers are nearly ubiquitous in our daily lives, new software has powerful editing functions which make it convenient to carry out dubbing, subtitling, editing, and other work, making it possible for non-professionals to produce short adaptations. 

These short adaptations are parodies of mega-budget movies and TV dramas, whose popularity and fame makes them the target of many internet jokes and spoofs. Through appropriation and reproduction of other works, parody shapes a special intertextual relationship between old and new works. These endeavors are purely for personal entertainment, the content is totally fictional, and it is done randomly with a haphazard playfulness that seeks to subvert the original works.

The earliest short adaptation was a three-episode series titled The Big History, which was made in 2001 to tell the stories related to regrouping CCTV’s Commentary Department. Among these episodes, the second episode involved splicing a single Russian movie. 

Another famous example is The Bloody Case That Started From A Steamed Bun, which is a parody of the movie The Promise directed by Chen Kaige. The video adaptation uses the CCTV program The Law On Line to further develop this story, and the short video runs for 20 minutes.

In an attempt to subvert and exaggerate the story of The Promise, the short adaptation deliberately includes two unrelated advertisements, which resulted in copyright lawsuits. At the time, the legal case became a major public event, and many netizens shared their views on the proceedings. 

These short adaptations are not made for profit, let alone commercialization. However, they do represent the industrial chain’s three parts, upstream and downstream, in which the netizen is the producer, the website is the intermediary, and the audience is the consumer, despite their relatively loose relationships.

At this time, the production scale of online video adaptations is small, the personal creation cost is high, and the quality is uneven. That means there is no complete system for integrating production, supply, and marketing. 

From the perspective of cultural industry development, these are typical characteristics of an industry’s infancy stage. Nevertheless, short adaptations established a basic pattern for the development of the online film industry, which paved the way for further exploration of the profit model.

Marketing strategy

Microfilms are short videos that run for less than half an hour on online platforms. They have complete storylines and are usually produced by professional teams, setting them apart from online short adaptations.

In the early days of online short adaptations, netizens uploaded video content to websites, giving rise to video-streaming platforms. As time went by, disadvantages of the UGC model gradually began to emerge: copyright ownership is vague, content quality is uncontrollable, and content homogenization is serious. 

In order to overcome such disadvantages, online platforms began to explore a Professionally Generated Content (PGC) model, characterized by taking the initiative to search for content, and buy copyrights and resources from professional film and television production companies.

In terms of profit models, microfilms mainly obtain financial support through embedded advertisements. These investments bring various elements of the industry together. Hence, microfilms have embarked on the path to commercialization. The production, broadcasting, and consumption of microfilms constitute a top-down industrial chain, which completes the industrialization operation of online films. This industrialization could not be achieved in the era of short adaptations.

Collaboration with the market defines microfilms. The 90-second microfilm Imminent Crisis, starring Hong Kong actor Daniel Wu in 2010, was a typical example. Wu played the ambassador of a new Cadillac model, who manages to beat his rivals in a chase sequence filled with stunts, car chases, and explosions. Behind the elaborate production, it was a de facto advertisement for Shanghai General Motors. This microfilm was also shown at the 2010 Guangzhou Auto Show, further revealing its commercial nature. 

Similar tactics are widely used in microfilm production. The Bright Eleven—Old Boys starring Chinese singer-actor Xiao Yang, is an advertisement for Chevrolet, and Tale of Watching Football (Kan Qiu Ji) was directed by Jiang Wen for Canon. Hong Kong film director Pang Ho-Cheung’s Four Fantastic Night Tales was co-produced by Samsung and Sina. Therefore, we can see that Samsung cellphones and Weibo are heavily featured in the stories. As it turns out, collaboration with market leaders has become a trend in microfilms.

The economic impact of microfilms is huge. The Bright Eleven—Old Boys made its debut in October 2010 and received more than 50 million views in a very short time. Four Fantastic Night Tales was also a huge success, with more than 200 million views in a short period of time.

However, the rapid development of microfilms has been haunted by problems such as lack of creativity, poor production quality, weak narratives, poor performance, and low overall professionalism. More and more people lack trust in the artistry of microfilms, and this negative public opinion has taken a toll on the sustainable development of the industry.

Online films

The “big web movie” is a concept iQIYI proposed in 2014, which refers to a new type of film with online distribution, over 60 minutes in length, professional production, and a complete storyline. The main feature of big web movies, as a continuance of microfilms, is media convergence.

However, if we consider web movies simply an extension of microfilms length, nothing could be further from the truth. Both short adaptations and microfilms represent a basic combination of the internet with film, they are not up to the standards of media convergence. 

In contrast, most online films are produced by market-leading entertainment service platforms, so they do not need to buy copyrights from other companies, as they produce the films themselves. Even when collaborating with professional film companies, these platforms take the initiative. Therefore, online films are an Internet Professionally Generated Content (IPGC) product.

This profit model no longer relies on advertising, but is achieved through platform membership payments, IP industry chain development, and online and offline enterprise clusters. Compared with industrial structures associated with microfilms, the industrial chain for online films is more closely linked. The production, publicity, and release of online films revolves around the product, forming a community of common interest. 

In the meantime, online films leverage the advantages of the internet, taking into account the audience’s different aesthetic preferences, adapting to small screen viewing habits on mobile phones, and transforming passive audiences from traditional films into interactive audiences for online films.

In terms of communication, if we say traditional films resort to classic narratives and visual spectacles to impress the audience, then online films have become adept at creating resonance through hot topics, stimulating discussions online, and expanding communication efficiency. 

Additionally, the leading Chinese online movie and video streaming website iQIYI has pioneered an in-house film production division for online films. From cooperation with apps to online streaming, all user functions can be carried out on their platform. The company qualifications, copyright statements, and poster requirements are clearly understood on their website, which facilitates the independent operations of potential partners. Audit results and guidelines for revision will be fed back to partners through the platform in a timely manner. The introduction of this platform not only makes communication between partners and the platform more direct, but also greatly improves the operational efficiency of both sides.

Low investment and high returns fuel the rapid development of online films. For example, Daoshi Chushan (literally: monk leaves the mountain), a film with a very similar name to Chen Kaige’s movie Monk Comes Down the Mountain, is an online film that was made for only 280,000 yuan, yet earned 7 million yuan online. 

From 2014 to 2017, the online film market maintained an upward momentum. By 2017, the number of online films reached 1,892, an increase of 4.2 times, and the market size expanded nearly 20 fold. However, for various reasons, the total number of online films in 2018 declined to 1,526, with the total number of new online films falling by about 20% when compared to 2017. By 2019, there were only 789 newly released online films, down 49% year-on-year.

Still, there is reason to believe that China’s online films will have good prospects in the future, given China’s huge number of online audio-visual users and market size. According to the 45th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China released by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) on April 28, 2020, as of March 2020, China had 904 million netizens, up by 75.08 million from the end of 2018. The report also states that China’s internet penetration reached 64.5%, up 4.9 percentage points from 2018. 

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the digital economy plays an important role in ensuring consumption and employment, and facilitating the resumption of production. The popularity of the internet and the increased number of of netizens have provided a solid foundation for the rapid development of online films in the future.

Li Qingben is a professor from the Master Hongyi and Feng Zikai Research Institute and the Institute of Arts Education at Hangzhou Normal University.