Research on New Media Film and Television Works

Abstract

The emergence and rapid development of new media have had a great impact on traditional media. At the same time, more and more advanced technologies and instruments have been applied to film and television production and communication, and achieved gratifying results, but at the same time, a series of problems have appeared. Based on the analysis of the theme selection, narrative strategy and audio-visual language of new media film and television works, this paper makes an in-depth study of the characteristics of new media film and television works in China. Based on this, problems existing in film and television production and communication under the background of new media in China are discussed: Problems such as very serious commercialization phenomenon, insufficient copyright supervision and lack of diversified communication channels are discussed and corresponding solutions are put forward in the hope of providing reference for film and television production and communication in China.

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Zhang, L. (2022) Research on New Media Film and Television Works. Art and Design Review, 10, 337-347. doi: 10.4236/adr.2022.103025.

1. Introduction

New media, as a new communication mode emerging in the context of the development of the Internet, has ushered in the best development opportunity in the 21st century (Ma, 2020). The booming of various new media products not only makes businessmen perceive new business opportunities, but also makes the academic community have new research directions (Hu, 2019). Most importantly, it has also changed people’s way of life, greatly expanding the width of our lives. Some scholars believe that, “Compared with old media, the first feature of new media is its dissolving power—it dissolves the boundaries between traditional media (TV, radio, newspaper and communication), between countries, between communities and industries, and between information senders and receivers, etc.” It is generally believed that new media has the characteristics of interaction and timeliness, mass and sharing, multimedia and hypertext, personalization and community (Shi, 2009).

With the continuous development of new network technology and the continuous improvement of computer technology and network technology level, new media has become the biggest competitor of traditional media (Zhang, 2022). Therefore, new media has brought more advanced platforms to film and television production and communication, and provided more opportunities and space for development. How to grasp the opportunities brought by new media to film and television production and communication? The study of its problems and countermeasures has strong practical pertinence.

2. On the Current Form of China’s New Media Film and Television Works

Scholars generally believe that China’s new media film and television works have developed into the following specific forms: First, adaptation. This type of work is based on the adaptation of traditional movies. Adaptation also goes in two different directions. One is the amateur adaptation, such as “a steamed bread caused by the murder case” that belongs to this type. They are mainly composed of deconstructed films that have been released or are being released and then re-edited, dubbed and rendered. Such works generally reflect certain social phenomena with humorous and satirical language. However, this kind of creation is generally rough and has poor picture quality. With the continuous improvement of the aesthetic level and artistic appreciation of the majority of audiences, such amateur adaptation can no longer be called the mainstream in the environment of new media (or micro-film), and gradually drops out of the sight of the majority of audiences. The second is professional adaptation works. This kind of work is mainly adapted for the promotion of traditional film network short films, as plot supplement or propaganda. Rather than simply cutting the film short and putting it on the Internet, the adaptation incorporates entirely new content, ideas and artistic effects. Take the micro film Old Man’s Wish, for example, which is seen as a spin-off and promotional video for Director Zhang Yang’s film Over the Home for the Aged.

In addition to adaptation, the audience is familiar with the original short film and television works. There is no traditional version of this form of film and television works, but specifically for the network, mobile phone and other media production. Its main features are short duration, novel themes and fine production, which are suitable for portable devices such as mobile phones and tablet computers. Potential audiences of new media films and TV dramas are generally under great work pressure and have short rest time. Therefore, the length of such original short films is generally 5 - 20 minutes, and the longest is no more than 30 minutes. Such a length of time is easier to be accepted by the fast pace of life and the audience of new media.

3. On the Current Characteristics of China’s New Media Film and Television Works

3.1. Choice of Subject Matter: Serialization and the Typed

With the accelerating pace of life and the increasing pressure from work and life, potential audiences have less and less time to devote to online films and TV series. Therefore, online movies and TV dramas usually last no more than 20 minutes, and the golden time should be around 15 minutes. Among them, short melodrama has become the most common theme. For example, “Never expected” and the new concept animation series “Miss Puff” both adopt the creation technique of one new story per episode, and each episode is a relatively independent and closed narrative unit. This form of creation makes up for the lack of narrative coherence brought by interactive drama, and at the same time, the audience can freely choose the way to watch a single episode or follow the drama according to their own wishes.

Typification is a very important and long-standing tradition and aesthetic strategy in commercial film and television dramas: typified characters, traceless plots and very typical movie scenes are the obvious characteristics of typification. This kind of typified film and television is a relatively safe aesthetic strategy often adopted by film and television. This strategy standardizes the creative characteristics of film and TELEVISION. At the same time, typified characters, stories, scenes, etc. provide a relatively independent space and time for the audience, meeting the audience’s psychological expectations for movies and TV.

However, the short plays spread on the network adopt a completely different road from the typification, that is, create a very open space and time for the audience of network plays. The miss puff such as network season sowing the hero puff is a very not typed characters of independent thought, her personality is the youth young girl courageous exploration, not constrained by mediocre and willing to find the value of life open characteristics, therefore, the series of short story plot development also has the very big uncertainty is even subversive. This is similar to the character of Jack in the Hollywood movie Fight Club, where the storyline takes on an unexpected turn. The audience cannot accurately predict the future of the story based on what is happening now. It can be said that the subversion of the existing genre tradition is the key appeal of network films and TV dramas, and the anti-genre is a distinct label of network films and TV dramas (Liu, 2010).

3.2. Narrative Strategy: Popularization and Fun

Popular narrative strategy is a broad narrative method. In network movies and television dramas, the life of little people and the narration of daily life are the main characteristics of popular narrative. “Never Expected” is the life record of ordinary people, and Jack in “Fight Club” is an insomnia-stricken white collar with an extremely boring and decadent life. And the heroine puff in Miss Puff is a very typical image of female white-collar workers in big cities. Such character setting has narrowed the psychological distance between the creator and the audience, and prevents the audience from thinking that “this kind of story (character) is too far from my life”. This kind of real little person makes it very easy for the audience to find their own reflection on the computer screen. Moreover, the nature of network drama also provides the audience with the opportunity to communicate with the creators, and even allows the creators to create new works according to the real life of the audience. In this way, the audience can realize the dream of “my story to be seen by millions of people”—something that traditional film and television productions cannot achieve. The interest is mainly reflected in the character image setting and character dialogue. As mentioned above, in network film and television dramas, the importance of traditional scene selection, exquisite audio-visual elements, depth of role shaping and delicacy and fullness of emotion are relegated to second place, while the interest of dialogue between characters becomes the most important in scripts.

3.3. Audio-Visual Language: Miniaturization and Deconstruction

At present, the most widely used terminal playback devices of new media are generally smart phones, personal computers, tablets and some smart TVS. Due to their own inherent cost and technical reasons, and the lack of sound and painting restoration technology, online films and TV series have not yet been able to match the level of imposing and stereo films on the big screen. Therefore, network films and TV dramas more often adopt the shooting strategy of small scenes represented by mid and close shots and close-ups of characters, focusing on the performance of characters’ body movements, dialogues and even their inner world. Director Wei Zheng drama “love apartment”, for example, is not described in the TV series of broad social scene and HTC narrative, but will be selected in the main environment is given priority to with a residential area and some other relatively closed the scene as a representative such as bars, the classroom, radio how relatively narrow space environment. In these relatively closed scenes, the camera is like the shadow of the characters in the play, keeping a close observation Angle, and recording the emotions, actions, dialogues and even the inner world of the characters in the play as an almost bystander. At the same time, the director makes full use of radio (the work of the leading actor), TV and other props in the play, as well as the inner activities of the characters and other off-screen narrative means to introduce a large number of social phenomena and hot issues, effectively making up for the lack of atmosphere brought by small space and small scene to the audience.

Without the restriction of traditional structured creation, the creation of modern network films and TV plays increasingly presents a distinct deconstruction and nonlinear expression. This is also the modern way of advertising and music video editing that is delivered through new media. It can be said that deconstructed audio-visual language features are not only the means of presenting the characters’ life traits, but also one of the aesthetic features of network films and TV dramas.

4. Issues of Film and Television Production and Communication under the Background of New Media

4.1. There Is Serious Commercialization

Nowadays, there is a very serious commercialization phenomenon in the production and communication of new media film and television in China (Zhang, 2020). Transmission rates of film and television producer for film and television works, the box office, and received the very important aspects of rate, the actual quality are less value for the film and television works, which directly lead to though the film and television industry in China is now developing very prosperous, but the number of high quality and high level of film and television works are very few, majority is entertaining video clips, and provided free of charge, free communication to the audience. Therefore, the pursuit of box office and audience rating has become a major driving force, and excessive pursuit of box office and audience rating leads to the over-commercialization and kitsch tendency of film and television works. At the same time, to attract people to click on the watch, creators deliberately seeking new members of the opposite sex and irritating, such as story lines, performances, such as funny as possible, the plot grandstanding, some film and television works, violence and pornography, make people’s attention on the bits and pieces of shallow entertainment gossip, deviating from the mainstream culture’s tendency to grow, In addition, the fast way of transmission and the limited way of transmission have extremely harmful effects on the vast audience, especially the teenagers, and the side effects are very obvious. Take South Korea as an example, the number of new media film and television works in South Korea is very small, but the quality is very high. In this regard, China’s new media film and television production can learn from South Korea’s experience and make corrections.

In addition, the works produced by new media film and television in China are mainly divided into two categories, namely micro film and micro video. The dissemination of these two kinds of film and television works is very fast, and they are suitable for application in advertising business. Because micro-film and micro-video have many advantages such as short production cycle, high communication efficiency, high return on investment, excellent production and accurate delivery, advertisers are also willing to invest in such emerging things. But in contrast, for art creators who have no other way to make their work profitable, it is inevitable to do what advertisers want and make films and television works that meet their requirements—what works will be liked by the audience, what works will be made. This directly leads to the implantation of a large number of advertisements in the vast majority of micro films and videos in China. In the long run, China’s new media film and television works will become the carrier of advertisements, seriously affecting the quality of new media film and television works, and thus hindering the further development of China’s film and television industry (Li, 2017b).

4.2. Copyright Regulation Is Weak

New media film and television in China has not formed a perfect copyright supervision system, there is a serious problem of plagiarism. Creation of film and television works under the new media environment has the characteristics of civilian and non-academic, so most of this kind of film and television works has the characteristics of a “random”, when these films released in new media platforms (distribution), the authors tend to consider watching rate (or interest) or downloaded the “virtual value”. Moreover, due to the lack of relevant laws and regulations, film and television works distributed through new media channels can often be downloaded and disseminated for free. In this case, if people with ulterior motives download the works for other purposes, then it will lead to the intellectual property rights of the works cannot be properly protected, and some works will even be stolen, stolen name or even used for illegal purposes. And, in the new media, film and television production, remake work occupies very large proportion, many of the new media, film and television works directly copied from foreign script and story, easy to blow of new media, film and television works creators creation enthusiasm, the longer it will lead to the number of new media, film and television works in our country is becoming less and less, It has seriously affected the further development of China’s new media and film industry (Deng, 2017).

This kind of negative factors not only led to the new media copyright market’s own confusion, it is difficult to form the market price of the system can be used for reference, and makes some film and television providers taking a cautious attitude, for the film and television works copyright transaction between suppliers and service providers was overshadowed, the chaos of the relationship between serious damage to the healthy development of the film and television culture. Based on the current situation that intellectual property protection is still relatively weak, practical measures should be taken to strengthen the copyright protection of new media film and television works, curb the rampant momentum of piracy and the release of infringing works, and put it in the level of national law to sanction and maintain, so as to ensure the healthy development of new media film and television creation.

4.3. Lack of Diversified Transmission Channels

At present, China’s new media film and television works are mainly disseminated through new media platforms such as WeChat and Weibo, and the vast majority of new media film and television works are broadcast for free. If advertisements are not implanted in them, producers of new media film and television works cannot obtain income. The main cause of this problem is the lack of diversity of route of transmission, this led directly to the new media, film and television works has a very large dependence on communication software, and the lack of a perfect profit model, which directly hindered the further development of new media, film and television industry in China (Li, 2017a), and our country also does not have a unified national standard of network video charge to watch. Therefore, the method of paying for online video works is basically of no practical value.

In addition, “advertising” is the only way for micro films to recoup their shooting costs. Although only “advertising” can recoup production costs and make money, there are different ways to make money with advertising. Firstly, the product of the advertiser is transformed into the essential elements in the micro film in a relatively obscure way, such as mobile phone, clothing brand, restaurant and so on. The second method is to interrupt the patch advertisement before or during the playback of the micro film. Obviously, the first method is more acceptable, because this form of advertising does not destroy the rhythm of the film itself, and micro film itself also has some elements of traditional film. When more and more fine micro films begin to carry profound propositions such as society, life and inheritance, the existence of advertisements in films will become blurred. The popularity of micro film is a cultural product based on the development of science and technology, and is another new carrier of advertisement implantation. After all, the development of the micro film has just begun, as the Internet users appreciate the taste of growing, the popularity of online payment channel, micro movie will go in what kind of way, or just a flash in the pan, still need further test of market, culture, but from the perspective of an audience, or want to see more and better micro film (Quan, 2012).

5. Countermeasures of Film and Television Production and Communication under the Background of New Media

5.1. Focus on Improving the Quality of New Media Film and Television Works

In order to effectively promote the further development of China’s new media film and television industry, film and television producers must give full attention to film and television works.

First of all, China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and cultural departments should take national cultural construction as the starting point, improve the aesthetic taste of Chinese people, so that Chinese people pay more attention to the plot content of film and television works, actors’ acting and so on. In this way, a good atmosphere for the development of new media film and television works will be created in China. In this case, low-quality film and television works will gradually lose market space, so as to effectively stimulate the creation enthusiasm of film and television works creators and make them pay more attention to the quality of film and television works.

Secondly, relevant institutions in China should increase their support for the new media film and television industry, and create development space for the industrialization of new media film and television works under the prevailing situation of the commercialization of new media film and television works, so as to effectively ensure that China’s new media film and television industry can produce more excellent film and television works (Wang, 2016).

Finally, it can join hands with mainstream film and television organizations to take the road of high-quality development. At present, the creation of new media films lacks the participation of the mainstream film industry and the entrance barrier, which makes the overall quality of new media films not high and uneven. As a result, some audiences reject new media films and insist that what they see on the big screen is the real film. Hollywood has a rule that only films screened in theaters can be eligible for awards (Chen, 2012). Indeed, the production quality of current network films, including picture quality and audio and video effects, are not as good as the big films shown in the cinema. New media films should improve the quality of content and meet the personalized and diverse needs of audiences through the implementation of high-quality products strategy. In view of this, the development of new media films must strengthen the cooperation with traditional mainstream film and television cultural institutions. Only by virtue of the talents, creation and operation advantages of mainstream film and television institutions can new media film and television works truly develop into high-quality ones.

5.2. Strengthen Oversight of New Media Film and Television Productions

In order to promote the prosperity and development of China’s new media film and television industry, it is imperative to strengthen the supervision of new media film and television works.

Firstly, relevant departments in China should introduce relevant policies and urgently establish legal rules in line with the characteristics of internet works dissemination. It is necessary to revise existing relevant laws and administrative protection measures for Internet copyright, construct and perfect China’s network copyright protection system, and form legal systems on civil, administrative and personal aspects of network copyright protection. Stop Internet copyright infringement. The Criminal Law and the General Principles of the Civil Law should be revised so that those who intentionally disclose personal privacy and insult others severely will be subject to criminal punishment or civil compensation. At the same time, on the basis of the existing film Management Regulations. From the legal level, the administrative power of film authorities over new media films is clarified, and the administrative mechanism of government authorities is clarified. Appropriately control the number of reproductions of foreign works, so as to effectively prevent the fast food of China’s new media film and television industry, and effectively stimulate the creative enthusiasm of China’s new media film and television producers. In this process, China’s new media film and television industry has a big gap compared with developed countries, so China’s regulatory authorities should pay attention to the degree of supervision.

Secondly, relevant departments in China should establish a sound new media film and television laws and regulations system to effectively prevent malicious copying of other people’s works, and establish a warning line in the mind of producers through laws and regulations to regulate their behavior. In this way, not only can the intellectual property rights of the originators be effectively protected, but also the healthy development of the new media film and television industry can be effectively promoted (Yuan, 2014).

Third, take measures to strengthen the internal supervision of the network. Positive guidance: Scientific classification of new media films, and the establishment of multi-category, multi-angle evaluation incentive mechanism. Adopt the method of combining spiritual encouragement and material encouragement to select excellent podcasts and excellent film works, publish them regularly on the network media, and set up a ranking list. Establish a reporting mechanism, huge network, huge crowd and technical characteristics, completely rely on professional personnel and technical means is impossible not to miss. So, let the broad masses of the people get involved, find problems and promptly report undesirable, harmful, obscene and reactionary information to online media.

5.3. Develop Diversified Channels for the Dissemination of New Media and Films

New media, film and television industry in China can be as a new route of transmission, information technology and software technology developed system improve the profitability of the APP, as a result, not only can effectively improve the efficiency and quality of the spread of new media, film and television works, also can let the film and television works producers get enough economic efficiency, effectively promote the sustainable development of new media, film and television industry in China. Operators of online media and movies, such as Youku and Tudou, can reach commercial agreements with network operators and mobile operators represented by China Unicom and China Telecom. Video site’s own movie resources can open cell phone on all the smart terminal page film TV play zone, and to realize the seamless link between Internet and mobile phones has been commercialized in 4 g under the background of rates decline, download speed, used to restrict a highly interactive new media, film and television works, it can realize the sharing of audience resources on various media platforms. And the general audience can affect the film and television works through interaction in many of the portal website, through new media film operators and podcasts broadband, film and television workers can participate from the previous planning, script writing to film forming of the whole production process, and according to the market consumption at any time to adjust. At the same time, the product chain of network media films has been extended to the maximum by developing music, images, pictures, lines and storylines related to new media films, and then developing mobile phone ringtones, online music videos and so on. The development of such various channels will promote the diversified communication of new media films and television.

6. Conclusion

With the rapid development of new media, it also brings new development opportunities and challenges to film and television production and communication in China. Under the background of new media, film and television production and the problems existing in the transmission, the further development of new media, film and television industry in China produced certain obstacles, which needs relevant government departments of the state to give the new media, film and television works highly attention, perfecting the relevant legal norms, standardize the content of the new media, film and television works, improve the quality of new media, film and television works, effectively ensure the healthy development of China’s new media film and television industry, and then establish a good image for the film and television industry in the international market.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

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