Chapter 525: Team Building

Chapter 525 Team Building

Half a month—what can it accomplish for an animated film?

Very little, or a great deal!

A great deal hinges on funds, manpower, and resources all being in place, along with a skilled helmsman to steer the course.

Xizi Pictures had no shortage of funds. Not to mention the resources available from Penguin Animation Network, Bilibili, and Shanhai Animation Studio, but the mere news that Xizi Pictures was venturing into animated films brought a steady stream of investors. If they had chosen to accept all these investments over the past half month, the total would have surpassed the combined funding of all projects brokered at the entire Shanhai Animation Festival—conservatively, over 300 million yuan.

What does a production budget of 300 million yuan mean?

In recent years, among China’s high-grossing, critically acclaimed animated films, even including marketing and distribution costs, only a handful have exceeded 100 million yuan.

Domestically, big-budget animated films typically have production costs ranging from 20 to 50 million yuan, with those over 30 million making up a very small proportion.

Go back a few more years, and the numbers were even smaller.

Animated film crews were so strapped for cash that everyone in the industry had grown accustomed to it.

Take *Big Fish* as an example. The reason it was delayed time and again, taking twelve years to finally hit the big screen, wasn’t because the production cycle required that long—it was because most of the time was spent scrambling for funding.

The most ironic and telling part? *Big Fish* took twelve years and 30 million yuan to produce. Once funding finally came through, the money spent on marketing and distribution far exceeded the production cost.

What does this reveal?

It’s not that Chinese filmmakers or investors lack vision—it’s that they’re far too cautious, unwilling to commit until the very last moment.

Why didn’t they act sooner?

There’s no need to gamble on risk when you’re not sure if a project will turn a profit. After all, there are plenty of profitable film genres in China today. Unless you’re an animation enthusiast, you wouldn’t stake your dreams on a gamble.

Even with animated films, investments go into surefire projects like the bear and sheep franchises.

By comparison, foreign animated films—especially those from Hollywood—succeed largely because they dare to pour in massive budgets, hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. Sure, they have more mature film industries and technologies, but without the initial courage to invest, those industries and technologies wouldn’t have reached such heights.

Of course, many other factors influence a film’s quality.

But money can solve a lot of problems, especially for Chinese animated films. With sufficient funds, countless obstacles vanish.

For industry investors, Xizi Pictures had become one of the biggest hares in China’s film market. Everyone wanted to cast their hawks, even if it meant just plucking a few feathers. Profit, even small, was still profit—and a first collaboration could lead to a second, perhaps a more lucrative one.

For investors, a film’s most crucial element is box office revenue.

Where does box office revenue come from?

One source is star power with box office appeal; another is word-of-mouth.

Word-of-mouth is unpredictable, but box office appeal can be gauged. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many low-quality films that rely on a few bankable actors or influencers to cash in and disappear. Don’t underestimate those returns—they’re often substantial relative to production costs.

Box office appeal comprises many factors: influencer stars, nostalgia, filmmakers with a track record of acclaimed films, and so on.

Well, after some painful and truly abysmal experiences, influencer stars have gradually lost their pull. The number of people paying the “stupidity tax” on films is dwindling each year.

But the latter two still thrive. Nostalgia has always been a major source of that tax, while filmmakers with good reputations are a bit of a lottery—you won’t know the quality until you step into the theater, or you refuse to trust ratings until you’ve seen it yourself.

Xizi Pictures, or rather Meng Fan, embodied a blend of star power and good reputation. His popularity rivaled that of idol stars, and he had produced quality works—though not films, his previous projects had all garnered positive reviews.

Needless to say, when Xizi Pictures’ film finally premiered, a marketing slogan like “We all owe Iron God a movie ticket” would draw countless viewers.

What? Meng Fan had never made a film before?

Weren’t his competitions more thrilling than any movie?

That slogan wasn’t far-fetched!

So, did they accept all the investments that came knocking?

Of course not, but they didn’t reject them all either.

First, the industry was murky. Even with the alliance of three entities and backing from major distributors, they couldn’t shut out all investors. Second, Meng Fan’s goal in founding the film company wasn’t solely profit. He was willing to share a portion to ensure the smooth production, distribution, and release of their animated films, while expanding their influence.

In the end, they absorbed about 100 million yuan in investments, funneled into the production budgets of three animated films.

Of course, the conditions for accepting investments, aside from investors bringing their own resources and platforms, were that they only provided funds and had no say in other matters. If that condition couldn’t be met, no amount of money or influence would sway them.

Yet, despite this, progress remained slow. The main hurdle was team building—it was incredibly difficult to assemble a team worthy of such investments, let alone three.

After Xizi Pictures was established, both its subsidiary studio and its strategic partner, Shanhai Studio, went on a massive hiring spree. Now, the subsidiary—Xizi Animation Studio—had over 200 members, with 150 in technical roles. Shanhai Studio had expanded to nearly 500 people. Adding other partner studios and outsourced teams, over a thousand professionals were serving Xizi Pictures.

Over the past half month, most of the time had been spent on team building. In fact, the next few months would likely focus on this as well.

“No rush,” Meng Fan said during a meeting with the heads. “Follow your own pace. You can even slow down a bit. Don’t worry about anything else—administrative staff will handle coordination. These three animated projects are important, but what’s even more crucial is using them to forge a competent team.”

“Also, there’s something I need to mention—a decision made long ago. The animation adaptation of my *Shanhai Qiren* has been greenlit in Japan. According to the contract, I can dispatch a team to Japan to participate in production. The first phase will last about one to two months. Originally, this team was to be drawn from Shanhai Animation Studio, but now we can allocate some slots to Xizi Animation. Working alongside top Japanese animation teams is an opportunity. Given the current heavy workload on film production, you’ll need to coordinate and then give me the list. In two months, when we collaborate with Pixar, it’ll be a similar arrangement.”

“To reiterate: team building is the top priority. You must handle it well.”

(End of chapter)