In recent years, the overseas performance of domestic film and television dramas has been brilliant. In terms of content and theme, from the dominance of ancient costume drama to more diversified forms, especially the performance of realistic theme works; In terms of sales channels, from overseas TV stations to overseas streaming media. In the future, the domestic film and television drama "going to sea" still needs the joint efforts of all parties to realize from "going out" to "going in". Recently, the domestic film and television drama "going to sea" has received frequent good news. At the beginning of 2022, the popular drama "the world" was favored by Disney as early as the shooting stage, and pre purchased its overseas exclusive distribution rights; "Mountain and sea situation", which focuses on poverty alleviation, has been broadcast in more than 50 countries and regions around the world... The domestic film and television drama "going to sea" has taken on a new look and sailed to a broader blue ocean, and the influence of Chinese culture abroad has been further improved. Diversified themes and types For a long time, the protagonist of domestic film and television dramas "going to sea" has always been ancient costume dramas. From the legend of Zhen Huan, Langya list to the twelfth hour of Chang'an, the popularity of Chinese ancient costume dramas in overseas markets has not decreased. However, this situation is being broken by the overseas performance of a series of excellent realistic dramas. The weight of realistic dramas is increasing year by year, showing a trend of diversification of themes and types. Hou Hongliang, chairman of Dongyang noon sunshine film and Television Co., Ltd., recalled that this change began with the broadcast of "the beautiful times of daughter-in-law" in 2009, which performed well overseas. Since last year, the overseas performance of "mountain and sea situation" and "beginning" produced by noon sunshine has brought more surprises. "Shanhaiqing" is a typical theme work on poverty alleviation. It has performed well overseas, which shows that this drama reflecting the Chinese people's yearning for a better life shows China's humanistic characteristics and has won the resonance and empathy of overseas audiences. " Hou Hongliang said: "the narrative mode of" beginning "is not new to some overseas audiences, but it has also achieved good sales overseas due to its high quality." Like the noon sun, in recent years, Ningmeng film has made outstanding overseas sales achievements, and its dramas such as "little parting", "little willing", "Xiaomin family" and "just 30" have achieved good overseas market performance. Su Xiao, chairman of Ningmeng film, said that the sales price of the series can reflect its popularity abroad from one side. For example, in the past, the average overseas sales price of costume dramas was about $80000 per episode, and the contemporary urban theme was only about $5000 or $6000 per episode, but in recent years, excellent urban theme dramas can also sell for $50000 to $80000 per episode. Yin Hong, a professor at the school of Journalism and communication of Tsinghua University, believes that the most important reason why domestic dramas have performed better and better overseas in recent years is to improve the quality and efficiency of creation and production. "In the past, the investment cost of costume drama was relatively high, with stronger commerciality and better quality. But in recent years, the quality of realistic theme works has improved, which has brought great changes to the market." He also pointed out that from the perspective of policy guidance, in recent years, the competent authorities have encouraged the shooting of Realistic TV dramas, especially more and more film and television works adapted from excellent literary works, which has also effectively guaranteed the creative quality. Su Xiao found that in the past, overseas Chinese audiences accounted for the vast majority in the process of "going to sea" of domestic film and television dramas. However, in recent years, foreign audiences, especially those from developing countries, have increasingly favored our domestic dramas. He believes that one of the important reasons is that China's rapid economic and social development has brought great changes in all aspects of society, which has aroused the general attention of overseas audiences. From selling broadcasting rights to diversified cooperation methods In the past, selling broadcasting rights was the main way for domestic film and television dramas to go global. In recent years, the way of cooperation between domestic film and television dramas and overseas market institutions is also quietly changing. "Thirty only" has successively landed in more than 100 countries and regions around the world, launched more than 20 overseas broadcasting platforms, and became the Chinese TV series with the highest on-demand rate of new media in Malaysia in 2020. At the same time, the play has also achieved mode output overseas, and film and television institutions in South Korea, Vietnam and other countries have purchased remake rights. "South Korea itself is a country with strong TV drama production ability, and there are few cases of purchasing remakes from abroad, but now there are more such cooperation methods with China." Su Xiao said. The introduction of a series of policies has also further promoted the going out of domestic film and television dramas. It is understood that the State Administration of radio, film and television has encouraged the translation and dubbing of domestic dramas in recent years, implemented a series of supporting projects to support them, such as the "Silk Road audio-visual project", "Chinese contemporary works translation project", "China Africa film and television cooperation innovation and improvement project", and actively carried out the promotion of localized translation and dubbing at home and abroad. At the same time, the overseas sales channels of domestic film and television dramas are expanding day by day. Over the past two years, the launch of the "China joint booth" online platform led by the State Administration of radio, film and television has promoted the appearance of many popular domestic dramas abroad, such as "together" and "glory and dream" at the 17th Tokyo International Film and Television Festival, and "mountain and sea" participated in the online promotion activities of Cannes TV Festival in the spring of 2021. Film and television institutions actively expand overseas communication channels and build more overseas communication platforms for domestic film and television dramas. Some more mature enterprises have also established more mature sales paths, and some have also established special international business departments. "In the past, we usually outsourced to a middleman who was responsible for sales. But in recent years, we have set up special departments to open up channels in various countries and sell according to different market characteristics." Su Xiao said. The sales target has also changed greatly. In the past, domestic film and television dramas were mainly sold to TV stations in other countries. The different broadcasting mechanisms of TV stations in various countries have a great impact on overseas sales. "However, in recent years, the main sales target of domestic film and television dramas has shifted from TV stations to streaming media. More and more overseas streaming media have shown great interest. The broadcasting mechanism of streaming media is more flexible and the broadcast content is more diversified, which also provides better opportunities for domestic film and television dramas to 'go global'." Yin Hong said. Su Xiao also pointed out that with the emergence of this series of changes, the time for overseas buyers to buy domestic film and television dramas has also been advanced. "In the past, overseas buyers had to wait until a play was broadcast in China and see the broadcast effect. Now their purchase intention is more and more advanced. Generally, they will intervene in advance after understanding the theme type, main creative lineup and production company of the series, and lock in the series they want to buy earlier." Further improve the quality of the series and strive to "go in" Although the performance of domestic film and television dramas "going to sea" has made great progress compared with the past, people in the industry also pointed out that domestic film and television dramas still have no real explosion in international communication, which has attracted universal attention all over the world. In addition, although domestic film and television dramas have been exposed on many overseas media and streaming media platforms, the audience is mainly overseas Chinese. Hou Hongliang believes that strictly speaking, at present, the domestic film and television drama "going to sea" is still in the stage of market cultivation and faces objective difficulties. It is not easy to achieve from "going out" to "going in". Industry insiders generally believe that if domestic film and television dramas want to go further, they must first make great efforts to improve the quality of the series. "If we don't like watching, how can we hope overseas audiences like watching?" Hou Hongliang said. At the same time, many practitioners said that the acceptance of overseas audiences should be properly considered in the creative process. The creative concept should not be based on the local and sold by the way, but should consider the response of the international market in advance. "The world" director Li Lu mentioned earlier in an interview that Disney's pre purchase is a new pressure and driving force for the crew's creation. "We hope that every lens, every line and every play should have an international perspective and think about what foreign audiences will do after watching it." Su Xiao said that the domestic film and television drama "going to sea" still needs the joint efforts of all parties. He believes that at present, not every enterprise has the ability of independent external sales, so we need to build a platform in the industry to coordinate these affairs. "The focus of the next step may be to study which markets will have more users and what kind of users will have more users for the works of 'going out'," Yin Hong said. "We have 'going out', but the research on the market and users has not kept up. Where the audience is distributed, who is watching and what kind of cultural background need to be analyzed and studied in order to be more targeted in the creation and promotion in the future." "Although there is no hot money yet, we believe that with the improvement of the quality of works and the increase of overseas audiences' understanding of China's real life, our domestic film and television dramas can also become a part of their daily spiritual and cultural life." Hou Hongliang said. (outlook new era)