China the new Hollywood: Schamus – ‘Chinese films need right ‘Syntax’ to win over Americans’

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LOS ANGELES, April 17, (RTRS): Leading US independent producer James Schamus proclaimed Sunday that “China is becoming the new Hollywood.” The former head of Focus Features and producer of “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” was speaking in Beijing at a set-piece seminar on Chinese co-production at the first full day of the Beijing International Film Festival.

He and other speakers who included Chinese producers Yu Dong and Huang Jianxin, and British producer Iain Smith, argued that co-productions have qualitatively changed as the Chinese film industry has hurtled through multiple stages of development in just a few years.

Two years ago at the same seminar, Oliver Stone embarrassed his hosts by flat out saying that co-productions don’t work, and that China needs to learn to examine its own history more critically.

Schamus, who is involved in a partnership with China’s Meridian Entertainment, offered a perspective that was music to the ears of China’s culturally and economically ambitious regulators and corporations.

“You are building your domestic industry, with 60,000 theater screens (in prospect) and are layering on top a global and international business,” Schamus said.

Cinematic

“China is leveraging every aspect of the cinematic sphere. It is making use of the rise of the theatrical box office. An Italian-French co-production may involve the trading of tax credits. The key leverage for a Chinese co-production is the way it may open up the Chinese theatrical market in a more lucrative way (than an imported film).”

“Co-production no longer means casting an attractive Chinese actress as Mel Gibson’s girlfriend and shooting in Shanghai. That was the old way,” said Schamus. Now China is using capital to infiltrate the studios and more international co-operation which “means making films that are not as Chinese as you think, but more Chinese than you know.”

Yu, who heads leading Chinese distributor producer Bona Film Group, and is a co-financier of a slate of 20th Century Fox movies, said that Chinese companies need to be absolutely clear about their objectives, an area which has regularly tripped producers on both sides of the Pacific in the past.

“Before we start a co-production we need to ask are we shooting in Chinese or English. Are we targeting a domestic Chinese audience or acting as an investor in a global project?”

Smith, who spoke of the UK’s symbiotic relationship with Hollywood and the British government’s efforts to build cultural bridges with China, said “The idea of a co-production has to be long term, 10 or 15 year. It shouldn’t be about one project but be done with a view to developing talent over a longer term.”

Schamus, who shares a script credit on “Crouching Tiger,” clashed with Smith as he debunked part of Hollywood’s mythology.

Secret

“I’ve lost patience with being asked that question about needing American help for Chinese screenwriting. It is not true. There is a different way of story-telling. It is not true that we in Hollywood have some secret sauce. We don’t. We got there first. That’s all going to change.”

Earlier Smith had argued that it would be good for the Chinese film industry to learn more of the language and syntax of story-telling that is currently shared by European and American film makers.”

Meanwhile, collaboration between the Chinese and American film industries will continue to increase, but a gap still needs to be closed before Chinese stories and intellectual property win over audiences in America and the West, executives and financiers said during a conference in Beverly Hills on Saturday.

Jim Gianopulos, chairman and CEO of 20th Century Fox, said during the C-100 Conference, that America’s multi-cultural roots have spawned films that appeal to audiences from varied backgrounds. Without that tradition, it’s more difficult for the Chinese to create films that appeal globally, said Gianopulos.

Robert Simonds, chairman and CEO of STX Entertainment, echoed a similar view, saying that Chinese films will begin to appeal to global audiences when they speak in a familiar cinematic “syntax” — with more traditional three-act structures and scene progression that will be easily recognizable in other nations.

The opinion of the two entertainment executives appeared to be shared by others speaking on the panel at the annual conference, organized by the Committee of 100, an organization of prominent Chinese-Americans from business, politics, media and other fields.

Another member of the “Hollywood & China” panel, East West Bank Chairman Dominic Ng, said he thought a key to enhancing the prospects of films from the Middle Kingdom in the US could be the hiring of more Chinese-Americans to act as cultural and business ambassadors.

“They know this Chinese audience well. They know the American experience extremely well,” said Ng, whose bank has funded multiple films and industry deals. “Hopefully the smart executives will look at Chinese-Americans who can help make … these films.”

Ng said he hoped that films like “Great Wall,” created by Thomas Tull’s (and now Dalian Wanda’s) Legendary East and with distribution from Universal, will show the way for future productions. The film tells the story of the creation of China’s Great Wall, with acclaimed Chinese director Yimou Zhang, and starring a multi-national cast that includes Matt Damon and Willem Dafoe.

“It’s just a matter of time,” said Ng. “Co-production will get better.” Gianopulos said he has been asked why more Chinese fables have not been made into films for a global audience. He said, for that to happen, the Chinese will have to be open to re-interpretation of their classics. “If you give this fable to Hollywood and ask them to make it for the world, by the time it comes back to China you might not recognize it,” Gianopulos said.

Donald Tang, the prominent Chinese-American investor who moderated the panel, asked whether there was a chance that the large Chinese investments in the American entertainment industry could be as ephemeral as past forays by the Japanese, French and others.

No way, said the panelists, including WME-IMG co-chief executive Ari Emanuel. He and others said the enormous growth of the Chinese market meant it would be a formidable presence for the long run.

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