Backing on Chinese culture and how does SMG Jaunt China land on its own VR film and television industry?

As part of the collaboration between industry, universities and research institutes, Jaunt China will provide the Digital Media Academy with its professional movie-grade VR camcorder, Jaunt ONE, as a teaching resource, and provide a series of cloud-based stitching, rendering, publishing and other workflows. tool.

At the same time, the Digital Media Academy of Beijing Film Academy and its teachers and students will conduct multi-faceted cooperation with Jaunt China on future research, curriculum development, project production and industry internships.

As a Chinese company jointly invested by Chinese culture, SMG and Jaunt in June 2016, Jaunt China teamed up with the newly founded Academy of Digital Media at Beijing Film Academy. What kind of spark can crash and it can also be a VR film and television industry in China? What kind of contribution is made? Many people are curious and expectant.

But what's more worth talking about is that, in the current domestic VR market, from the hot of the previous two years to the sudden cold in the past year, how did Jaunt China stand up in the country and bear fruit? At the same time, it can also be applied to domestic VR. What impact does the film and television market have?

We interviewed Jaunt China CEO Fang Yi for this interview. Fang Hao was the CEO of Oriental DreamWorks and later joined Jaunt China. He said that Jaunt China will mainly invest in the early stage.

What is the background of Jaunt China, which was founded by Chinese Culture, SMG, and Jaunt’s joint venture of US$100 million?

Jaunt is headquartered in San Francisco, USA, was established in 2013, is one of the early manufacturers in the field of VR photography, has a panoramic camera Jaunt ONE and cloud solution Jaunt Cloud Services (JCS), and content platform JauntVR.

It is understood that Jaunt initially wanted to use VR technology to embed immersive scenes and scenery that Jaunt can experience in VR applications to provide consumers with VR-style short trip experiences. Now, in addition to the travel scene, Jaunt also performs VR product design and device output for multiple categories of scenes such as movies and music.

In the first half of 2016, Jaunt announced a $65 million Series C round of financing led by Chinese culture and Disney.

In the second half of 2016, Jaunt jointed with Chinese culture, SMG (Shanghai Radio and Television, Shanghai Culture, Radio, Film and Television Group) to establish Jaunt China with a total investment of 100 million U.S. dollars.

It is clear that the establishment of a joint venture with Jaunt China is another move for Chinese culture in the VR section. We understand that in August 2016, Chinese culture also invested in Series B financing of US company NextVR, and NextVR's Series B financing totaled 80 million USD. Prior to this, in the VR layout of Chinese culture, its main business was undertaken by its micro-whale technology. In April 2016, Chinese culture announced the establishment of a micro-whale VR, which distinguishes it from the television business of micro-whales.

Fang Hao told us that NextVR is based on the production of live content, and Jaunt, Jaunt China is based on video production.

"Li Shu (Li Ruigang, chairman of Chinese culture) has already laid a good foundation, that is, the feet of these two pieces of technology have already stood still."

On the domestic front, micro-whales have a C-side hardware as a video platform, while Jaunt China focuses on content. At the same time, with the hardware provided by Jaunt, in the content production section, the microwhales are more oriented to variety shows or live broadcasts, while Jaunt China's content production is mainly based on story plots or new technology explorations. The two parties explore China through complementary relationships. VR market.

The establishment of Jaunt China aims to capture the Chinese VR market

From the perspective of Jaunt's head office, entering China is mainly to seize the market.

Fang Hao believes that the gap between China's consumer market and the United States is now decreasing, and the growth rate is fast. Especially in mobile phones and high technology, China's consumer market has much to offer. It is difficult to gain access now and it will be difficult to enter it later.

“The previous cross-border strategy was to lay the US market first, then Europe, Japan, and finally China. But now, when Japan has a rhythm, the Chinese market may have no position, so now there are many new ones. High-tech and new companies are entering the Chinese and American markets together, or that the United States begins first, but will soon enter the Chinese market."

According to Fang Hao, Jaunt China officially started operations in February 2017. At present, the company mainly has hardware, VR application and distribution, cloud, and production of several sections.

The hardware and cloud are mainly supported by Jaunt America. Its core product, the VR photography device Jaunt ONE, is a panoramic camera with 24 lenses and 120 frames per second. It can capture 12K screens, and its low light function is particularly strong, which can overcome the challenges from light in VR shooting. Due to the high price, Jaunt ONE is mainly rent-oriented, mainly for the B-side.

Jaunt China employees told us that Jaunt ONE's market price in the United States is US$ 95,000, which is leased for 5,000 US dollars a day. In China, this price may be reduced and it is not yet priced.

Jaunt's cloud service mainly consists of splicing all the footage of the 24 shots and stitching them into a 360-degree ball and making it out. "We have 24 shots, 24 shots by 24k, and it's a lot of data. If you do it manually, it will take a lot of time.” Fang Hao said that the cloud has an automated production process, and also a set of cloud solutions to do technical contributions.

The Chinese version of the VR application has not been officially launched and is expected to be launched in the middle of June. This is mainly a video distribution application. It cooperates with vendors such as Xiaomi and Huawei, puts it on the mobile application store of certain selected models, and supports the brand's VR headset. The distribution and application are tied together. Jaunt China will put the foreign VR content on the domestic application platform, and will also distribute the excellent Chinese VR content on its foreign application platform.

In terms of production, Jaunt Studios (a provider of VR commercials, VR video, etc.) and Jaunt Cloud Services, a cloud-based VR video splicing and rendering platform, will be opened to different VR cameras. ) will be brought to China by Jaunt China.

“There are some things we do ourselves; some choose the way of filming; some will work with different entrepreneurs, or invest in them. They use our equipment, cloud services to create content, and then put it on our platform for global distribution.” Fang Wei said, "I hope that when we report to you next year, there will be more Chinese and Chinese content in the catalog."

Fang Fang's position on Jaunt China is to be China's top VR company.

However, the domestic situation is grim. As a Sino-U.S. joint venture company, Fang Hao stated that Jaunt China’s first step is to stand firm. “In May and June we mainly moved a set of equipment from the United States to China.”

In the second step, Jaunt China hopes to strive to create some bright spots in the content. "We will make something that meets Chinese characteristics from the perspective of customer experience, such as matching with some Chinese brands and exploring more suitable for China." National experience and content."

As early as last year, Jaunt China announced its cooperation with Xiaomi. The cooperation involves various aspects of VR content creation and channel distribution. Specifically, Xiaomi will get the opportunity to invest in the future shooting project of Juant; Jaunt China beta app will be added to the handset application store of Xiaomi’s selected model, and Supporting its VR headset; Jaunt China will also cooperate with Xiaomi in many aspects such as technology and marketing, and integrate Jaunt's full set of solutions into related works or products.

Tang Mu, general manager of Xiaomi VR, said that Xiaomi’s most valued Jaunt’s traits include four aspects: film-based shooting equipment, automatic post-splicing technology, cloud transmission services, and global content distribution capabilities.

And Jaunt China's third step is to study how to cultivate talents. "How to cultivate China's talents for new scientific and technological creativity and production."

Utilizing North Shadow to develop VR talents, Jaunt China mainly invested in VR

The Jaunt China signed a joint laboratory with the DMS to create talents.

Similar to Jaunt China, which recently took the plate, the Digital Media Academy is also a new secondary school established by the Beijing Film Academy in 2016. Vice President Kevin Geiger came to Disney from the United States to do animation teaching.

Kevin Geige revealed that the relationship with Fang Hao is very interesting. Although they come from countries with different cultural backgrounds, they found many similarities in the process of conversation and communication. “We used to be senior executives of China’s mainstream production companies (Oriental DreamWorks and Disney) in China. We resigned from the production company very close to the time and almost resigned from the senior management position.”

Both parties have had social media exchanges, but there are few opportunities for face-to-face communication.

In 2016, Fang Fang saw the news about Kevin Geig in the news and asked him to come out and talk about the development trend of the future. “This time I talked to the current Jaunt China company. Fang also stressed to me. "Most people understand that Jaunt is learning about Jaunt from hardware and software development, that is, from a technical point of view, but we actually hope that everyone can pay attention to content development."

Now that the two parties have reached a cooperation, they will work together to help cultivate the VR creators and dreamers who will shape the next generation of China. The specific level is reflected in:

First, hardware and software resources will be provided for common laboratories, and students and teachers can use JauntONE and cloud services for free;

Second, with the equipment, it will cooperate with the DMS from the perspective of the project to create, share, and share the results of the project;

Third, we will turn the most important and most essential ideas into a curriculum that will train students in the use of VR, from production, narrative and distribution. At the same time, the joint laboratory will also establish a set of standard visual languages ​​for the narrative of VR film and television at the industry level to form a VR content production methodology.

“At present, VR is still in its infancy, and lab, academic experts and professional students will jointly break through the boundaries of VR creation possibilities, determine the VR storytelling vocabulary, and create an immersive experience that the audience really likes.” Kevin Professor Geiger said.

Fang Hao told us that the company was mainly in the initial stage of investment and did not think about commercialization. “We are all doing it with input. We are now seeds, and we must have the patience to plant seeds.” You may want to remove the grass in the farming, and some will die, but you have to replant."

The domestic VR market is cold and how does Jaunt China land?

The current status of the domestic VR market is that there is a huge gap between the expectations of VR and the current position of VR. Even the domestic VR winter remarks have appeared since the end of 2016.

Fang Hao believes that this kind of winter is actually a very good phenomenon. Before the outbreak of the Chinese Internet technology market, there will be a period of overwintering. During the upsurge, everyone rushes into it, and it will start to winter again when it returns to rationality. All that remains is rational people. It is a good road.

But how did Jaunt China land?

The first consideration is the market space level.

Fang Hao believes that the opportunity for domestic VR film and television lies in this is a subversive thing, and China and the United States have little chance of difference. “In terms of movies, the United States has been leading for more than 100 years and it does have advantages. But in VR, China and the United States are almost equal and the distance is small. Everyone has not figured out how to shoot good VR videos in the end. In a completely different way from VR video, China has an opportunity to subvert it. The key is how to become a combination of Chinese culture and its own creativity."

He said that if China is very hard in this respect, it has the ability to train the next generation of people to subvert creativity and production standards, bring our thinking to the West, and let them enjoy our creativity and thinking.

We understand that according to the latest data report of market research firm Canalys, the United States accounted for 40% of the global VR market sales in the first quarter of 2017, ranking first in the world. Among them, 60% of the US market share is owned by Sony PSVR. In contrast, Oculus and HTC still face a severe test of product sales.

From our point of view, there is still a slight gap between China and the United States at the hardware level. To surpass it, content is the core competitiveness.

This is also the issue of localization that Jaunt China needs to consider, mainly in terms of content and experience. Fang Fang said, “Equipment is international, there is no special idea in this regard. But the content is not the same. The Americans like to see, the Chinese like to see is not necessarily the same, Americans like to use the website Chinese people do not necessarily like it, so there are many different aspects of this habit."

In this regard, Jaunt China mainly cooperates with local companies. For example, the micro-whale of Chinese cultural investment, and the production company of SMG Holdings Co., Ltd. cooperated in digital cooperation. "They have a production team, use our equipment to do the content, and then we help them do the distribution." Fang Yan introduced.

In terms of income, Jaunt China will conduct a split with Magicville Digital.

The application is bundled with hardware vendors such as Xiaomi and Huawei.

In addition, Jaunt China is mainly facing the B-side. However, in China's C-end consumer market, it may take a long time to grow. On the one hand, the experience of good C-side hardware is expensive and difficult to popularize; on the other hand, as long as the viewing function, interactive experience is weak, almost no; In addition, most of the video terminal equipment display low resolution, visual effects are not good, and there are Dizziness. However, the good point is that many mobile devices have begun to improve display clarity. "For example, Huawei's new mobile phone will go to 4K." Fang Hao said.

In terms of content, Kevin Geiger thinks that China's VR industry or industry is currently developing a content development area. Compared with foreign countries, there is indeed a gap, but the growth trend is the world's leading. "There are many foreign professionals coming to China. It was also very surprising that it was found that China had far more various activities in the field of VR than in foreign countries."

As for why there is a lack of content development in China's VR field at this stage?

Kevin Geiger said that the first is the technical and software hardware and software tools, and the second is that Chinese investors have a relatively short period of expected return. They want to benefit in the short term and are not very patient with the long-term profit model. This piece of content development has a lot of uncertainties, and the investment market is more cautious.

“When some of my friends and colleagues are working in the VR industry, looking for investors to say that the development of some software and hardware is easier to get investment, but to say that when developing something, you have to get funding and sometimes you have to compare Difficulties. It is true that there is no more or a more complete profit model, and everyone is still trying to find out. So many investors want to participate, and they look forward to panic again. This is a more tangled process.” Kevin Geig said, this is also As a school advantage, they may not worry about profitability or profitability. They only need to focus on the development of content or ideas and the development of talent.

Fang Hao added that because the US market is different from the Chinese market. Many software platform companies in the United States, such as Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, will invest in the content of the platform, but China does not have such a platform to invest. Second, many large-scale trailers in the United States are done using VR. Their costs are derived from promotional fees. "An American blockbuster has come out and has spent at least 100 million U.S. dollars. In this respect, dialing hundreds of thousands more to do VR is not a big deal for them." And there is no such habit in the Chinese movie market. The third is 360-degree video point of view, the United States market is larger than China. There are 360-degree videos on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Advertisers will pay for them. "A lot of people do VR instead of doing VR, but 360-degree video because they have advertisers." But in China, this aspect does not rise. VR video is difficult to commercialize and lacks funds, so it runs slow.

Fang Fang stated that he is not very pessimistic about China. It is only a matter of time before Chinese VR videos are created. “In a while, when the Chinese market starts to stabilize, there will be more talented people and more Money is getting closer and closer in this regard."

Of course, Jaunt China still has a long way to go. For example, to overcome the immersive content production problem, Fang Fang said that the road to go is very long and very difficult. However, they will cooperate with the Beijing Film Academy to describe online, offline, interactive, and gestures through storytelling in the VR environment.

At present, Jaunt China's first project is still under preparation. "We first launched the hardware and observed the market. Understand what kind of content customers and viewers really like. Then what kind of VR content is worth investing in." "It takes a little time to do this." Fang Wei said. Latest VR movie http://

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