UK-China Research and Innovation Collaboration in Cloud based Virtual Film Production

作为全球第四大电影市场，英国电影(占全球票房收入的25%)已成为经济增长的重要驱动力和关键的文化输出。中国票房(200亿元人民币票房收入)现已超过北美，成为全球最大的电影市场。尽管新冠肺炎带来的收入大幅下降，但预测表明，在后大流行时代，由于新创意技术的发展，电影市场将快速复苏，例如基于云的虚拟电影制作，其中不同的制作实践团队可以通过基于云的远程协作同时进行，从业人员可以在虚拟布景中工作并直接与其交互。虚拟生产(VP)减少了将工作人员和设备转移到异地的需要，并支持在VR中远程工作，从而降低了新冠肺炎风险、环境足迹和生产成本。预计到2026年，全球虚拟生产市场规模将达到22亿GB，增长率为14.3%。在这方面，两国的产业都吸引了巨大的投资。一些成功的例子是Dneg(英国)和Mirror Pictures(中国)。自2019年以来，上海镜像影业开发了包括最先进的专业设备和云计算资源的虚拟制作云平台。我们在英国的合作伙伴DNeg也开发了类似的电影制作平台，但它更专注于虚拟制作管道的开发，将英国世界领先的电影制作技术整合到新的系统框架中。有趣的是，英国和中国在这个领域的企业都朝着两个不同的方向发展。英国公司更注重虚拟制作，而中国公司则更多地致力于云系统的开发，指出了双方互补和合作的重要基础。由于这项技术还处于新兴和发展阶段，无疑存在许多来自不同角度的挑战和困难，如技术问题、管道标准化、知识产权、数据安全、文化影响、政策制定等。在这一充满希望的机遇的吸引下，该项目旨在应对上述挑战，将两国的学术研究人员、系统开发人员、电影制作从业者、市场研究人员聚集在一起，应用我们互补的专业知识来探索这一下一代电影制作技术。确定挑战并制定解决方案的战略计划。该项目将与AHRC号召的一个特定主题相匹配：行业地图，旨在为英国和中国的行业提供市场情报和研发&I方面的“地平线扫描”。该项目旨在调查塑造英国和中国电影制作业演变的关键市场力量和行业动态。市场研究将分析两个市场之间的差异和交集，确定政策趋势和需要克服的障碍，调查两国企业合作最大化市场潜力的方式，为潜在的研究和创新合作制定新的指导方针和战略。该项目将为AHRC编写一份报告，概述英国与中国合作的建议，为新兴的英国KRI的战略提供信息。该项目团队包括来自英国和中国的高等教育机构、独立研究机构和行业公司。英国团队包括来自国家计算机动画中心(伯恩茅斯大学，项目负责人)、达勒姆大学(英国市场研究)和行业领导者DNeg的研究人员。中国方面包括上海交通大学(中国市场调研)、上海电影学院(电影制作)、浙江大学上海高级研究院(人工智能)和镜影影业(中国行业领先)的研究人员。

As the fourth largest film market worldwide, UK films (25% of global box office revenues) has become an essential driver of economic growth and a key cultural export. The Chinese box office (20bn CNY Box office Revenue) has now overtaken North America as the largest film market in the world. Although there is a large drop on the revenue due to Covid-19, forecasts indicate that in post-pandemic ages the movie market will recover at a fast pace due to the development of new creative technology, such as the Cloud based Virtual Film Production, where different teams of production practice could be carried out simultaneously through cloud based remote collaboration and practitioners work in and interact directly with a virtual set. Virtual Production (VP) reduces the need to move crews and equipment to location and enables remote working in VR, reducing Covid-19 risks, the environmental footprint, and production costs. The global Virtual Production Market size is expected to reach £2.2b by 2026, rising at a rate of 14.3%. The industry of both countries has attracted enormous investment in this direction. Some of the successful examples being DNeg (UK) and Mirror Pictures (China). Since 2019, Mirror Pictures in Shanghai has developed a Cloud platform for Virtual Production including state-of-the-art professional equipment and cloud computing resources. A similar film production platform was developed by our partner in UK - DNEG, which however focus more on virtual production pipeline development, integrating UK's world leading film production techniques into the new system framework. Interestingly, businesses in this sector from UK and China have taken weight in two different directions. UK companies have more focus on virtual production, whereas Chinese counterparts have put more efforts on cloud system development, pointing to important bases for complements and collaboration between both.As this technology is only emerging and developing, there are undoubtedly a lot of challenges and difficulties from various perspectives, e.g. technical issues, standardisation of pipeline, intellectual property, data security, cultural impact, policy development, etc. Attracted by this promising opportunity, this project seeks to address the above-mentioned challenges to bring academic researchers, system developers, film production practitioners, market researchers from both countries together to apply our complementary expertise to explore this next-generation film production technology, identify the challenges and develop strategic plans for solutions. This project will match one specific theme of this AHRC call: Sector Mapping, which is to offer market intelligence and "horizon scanning" for the sector in the UK and China in terms of RD&I. This project aims to investigate the key market forces and industry dynamics shaping the evolution of the film production industry in the UK and China. The market research will analysis the difference and intersection between the two markets, identify the policy trends and barriers to overcome, investigate the way for businesses of both countries to collaborate to maximise the market potentials, develop a new guidance and strategy for potential collaboration on research and innovation. The project will produce a report for AHRC outlining recommendations for UK-China collaboration, informing emerging UKRI's strategy. This project team includes Higher Education Institutions, independent research organisation and industry companies from both UK and China. The UK team include researchers from the National Centre for Computer Animation (Bournemouth University, Project lead), University of Durham (UK market research) and industry lead DNEG. The China side includes researchers from Shanghai Jiaotong University (China market research), Shanghai Film Academy (film production), Shanghai Institute for Advanced Study of Zhejiang University (Artificial Intelligence) and Mirror Pictures (China industry Lead).