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重要的文化出口。中国电影票房（200亿CNY票房收入）现已超过北美，成为全球最大的电影市场。尽管收入因新型冠状病毒而大幅下跌，但预测显示，在疫情后时代，电影市场将因新创意技术的发展而快速复苏，例如基于云的虚拟电影制作，不同制作团队可通过基于云的远程协作同时进行，从业人员可在虚拟场景中工作并直接与之互动。虚拟生产（VP）减少了将工作人员和设备移动到现场的需要，并实现了在VR中的远程工作，降低了Covid-19风险、环境足迹和生产成本。到2026年，全球虚拟生产市场规模预计将达到22亿英镑，增长率为14.3%。这两个国家的工业在这方面吸引了大量投资。一些成功的例子是DNeg（英国）和Mirror Pictures（中国）。自2019年起，上海镜像影业已开发了一个虚拟制作云平台，包括最先进的专业设备和云计算资源。我们在英国的合作伙伴DNEG开发了一个类似的电影制作平台，但该平台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融入新的系统框架。有趣的是，来自英国和中国的这一领域的企业在两个不同的方向上占据了重要地位。英国企业更注重虚拟生产，而中国企业更注重云系统开发，这是双方互补和合作的重要基础。由于这项技术刚刚兴起和发展，从技术问题、管道标准化、知识产权、数据安全、文化影响、借着这个充满希望的机会，本项目旨在解决上述挑战，将两国的学术研究人员，系统开发人员，电影制作从业人员，市场研究人员聚集在一起，运用我们互补的专业知识来探索这种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。该项目将与此次AHRC会议的一个特定主题相匹配：行业地图，即为英国和中国的研发与创新部门提供市场情报和“地平线扫描”。该项目旨在研究塑造英国和中国电影制作行业发展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叉点，确定政策趋势和需要克服的障碍，调查两国企业合作以最大限度地发挥市场潜力的方式，为研究和创新的潜在合作制定新的指导和战略。该项目将为AHRC编写一份报告，概述英中合作的建议，为UKRI的新战略提供信息。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DNEG的研究人员。中方包括来自上海交通大学（中国市场研究）、上海电影学院（电影制作）、浙江大学上海高等研究院（人工智能）和Mirror Pictures（中国行业领导）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).