Big screens in China have become very big business.
Total box office returns are expected to climb almost 50 per cent this year to around $8.7 billion. And according to Japanese analysts Nomura, it's due to overtake the United States as the world's largest film market in the coming years.
Amid an explosion of new cinema complexes being built, Chinese film-goers tend to be 13-35 year-old students and urban professionals. And the number of those with higher incomes is growing.
The box-office boom comes mainly from Hollywood blockbusters, but local productions have also been making huge gains. So filmmakers are increasingly looking overseas - including Australia - to develop new ways of keeping up with demand.
"China's audiences are very sophisticated," explains William Feng, the General Manager of the Motion Picture Association of China. "They don't just like one kind of genre of movies. They like all kinds of good movies.
"So in that regard, filmmakers and Chinese audiences have a great appetite to work with foreign countries."
Australia's opportunity
Mr Feng is visiting Australia as part of the 7th annual International Chinese Film Festival, which is being touted as "the most commercially focused ever." Today he's speaking before dozens of top-level Chinese and local film executives at a forum in one of Fox Studios' massive production hangars in Sydney.
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Here they discuss bringing future co-productions to Australia that require high quality facilities and crews. While there's an abundance of talent in China, the country's special effects and post-production capabilities are slightly lacking.
"It's the ability to access our post [production] facilities here and expertise that we have to generate the production quality that Chinese audiences are now looking for," said Fox Studios Australia's General Manager, Wayne Borg.
"We've seen that being accessed by filmmakers around the world because they recognise the quality of what we have to offer here."
The forum is co-hosted by Ausfilm, which promotes Australian film incentives and facilities internationally. An official co-production treaty between China and Australia has been in place since 2008. So today was also a refresher of the various incentives available for Chinese filmmakers, including rebates of up 40%.
"You can get 30% back on visual effects, music and sound post production," she explained. "But also 16.5% if you simply want to locate here using some of the iconic destinations as well.
"It's all about sustaining a continuity of work, and these co-productions can add to that, then it's great for the Australian industry."
Willing producers 'a minority'
Taking advantage of our sites and facilities could see a boost in areas like tourism. Pre-production has begun on two major Chinese features in Australia: cross-cultural comedy "My Extraordinary Wedding", and a horror film starring Kelsey Grammer and Li Bingbing called "The Nest".
But Pauline Chan, the woman behind two previous China/Australia co-productions believes very few producers are willing to travel to Australia, where production values remain worlds apart.
"In Australia, people take longer time to work a scene," she said. "Also there's a penalty to overtime, whereas in China, one's working day is 24 hours. So they can do a film much faster with the same script."
It's also a matter of finding projects that audiences here and in China can agree on. Mr Feng is hopeful partnerships will be formed in the coming years where ideas and scripts are generated "organically".
But with audience demographics and trends constantly evolving worldwide, it's becoming clearer that production is just one part of making a successful film.
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