The free filming ploy
Compared to the Cantonese neighborhood, the Qin Palace was a much vaster, much more difficult project.
Because the geology of Hengdian is very hard granite slopeland, mostly ridges with little or no vegetation, it was quite a job to blast the land flat for the Qin Palace, as well as for replica Ming and Qing-era imperial buildings that were being constructed at the same time. Says Yin Xu, general manager of Zhejiang Hengdian World Studios Company, "We used more explosives than all that had been ever used in Dongyang before that-it was really an astronomical figure."
Despite all the effort and investment, however, not many production companies trooped in, because transportation was still too much of a hassle.
In 2001, Hengdian World Studios (HWS) came up with a plan to end all plans, putting out the word that there would be no charge for using their sets for filming. Yin Xu says that at the then-going rate of RMB5-8000 per day, and based on an average of four sets rented for one month each, film companies could save RMB500-600,000-quite an inducement.
2003 proved to be a major turning point for Chinese film, and the breakthrough year for HWS as well. Director Zhang Yimou's film Hero set a new record for a domestic film by pulling in RMB250 million at the box office, and the number of visitors to Hengdian reached 1.58 million, an increase of 22% over the preceding year. That number rose by an astonishing 72% the following year, to 2.69 million, and broke through the 5 million mark in 2008.
One-stop shopping
The free filming plan turned out to be a winner, and the explosion of tourists coming to try to get a glimpse of their favorite stars has filled the studios' coffers with ticket revenues (at RMB100 to visit a single set or RMB350 for a combined pass) calculated in the billions of RMB annually.
Since 1996, HWS has invested about RMB3 billion in building 13 sets (including the Cantonese neighborhood and the Qin Palace), and the corporate group also has hotels, conference facilities, and scenery production companies under its flag. It can thereby provide "one-stop shopping" with the boast, "All you have to do is bring your script and take home the finished movie."
The Hengdian Group ranked 274th on the list of China's Top 500 corporations in 2008, with revenues of RMB17 billion. Currently the group's operations are divided into three main areas: industry, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, and cultural production. The firm employs more than 30,000 persons, with about 2000 of these at HWS.
Besides the influx of tourists, there has also been a boom in peripheral economic activities brought by the needs of the film crews that come to make some 80 films each year.
Take for example The Forbidden Kingdom, a joint venture between China's Huayi Brothers Media and a Hollywood company. They filmed in Hengdian for four months, renting 150 vehicles, spending nearly RMB1 million on lighting for the main hall of the Qin Palace, renting luxury trailers for the two headliners (Jackie Chan and Jet Li) at RMB4000 per day, and even paying HWS workers to "plant" 10,000 artificial peach trees (made using very expensive silk) for a scene requiring a plum-blossom grove. You could say that virtually every household in Hengdian makes its living from the movies.
Floating on a rising tide
Beijing, the economic and political capital of China, has had an influx of migrant workers known as "the northern tide." Hengdian has had a similar surge. Because films require large numbers of day-players, about 50,000 of Hengdian's population of 120,000 come from elsewhere, quite a large proportion. The movie The Forbidden Kingdom, for example, employed 6,000 extras. And in fact managing all these temporary workers used to be a real headache for HWS.
As general manager Yin Xu explains, there used to be cases of day-players causing problems for production companies by coming in late, leaving early, going on strike, or demanding large bonuses if the weather got too cold, despite the fact that the company had signed contracts with them beforehand. There were also cases of companies that failed to pay wages after filming was over, leading to fistfights.
To protect the interests of both labor and management, in 2003 HWS organized a union for day-players, which provides unified management for over 4,000 extras. Since then, film companies needing extras have just needed to contact the union and sign a contract with it, with all wages being paid through the union. If there are any disciplinary problems with day-players, the union will step forward and mediate or punish the offenders.
At present there are an estimated 100 or more movie studios in mainland China, but not more than 10 are of any scale. Is it possible that the "Hengdian model" of creating something out of nothing could be reproduced elsewhere?
"Not likely," opines Yin Xu with conviction. "In those days land policy was rather lax, and the land occupied by HWS was of poor quality anyway. Now the land situation in China is tighter, residents are much more attentive to their rights, and you couldn't get the same kind of coordination. There might be enough land in someplace like the Gobi Desert, but you couldn't get film crews or tourists to go that far!"
Hengdian is very large, but it is not its size that is most worthy of emulation, but the force it radiates for cultural industries to flourish. Although there is much room for improvement in the quality of tourism there, and services need to be more refined, Hengdian nonetheless has "star power" that goes a long way.