I Have a Question —— XD Productions

CGGE: Would you please introduce your company?

XD: XD Productions is a 3D animation and Post-Prod studio in France since 1999. We produce series, shows and feature films mostly for TV market. Since the beginning of the company, we have invested heavily in R&D, which resulted in the opening of an interactive game and attractions department in 2010.

CGGE: How does your product CyberDome change and affect the industry?

XD: We believe volumetric video will revolutionize audio-visual production. The freedom given to creators together with the productivity gains makes it a game changer. We have been developing the Cyberdome over the years, testing it in our production environment. The result is a complete production workflow for 3D production in real-time, reducing production cost by 10X. It makes 3D production more accessible and spectacular. Additionally, it opens the way for 360 interactive content on 2^nd screen applications and live broadcast (Sports, special events etc..)

CGGE:How many years have you been in China market? What do you think of China market?

XD:We have been in China market for almost 10 years! Actually, we provided the system that broadcasted of the first virtual weather report character on Chinese Television (SHANDONG TV Station in 2010). We set up the Hong Kong office in 2010, and now a China registered company in Shenzhen since 2016. So far, we have mostly supplied ANIMAKIT STUDIO, which is the Live character animation system provided to Shandong TV, but also to theme parks (Ocean Park HK, FantaWild China) and Universities.

The China market is one of the most exciting and prolific market for 3D content and video games in the world. Major players have already emerged and the competition is fierce, demand both from the mainland and foreign subcontracting is high. On the hand labor costs increase, the need to make faster and cheaper is here now, whereas it was not such an issue in previous years.

CGGE:Do you have any partners in China? What’s the role of Chinese partners?

XD: Not only we have partners, we set up a Chinese subsidiary in Shenzhen – XD China. Its director is a Chinese, M. Li, who has been in the 3D production industry for many years, and has been working with us since the beginning in 2010. On the other hand, we are not a big company, we cannot take on the whole Chinese market on our own, so we look for local partners and clients to work with us in China.

CGGE:Effects movies in China develop very fast. A lot of foreign creative teams joined the movie production. How do you think of this trend and what’s the difference among China, US and Europe?

XD: The difference with Europe where each country has their own policy for production. European producers needed to find ways to produce cheaper, either by subcontracting abroad, or by investing in new technologies like we did at XD Prod. It is difficult for Chinese producers to export their content and culture abroad like Hollywood does. It will take time but slowly the culture will become more and more global as we all learn from other culture thanks to internet. Overall, I think audio-visual industry has a very sustainable growth pattern, in fact A.I and robots will have a hard time to copy that!

CGGE: What’s your plan in developing business in China market?

XD: We plan to find a Chinese co-producer for our first movie 100% made in volumetric video. We already started shooting in the Cyberdome, we are looking to install a system in China to produce the Chinese version. Chinese TV, movie or video game producer partner would be perfect to operate and develop this new technology in China.

Reporter:Sophia