MINIMALIST POMELO-a professional production and management company

MINIMALIST POMELO(MP) is a creative film and television culture media company. MP’s team has been active in the cutting-edge industry for many years. They have rich experience in international brand service, excellent original content production ability, keen business and artistic sense, rigorous professional service attitude and self-seeking, rich global film and television. Industry resources, including “Three Countries Hegemony“, “Darksider II“, “Sword and Hometown” promotional video. Today, CGGE specially visited the PM and visit with their CEO Mr. Shi Zhi about their story.

CGGE: Although the company is still young, the strength cannot be underestimated. In particular, there are many overseas talents, such as Abed Abonamous who participated in Marvel-One-Shot, Tony Holmsten who participated in Gry Good DLC Cutscenes, and so on. What prompted these overseas talents to join the team and participate in the project together?

Shi Zhi: Although the company was founded less than three years ago, we hope，from the very beginning，to build a quality assurance production and management team. The addition of overseas talents can enhance the competitiveness of our team and expand our international horizons. This is actually what many teams in China chase now. With the addition of overseas teams, we can more effectively integrate into international cooperation, avoiding some misunderstandings and unnecessary costs due to the lack of understanding between the two sides (cultural differences and project production process).

During the past ten years, the main management team and I have participated in many international projects, and we have a good understanding of the differences between domestic production and domestic production processes, such as the division of artists for foreign production. The details of management, such as the full exercise of the director’s power in the production, the overall artistic sense to a film, rhythm, plot, etc., the scriptwriter’s adaptation of the script and the depth of the role and world view content, the producer for each artistic and technical guidance; this is unlike the management method during the domestic production, that the project manager has full authority to manage all aspects of the production process, and often ignores or reduces the director’s responsiblity when pursuing low cost and rushing schedule.  Such practice will actually hurt the presentation of content, because the necessary review of many steps is not in place, and the final film can only be modified repeatedly, which increases the cost and extends the production time. We have learned from the project management we have experienced in the past, and we have gained reputation and world connections.

CGGE: Your team is not a big team, but it’s very capable. At present, the labor costs in Shanghai, including other parts of China, are also very high. Does this small and sophisticated team have a shortage of personnel in the management of multiple projects?

Shi Zhi: It is true that our team is small but capable. And our team covers the entire process, from pre-production to post-production. In addition to labor costs, we concern more about the company’s positioning. We don’t want to be a manpower factory. We need a team that is both good at technical production and project management. We don’t want to win by quantity, but we have more requirements for the overall control of the project and the output of high-quality content.

CGGE: I noticed that there is a process for PREVIZ in your process. For PREVIZ, this technology is widely used in VFX film in the United States, but it is still rare in China. What prompted you to adopt PREVIZ?

Shi Zhi: Previz is actually very regular in the overseas film industry for the past twenty to thirty years.. It is actually very widely used in large investment movies, especially VFX movies. And Previz is very useful for cost control. From Previz you can see the approximate effect of the film, which saves production time; increase the production effectiveness and you can makes effective and quick adjustments to some of the shots. This step has not been utilized by many domestic companies. Most of them are directly from LAYOUT into production. But LAYOU can only show time control and composition. But Previz can display more visual effects and special effects. This is the biggest difference with LAYOU. And we did benefit a lot from the production of Previz. However, there are currently few domestic Previz talents.

CGGE: What types of films are the company currently making? Are you considering developing your own original work?

Shi Zhi: We will definitely develop our own works. We have plans, but now it’s not the time. Now, we mainly focus on high-quality commercials products such as CG and TVC. We are a team that hopes to achieve China’s A-level quality. TVC is also our strength; especially live action mixing CG synthesis. There is a relatively small number of domestic suppliers, most of which are traditional advertising industries, and generally large film production companies are less willing to create VFX movies other than such projects. Our works have won the “Best Popularity Award for the China Advertising Film Golden Lion Award” and the “China Great Wall Gold Award”. Other works have also been selected for “Universe Multiculture Film Festival 2019”. t is an affirmation of our work and production management capabilities.

Our own works is on the way. Original content is the ultimate goal of this industry. Outsourcing is not a long-term road for production companies. Just like factory porters, the value of the company is very low. It is not the most favorable for the future development of employees, and with little the growth space.  Now we are only confirming one direction of the works. I also found a team at home and abroad to develop a script outline. In terms of the type of production, we prefer short film, which may be more suitable for our team, because it can effectively control the cost and achieve a higher level of quality; it is easier to development than the high-cost film with the overall world view.

CGGE: You have a team that can do both production and production management. Do you consider the set up a professional producer team?

Shi Zhi: In fact, the producer team system has been already introduced to film and television production. But for anime production, it’s still a long way to go. The current animation production is still based on the idea of ​​an outsourcing factory; as long as there was a production team, the whole production could be completed. Large teams can be maintained with the stability of volume of production; But in fact, a good producer team can help the project to produce more cost-effectively with the suitable production team. It can quickly pickup the different teams to the different production.  It has more options, rather than directly to one team to complete all the tasks. This is what we have been thinking about and we are pursuing a capable producer team. In addition, there are still lacking bilingual producers with experienced management in China. We also hope that we can cultivate our high-quality bilingual producer talents through cooperation with overseas.

We can tell that MP has a clear industry perspective and adheres to the development of its own producer team. We hope that in the future, we can see more excellent works from MP, and in the cooperation with overseas, MP can truly go abroad and go to the world.

Reporter: Sophia