China Didn't Kill Roger Rabbit

BEIJING --- "China Kills Roger Rabbit," screamed a number of headlines of  SARFT's decision to 'ban' mixed live action/animation series (See 2.1 below) with pundits rushing to AP, Dow Jones, etc. to posit that SARFT was again reacting against 'superstitious' content that would muddle the minds of impressionable young Chinese children.

But, more careful analysis of the circular and the specific Beijing TV production that sparked the crisis suggests to this analyst that China has actually given 'live action-CGI' hybrids a new lease of life in the market, especially in educational and entertainment genres.

The story behind the latest hasty headlines starts with one of the numerous restrictions imposed by SARFT to limit the dominance of imported animation. This simply stipulates that to import one hour of animation, companies must produce one hour of animation. (CMM Passim)

While the intent of this restriction is clear, animation is still expensive and slow to produce with no guarantee of commercial success. With the alternative an endless supply of cheap, fast and tested foreign product, PRC broadcasters have a strong incentive to produce cheap animation to get their hands on the imports they really want.

The question around China became, "How cheap can we make animation?"

As one might expect, it was not long before several production companies and broadcasters persuaded themselves (and some SARFT officials) that cheap live action content with cheap CGI elements was, in fact, bone fide animation. Very nice too as hundreds of hours of cheap live/CGI product magically turned into priceless import quota hours.

And so it may have continued, until Beijing TV's Animation Channel (BTV-10) was spotted by an eagle-eyed senior SARFT official broadcasting a show called A Long, a copy of Japan's Automan. Primarily a live action show with flashes of CGI graphics, BTV had classified the production as animation in its submission to SARFT.

The show has since been pulled and BTV-10 has been warned that in the future it is only allowed to show animation. So where does that leave Roger Rabbit?

Well, according to the regulations, programs that have been 'incorrectly' classified as animation may simply re-apply for distribution permits under their correct genres. Since animation import restrictions are more onerous than any others, Roger would seem to be just one of the potential beneficiaries of the new classification.

CMM-I provides the full text of the circular in the Regulations section.