Text | Karina
Edit | Karina
Let's first imagine a scenario:
In a variety show, a Peking Opera veteran sang "Wu Zixu", and he was PK of a two-dimensional ancient style stage play, and after the performance, the audience voted to divide the victory and defeat.
When these elements are placed together, you must think that this is the latest variety show of the B station, the strong adherence of the guardians of several "marginal cultures" will inevitably lead to their "tearing" heads and blood, and the groups that were once high barriers and do not interfere with each other will surface, which will set off a "bloody rain", and they may enter the mainstream vision.
Can there really be a dialogue between the ancient art of Peking Opera and the nascent two-dimensional culture? Is it necessary to have a conversation? At the same time, you may also have a question - the game must have a standard, what is this standard? Who decides?
Some people have given answers to these questions, but not any platform, but by the creators of the web drama "Dreaming of Lions" through the wonderful "play-in-play", through the protagonist's emotional life and personal growth, they conveyed behind these seemingly "torn" cultures, their core convergence, the same destination.
"Dreaming of the Lion" is adapted from the IP of the novel of the same name by Xiao Fox, produced by iQiyi and Tencent Pictures, co-produced by Mengying Pictures and Alliance of the Gods Pictures, and produced by iQIYI Sesame Pod Studio, on October 28, under the scheduling strategy of the platform, 30 episodes were launched synchronously, which is undoubtedly a bold move, the word of mouth of the episodes often needs to be gradually fermented rhythmically, and the "hunger marketing" of the traditional update model for the audience can also promote the concentrated outbreak of discussion.
But facts have proved that all forms and strategies in the face of good works are not necessarily so important, although "Dreaming of lions" has not become a "hit" understood by the public, but it is a fine work whether it is from the level of adaptation or the completeness of the text and the fineness of production.
The spicy fish interviewed Huang Yingxiang, the director of "Dreaming of the Lion", and the producer Wang Jing, the two main creators chatted about the behind-the-scenes creation of the work, and at the same time, in the face of various doubts, they also had no choice but to answer one by one.
Although the creators have repeatedly emphasized that this is just an idol emotional drama, they have not thought about it, nor do they have the ability to carry the banner of cultural dissemination, but whether it is the "sweetness" of the idol drama, or the collision and output of culture, the audience can follow the growth of the character while "going up" and finding the "lion" in their hearts.
01
In love in the guise of culture?
"Dreaming of a Lion" tells the story of Yu Fei, a female elder who has studied Peking Opera for more than ten years in a lantern boat, was expelled from the division because she fell in love with her uncle, and was not allowed to appear in the past three years, and the frustrated Yu Fei met Bai Feili, a producer who was looking for a heroine for the ancient style stage drama, and coincidentally took the stage to shine her voice, but she could not meet her mother who was critically ill for the last time. Yu Fei with his mother's wish to become a horn, applied for the Xiqu Academy, and also opened a love journey with Bai Feili, the two went through the stages of "sprinkling sugar", "misunderstanding" and "choice", Yu Fei clarified his love for Peking Opera, Bai Feili also walked out of the childhood haze in Yu Fei's healing, and finally the two achieved a career in their respective career fields.
"Talking about love in the cloak of culture" is the biggest question that "Dreaming of the Lion" has been questioned, in this regard, director Huang Yingxiang's positioning of this work has always been very clear - idol emotional drama, while Peking Opera culture and two-dimensional ancient style stage drama are only the hobbies and professional backgrounds of the characters, "In my eyes, they are living people, with their own love-hate hatred, the original novel is also the same core, we speak for the niche culture, and the love-hate hatred of several living characters." ”
The most impressive thing about the original work is that it also lies in its "emotional concentration", love, family affection, mentor-apprentice love, and soul friendship are full of fullness and solidity, there is flesh and blood, there is a beginning and an end, obviously, from the perspective of readers and audience feedback, this is also the part that can resonate the most.
In the protagonist's love scene, it is also "comfortable" enough. The male and female protagonists are no longer cheesy domineering presidents and silly white sweets, but have formed a new era of love relationships of "female rigidity and male softness", which is not difficult to see from the various settings of male and female protagonists.
The female protagonist's name is Yu Fei, a rare female old student, practicing for several years, full of force, a backbone, heroic appearance, strong personality, dare to love and dare to hate; the male protagonist has a more feminine name Bai Feili, the appearance has feminine beauty, on the stage has been shown as a female role, and due to childhood trauma, "mother", "wardrobe", "blood" and other elements will make him seriously ill, is a seemingly more "weak" party.
In the context of the new era, modern women no longer need to rely on the face of the domineering president to fornicate, the savior in the relationship is no longer just a man, women can protect men, men can also calmly show vulnerability, evenly matched, common growth is what everyone wants to see, with positive value of the concept of love, at this point, "Dreaming of lions" undoubtedly did synchronize with the times, made a good balance and demonstration.
In the ink of female characters, in addition to the strong and independent Yu Fei, other characters are also remarkable. Female No. 2 Guan Zhi dove is the representative of "Cool Sister", professional capable, full of aura; Bai Feili's grandmother was once a university physics professor, and her dream when she was young was to be China's Marie Curie, and she still maintained her enthusiasm for life after retirement.
Of course, the main creator did not let them fall into the cliché of the big heroine, they are not perfect, they all have their own weaknesses, but this is real enough, director Huang Yingxiang said: "There is no perfect character, but those cracks are where the light comes in." ”
After talking about the love drama, let's talk about the cultural banner.
Although the creators have repeatedly emphasized that the dissemination and promotion of Peking Opera art is not the main purpose of the play, the entire work still shows their reverence for it. The main creator invited the famous Peking Opera actor Wang Peiyu and his team to be artistic director, the actors involved in Peking Opera performances are required to enter the group training in advance, although many singing sections still have professional Peking Opera actors to sing, but the actors' one move and one style, the mood has a look at the start. At the same time, each singing section has also made a large number of precise choices in content, echoing with the plot, so that Peking Opera is no longer a vague, background board-style performance, but has the functional significance of promoting the plot and plumping characters, and has become a part of the narrative.
For example, Yu Fei debuted on the ancient style stage and sang the classic "Shilang Visiting Mother", the camera was cut to the mother who was first aided in the hospital, and the parallel editing of the two scenes pushed the emotional concentration to the climax.
Yu Fei sang with tears: "I have the heart to go back to the camp to see my mother's side, how to block the pass, it is difficult to fly through the wings, thinking of the old mother, it is not sad to be sad." Seeing that gao tang mother is rare to see, the old mother of the child, to meet unless it is a reunion in the dream", the high degree of overlap and unity between the lyrics and reality makes the audience more understand the love between mother and daughter, and also deeply regrets and helplessness for Yu Fei's inability to see the last side of her mother; at the character level, this is Yu Fei's highlight moment, but also her growth moment.
More importantly, the passage between the audience and Peking Opera has also been established, and the Peking Opera of "Yangchun White Snow" has come to the audience's life, enabling the audience to achieve the greatest degree of empathy.
For example, after Yu Fei and Bai Feili broke up, in an important interview with Yu Fei, she sang: "Who do I speak to in a cold and cold way... My heart is willing to not kill the King of Ping", her eyes were full of pain and perseverance, and later she said: "The ideal is my Band-Aid", which is an important transition for her to turn her grief and anger into strength and begin to concentrate on her career.
In the presentation of the play, there are many similar elaborate plots, which can be seen that the creator's caution and meticulousness in treating the national essence of art is also the embodiment of the homework being solid and not timid. The audience can think that there is something bad or insufficient in expression, but they cannot deny their courage, boldness and sincerity.
02
Strive for restoration, the pursuit of innovation
As introduced above, the efforts made by "Dreaming of the Lion" in Peking Opera, in the face of the national essence, the second dimension that has not yet grown seems to be more thin, but the creators have spent no less effort on the production of ancient stage plays than Peking Opera.
Producer Wang Jing introduced that there are a total of 11 stages in "Dreaming of the Lion", "Whether it is the stage of Peking Opera or the stage of the ancient style stage, we have done our best to do each stage, we do not want this to be just a presentation of audiovisual language, promoting the plot and shaping characters is a very important role in these stages." ”
Artistic restoration is another difficulty in the adaptation of "Dreaming of a Lion", in the art design of the stage, not only to be sophisticated, but also to try to find the sense of atmosphere in the original work, bamboo forest, sky lanterns, oil-paper umbrellas, actors' costumes and other conventional operations have made the audience feel the "beauty of the ancient style", in terms of props, producer Wang Jing mentioned that in the first episode of Guan Jiu's stunning appearance in the stage play, several large drums around her are real, each side weighs 200 kilograms.
Director Huang Yingxiang was also deeply impressed by this stage: "I think the stage elements are not necessarily complicated, but the artistic conception and visual impact must be extreme. So the first episode of the ancient style stage play, although there are not many scenes, but we designed a Chinese feng shui sleeve dance, Guan Jiu danced between the six-sided drums, the design of the six-sided drum, there is nothing else on the stage except the drum, simple and memory points, dancing and dancing Snow, the artistic conception and aesthetics reflect the aesthetics and pursuits of the ancient style stage drama team of Jiubai. ”
Director Huang Yingxiang (first from right) directs the actors on the spot
The most important stage play of the whole play, "Nange Like a Dream", is presented in the finale, and behind this fifteen-minute performance is the double creative workload brought about by the completion of the structure of "play within a play", and at the same time, at the technical level, the team has also achieved a dazzling innovation that combines with the times.
Director Huang Yingxiang introduced: "According to the actual shooting conditions and difficulty, the main creative team worked with the stage director to improve the stage script, especially the stage of the final "Nange Like a Dream", we held many meetings and developed an independent, several-act stage script. We are equivalent to choreographing a complete 15-minute stage performance, in addition to the choreography of song and dance, according to the plot into the naked eye 3D, holographic projection, virtual idols and other elements, the middle also to insert the protagonists of the literary drama, the whole process is still very complicated, in fact, we ourselves are film and television presentation, can take shortcuts to design, but I and the team chose a difficult path, because there is a complete content as a fulcrum, the main creative departments are actually better to play. ”
When the virtual idol Xiao Jasmine jumped out of the screen, the audience in the play and the audience in reality exclaimed, which may be the result of director Huang Yingxiang's pursuit of the ultimate, she said: "In addition to the visual unique design, I hope that every stage has a soul." This soul is the theme of the stage, the sublimation of the characters, and the moment when the connection with the audience is reached.
03
The battle of cultures, dreams and love go hand in hand
Wang Peiyu, a professional Peking Opera consultant of "Dreaming of a Lion", once said in an interview: "At present, Peking Opera actors are not only a inheritor, but also learn to be a good communicator. This is also the value that "Dreaming of the Lion" upholds in the face of the declining Peking Opera art.
In the play, Yu Fei and Uncle Shi have many disputes over the future of Peking Opera, which is more like a long-term contest between the traditional school and the new school.
Borrowing Yu Fei's mouth, the creator made his point of view clear: "Is it a praise or a sadness for an art to become a national essence?" Living in the museum, living in the database, living as a national essence, for an art form, it is not really alive, but into the homes of the people, some people listen, some people say, and even some people scold, is an art category really alive... If an art form closes its doors, refuses to be understood and understood, is afraid of criticism and misunderstanding, and only clings to some of its past glory and self-congratulation, I am afraid that it can only lead to the result of standing still. Therefore, I think today that inheritance is greater than inheritance, but there is no innovation, how to talk about inheritance? ”
Immediately after being refuted by Uncle Shi: "Born to be a fish, because others like birds and grow wings, because others hate fish bones and strip bones, the rest can only be monsters, innovation is not self-destruction of martial arts, nor like other people's fur, take it and use it, not to mention the pandering of the end, do you think that blind pandering can find the real zhiyin?" It may sound reasonable, but in the end, Uncle Shi began to understand and accept the development of the times, and the changes in the form of communication.
If Peking Opera is its own reconciliation with the times, the second dimension encounters more doubts, not only to face the different eyes of the public, but also to withstand the "chain of contempt" from traditional culture.
But Bai Feili still gave an answer on behalf of the naïve second dimension: "Thank you to the seniors, because of your success, our life has a runway, the starting point and the end point have become very clear, all we have to do is to compete for speed, who runs faster, whose future is better, but is our life really just a runway?" We can obviously have many different directions, and there are as many routes and as many possibilities as there are as many people as we know, so please let us make mistakes. Let us wander, let us be broken, it doesn't matter if we take a detour, it doesn't matter if we fail, because in our lives, we don't want to surpass anyone, but to be ourselves. ”
What is niche culture? It is just a group of marginalized people who get together to warm each other, and what they believe is no different from mainstream culture and traditional culture, after all, it is just the ideal, love, and persistence in their hearts.
So, what is Volkswagen? What is niche? This is a relative concept, a hundred thousand people is a minority out of a hundred million people, but is the base of one hundred thousand people a minority? Many years ago, Peking Opera was difficult to find a ticket for, and it was also popular culture, and after many years, the second dimension may not become the mainstream.
With the development of the times, more emerging cultures will continue to be subdivided under the large-scale culture, they will grow delicate flowers from the cracks in the walls, they need more living space, only when the culture is more and more inclusive and diverse, people's spiritual life will become more and more sound. Whether it's traditional culture re-emerging in the spotlight, or subcultures thriving tenaciously, it's the best gift this era has given.
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