"The non-linear narrative mode starts from events and themes, contrasts the mother's emotional journey with the son's emotional line, and the fragmented editing is restrained and calm, avoiding cheap sensationalism..." This is on Douban, a netizen commented on the TV series "Hello! Mother's High Praise.
As a drama with no traffic actors and no big IP, "Hello! "Mother Adult" is based on the author's autobiographical essay collection "On the Clouds: 99 Little Things with Mother". Since it was broadcast on multiple online platforms on October 13, the Douban rating is currently as high as 8.3. Starring Dong Jie, Yin Fang, Lu Fangsheng and others, the drama tells the story of the half-life trajectory of an ordinary mother and son in a small town in northern Jiangsu Province spanning thirty years. Director Cao Dun and screenwriter Gong Xue used an unconventional narrative structure to tell the story of mother Ding Biyun (Dong Jie), son Ding Xiaojun (Yin Fang) and mother and son in three narrative lines, no chicken soup and no dog blood, some are just ordinary trivialities.
"Hello! The first line of "Mother Adult" tells the story of Ding Biyun, and the indifference of the original family to her has created her stubborn personality. After her husband cheated, she chose to leave, live alone with her son, and taste the heartache of the world; the second line is the life of her son Ding Xiaojun, who grew up in a single-parent family, he was sensitive and lonely, and he was also confused after being admitted to college, and finally, with the encouragement of his mother, Ding Xiaojun regained his strength; the third line was that the elderly Ding Biyun looked forward to a happy life, but found that he was terminally ill. Ding Xiaojun gave up wandering back to his mother and began a difficult but warm anti-cancer life.
Warm, so crying, real... This is the most popular evaluation of this drama on the Internet. Zhang Ayi, the show's chief producer, said that the story is the most important, "There are audiences who love to watch sweet pets, but there are also audiences who love to watch realistic narratives." As producers, I hope that our work will give the audience one more choice — when they want to sink their hearts into a touching story, they can choose our play. ”
(The following self-description is based on the interview with chief producer Zhang Ayi)
When our play came out, there were actually a lot of viewers who were questioning.
Let's just say that our title turned out to be "Goodbye!" Mother Lord", later changed to "Hello! Mother Adult", it seems to rub the heat of Jia Ling's movie "Hello, Li Huanying". Not really. As for why the name of this drama was changed, it was because of the impact of the epidemic, when we were about to broadcast, many people proposed that the sad atmosphere of "goodbye" was too strong, so later we changed it to "Hello", in fact, there is also the meaning of re-understanding the mother through this drama.
The preparation time of our drama is very early, in 2018, and in September 2019, it started in Ningbo, which lasted for 4 months. In 2018, when we dismantled the original book for script creation, the entire film and television market was still relatively impetuous, everyone was disturbed by capital "restless", I just came out to start a business at that time, there was no capital to "mix" me, I could only settle down to engage in the script, with the deepening of script creation, I found that this story, its emotional expression is widely resonant, the original writing is very moving.
It's hard for us to imagine how a collection of essays could be adapted into a screenplay. Later, I found screenwriter Gong Xue to cooperate. In the adaptation of the script, our core is still two characters, that is, Ding Biyun and Ding Xiaojun, and the other characters appear bit by bit. The original work as a whole does not have a complete story, which requires us to reorganize and design a story that meets the viewing habits of the TV series when adapting, which is very, very difficult, it can be said that the script of this drama is a kind of self-torture. We have adopted a non-linear narrative in the narrative, and it is a three-line narrative, which can greatly enhance the watchability of the story and make the audience's sense of substitution stronger, but the disadvantage is that everyone needs to calm down to watch.
Judging from the current evaluation, everyone thinks that Dong Jie and Yin Fang performed greatly, saying that we chose the right person. But in fact, at the beginning, we also had some anxiety in the selection of actors. As a producer, in the early stage, I also had some considerations of both strength and flow actors, and later after exchanging ideas with Cao Dao, I still felt that this group of actors was better now, because they were low-key, they did not have those stereotypes, and they created an ordinary talent that could be believed by the audience. When the audience watches the play, it is still the story and the characters, and we are not a play that only needs to look at the faces of the actors.
For example, Dong Jie, when she was chosen to act, the biggest reason was that she could empathize with this story and the role, I sent scripts to several actors, and she was the fastest to give me feedback, and the feedback was closest to the original and script temperament. It turns out that being able to empathize with the characters with a high degree of empathy really matters. After all, we are a very realistic drama, and her performance is also obvious to all, whether it is the original author or the audience, they all think that she is the best Ding Biyun.
There are no traffic actors, and there is no topic, and our drama is really popular when it starts. However, the later word of mouth still dispelled my previous regrets and anxieties, good works, can become classic literary and artistic works, the vitality must be quite strong.
This drama is warm and slow, which is also the original intention of our production of this drama, hoping that everyone can learn to slow down, calm down, block noise and interference, and really touch and feel life. From a small point of view, in fact, it is hoped that the audience can liberate themselves from the addictive entertainment method, focus more on real life, don't pay attention to what love beans, pay more attention to parents or friends, take out a large amount of time to chat with them, share the recent life feelings, even if it is to accompany parents to watch our drama, it is also good. I hope that everyone can really care about the people around them, no matter what kind of quarrels and estrangements they have had with their parents and families, they can get a certain degree of healing through this story, and the most important thing is to reconcile with their inner entanglements and resentment.
Red Star News reporter Qiu Junfeng
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