Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Hu Guangxin
The drama series "Hello! "Mother Adult" quietly began and quietly ended. Although the popularity is always not high, the evaluation is quite high - on Douban, "Hello! "Mother Adult" received a high score of 8.3, and there is such a popular short comment: "Here are the bits and pieces of a lifetime, and also write all the beauty and regrets around family affection." It has not had miraculous variables, nor has it concocted a sea of tears... The sound it makes is so precious and so warm. ”
"Hello! "Mother Adult" adopts the form of a multi-line parallel narrative, telling the lives of mother Ding Biyun (Dong Jie) and son Ding Xiaojun (Yin Fang), as well as the current encounters of the mother and son. In this drama, there is no "Ma Bao", "Brother Support Demon" and "Vampire Parents", but just quietly tells the life story of the mother and son spanning more than thirty years. The producers of the series voluntarily gave up those plots and topics that were enough to stimulate the big debate on the Internet, sacrificing the heat, but gaining word of mouth. Recently, the producer of the play, Zhang Ayi, and the screenwriter Gong Xue were interviewed by the "Yangcheng Evening News" and other media, Zhang Ayi admitted that when making family emotional dramas, he had his own scale in his heart: "Do not incite the anxiety of the public, do not create social topic confrontations, and do not cater to biased network emotions." In reverse operation, it is very easy to 'commercial success' or 'traffic success', but as a producer of literary and artistic works, I still insist on transmitting positive values. ”
Do not sprinkle dog blood, retain the prose poetic temperament of the original work
"Hello! "Mother Adult" is adapted from the essay collection "On the Clouds: 99 Little Things with Mother". In 2018, Zhang Ayi saw this book in the circle of friends and loved it when he bought it: "The author and I are both from Jiangsu, and many details in the book are too similar to my life experience, I did not hesitate to find a friend to introduce the original author and bought the film and television adaptation rights." In addition to the emotional drive, Zhang Ayi also saw the market potential of the theme of family affection: "First, it has no audience threshold; secondly, its emotional expression can arouse a wide range of resonance; finally, the original work is written very moving and real." ”
However, it is extremely difficult to make a collection of essays filmed. The emotions of the original work are very strong, but there is no coherent story line; there are a lot of time, places, and events in the book, which need to be carefully sorted out by the adaptors; the characters that run through the whole work are almost only the mother Ding Biyun and the son Ding Xiaojun, and the other characters suddenly appear and disappear. "When we were adapting, we needed to reorganize and design a story that fit the habits of watching a TV series, which was very, very difficult. It can be said that the script of this play is a self-torture. Zhang Ayi said.
In the end, Hello! "Mother Adult" breaks through the three-line parallel narrative approach. This drama actually tells three stories at the same time: The first half of Ding Biyun's life was under the tide of the era of restoring the college entrance examination, reform and opening up, and state-owned enterprise reform, and went through divorce, entering factories, laying off jobs, setting up stalls, etc.; "post-80s" Ding Xiaojun, although in a single-parent family, could grow up ordinary and happy under the protection of his mother Ding Biyun; entering the second decade of the 21st century, Ding Biyun unfortunately suffered from cancer, Ding Xiaojun resigned from his job in Shanghai, and accompanied his mother back to his hometown to spend the rest of his life.
Screenwriter Gong Xue said: "The original words and sentences are very simple, but behind it you can read the author's hidden affection. This also gives us an inspiration that we should restrain the sensational part and retain the flavor of the original. She described "Hello! "Mother Adult" is like a warm but powerful poem, "The narrative of this drama is always delicate, warm, romantic and clean, which is the most difficult, but also the proudest, it is like a new attempt of domestic drama - just restoring life can impress the audience." When I wrote this play, my heart became soft, and I believe that our audience is also a person with a soft heart. ”
"Hello! "Mother Adult" insists on restoring the truth in the creation, as Zhang Ayi said: "The lines speak human words, the costume is as close to life as possible, and the art setting also restores the real life scene as much as possible." The video part of the series is handled by a team composed of director Cao Dun and photography Jing Chong, and Zhang Ayi believes that they have achieved the ultimate in restoring the truth: "Photography, lighting, art, costumes and other links, they have achieved unified aesthetics and ultimate expression. The script largely retains the prose poetic temperament of the original book, so the director uses many long shots and fixed shots that are not common in TV series; the shots do not illuminate the actors, but render the atmosphere. These have become the places where the audience is currently talking about. I was also impressed by the tacit understanding of Cao Dun's directorial team, and it was very rare that we finished our pre-shooting on time every day. It is precisely this tacit way of working that makes all actors have a sense of real relaxation when performing. ”
Regardless of the flow, Dong Jie is the best Ding Biyun
Ding Biyun in the play explains very well what is "mother is gang". Gong Xue said: "In fact, there are many 'Ding Biyun' in real life, encountering suffocating and desperate moments, without the superpower of opening and hanging, but relying on their own clumsiness to make a road." So the greatest thing is that Ding Biyun always has a way to hold on, and in the process, she did not become cold, but always treated life gently, accompanied by her son, ate every meal, and maintained good neighborhood affection. ”
Played by Dong Jie as the loving mother Ding Biyun, this matter has set off a hot discussion on the Internet. But Gong Xue believes that Dong Jie is very compatible with Ding Biyun in the original work, and praises it even more: "Once she was Leng Qingqiu, since then she has been Ding Biyun." Dong Jie is not Ding Biyun's first choice, and Zhang Ayi initially considered inviting some actors with higher traffic to star, but in the end he chose "strength first". He said: "After I exchanged ideas with director Cao Dun, I still think that this group of actors is better now. Because they are low-key and do not have those stereotypes, it is more credible to portray ordinary people. The biggest reason for choosing Dong Jie to play is that she can empathize with this story and this role. I've sent scripts to several actors, and she gave me the fastest feedback, and her feedback was the closest to the original book and the temperament of the script. Now her performance is also obvious to all, both the original author and the audience, think that she is the best Ding Biyun. ”
In this year's Spring Festival, Jia Ling's "Hello, Li Huanying" received more than 5.4 billion yuan at the box office, and the theme of "mother's love" resonated with the whole people. Zhang Ayi said that doing "Hello! The original intention of "Mother Adult" is the same as other works of the same theme, that is, to show the audience the greatness of the mother and the deep affection of the mother's love: "It is a pity that we made the script and started the earliest time, but the broadcast time was relatively late. But after all, we are TV series, and the shooting and production cycle is inherently longer than the movie. In addition, we use a non-linear narrative, this narrative structure can greatly enhance the watchability of the story, and the audience's sense of substitution will become stronger, but the disadvantage is that everyone needs to calm down to watch. But we can't let everyone watch it in an immersive environment like a movie, so for now, this show will have some shortcomings in terms of traffic. ”
In Zhang Ayi's view, "Hello! "Mother Adult" is a "delayed gratification" drama: "Our film and television drama market is so huge, there are audiences who love to watch the sweet pet Mary Sue, and there are audiences who love to watch realistic narratives." I hope that our work will give the audience more choices, when they want to sink their hearts into a touching story, they can choose this play. At the same time, we also hope that the audience can liberate themselves from addictive entertainment methods (such as brushing short videos, playing games, microblogging melons, etc.) and focus more on real life, even if it is good to accompany parents to watch our dramas. ”
Gong Xue said: "I think "Hello! "Mother Adult" is a 'blockbuster', and word-of-mouth explosion is more difficult than traffic explosion. This is not a cool drama, each character is a real and ordinary person around them. I hope that after watching this drama, the audience can learn to get along with their families, learn to cherish their current lives, and even learn to say goodbye. ”
Editor: Hu Guangxin
Source: Golden Sheep Network