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In recent years, film directors have become a common phenomenon in the industry.
Or to support new directors, or to attract investment and actors in the project yard plate, or to help promote the film under a name. However, the quality and effect of the "works of the great director and producer" are uneven. In the past, there was "Ferryman" produced by Wong Kar-wai and directed by Zhang Jiajia, and then there was Ning Hao, Xu Zheng supervised, and "I Am Not a Medicine God" directed by Wen Muye was a box office "double-sealed god".
This year's trend of "big director and producer" is particularly obvious, and the works that come out seem to have been qualitatively improved.
At the beginning of the year, "Assassination of a Novelist", produced by Ning Hao and directed by Lu Yang, achieved a high box office of more than 1 billion yuan and was praised as "representing the most cutting-edge level of the current domestic film industry"; in the middle of the year, the main theme film "Revolutionary", produced by Guan Hu and directed by Xu Zhanxiong, also won more than 100 million box office in a very cold schedule, and achieved a good reputation of 7.5 points on Douban; at the end of the year, "Yang Ming Liwan", produced by Han Han and directed by Liu Xunzimo, became a dark horse, and good reputation helped its box office jump rapidly to more than 800 million.
Next, a series of "Big Director And Producer Films" such as "Manslaughter 2" produced by Chen Sicheng and directed by Dai Mo, "Flames on the Plain" produced by Diao Yinan and directed by Zhang Ji, and "Love Myth" directed by Xu Zheng and directed by Shao Yihui are also about to meet with the audience. In this "producer boom", what kind of impact can the big director and producer bring to the industry?
Strong financial and resource support
The most direct way to participate in the film is to produce or co-produce the company he founded, bringing extremely tangible "real money" to the film project.
Among them, the most representative are Ning Hao and Xu Zheng.
Founded by Ning Hao, Bad Monkey Pictures and the "72 Change Film Project" have previously launched newcomer works with box office appeal and word-of-mouth influence, including "Embroidered Spring Knife 2: Shuluo Battlefield", "I Am Not a Medicine God", "Beneficiary", "Tropical Past", etc., and have cultivated many outstanding young creators such as Lu Yang, Wen Muye, Shen Olympic, Wen Shipei and so on. "Miracle", which is scheduled to be released on the first day of the Chinese New Year in 2022, is also a film work produced by Ning Hao and produced by Bad Monkey, and it is also the "second-in-one work" of Ning Hao + Wen Muye, or it will once again produce word-of-mouth and box office "miracles" in the Spring Festival file. In addition, Ning Hao and "Bad Monkey" also launched the black comedy "Second-hand Masterpiece" directed by Wang Zizhao and starring Yu Hewei, Guo Qilin and Ni Hongjie in May this year.
Xu Zheng and his founding zhenle dao have launched films such as "Behind the Scenes Player", "Living Together in Time", "I Am Not a Medicine God", "Pet" and other movies in the past few years, and the "Love Myth" that will be released in the Christmas file this year is the supervising work of Xu Zheng's support for the new female director Shao Yihui after the 90s. The same is true of the Winter Olympics-themed tribute film "My Heart Is Flying", which is scheduled to be released on the first day of the Chinese New Year, produced by Xu Zheng and produced by Zhen Ledao, directed by Wang Fangfang, and starring Meng Meiqi and Xia Yu.
In addition to Ning Hao and Xu Zheng, almost all the "works of the great director and producer" will operate in this way. Behind "Flames on the Plain" are Diao Yinan and Green Light Pictures, behind "Manslaughter 2" is Chen Sicheng and YiTong Legend, behind "Fame and Fame" is Han Han and Tingdong Pictures, behind "Revolutionary" is Guan Hu and Seven Impressions, behind "I Want Us Together" is Chen Guofu and Gongfu Pictures, behind "Tomorrow Will Be Good" is Jia Zhangke and Warm Current Culture...
While "real money and silver" spend money to supervise production, big directors and producers will use their industry influence and rich network resources to pull a very considerable and even luxurious cast for the film project. In the early years, Wong Kar-wai had brought a super star lineup such as Liang Chaowei and Jin Chengwu to "The Ferryman".
As a director from an actor, Xu Zheng's supervising works are mostly starred by himself, which in turn attracts more well-known actors to join. "Love Myth" is like this, starring Xu Zheng, Ma Yili, Wu Yue, Ni Hongjie and other stars. In other films released this year, Yin Zheng, who has worked with Han Han many times, starred in "Fame and Fame"; Diao Yinan attracted Liu Haoran and Zhou Dongyu for "Flames on the Plain"...
Creative and artistic direction
As Rao Shuguang, president of the China Film Critics Association, said, "The functions of mainland film producers are more 'supervisors' than 'producers', stripping away budget control, financial and capital operation functions, retaining the responsibility of balancing the artistic creation of directors and the commercial attributes of films, and shouldering the responsibility of cultivating new talents", the position of "producer" originating from the Hong Kong film industry in the first few years of being introduced to the mainland, experienced such chaotic situations as "nominal producer", "named producer, actually producing or producing", and other irregularities and unclear powers. In recent years, in the process of gradual development and improvement, its functions and responsibilities have been basically clarified.
In addition to supporting the projects he supervises with his powerful resources and funds, he still focuses on creation and artistic style, and guides and controls the works. "Teacher Han Han liked it very much after reading the script of "Fame and Fame", Liu Xunzimo had previously talked to Bone Duo about the help of producer Han Han, "After watching the finished film, he gave us a lot of advice, such as which emotions can be postponed again, not to destroy the audience's experience." Zhang Ji, the director of "Flames on the Plain", also told Bone Duo that every time he wrote a draft of the script, he would send it to the supervising producer Diao Yinan to read, "He would put forward a lot of constructive suggestions, and also stayed with us in the northeast for a long time to shoot." ”
Wang Xiaoshuai also said in the supervision of "Old Beast", "After director Zhou Ziyang completed the original state of the film script, I put forward some suggestions on narrative structure to make the structure of the play more complete, more tense and more attractive. He believes that a very important point for the producer is the sense of proportion of creative intervention, in the early stage of the script to provide more guardian-like help and control, you need to predict what gaps and problems will occur between a script and a director in the imagination of a movie and the actual operation, what is missing.
At the creative level, large directors supervise a work in most cases to intervene in the early stage of the script, or rely on their past experience and deep understanding of the work to provide new creators with reference opinions on creative direction, narrative techniques, picture style, etc., or balance the artistry and commerciality of the film in the stage of post-editing and film promotion, so as to ensure the artistic quality and viewing of the film.
Therefore, although the story of "The Ferryman" is very exaggerated and hollow under the screenwriting and directing of Zhang Jiajia, it can still be seen that Wong Kar-wai's kind of frame-drawing, monologue, and colorful artistic characteristics can be seen. "Desperate" is also "the texture of the crime type that Cao Baoping is good at", and "Beneficiary" reflects the "Ning Hao-style civilian black comedy charm".
One wins and one loses
On the one hand, under the general trend of the industry where directors are generally supervising producers, many high-quality works have been filmed, and many talented newcomer directors have been widely concerned. On the other hand, the current situation of the industry of "one prosperity and one loss" cannot be ignored.
The most popular case of the film director's supervising work is Wong Kar-wai's "Ferryman", when the film was released that year, the most tragic scolding was not Zhang Jiajia as a director, but Wong Kar-wai as a producer. Feng Xiaogang's "Destiny" and "The Bad Guy Must Die", Huang Jianxin's "Never Expected", "The Frozen Gate of Rebirth", and Jia Zhangke's "Tomorrow Will Be Good" are all examples of negative impacts.
And when the rise of online film and television in recent years, many big directors have been involved in the field of online dramas, and for a time, film directors and producers of online dramas have become popular, but they have fallen to the altar shortly after the "wind rises". Chen Kaige supervised the production of "The Biography of the People's Early Strange People", and Wang Jing supervised the production of "The Fragment of the Adventure King Wesley", which are all unsuccessful cases. In the case of the double failure of popularity and word of mouth, the big producer was scolded, and the "small director" was even less known.
The better reputation is "Detective Chinatown" supervised by Chen Sicheng, "Longling Labyrinth" and "Nuqing Xiangxi" supervised by Guan Hu.
These well-known online dramas not only further enhance the goodwill of the producers in the hearts of the audience, but also let the industry pay attention to a number of outstanding young creators such as Ke Wenli, Dai Mo, Fei Zhenxiang and so on. After directing "Detective Chinatown", Ke Wenli successfully took over the big IP drama "Female Psychologist", Dai Mo also succeeded Ke Wenli to direct "Manslaughter 2", and Fei Zhenxiang directed several "Ghost Blowing Lights" IP series in a row. It can be seen that the works produced by film directors and supervisors, whether they are films or online dramas, do not necessarily have a positive blessing effect, and in the context of the central system of film directors in the mainland, the quality of a film and television work is more related to the director's narrative level and aesthetic level.
The trend of big directors and producers may continue to roll in, but when the quality improvement of works no longer only relies on the aura of producers, it is also a good thing to gradually improve the maturity of directors, screenwriters and producers in the creation of closed loops. Since Dadao can directly or indirectly effectively make blood for the industry, it also has a more "deep hidden merit and name" flavor.