Author / Xiao Bao
Relying on the background music of the magic brain and the high-frequency fast cut of rural realism, "Classmate Zhang" is on fire.
His latest Douyin fans exceeded 16.622 million, the official media took the initiative to cooperate with him, and the regular traffic monetization business also began to rise, and Zhang was a mess.
However, if Zhang develops further in the field of content creation, who can become the case against it? Is it Li Ziqi, who also records rural life, Ding Zhen, who also has the same original color, or Zhang Hao, Chen Xiang, and even the Wanhe Tianyi team who also focus on plot creation? Before Zhang, Li Ziqi monetized in the mode of operating products, Ding Zhen earned income by relying on the position of government unit, and Zhang Hao, Chen Xiang, Yi Xiaoxing and others successively made short videos into medium videos and chinese videos into network movies, and the best of them even stepped into the threshold of cinema films. Therefore, we can't help but ask: Will Zhang make movies in the future?
"Classmate Zhang, very professional"
Before the media officially became interested in the real identity of Mr. Zhang, "Mr. Zhang, very professional" is the most frequent sentence commented by netizens. Specifically, some people think that Zhang's high-frequency fast cut is very professional, not one person can complete, there must be a team behind it; some people think that Zhang's shooting angle is very professional, which can see his good mirror operation skills; and some people think that each video of Zhang must have a script, and the plot points and emotional points have been strictly designed to make people fall into it and cannot extricate themselves.
In this regard, the netizens' analysis is not all right, nor is it all wrong.
On November 26, Mr. Zhang uploaded a video called "Revealing Classmate Zhang", in which he explained his shooting methods in detail, which is simply "one person completes, occasionally cooperates". On December 4, the Beijing News issued an article detailing Zhang's work. He said, "I did the shooting and editing alone", "No one taught me" "What to do today, what to eat, what to cook is the script", but he also said, "I have also taken some accounts for others before, and when I was most tired last year, I took six people's accounts by myself." At that time, I made two videos a day to record my life, a funny short drama, thinking every day, shooting every day. From September last year to now, every day I have been thinking about the content, keep shooting, keep cutting. ”
It can be seen that Zhang can be regarded as a "semi-professional". Like many video bloggers, there are self-taught, practiced, ideas, and experiences.
▲From "Revealing Zhang Classmate"
However, if only the "professional" filming method is not enough to make the outside world have a reverie of Zhang's film upgrade. For example, the science and technology blogger "Teacher Hello My Name Is He Classmate" is a representative of hardcore and humanities, but the audience will only preset it in the direction of "more hardcore" and "more humanistic" medium video. For example, there are many well-known photography bloggers who are the spokespersons for "professional shooting", but they do not produce content with the plot as the core, and the audience will only preset their expectations for them on the visual level. Therefore, what really makes Zhang have the possibility of making a movie is the plot creation. Just like the Zhang Hao team that created the "Siping Police" series on Kuaishou or the Chen Xiang team that created the "Chen Xiang 6:30" series on Weibo seconds, it is also like the Wanhe Tianyi team that created a series of hot network miniseries in the previous short video era. At the same time, taking the comparison between Zhang Ziqi and Li Ziqi as an example, although both rely on the creation of rural life to become popular, Zhang pays attention to the life scene of the strong plot, and Li Ziqi pays attention to the pastoral picture record. Therefore, if Li Ziqi is involved in long videos or drama movies in the future, the audience will probably give the premise of slow variety shows or documentaries. As we all know, documentaries have never been a strong contender on the commercial film track.
▲ From Weibo 2020 Super Reds Day Li Ziqi interview video
Who is helping grassroots creation?
Judging from the phenomenon of Zhang's popularity, in fact, we can also see the declining threshold of image creation and the rising quality of grassroots creation in recent years. On the one hand, this is the result of scientific and technological progress; on the other hand, this also has to make us as film and television practitioners think: Has grassroots creation become a new "young director" excavation pool? First of all, from a technical point of view, whether it is the innovative smartphone camera function or the creative auxiliary software development that various Internet video platforms attach great importance to, it has shown that we have entered an era where "everyone can become a director". For example, after Apple released the first mobile phone that can shoot high-definition 720P video, the iPhone 4, in 2011, Nokia N8 quickly launched the first feature film "Olive" filmed entirely by smartphones, and by 2012, the Oscar-winning documentary "Searching for Sugar Man" had partially used footage shot by the iPhone. Since then, as an exploration and gimmick, many brand advertisements have used iPhone-produced footage; since Apple updated the iPhone 6S series in 2015, there have been such as "Florida Paradise" (directed by Sean Baker, Douban score 8.1, nominated for the 70th Cannes Film Festival Directors Biweek Unit), "Heartless Madness" (directed by Steven Soderbergh and premiered at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival), "Goofy Bird" (directed by Steven Soderbergh, Netflix online) is such a feature film that uses all or part of mobile phone cameras. For example, OPPO in domestic mobile phone brands has launched the "Jiang Wen Film Filter", vivo and FIRST Youth Film Festival held a super short film unit, Huawei launched the "New Image Mobile Phone Movie Program" at the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival, and Xiaomi set up a mobile film studio brand Xiaomi Studios in the middle of this year. Just as video recorders replaced film machines in the past, the popularity of mobile photography has also made film creation more popular. Secondly, in order to seize the short video track city pool and consolidate their own creator resources, the domestic B station, douyin, Kuaishou-based UGC (user-produced content) / PUGC (professional production content) platform is also making great efforts in incubation and auxiliary functions. Taking Zhang as an example, behind its popularity is the support of the "Douyin New Farmers" program, which was launched in August last year to help the creators of state-level poverty-stricken counties through traffic support, operation training and monetization guidance, and the official announcement will invest a total of 1.2 billion yuan in traffic resources. Take Kuaishou's support plan, which will be introduced after a period of time, as an example, from food, agriculture, life, to overseas, games, and two-dimensional elements. In addition, it is necessary to mention the editing software and short drama business launched by various video platforms. In June 2019, the "Cut Screen" APP was launched, and was selected as the official video creation tool by byte-based Douyin and Watermelon Video; in July 2020, Station B followed close behind and launched a "must cut" APP for its own UP main service; in September of the same year, Tencent Video's editing tool "Second Cut" was also launched. At the beginning of this month, the computer version of "must cut" conforms to the launch, and the B station seems to have taken another city on the track of editing software.
As for the short drama business of these platforms, it is more relevant to the film and television creation we are familiar with.
Waiting for the next "famous" team
In fact, there are not many individuals or teams that have made a fortune by producing short dramas on video creation platforms in the past decade, but not many of them can stand the test of time today. Furthermore, the creative barriers between paragraphs, short videos, long videos, episodes, and movies really exist, and for many Internet celebrities (teams), whether to "people" or "teams" is always the core issue that affects their forward development. At this point, "Papi sauce" is probably a typical case of "coming out". As a senior student of the Central Academy of Drama who graduated from the directing department of the Central Academy of Drama, Papi Sauce initially became popular with the self-deprecating short video of the satin style; later, although Papi Sauce established a team and Papitube, whether it was to take over endorsements or star in movies, the most commercially valuable thing was herself. Just this year, the movie "Tomorrow Will Be Fine" with Papi Sauce as the first protagonist was also released. However, if you want to "promote" from a short video or short drama to an Internet celebrity with a film work, "out of the person" is certainly not enough, the most important thing is to "go out of the team". For example, at present, the more successful in the field of online movies are the "Siping Police" team and the "Chen Xiang 6:30" team. The former created the "Erlonghu" series since 2012, and then joined hands with the Douyin government number "Siping Police" to achieve the "Siping Youth" IP, and has so far launched and prepared more than 10 online movies, including "The Rise of Erlonghu Haoge" (2014), "Erlonghu Love Story" (2018), "Siping Police Peak Moment" (2021) and other works. The latter entered the audience's field of vision through the Weibo short video that began to be updated in 2015, and then created a good reputation with the grounded joke baggage and the realistic feelings of caring for small people, and has so far launched four online movies with high quality and sub-accounts, including "Chen Xiang's Six-and-a-Half Point Nonsense Less Talk" (2017), "Chen Xiang's Six-and-a-Half Point Iron Head Invincible" (2018), "Chen Xiang's Six-and-a-Half Heavy Building" (2019) and "Chen Xiang's Six-and-a-Half Folk Masters" (2020).
However, the above teams have not yet marched into the theater, indicating that their team capabilities, audience recognition and market appeal are not yet mature. Today, the only success in this promotion channel is Wanhe Tianyi and "Fame and Fame", although its success has no small luck factor, but the decade-long brand and talent accumulation can naturally take a few credits. Take Liu Xunzimo, the director of "Fame and Fame", as an example, who came from a science class, directed and participated in the web drama "Report Boss", and has a not shallow talent foundation. Therefore, even if the funds of the film version of "Report Boss" are broken, and he can only play some peripheral roles, Liu Xunzimo, who has directed and played, finally grinded out "Fame and Fame" in the style of "Willow Dark Flowers and Bright Village". Taking wanhe Tianyi's most well-known "beast easy little star" as an example, although his theatrical works "Never Expected: Journey to the West" (2015) and "The King of Bath" (2020) have a certain word of mouth and box office controversy, the variety show "Let's Start Shooting" still allows the audience to see some of his accumulation.
Therefore, the path of "video creators - internet celebrities (traffic valuers) - film and television creators" is not easy to go, in the face of the majority of the outside world and the majority of the people, are "Zhang students" ready?
Fortunately, today's vigorous grassroots creative environment can allow the audience to see more "Zhang Students", from capital to platform to technology, which also provides more powerful support for "Zhang Students". In practice, the "Zhang students" of the past, such as Wanhe Tianyi and Papi Sauce, are still working hard, and the new "Zhang Students" must add more efforts if they want to sword and point to more complex film and television creations.