How does "Wuha 2" pull up the reins of the story and break the narrative ceiling of the "Medium Variety Show"?
Text | Heineken
A year ago, Deng Chao, Chen He, and Lu Han thought that they were just eating an exquisite dinner on the ship, but they did not expect that the ship really left and started a hahahaha journey.
Such an "uncontrolled" escape set the tone of "Hahahaha". The audience is accustomed to seeing the directional efforts of the guests in the "control" situation. "Wuha" is a task without too much control and linearity, handing over the remote control of the trip to the fireworks world.
For program production, prior uncontrollability brings a certain degree of production risk. However, "Wuha" has explored an innovative set of narrative logic. Don't rely on the traditional linear architectural logic of "release tasks -- constant challenges-to-results". Instead, in an uncontrollable environment, through non-linear narrative, look for multiple possibilities of the story.
At the same time, this season's "Hahahaha" explores in the field of variety shows, making the length of each episode more suitable for the user's viewing habits, and ensuring the integrity and rhythm of the narrative within the shortened single episode length.
So, how does "Wuha 2" carry out non-linear medium variety narrative innovation?
Boldly embrace the unknown world
The development of travel variety shows for many years has formed a routine: the program group sets the rules, and the guests complete the task within the rules. In linear narrative logic, the travel destination simply serves as the background in which the story takes place. Even if the rules are designed to be mysterious, it will eventually be a "created world" that will touch the narrative ceiling.
In the context of the epidemic, re-examining travel variety shows has a special significance. The virus tries to cut the distance between people and people, and puts many restrictions on life. We need to deeply embrace the world, live in the present, and experience the unknown world in the journey of walking and walking. "Hahahaha" is in this context.
No artificial design can compare with the living fireworks world. Therefore, "Wuha" chose to let life give inspiration to the show, so that the guests boldly embraced the unknown world.
The first episode of the first issue uses a task-based linear narrative familiar to the audience, and the guests follow the master to learn the technique of making noodles. But in the next episode, a more romantic, random approach to storytelling is changed. The three noodle shops have been transformed into story noodle shops, and people who pass by late at night can eat a bowl of noodles for free as long as they have a story.
So we saw the grandmother who picked up the bottles, refusing free noodles and drinks over and over again for fear of wasting. When the food was in front of her, she opened the handkerchief and took out the carefully sorted money to pay the bill. And the money was picked up by her bottle by bottle. Her small granddaughter, also because of her work, understands the hard-won and self-reliant dignity of life.
We saw the takeaway guy who continued to run orders in the heavy rain. He experienced the ruin of a failed business. He couldn't stop because there was still a family to feed, and there was hope as long as he continued to do it. Looking at this noodle restaurant, he said that he is also a chef and hopes to have such a small shop in the future.
These are the people we usually pass by on the street. We will naturally label them as "scavengers" and "takeaway brothers" without even saying a word. But in the show, following the members of the "Five Ha" tour group, we saw the vivid life behind these symbols.
"Wuha" gives narrative control to real life. Warm encounters tell the original intention of "Wuha" to rethink the distance between people in the post-epidemic era: when we no longer turn a blind eye to life and rush through, the world will show its warm side without reservation.
"Wuha" adopts the mode of blending linear narrative and non-linear narrative. Overall, ten trips represent ten blind boxes that open ten different trips.
In each episode, there are some linear narratives, stabilizing the narrative rhythm, allowing the audience to enter from a clear viewing purpose, and then slowly expanding the non-linear narrative, because it is random, so interesting; because it is unpredictable, it is more adventurous. On the one hand, it can stimulate the enthusiasm of the members of the Wuha Group to travel, so that they can release the true appearance of "unmodified", on the other hand, it also brings a fresh look and feel to the audience, and unknown expectations.
A long road of life, enlightenment in the "five ha"
When you first watch "Hahahaha", you will think it is a hilarious journey because of the name. After following the journey of the show, I found that in addition to joy, what is more profound is the optimism of laughing at the five tastes of life.
In the latest issue of "Five Ha", the program team aggravated the "sense of loss of control" of travel. In the past, although they were constantly embracing accidents, the control was still in the hands of the guests themselves. But this time, the audience voted in real time, controlling the behavior of the guests.
This design allows guests and audiences to complete a truly real-time interaction. When the guests are facing the topic offline and thinking about how to escape from the desert island, the audience who has control online also needs to judge which option is the right choice through previous experience. This time the desert island survival is a journey completed by the "Wuha" tour group and netizens across the line and offline.
Since the audience has control, it increases the uncontrollable power of the narrative this time. Coupled with the serial game framework designed by the program team, the narrative has many possibilities. As a result, we saw in the show that Lu Han and Peng Yuchang ate two carb bomb Chinese meals. When I thought I was about to pass the pass, I suddenly returned to the starting point because of the choice of netizens.
After restarting, getting on the road again and again, and accepting the choice, the "Wuha" tour group realized the truth of many lives. For example, many times, the joystick of life is not completely in our own hands, and we can work hard, but we cannot fully grasp the direction of events. Running blindly, it is better to make a choice from the heart and then enjoy the journey.
The members of the group performed the pain in person. Faced with canned herring, Chen He came up with a two-team competition in an enhanced version. This is an unplanned plot, but also an added joke, and it is also the spiritual embodiment that "Hahahaha" wants to convey.
Due to the change in narrative logic, the members of the group are faced with a completely different experience from the past self-control. This experience makes the variety show no longer a man-made customs clearance scene, but a simulation of the feeling of a long road of life. Our life is not also under the interaction of external forces and internal forces to go around and forward. When the members of the group are constantly restarting, exploring their own initiative in the external force, and finally successfully leaving the island, they can have the real sense of release of the final team members riding bicycles and sprinting desperately.
This is the emotional core of "Five Ha". All the way hahahahahaha, in the fusion with the fireworks world, I realized a lot of life philosophies. In the face of loss of control, in the face of the unknown, return to optimism, laugh at everything, that is, the five tastes of life, haha to right.
"Wuha" of "Medium Variety" innovation
This season's "Hahahaha", using each episode of the upper and lower episodes, each episode is about an hour long, which is a typical "medium variety" design. China Variety show is not simply to cut the long variety show short, but to establish a new set of narrative rhythms.
"Wuha" explores the narrative logic of changing the stereotyped and task-oriented variety show, and opens its heart to embrace external forces. But this is precisely the challenge for the production of the show, how to maintain controlled viewing in the runaway.
In the latest issue, audience interaction was added, increasing the possibility of unknown plots. But if you keep getting stuck in an infinite loop, it becomes counterproductive.
The program team took this into account during the design phase. For example, the breakfast session, single-wheel eating, double-wheel washing dishes. Another example is to add hidden, passively triggered tasks to create two sets of "foot washing" interactions. These pre-buried designs have become the control points of the narrative rhythm of the program group. Even if the members of the group are whirling around under the control of the user, they can still have a sense of freshness that is different from the last time, forming an effective narrative.
"Hahahaha" completes an independent narrative in the length of each episode. For example, in the latest episode, the previous episode needs to explain to the audience the new game logic, although it does not progress much, but it will properly structure the fun of infinite loops.
The next episode is relatively fast, because the audience has already understood the game concept of this issue, and it is more focused on the effective progress of the plot, highlighting the autonomous behavior between the members of the group. In the end, it is sublimated into a desert island escape with brothers working together.
The narrative rhythm of "Hahahaha" is not to make the audience become observers on the sidelines, but to stimulate synchronicity and empathy as much as possible. There is no overly strong sense of mission, but it can inspire the "Five Ha" tour group to experience like a real traveler, and narrow the distance with the audience. The five tastes of life contained in it, haha with the right spirit, can also make every audience feel empathy.
The "five haes" of the wild horses that are out of control are just like life itself. As a travel variety show, the show constantly innovates the narrative method, so that the travel has both a real encounter that is out of control, and a controllable viewing taste.
Let "Hahahaha" form a special sense of perception: life is like a journey, there is no framework designed in advance, what we need is to walk and see, smile and respond.