Author | Meat floss
Recently, from suspense, martial arts to family, various works on the platform have filled the audience's daily drama chase.
Among them, "Love Is Delicious", directed by Chen Zhengdao and broadcast exclusively on Tencent Video, became a "dark horse", "killing" the blockbuster market at the end of the year, and gained the love of the audience. From the launch to the end, Douban's score rose from 8.1 to 8.4. In addition to the main plot, famous scenes such as nightclubs and layoffs during the epidemic have aroused a lot of discussion.
But I have to admit that the audience has not noticed this work before.
As a typical small-cost drama, in addition to the recently discussed title is not attractive enough, its theme, actors and other aspects are also difficult to arouse the audience's strong expectations. It wasn't until the first audience had checked the quality and began to spontaneously amway that it was seen by more people. It is in this context that "Love Is Delicious" is defined as a dark horse.
In fact, similar situations have actually happened from time to time in the past two years, and this year alone, there are dramas such as "Royal Gifts of Small Servants" and "I Am Very Good in Other Places", which are typical of low-key before and after broadcasting. Although the genres are different, they thus have a common property: dark horse drama.
For the industry and audiences, the emergence and increase of dark horse dramas is undoubtedly a positive signal. So it is worth exploring why the audience likes dark horse dramas? What is the key to deciding that they will become dark horses? Who helped them out?
First, the momentum of dark horse drama is gradually rising?
On November 26, "Love Is Delicious" was launched on Tencent Video.
At first glance, this drama does not give people a feeling of freshness, with three girlfriends who have known each other since childhood and have very different personalities as the heroines, telling them about the difficulties they have experienced after growing up, and have a new understanding of life, work and feelings.
In the background of the story, the setting of working from home after the outbreak of the epidemic is introduced; the plot rhythm is also relatively bright, with a clear theme, moderate laughter and sharp lines under the length of a 30-minute episode; the character images of the three heroines are also recognizable: Fang Xin, who is outstanding in appearance and gentle in personality, Liu Jing, who is perfectionist and loves food, and Xia Meng, who has a strong desire to win and lose and has outstanding ability.
After watching a few episodes, the audience's eyes lit up, and the first tap water was soon formed. "Comfortable, transparent, all in one go, small and beautiful model", a Douban netizen wrote in a short review of "Love is Delicious". It is this perception that allows many viewers to brush several episodes in a row after seeing Amway, and then pull more people into the pit to chase the drama, which has contributed to its win-win situation of word-of-mouth and popularity.
This directly reflects the birth process of a dark horse drama on the user side, and it is not an isolated case, as well as the costume detective drama "Royal Gifts" broadcast in the first half of this year.
Compared with the dramas that are divided into explosive seed players, "Royal Gifts" is characterized by small cost and no traffic stars, but it breaks the circle against the sky in this case. Up to now, more than 270,000 people have scored a high score of 8.0 on Douban, and they have also gained a lot of heat during the broadcast.
The swarming audience is also attracted by the highlights of its content: in terms of plot, the main line of the detective is clear, faster and logical; in terms of characters, the male and female protagonists who are An Junwang and Shuzuo respectively do not stay in a single label, such as cold-faced prince and silly white sweet, but inject human characterization; and these two points also make the emotional line of the two develop, with just the right sweetness.
In addition, "I'm Good in Other Places", which takes the theme of North Drift and portrays female group portraits, and "My Babylonian Lovers", which has a big brain in the painting style, are also representative dark horse dramas this year.
Pushing further ahead, you will find that the dark horse drama has gradually formed a momentum and occupied a place in the drama market.
Taking the past two years as an example, the famous works on the list also include: sweet pet drama "Rumored Chen Qianqian", "I, Like You", suspense drama "Skyscraper", martial arts drama "Teenager's Tour one inch of love" and youth drama "To Our Warm Little Time", "Suddenly This Summer", "I Don't Want to Be Friends with You", etc., from inconspicuous to word-of-mouth, popularity double harvest, they have become bright works on their respective tracks after broadcasting.
In the face of these works, in addition to rejoicing, what should be pondered is how to produce more dark horse dramas.
Second, how did they become dark horses?
As mentioned earlier, the reason why they are described as dark horses is because these episodes are difficult to distinguish from the unique before they are broadcast.
First, there are few big IP, and second, there is a lack of popular cass, so it is inconspicuous in their respective tracks. In the end, it can win the favor of the audience, which is enough to prove that its performance in all aspects is not lost to the big drama.
So pushing back to the creative end, what methodologies can be analyzed?
First of all, in terms of content, one of the main reasons why these works have become dark horses is that through the superposition of elements, on the basis of the main themes, a more clear and detailed project positioning is extracted. As a more common creative method, how to integrate and match different elements in a play in an orderly manner has become the key.
Relatively extreme in this regard is "Royal Gifts", as the audience can see, this drama can be classified as a costume suspense drama, with both sweet pet and comedy components.
It is understood that the project positioning is a problem that the creator repeatedly explored during the preparation period, and finally reached an agreement: first grasp the suspense, and then be compatible with others. Therefore, the advancement of the suspense line has formed a so-called workplace drama, as the male and female protagonists of An Junwang and ShuZuo, the emotions generated in the process of solving the case are based on the charm of the characters, which is a logical "sweet", rather than industrial saccharin.
Another typical is "Rumored Chen Qianqian", the same as the costume sweet pet, the positioning of this drama is clearly in the light comedy for young women, with the help of a series of anti-routine settings to highlight the sense of comedy, such as the dislocation of the identity of the woman in Huayuan City, the man in Xuanwu City, and the diametrically opposite behavioral motivations of the hero and heroine.
But this can not weaken the presence of sweet pets, in order to balance the two, the common way to deal with the play is that the same plot can not only promote the emotional line, but also make the audience laugh.
At the same time, these two dramas also reflect another element of becoming a dark horse, that is, the core of human design that is close to the moment.
Whether it is Chu Chu's dedication to becoming an excellent masterpiece, or the setting that Chen Qianqian has stuck into his own script, they have a certain modern consciousness. This, while creating a contrast within the story and separating it from the same type of work, is also in line with the audience's aesthetics, and when the audience is mostly young women, it is easier to become a plus.
In addition to the content, there are also two key points in the production that make the series stand out.
First, usually, the cost of dark horse dramas is relatively limited, so it is difficult to win through hardware, but this does not mean that there is room for shoddy manufacturing, in order to achieve the desired effect, but it needs more ingenious production methods, such as ingenious audiovisual expression.
Taking "Imperial Gifts of The Little Servant" as an example, for some plots involving solving cases, the play uses animation to explain instead of 3D special effects, in addition to saving costs, which also makes it easier to accept shots such as "autopsy" that may bring extreme sensory stimulation. Coincidentally, "Skyscraper" also uses animation to assist the plot, such as the white crane, silver fox and demon king in Wu Mingyue's chapter, which represent different characters, playing a metaphorical role while leaving a deep impression on the audience.
Second, for the audience, most of the actors in the dark horse drama are relatively unfamiliar faces, but their high adaptation to the role has also become the focus of the series. For example, among the three heroines of "Love Is Delicious", in addition to Li Chun, the other two are not experienced film and television actors, but Zhang Hanyun has the gentleness and sweetness of Fang Xin, Wang Ju and Xia Meng's strong woman temperament fits, and Li Chun plays Liu Jing because of the similarities in their personalities.
Another example is "Rumored Chen Qianqian", the creator once mentioned in an interview that Zhao Lusi's cute, natural and affinity characteristics are in line with Chen Qianqian's personality, and Ding Yuxi was selected to play Han Shuo more because of acting skills, in addition to the image handsome, the two-sidedness of this role needs a certain degree of control ability.
It can be seen that the casting of the right criterion can help the series become a dark horse. It is worth noting that the reverse blessing effect of dark horse dramas on actors is also very obvious, and in addition to positive public perception, richer film and television resources have also poured into them.
Third, the tomorrow of dark horse drama
To be sure, the unanimous demand from the industry side to the user side is: the more dark horse dramas, the better.
On the one hand, such small and beautiful projects will bring another challenge to creators, completing quality online works under limited conditions can stimulate creative desire and gain a sense of achievement; on the other hand, putting aside various additional factors, good content is what the audience is most willing to see.
When dark horse dramas gradually form a trend, what are the key factors for them to meet the audience?
Through the above combing and analysis, it is not difficult to find that from works such as "Chen Qianqian in rumors" and "Royal Gifts of Small Servants" to "Love is Delicious", the most frequent haunting place of dark horse dramas in recent years is Tencent Video. According to the current episode output logic, from preparation to broadcast, the platform has played an important role in this process.
The frequent emergence of dark horses shows that in addition to the layout of big dramas, Tencent Video is also exploring and trying to diversify through small and beautiful projects, showing obvious innovation and inclusiveness.
Specifically, it is first embodied in the text. As mentioned earlier, the success of the series is inseparable from the superposition of elements, which means that the genre will break through the convention, in other words, it has not been tested by the market. However, the platform's approach is to protect and encourage such creative ideas, and promote more novel settings, such as the anti-routine sweet pet drama "Chen Qianqian in rumors".
Secondly, the casting, the stable output of dark horse dramas also refutes the "only traffic theory" that has prevailed in recent years to a certain extent, which shows that the selection criteria of the platform and the audience are the same, and in the face of a rich but uneven market, only pay for good content.
In addition to traffic, big IP is also considered to be overly respected by the industry. And tracing the content source of the dark horse drama can lead to conclusions. For example, the original works of "Rumored Chen Qianqian", "Royal Gifts of Small Servants", "I, Like You" and "Young You One Inch Acacia" are not the so-called head IP, and "Love is Delicious" is the original project of the screenwriter.
On this basis, it is not surprising that dark horse dramas haunt Tencent Video, and it is this innovation and inclusiveness that enables it to grasp the trend and lead the wind on the drama track.
The future is the same, and the basis for such a judgment is simple. If from the past to the present, blockbuster dramas such as "Three Lives and Three Pillow Books" and "You Are My Glory" have built a stable traditional track for the platform, then the dark horse drama represented by "Love is Delicious" has broken out of another world and is a player belonging to the word-of-mouth track.
Attaching equal importance to the two tracks is the layout idea of Tencent Video. Judging from the latest episode list, under the five major subdivisions, different genres and production volumes of content are reserved.
There are dramas that continue to play the main theme, such as "County Party Committee Compound" and "Lion Rock Down The Love", there are realist masterpieces full of fireworks in the world, such as "Our Marriage", "Mother's War", and there is no shortage of works that depict youth and love, such as "Everyone Knows I Love You"...
In the face of these works, leaving aside who is the next dark horse drama. For the audience, a predictable and ideal state is that the choice of chasing dramas is more abundant. Its richness is not only reflected in the genre of the subject matter, but also in the volume. So obviously, like this year, being able to see big dramas such as "You Are My Glory" and "Sweeping The Black Storm" at the same time, as well as dark horse dramas such as "Royal Gifts" and "Love Is Delicious", will become more and more common in the future.