Start your reading journey with your ears

China Youth Daily, trainee reporter of China Youth Network, Chen Dingwen and photo Source: China Youth Daily ( December 28, 2021 08 edition)

On December 25th, the meeting of the creators of the audio drama "Agatha Classic Works" was held in Beijing More Reading Club.

Agatha Christie's work has always been a favorite of suspense novel lover Kichi. Agatha's classic works such as "No One Survives", "Murder on the Orient Express", and "Tragedy on the Nile" on his bookshelf have been turned over by him many times, and he has seen none of the film and television works based on these novels. In an interview with the Reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network, Ji Chi was sitting in the Reading Club waiting for the start of a meeting. For those people Kiike was about to meet, he was more familiar with their voices than they looked like. They use their voices to interpret the classic characters in Agatha's works, recreate those famous and moving plots, and let readers read Agatha once again with their ears.

To do an audio drama is to do a "movie for listening"

Wu Hongjuan, who graduated from the directing department of the Beijing Film Academy, can see many familiar film names in his resume. "Assembling Number", "Wuji", "Sea Pianist", "Mortician", etc., wu Hongjuan, the director, translator or other work of these films, has participated. For her, directing the sound drama of Agatha Classics is a fresh attempt. Without the addition of vision, how to let the audience enjoy every detail in the work to the greatest extent and let the characters with different personalities in the story stand in front of the audience is a problem that Wu Hongjuan needs to seriously consider. She believes that although film and audio drama are two different forms of creation, they are essentially a transformation of textual content. Therefore, Wu Hongjuan decided to create the audio drama of "Agatha Classics" as a series of films, "Instead of simply reading these 8 Agatha books, we made 8 'movies for listening'." In our team, whether it is the cast or the sound recordist, all of them have participated in the production of the film, and in the processing of the characters, the grasp of the rhythm and the mixing of sounds, we hope to bring the audience a feeling of an auditory feast. ”

If you want to better present the essence and connotation of the work, it is indispensable to speculate and study the elements such as the work and the author. Wu Hongjuan studied Agatha's works at a very young age, and when she was in film school, films based on Agatha's literary works were a genre film that she had to study. In her opinion, the most attractive thing about Agatha's work is not only the wonderful tricks and thrilling suspense elements in it, but also the accurate expression and meticulous portrayal of human nature. The delicacy and sharpness unique to female writers are also the content that Wu Hongjuan hopes to focus on in this series of audio works.

Wu Hongjuan has worked as a director in the international department of CCTV Movie Channel, participated in the production of hundreds of translated films, and is familiar with Western culture, literature and film. She believes that Western literature, as a non-native literature, should be based on an important principle when transforming it into a film or an audio drama, that is, "do not reform, improve understanding." ”

This means that we hope that Chinese listeners or audiences can better understand and understand the living conditions and thoughts of people with different skin colors and cultural traditions than we do by listening to or watching literary and artistic works. It's also an experience we want to bring to our listeners and viewers. Nowadays, many people will say that we want to bring translated works to life, but no matter how we live, we cannot make them completely the expression of our own literary films and television, after all, they are still products of the West. ”

"Debut" the character with sound

Among the many literary characters created by Agatha, the most well-known is undoubtedly the great detective Poirot, who is vicious, has a rough personality, and has repeatedly solved strange cases. In the audio drama of "Agatha Classic Works", this role is interpreted by drama actor and voice actor Wang Xiaobing. "I love the character. He sometimes behaves more hatefully, a little hatefully, but at the same time he is indeed a very upright person, his heart is warm, he said that he was born to eradicate evil, so he was ruthless when he solved the case, and all the criminals felt very scared when they saw him. ”

In order to let the audience fully feel the charm of a person they "can't see", Wang Xiaobing spent a lot of thought. He first went to read Agatha Christie's autobiography, pondering Agatha's intentions in creating the character of Poirot and his evaluation of him. What are his shortcomings? What's so cute about it? Then, more importantly, is to read the original in detail and thoroughly. Through the description of the character's language, action, psychology, etc. in the book, the overall image of the character is mastered, and finally it becomes flesh and blood through sound. This is easier said than done.

"The book shows all aspects of the characters, so to grasp such a character image and make his performance more full, we must see through the whole book, grasp the details in the book, and how he reacts and emotions in this scene in the book." For example, in the process of solving the case, the way of inquiry to different people is not the same, usually, he is very warm, speak softly to the child, but when solving the case, he is afraid, if the other party is regarded as a criminal, he is very serious, even vitriolous, the key is to show these separately. Wang Xiaobing said.

Actor Zhou Yemang, who played the role of Lin Chong in the "98th Edition" of "Water Margin", also participated in the production of the sound drama of "Agatha Classic Works", and he also stressed the importance of familiar reading the original book. He believes that by reading the original book, in addition to achieving the basic purpose of understanding the synopsis of the story, it can also help the actors to prepare from the performance technique and psychology. "In this story, what kind of tone should I have, what kind of rhythm should I use to move the audience, these are different in every novel, although they are all suspense novels, but (Agatha Christie) some novels are with a pessimistic mood, such as "No One Lives". Some are impassioned, justice-promoting, and some are romantic. ”

In addition to his roles, Zhou Yemang also undertook the recording of all the narrations in the 8 books of Agatha's Classic Works. He said that reading the narration is not simply a script, but a matter of continuing the past and revealing the future. It is not only necessary to give a general account of the story, but also to help the audience smoothly and quickly enter the scenes and character relationships described in the novel, and fully feel all the elements in the novel. "I'm a reader in it. The description of the novel is very delicate, and I need to read the content in the novel to the audience word for word, and explaining these contents clearly will have a great impetus to the appearance of the characters later. ”

Zhou Yemang said that nowadays many people live a fast-paced life, everyone is very busy, but also become a little impatient, few people are willing to sit down and quietly read something, and audio drama is like giving people a "reading crutch" to help and encourage people to "read" more books. "A person's mind should be constantly enriched, and human growth should not only grow physically, but also have growth in thought and understanding, and these growths can be achieved through reading."

December 28, 2021 Edition 08