"Circuit Procuratorial Group" was written into the "two sessions" work report of the Supreme Procuratorate, "The Age of Awakening" Nearly 400,000 people rated the highest score of the annual national drama 9.3, "Si Teng" made Jing Tian's popularity soar by 5 times, and "Xiao Minjia" reached a staggering 1867 hot searches on the whole network... In 2021, when the entire film and television market is not very prosperous, Youku dramas have sprung up, and the magical Q1+ Q4 has launched a number of circle-breaking hits.
"Find classic genres, give the zeitgeist, and create charismatic characters." In mid-January, Xie Ying, general manager of Youku Drama Center, said in an interview with reporters that these 18 words are Youku's leading ideas and basic principles in content creation. She also said that any blockbuster is a natural occurrence, unexpected encounters, is the result of the implementation of the content strategy in place, there is a certain regularity and inevitability.
01
Magical Q1
The outbreak of Youku episodes in 2021 actually began at the end of 2020. On December 13, 2020, the anti-corruption drama "Circuit Prosecutor Group" was broadcast simultaneously on Youku and Hunan Satellite TV, which is also Youku's New Year's Eve drama and opening Year drama.
The biggest highlight of "Circuit Procuratorial Group" is that the creation and presentation have achieved smooth docking: screenwriter Yu Fei, director Li Lu, actor Yu Zhendu, etc. all went to the procuratorate and prison to collect style and experience life, especially Yu Fei, in-depth experience for more than two months, therefore, the series shows a lot of details of the daily work of the judicial system, and even presents the procurator's work process in full to the audience, rigorous, confident, and real; the popular political and legal elements such as sweeping away criminal syndicates and eliminating evil, unjust case rehabilitation, and circuit procuratorate in the play are also closely in line with reality. The Supreme People's Procuratorate launched a pilot prison inspection tour in May 2018, which was fully launched nationwide in July 2019, and the "Circuit Inspection Group" was launched in December 2020.
Compared with "The Name of the People", the "Circuit Prosecutor Group" has a more complex plot, more branches, suspenseful reasoning, compact stimulation, and a high gold content and viewing degree, so it won the "2021 Annual Influential Drama" jointly selected by the Global Times and the People's Daily.
"The TV series 'Circuit Procuratorial Group' is a hit, and the fairness and justice 'inside the big wall' have attracted much attention, and the responsibility of procuratorial supervision is even heavier." At the two sessions of the National People's Congress in March 2021, this sentence in the report of the Supreme People's Procuratorate left a deep impression on many people. The practice of writing a hit TV series into a work report is almost unprecedented and refreshing.
"'Circuit Prosecutor Group' is a cooperation reached by Youku in insisting on making positive value output dramas with social significance." Xie Ying said that such main theme projects may make everyone feel that the threshold is high and the audience is small, while Youku lowers the threshold through various interpretations and two creations in publicity, attracts young people, and finally obtains a double harvest of traffic and word-of-mouth.
On February 1, the revolutionary historical drama "The Age of Awakening" was simultaneously broadcast on CCTV and Youku. The drama takes the advent of "Youth Magazine" in 1915 to "New Youth" in 1921 as the organ publication of the Communist Party of China as the main line, showing the magnificent historical picture of the period from the New Culture Movement to the founding of the Communist Party of China. Although it is a red drama, it shows the fierce collision of new and old ideas with sufficient dramatic contradictions, restores major historical nodes with sophisticated lens language, and completes the shaping of revolutionary ancestors with affectionate brushstrokes, which makes the audience marvel: "The main melody is so good, those short dog blood dramas in the parents can commit suicide." ”
Therefore, from the date of its launch, "The Age of Awakening" has caused phenomenal discussions, and its influence has been maintained during the college entrance examination and even throughout the year. In June 2021, it won three awards with eight nominations for Magnolia. As of January 15, 2022, Nearly 400,000 people on Douban have rated 9.3, leading the annual national drama. What is more valuable is that more and more viewers understand history through the series and remember the martyrs. In October 2021, under the Yanqiao Road in Hefei, Anhui Province, to commemorate Chen Yannian and Chen Qiaonian, it was surrounded by a large number of flowers and greeting cards, and wonderful messages such as "the end of Yanqiao Road is a bustling avenue" were widely circulated on social platforms and circles of friends.
As a producer representing the participation of video websites, Xie Ying also deeply felt the power of "awakening", in her view, "The Age of Awakening" conveys positive emotions, guides social expression, and unites new forces, which is a super hit that has been rare for many years. She said that through the "Age of Awakening", we can see what the future blockbuster looks like: content that lacks (positive) values cannot become a hit; content that lacks (national) discussion cannot become a hit; content that lacks (young) user blessings cannot become a hit.
On February 22, the new martial arts "Mountain and River Order" was launched, Anduku station, the highest popularity rushed to 9998, the episode popularity list for 27 consecutive days TOP1; outside the station, Maoyan won 27 hot day crowns, Douban 560,000 people scored 8.6, and the total number of Weibo topics read exceeded 43 billion. Xie Ying said that "Shan He Ling" jumped out of the narrative mode of traditional martial arts, telling the story of high mountains and rivers meeting acquaintances and mutual redemption, which has a lot of resonance with the current young audience, alleviating their stress, anxiety and loneliness.
On March 8, "Si Teng" took over the "Mountain and River Order" and came fantasy. These two projects are youku customization, one is focused on the national style martial arts, the other is focused on romantic suspense, "Si Teng" is changed to Tencent and iQiyi before the launch, so the three stations are broadcast together.
After the launch of "Si Teng", Youku's popularity value broke through 9964, Aiyouteng's three major platforms ranked first in the 8 lists, Douyin played 66 billion, Weibo hot searched more than 130 times, Douban "Si Teng Group" exceeded 50,000 people, JingTian's popularity rose 5 times compared with before, netizens sighed and said: "Da Tiantian finally found a suitable role for itself." In fact, this is also the dividend brought by the people in the play to Jing Tian.
Xie Ying said that "Si Teng" found the new CP relationship of "female A male O" in the big track of love fantasy drama, creating a very special strong female protagonist image of Si Teng, echoing the user emotions of the current rise of female power, with a sense of contrast, interest and market scarcity, and has been recognized and loved by young audiences. At the same time, the creative team "death protection" real scenes, special effects, art, the audience praised "the scenery is as beautiful as a tourism propaganda film", and even triggered the "tourism fever" of the filming location, showing the ability of good film and television works to feed back the cultural tourism industry.
And the "Country Love 13" broadcast on the fifth day of the Chinese New Year, combined with the most popular blind box at present, has made Ivory Mountain trend again. The heat in Youku station is as high as 9955. "We want to make this national IP shine for a long time." Xie Ying said that Youku and the "Xiang ai" series have cooperated since 11, and since then they have also reached a contract with the audience - "Xiang Ai" accompanies you through the Spring Festival.
For Youku and the entire industry, Q1 2021 is magical, and it is rare for a platform to have such a concentrated explosion. Youku naturally gets rich returns: the average daily DAU (daily active users) increase is the first in the whole network. Blockbuster episodes reach empathy with users, but also pull their purchasing power. In the first quarter, the consumption of users on Taobao by the entire Youku drama channel exceeded 100 billion yuan a month, of which many products endorsed by the starring actors of "Mountain and River Order" were all sold out as soon as they were launched; after the broadcast of "Si Teng", the search terms and transaction volume of the qipao were 10 times that of before.
02
The explosive Q4
It is said that Youku's magical Q1 cannot be copied, the voice has not fallen, and the big outbreak of Q4 has followed.
On October 30, "Star Sea" was launched, the drama tells the story of the migrant sister Jane Ai who grew up to become the chairman of the foreign trade company with wisdom and kindness, and was spat at the beginning of the line as a "middle-aged idol drama", but with the progress of the plot, the inspirational core was continuously amplified, making many viewers shout "true incense", and the heat in the station once soared to 9998.
"Let the audience see themselves and the role models around them. "Sea of Stars" won in love and sincerity. Xie Ying said that "Sea of Stars" has a bright rhythm, simple emotions, focuses on the growth of ordinary people, narrows the distance with the audience, and is even called "the documentary of migrant girls in the Greater Bay Area" by netizens.
"Female Psychologist", broadcast on November 23, is adapted from Bi Shumin's original book of the same name, starring Yang Zijing Bairan and others. On the day of the start of the show, it won the first place in the market share of the lighthouse's whole network positive film broadcast, and reached the top of the authoritative heat data list such as Yunhe, Maoyan, Lighthouse, Vlinkage, and Detawen for many consecutive days during the broadcast, and the heat value in Youku station was as high as 9991.
Xie Ying said that through the unique perspective of psychological counselors, the fresh techniques of "literary drama and martial arts shooting", and the movie-like picture texture, "Female Psychologist" presents a deep view of multiple social classes and groups such as empty nest elderly, workplace workers, and teenagers. Therefore, it also received a warm response from the audience.
On December 11, "Xiao MinJia", which was broadcast simultaneously on Hunan Satellite TV and Youku Video, became the grand finale. During the broadcast, it won the TOP1 of 12 professional lists such as Weibo, Douban, Yunhe and Lighthouse for many consecutive days, won the first place in the national satellite TV ratings for three consecutive weeks, and became the annual traffic champion of Youku in 2021, with 1867 hot searches on the whole network, more than 67 billion Weibo topics read, and the ratings and popularity spray.
"Seeing the big with the small" is the most powerful weapon of "Little Minjia". Xie Ying said that "Xiao Min Jia" continues the style of "small series" focusing on social topics, following "parent-child", "study abroad" and "college entrance examination", focusing on the "remarried family", providing an emotional outlet for the remarried group, and showing the process of believing in love again and trying to find love with a warm and plain lens language panorama. As netizens commented, the love of middle-aged people is too good.
Youku Q4 three big hit dramas have three major common points: they are all realistic themes, all are women's growth, and they are all "small and big" - from different aspects, reflecting the choices and struggles faced by women of different occupations, different eras and different ages. Youku dramas firmly grasp the female market, reflect a strong ability to issues, and also obtain huge market dividends. Youku data shows that from November to December this year, the average proportion of Female Youku users increased by 6.3% year-on-year.
03
Keep going up
In April 2018, the General Administration put forward the creative direction of "small zhengda" (small cost, big feelings, positive energy), and Youku has been working hard in this direction to continuously make it bigger and stronger. At the beginning of 2019, Xie Ying joined Youku as the helmsman of the episode center, leading the team to continue to carry out in-depth innovation around the content under the guidance of this direction, starting from diversification and innovation, and creating different categories of high-quality dramas for the audience.
"Find classic genres, give the zeitgeist, and create charismatic characters." These 18 words are the most vivid interpretation and extension of "Xiao Zhengda", and thus have become the leading ideas and basic principles of Youku in content creation.
There are directions, there are principles, and there should be practical guidelines. Xie Ying said, "In terms of content creation, we emphasize four priorities":
First, positive value is preferred. As a platform, it must assume social responsibility, and when choosing works, the first thing to look at is the value output with positive energy. Under this, we will focus on selecting excellent works that have a high degree of compatibility with the current audience and can resonate and empathize. We hope that the dramas created by Youku are not only artistic masterpieces, but also cultural products, carrying certain social values and forming a benign communication with the audience. This point has always been adhered to in our selection from topic selection to production.
Second, user needs are given priority. It is Youku's mission and responsibility to meet the spiritual and cultural needs of the audience in an all-round way. In order to serve the platform users well, on the one hand, through data analysis to understand the broadcast performance of the current episodes, grasp the needs of users, and respond in a timely manner; on the other hand, jump out of the existing data framework, stand on a broader and more forward-looking content dimension, analyze the current social phenomena, social emotions, and key points of social development, and strive to find the scarcity point of audience demand and the resonance point of social emotions.
The third is to give priority to innovative themes. In terms of content capture, from the original "waiting for goods", to the current "looking for goods", to the future "from me", there will be more fixed/self-made dramas; in the selection of projects, we will grasp the key points of creative sources, story themes, and excellent screenwriters, and promote creation with a systematic methodology. As long as the theme is new, the story is good, and the people are extreme, even if other aspects are not so mature, even in the case of only one idea, we will intervene early, with a screenwriter, a director, and a creator to help the content idea land.
Fourth, quality control is given priority. Youku's production and studio system will provide full-process services such as financial management, digital asset management, and film testing for partners of self-made dramas and customized dramas, which are highly standardized and ensure quality. During the preparatory period, the evaluation of the middle stage will focus and improve the entire script; during the shooting period, the evaluation of the middle station will regularly watch the materials every 10 days, study the problems and details, and organize on-site visit activities; in the later stage, regularly organize users to do research, carry out small-scale film viewing activities, feedback some user opinions to the producer and the middle office, and assist in improving the film.
"Any blockbuster is a natural occurrence, unexpected encounters, is the result of the implementation of the content strategy in place, there is a certain regularity and inevitability." Driven by the 18-word content creation principle and the four priority practical guidelines, since 2019, Youku dramas have begun to emerge a large number of outstanding works of the popular population:
In 2019, "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an", Douban 8.2, Magnolia Three Awards, Golden Eagle Awards, Best Actor at the Busan Film Festival (Lei Jiayin), Best Online Drama at the Macao Film Festival; "Crane And Hua Ting" and its fanwai "Farewell to the Clouds", the main drama won four awards such as the annual TV series of the Sino-US TV Festival, with a Douban score of 8.5; "Daming Fenghua", with an average episode of 119 million plays, becoming the No.1 of youku dramas broadcast that year.
In 2020, Youku's five major theaters - pampering, suspense, urban life, family fun, and Hong Kong theater - began to shine: pet theater's "Rock Sugar Stewed Sydney", the first ice sports theme drama, high sweetness, high burning, Youku station heat as high as 9889, the third-party data platform drama list for 50 consecutive days to maintain TOP1; "Liu Li" helped a Hanfu company in Guangzhou to empty a large amount of inventory left by the epidemic, and the heroine sold 20,000 sets of the same model in less than a week. Suspense theater, with "her suspense" as the main hit, "White Moonlight" "catch the little three" on the hot search, "Girls that summer" shook out the campus bullying; urban life theater's "Ordinary Glory", focusing on the plight, anxiety, struggle and transformation of urban workers, about 20 financial cases were implanted in the play. The "Bridge of Sighs" Douban score of the Hong Kong Theater is as high as 8.7... All have their own characteristics and good performances.
In 2021, it is more like opening up, "Meritorious", "The Age of Awakening", "Circuit Prosecutor Group", "Si Teng", "Country Love 13", "Star Sea", "Female Psychologist", "Xiao Minjia"... Good drama after drama.
04
Never stop
"The exploration of creation, the pursuit of quality, never stop." This is what Xie Ying asks of herself and her team. Next, she will also work with the team to boost the content and upgrade the theater. The first one is to launch a number of high-quality masterpieces with mainstream values as the core. For example, "Happiness to Ten Thousand Homes" and "Falling Flowers" focus on realism, "Anle Biography", "Agarwood Like Crumbs", "Youth Song Line", which embody the self-confidence of oriental culture, "Please Call Me Director", "Lighter and Princess Skirt" of Pet Theater, "The Rest of Life After Tomorrow" of Urban Theater, "Gate of Rebirth" and "Ice Rain and Fire" of Suspense Theater, and "Flying Tiger" series of Hong Kong Theater. Wait a minute.
Xie Ying studied mass communication at University, worked in traditional media for many years after graduation, turned to the Internet in 2009, has been in the cultural film and television circle, once served as the general manager of Alibaba Pictures Entertainment Treasure, led the investment cooperation in more than 50 well-known film and television drama projects such as "Wolf Totem", "Little Times", "Ferryman", "The Richest Man in Xihong City", etc., and has a good grasp of the theme, content and direction. But she always said that she is a recruit in the content industry, has always been in awe of content, groped for trial and error in practice, gained and grown slightly, but she has a long way to go and is still searching up and down. Of course, she is also very happy to share her experiences and perceptions:
(1) Creation and dissemination can not only be the self-expression of the creator, but also the correct handling of the relationship with the user in order to form a virtuous circle. There is no contradiction between making classics and satisfying users. We will spoil the powder but not the powder. We have our own cognition, but we also believe that users, regardless of cognition, aesthetics, open and inclusive attitude, and cultural self-confidence, have reached a very high standard. We don't need to deliberately cater to anything, as long as we do a good job of the series carefully and solidly, ensure the quality, the market will have good feedback.
(2) The dividends and freshness brought by big IP, big production, and big traffic have passed, and corresponding to this, I have three sentences: don't be extravagant and efficient; don't idols want actors; don't want traffic to value. Especially the main creator, not necessarily to find the top stream, but to give more opportunities to both professional and dedicated actors, to newcomers, to people who are suitable for the role, to like-minded people.
(3) Every subject has its life cycle. The market also talks about the balance between supply and demand. Many production companies like to follow the trend, after a theme is on fire, flocking to develop similar themes, they may feel safe, but in fact it is not feasible. Following the trend will cause aesthetic fatigue to users and will also bring marginal diminishing effects to the platform. So don't follow the trend, follow the trend is easy to indigestion, easy to follow the risk.
(4) The subject matter is very important, but it is more important to find the correct way to open the subject matter. Find differentiation, grasp the innovation point, any theme may be a hit.
(5) What kind of story is suitable for film and television adaptation? First, it can connect emotions, gather consensus, and transmit positive values. Second, there are rich plot lines, a complete world view and a brilliant character image. Third, there are distinct innovation points in the genre elements, and the creative space and potential are great.
(6) Episodes have reached a ceiling in terms of content stock, but they are far from sufficient in terms of focus differences. Vertical segmentation of the user market has become a trend. Each type of content can survive as long as it has its own solidified users and loyal fans. Therefore, in the field of their own expertise, deep ploughing, the story and characters to the extreme, good luck will naturally come.
(7) How do long videos face the challenges and impacts of short videos? Gather consensus! This is also what long videos are good at, especially warm realist works, through long-term immersion in the story, portraying the fate of the characters, so that the audience can empathize with the sadness and joy of the characters and experience the growth of the characters. (End)
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