Interview, Writer/French Film
Zheng Yuanjie, a shrine in the hearts of the post-70s and post-80s generations, his works were born in a window period of free expression, no ancients before, and no one came after.
The "middle-aged people" who often visit this temple are contradictory in their hearts, calling for the peak of the past, but they know that at this moment, let alone transcendence, it is a recovery, and it is also a hardship.
3 years ago, there was finally a short film "Taming of the Rabbit" to open the situation, Zheng Yuanjie's work is live-action filmed, fast and accurate, Douban got 8.1 points.
In this year's National Day file, Yu Fei, producer and screenwriter of "Taming the Rabbit", and Zheng Yaqi, the son of Zheng Yuanjie, joined forces to put "Pipilu and Lu xixi's Canned Villain" (hereinafter referred to as "Canned Villain") on the big screen and rushed into the National Day file.
The special thing about "Can Little Man" is that its cult fame is not as high as "Rubik's Cube Mansion", but it is the most typical Zheng Yuanjie, and the grotesque lays are realism, and after dodging the guns of fundamentalist public opinion, there is a lot of room for play.
Cover of Zheng Yuanjie's original book "Pipilu and Rusisi"
But shooting "Can Can Man" seems to be a slightly less risky adventure, but it can be truly executed, and there must be absolute expression of will. What does it resonate with today's teenagers? Five villains, five abilities, what can it do with the educational mechanism? Can it even reach an empathy with the parents of China's 500 million teenagers who have been trapped in Chinese education?
These hot topics make "Canned Villain" look different and topical in front of the high wall of the main theme of national day.
The first director hereby interviewed Yu Fei, director of "Canned Villain", and Zheng Yaqi, producer and chief producer, to solve the mystery of his heart.
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First Director: Let me first ask you what touched you the most in the film "Canned Villain"
Yu Fei: What touched me the most was that when Lusisi smashed the exam, she cried and asked her mother: "I have bad grades, so do you still like me?" At that time, this sentence reached me, because my children were also so old and were in school, and this sentence could reach the parents.
When I talked to Mr. Zheng about the adaptation, he was still very open, and the things he changed under the principle of respecting the original work were good as long as they were good.
First director: Listening to the director say so, I feel that Zheng Zong's mentality towards developing these projects is still very relaxed?
Zheng Yaqi: Really, if I can't do these projects well now, I will bear a greater name than others, which is the biggest pressure.
First Director: Or is there a lot of pressure?
Zheng Yaqi: Yes, if I don't do well, not only will I say pit daddy, but also ruin my childhood... You think, when we adapted the new version of "Shuk Beta", the first day said that the new version was going to be filmed, it was on the hot search, that is not our official news, is the fans or the media saw the announcement of the Zhejiang Bureau, said to shoot "Shuk Beta", and then look at our company to do, immediately on the hot search. This hot search, the following comment is to "ruin our childhood" again.
So the most stressful thing about me is how to do this well.
Zheng Yaqi
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First director: Speaking of storytelling, education policy has changed a lot now, although it is still a test-taking education, but the teaching environment is beginning to be different, have you ever thought of making some audience-oriented changes at these levels?
Yu Fei: People's feelings are common, and this has nothing to do with the era.
First Director: No need to make such a prejudgment?
Yu Fei: When promoting this film, I said let my child also help give a thumbs up, and he said he ordered it. But I said I didn't see it, I didn't like you. Later, I checked his mobile phone and found that I was "not allowed to see". This kind of rebellion at a certain stage, I think, exists in any era and will not change.
Regarding the setting of the era, when we were looking for partners, many people also mentioned, why don't you make an age setting that is acceptable to children now? Shoot in a modern environment. "Pippiru and Rusisi" can be put into 2020, at that time it was felt that it had a large number of fans of the original, the book was written at that time, you want to put it in our era, then the "doctor" will inevitably have to help Pipilu play "Glory of the King" to play the ranking, Lucisi sent WeChat when looking for a villain, I think readers may not be able to accept.
Another, and most important, is the setting of this villain, which does not explain much about how these five villains came about.
Director Yu Fei work photo
First Director: The current explanation is to make a linkage with "Rubik's Cube Building".
Yu Fei: Yes, I later thought of this explanation. "Rubik's Cube Mansion" is a relatively fantastic setting, if you push it there, how to explain it at that time, at least I can explain it inside this film. It can make the audience believe in this thing more, including the direction of color grading, I want to do a special world view, similar to Gotham in the DC Universe, it is a parallel city, it is to make such an atmosphere, making it easier to believe that there are villains.
Poster for the Rubik's Cube Mansion (1990) animated series
First Director: At least the storytelling will not be disturbed by this worldview.
Yu Fei: Yes, if he doesn't believe in the world, the plot behind you will not stand.
First Director: Why didn't we shoot "Rubik's Cube Mansion" first?
Zheng Yaqi: First of all, I think if the live-action movie "Rubik's Cube Mansion" is more difficult to shoot, the audience's expectations for its reduction are too high, similar to the new version of "Alice in Wonderland" movies, it is a bit laborious to do it, you can see it until the second episode of the box office also failed. We're working on an animated film.
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First director: Let's talk about the characters, two child protagonists, five villains are also protagonists, in fact, there are seven core protagonists, how to revitalize them?
Yu Fei: The setting of the canned villain is relatively symbolic, it is different from Lusisi and Pippiru, I thought at that time, "artists" and Lusisi have a lot of communication, stealing things, and then climbing the house and falling down to be caught by Rusisi, etc., they can actually have emotions, and they can also do each villain's own psychological emotions. But I thought about it later, there was no need.
First Director: Too difficult?
Yu Fei: Because the whole story is two lines, one is that Lusisi's own academic performance has changed, affecting her relationship with her family and school, and the other is the friendship between Lusisi and the five villains.
First Director: Originally I remembered that the five canned villains were of different ages, some adults and children, and now all five are set as children or teenage girls.
Yu Fei: We have also talked about this, can the five canned villains find adults to play, find adults to play we can go to ask for stars, the consideration of not doing so is that the five villains are companions to Lusisi, and that kind of communication needs people close to her age. But the five are all children, and the selection of actors has become a problem, and five children who are generally tall can't shoot when they stand there, and they must be staggered.
There is also the original script, including the novel is also, "John" this villain is a foreigner, is a mixed-race child, we also picked a mixed-race actor, at that time wanted him to do the face value of five people, and then when the audition suddenly came a special love to play the little fat man who said cross-talk, I thought we this play is a children's drama, there must be a little funny element, the original comedy component in the script is relatively small, let this little fat man replace the mixed-race little handsome man. So I changed John's original line, and all the foreign scenes were given to John.
Including the artist, at first set her up to play a cute little girl, and then talked to the little actor, she said I don't want to play cute, I want to play cool, our classmates like cool. I thought, she herself is the audience, so we changed in the direction that her group wanted to see, and then adjusted her lines a little cooler.
First director: She has a sense of leadership, always standing in front of her speech.
Yu Fei: Actually, she wants to be cool. There are also many friends who say that "singers" are looking for a big point, in fact, people are not big, and they are also college students.
First Director: How old?
Yu Fei: Junior year. She is quite small in life, because the singer is going to make up bigger. The eldest of the children was the captain, who was only fifteen or sixteen years old.
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First Director: How long did the adaptation process and shooting take?
Yu Fei: The time for adaptation is not long, one year, start to do it in 2018, and do it well in 2019. The shooting was two or three months.
First Director: How many people are changing?
Yu Fei: The screenwriter is also our current executive director, mainly the two of us.
In fact, when filming, every day after filming back to get the script, I have an assistant, we are all there after filming a little more back, just talk about how to shoot this scene tomorrow, some logic can not be solved again? Some laughs, can we strengthen it a little more? Anyway, the most painful thing in my impression is that you will find a lot of problems when shooting, but you must solve them at the script stage, and you must also solve them before shooting, otherwise you will finish shooting.
First Director: When shooting, children will have a lot of unexpected difficulties, right?
Yu Fei: There are all kinds of problems, there are problems with performance details, there are questions about whether children can stick to the shooting, and there are no loopholes in logic, and some loopholes are only discovered when they are filmed.
First Director: Can children find and solve these problems on the spot?
Yu Fei: The children in our play are still too young, and I think it may be a little older (laughs).
Let's put it this way, they read this script to take the Xinhua dictionary to check, mark pinyin, when they shoot the largest third grade, the small second grade, the words are still not recognized. I recorded all the lines so that they had to speak according to my emotions, logic, and language.
Some lines may have to be said 50 times or 100 times, that is, to repeat, the child is also very tired, but also follow the 50 times, 100 times, is to say this taste, this repetition is necessary.
These children are really talented, and I tell you, it is to imitate this one requirement, which ordinary children can't do.
Director 1: Can they understand whether they are playing a bad person or a good person at this time?
Yu Fei: I see. But you let her show it herself, no. I feel that this play is not a director, but a performance director, and 70% of it is doing this (laughs).
First Director: Can a young actor train for a long time and begin to enter into real understanding?
Yu Fei: Actually, I can understand, for example, Hong Yuexi, who plays Lusisi, shows it through her eyes, and the front and back of her eyes are different.
First Director: From which scene is different?
Yu Fei: After deciding to resist, it was the cheating scene, her eyes began to become resolute and bold, and she really wanted to start confronting you, and that was the first time we put pressure on her.
To put it interestingly, we shot it in passing.
First Director: Shoot from start to finish?
Yu Fei: Yes, because there was a fire at the end, at the beginning Hong Yuexi's eyes were definitely not OK, then follow the shooting, follow the shooting, follow the practice, a month or two, to the back I think almost, the fire scene can be filmed. In fact, all of us on the scene can see that the "glare" at you is different from what you usually say.
After all the shooting, I was quite satisfied, but the coordinator came to me, saying that there were still a few cheating shots that had not been filmed before, and then the results of the shooting found that (her) eyes could not go back at all! The child has grown up in the play for two or three months, has entered the later stages of the role, and returns to that innocent state, and she can't go back. How to act I think she is in that outfit, so I did not use much of the re-shooting shots, if you look closely, the cheating scene should have one or two shots the eyes are not the same.
Director Yu Fei directed young actor Hong Yuexi on the set
First director: Is the scheduling of the fire scene difficult?
Yu Fei: Fortunately, I didn't have a particularly high pursuit of that scene, I really had to go to the fourth floor to shoot, and it could be achieved, but then I thought, it's all children, forget it.
As long as the child is afraid and does not dare to go on, the performance effect is not good, and at the same time there are safety issues. In the end, we were all filmed in the green shed, so the effect will definitely be worse, but when filming the children's scene, the children are not happy, you say you shoot this scene?
The children in our group are really very happy, unlike the other crew, who have finished the game and forgotten about this group when they go home. Our group, walking one crying one, there is a child, just after the scene began to cry, until his plane landed in Shantou, Guangdong Province. The flight attendant was confused, asked what was wrong with the child, kept crying, are you his parents, aren't you abducted?
Yu Fei's work photos on the set
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First Director: Just now we talked about the cheating scene, which is very interesting, and it is like a secret agent film.
Yu Fei: In the original book, Pipilu cheated, but Lusisi cheating didn't seem to be too involved. I think the children's play still has to have something rich in it, and this scene needs To be lucici's first positive resistance.
The space of children's films is quite narrow, and these big things of life and death cannot be written, and only education is involved. What is the most important thing for a child to go to school? The exam was like my child, and the whole family surrounded him on the exam.
To rebel on the exam, these five villains must be used, and if Pippiru comes to help Lusisi, then the film will be meaningless. All of our action scenes, including stealing paintings, drilling through that railing, the final fire, the helicopter rescue, are trying to use these five villains.
You said it's called a secret agent film, of course, we want to do spy movies, of course, these are also old routines.
First Director: I was still thinking about the intention of the fire scene, how did it become the ending, instead of another exam or something? But then I wondered how this fire happened, because the physical education teacher was occupied by the language teacher for a long time, the sports mat was not used for a long time, he was angry, so a throw, resulting in triggering the short circuit of the latch and catching fire. In this way, it is actually a problem of education.
Yu Fei: The whole play revolves around Lusisi's personal growth, all follow her, she is the absolute heroine.
Speaking of this fire, it completes the function of two lines, one is Lusisi's own grade line, such as she is thinking about whether the grade is important or not, and the other is the friendship line between her and the five villains. I think the fire scene can merge the two lines together to make an explanation, in the line of the five villains, there is a gap in front, and after the breakup, all the buckles will be solved in this scene. And through this incident, the school of "forever striving for the first" is burned down, and the teacher can complete his reflection here.
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Director 1: Do you want the children to get an independent or radical feeling from this play?
Zheng Yaqi: I think that in fact, one of the things that movies should not do is to educate others.
First Director: Preaching.
Zheng Yaqi: Yes, whether it is a movie or a fairy tale work, you don't try to give him a solution, and you don't think that you are better than the current child cow, as long as the work can impress them.
I am more pleased that many parents have told their children after watching the film that they have a little more understanding of each other, which is already very good.
As long as everyone agrees with this film, parents understand their children better, which is the highest evaluation of our movie.
Zheng Yaqi on the set
First Director: Speaking of parents, I am quite curious about one thing, that is, when Zheng Zong watched these animations and books when he was a child, unlike us, you have an author father around you, will you have a richer understanding of these works than we do?
Zheng Yaqi: I should be the same as everyone else, the only thing I have a little more than you is that I know how he wrote it, I know the creative process of a writer.
When I read books written by others now, I know all about what this person really encountered, or what is fake, or how his inspiration came about.
I know all the tidbits behind Pipilu and Rusisi, and I'm happy when I watch it, because I know what inspiration came from me and which experiences influenced him.
And old Zheng was a little good, he was really one of the few people in China at that time who could find a job that earned money at home, and he liked to stay with his children.
First Director: What do you think about this, why has zheng Yuanjie been here for so many years, in this adult-oriented field of children's creation?
Zheng Yaqi: Old Zheng does not think that literature should be divided into children's literature or adult literature, the same movie is also, he does not think that movies should be divided into children's films or adult films, really have the ability, whether director or writer, should be able to make really all ages like to watch things.
At that time, the cover of the earliest "Fairy Tale King" was written on the age of 5 to 50, and later changed to 5 to 100 years old. Another thing that impressed me very much was that in 1994, Lao Zheng took me to the cinema to see "Toy Story", and after watching it, he said that adults can also watch this cartoon.
That's what he did with that in mind, from day one.
First Director: Do you want to make these treasure houses of Zheng Lao into an industry like Disney and Marvel?
Zheng Yaqi: I don't like to say that I haven't done anything, but when I said in 2012 that I signed all the copyrights of old Zheng to operate, I went to finance, and at that time, the financing was basically all US dollar funds, there were very few RMB funds, people asked me what IP operation, I couldn't understand, I said you don't talk to me about this, I can't understand, there was no such company in China at that time, he said then you tell me a thing, which foreign company are you benchmarking?
I said I was on target Marvel.
He said why don't you benchmark Against Disney? I said at the time that Disney is a global whole industry chain company, and it cannot be done without decades of precipitation.
At that time, we said that the benchmark Marvel was because Stan Lee and these cartoonists drew Iron Man and Spider-Man, all of which were drawn 50 years ago, all of which were drawn during World War II, and I think that Old Zheng has been writing for more than 40 years now, although there are all kinds of problems in all walks of life in China, but I think a really good time for content creators is that now the audience only recognizes good things, and may have recognized big stars, big directors, and big productions before, but now it is useless to impress his movies.
First Director: So Zheng Lao's identity is Stan Lee in form, and what you have to do is Kevin Feige.
Zheng Yaqi: Yes. But the new version of "Shuk Beta" is directed by me, why did I direct it? I was forced, a Chinese animated series of children who tell continuous stories, successfully, and did not. Like "Pleasant Goat", "Bear Haunting" or "Super Flying Man", they are all episode by unit, telling continuous stories, and we can't find such a director.
Shuk Beta (2019)
First Director: What if you look for a live-action drama director?
Zheng Yaqi: Who of them went with you to shoot an animated series?
First Director: None of them have this in mind.
Zheng Yaqi: What do you think? I know you definitely still want to mention Guo Fan and Lu Yang, their own films can't be filmed, how can they direct animated episodes for me.
First Director: Yes.
Zheng Yaqi: We have "Pipilu Security Agent Team", which is a unit drama, so we can directly find a mature unit drama director. But now that I'm a director, I can't find the right director for an animated film, and there are a few who have succeeded, and I've been waiting for 10 years.