This article was published in the 46th issue of Sanlian Life Weekly in 2019, and the original title was "The > of the New < Beneficiaries of the "Bad Monkey Project""" is strictly prohibited, and infringement must be investigated
As the third director of the "Bad Monkey Project" launch, Shen Olympic debuted with his feature film debut "Beneficiary". Compared with the sensational "I Am Not a Medicine God" inside and outside the industry, "Beneficiary" is much lower in terms of word-of-mouth and box office, and its advantages and disadvantages are equally prominent, and it seems to have more general reference value for young directors.
Text | Song Shiting
<h1>Debut</h1>
Even if I made enough preparations, I still didn't expect that my feature film debut would be so difficult.
First, the movie idea and people crashed. "That's 85% similarity!" The Olympic bid refers to the Thai movie "Genius Gunner", which was released in China two years ago. From September 2015 to January 2017, for a year and a half, the Olympic bid was on this project. "The story of Chinese school bully helping people cheat on the TOEFL, soft crime genre films, fiercer than 'Genius Gunner'." When I first learned that the Thais also made this story, the Olympic bid did not care too much, because "few Chinese can see such a Thai movie." At that time, the Olympic bid did not know that the film was bought by the Chinese film and television company, and a few months later, it was released in China. "It was the first Thai movie I watched, and I exploded on the spot." Mentioning this film, the Olympic bid also regretted to pat his thigh.
Pictured: Almost every of the short films filmed by the "post-80s" director's bid for the Olympic Games has won awards, which makes him one of the most optimistic young directors in the industry. The Beneficiary is his feature film debut
Immediately after, another young director from the "Bad Monkey Project", Wen Muye, and his "I Am Not a Medicine God" (hereinafter referred to as "Medicine God") were dealt to. At that time, the Olympic bid was in the quagmire of the script of "Beneficiary", and one morning when he woke up, the box office of "Medicine God" exceeded 3 billion yuan. "I didn't get up all day and lay in bed looking at the ceiling." At that time, a friend lived in the Olympic bid's house, and the two of them wrote the script together. Every day, the Olympic bid was earlier than others, but that day, the friend got up, did not see anyone else, turned his head, and the shoes were still there. "He pushed open my bedroom door, and when he saw that the lights were off and the curtains were closed, I said a word: "Medicine God" is 3 billion, what should we do?" That day, for the first time, I felt that I might not be the most talented one.
During that period, Shen Ao read the script to Wang Chuanjun, who played "Medicine God", and wanted to see if he could find him to play a male number two. "It was at his house, he looked at it and said, it doesn't mean anything!" Wang Chuanjun didn't say more, turned around and went into the kitchen to take out a head of garlic, he handed the garlic to Shen Olympic, asked him to help peel it, went to the balcony to bask in the sun, look at the sky, and think about it. "It was another day of great emotional ups and downs, but the garlic did have a soothing effect."
The biggest blow came from the family. During the preparation of "Beneficiary", two close relatives of the olympic bid father and grandfather passed away one after another, each time when he traveled to Qingdao to talk about the project. One in July and one in October. This kind of pain even made Shen Ao believe in his fate: "Shouldn't you have done this, is it too much resistance in the dark?" ”
Stills from "The Beneficiary", Dapeng plays wu hai, the male protagonist who tries to kill his wife and cheat on insurance in the movie
The mental torment, the Olympic bid was borne by himself, and the creative torture was more like a bottomless pit, sucking the Olympic bid and the whole team into it.
Before "The Beneficiary", Shen Olympic had been an advertising director, and although he had been making short films since college, that was different from a feature film. "At that time, I hadn't written more than 2,000-word story outlines in years, let alone a 30,000- or 40,000-word feature-length script."
Most of the early days were spent learning to write scripts. The Olympic bid was born in the directing department of the Film Academy, and he was admitted with the first place in that year, and his profession was excellent. But the creative method he learned in those years that was partial to art and cultivating masters was not very suitable for today's domestic commercial film market. In this regard, Ning Hao is the best teacher. "He lectures, we listen, like a school." Shen Ao said that the formulas and terms of those commercial films, how to start and turn, where to build, where to "put the hook", "all routines, like math problems, very interesting."
Shen Olympic applied the "commercial film creation method" that he was currently selling to the story he wanted to write, "The Beneficiary". It was an insurance fraud case based on a news event. In 2013, a case of wife murder and insurance fraud occurred in Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province, and the man met the woman through WeChat shake and got married after 13 days of acquaintance. After marriage, the man quickly bought two insurances for the woman worth a total of 4.5 million yuan, and more than two months later, the woman's body appeared in the artificial lake of the electronics industrial park. What appears to be an accidental drowning is actually an elaborate murder by men and friends.
"Typical low-IQ crime." Shen Olympic said that it seems very stupid, but it is very effective in the current bottom environment of China, "almost succeeded." This story provides a container for the Olympic bid, in which he can stuff things that belong to the chinese grassroots state of existence, and can also explore the question of original sin and whether one good can withstand all evil.
"It is true that Ning Hao learned." "Lao Ning has always told me that making films should emphasize contemporaneity, and the so-called contemporaneity is to focus on the typical in this specific historical time. ”
The typical characters used by the Olympic bid are the substitute driver and the female Internet celebrity of the network live broadcast, the two most representative professions in the era of Internet consumption. The defendant with a vague identity and personality in the news incident became Wu Hai, a single father who watched an Internet café during the day and drove at night. The victim became Yue Miaomiao, a grassroots female Internet celebrity who did a live webcast. The original cruel wife-killing and insurance fraud case was also handled gently by Shen Ao and two other screenwriters, in addition to the crime, they wanted to express the life plight of the low-level small people and the true feelings covered by the temptation of money. It's a bit of a chicken soup, but both Ning Hao and Shen Ao feel that resorting to empathy resonates with audiences more than making a pure crime genre film.
In order to write the script, The Olympic Bid often looks for opportunities to chat with the substitute driver. Some of the surrogate drivers who shuttle through the dark of the city are trying to make a living, just like the characters in his script. Some live carefree lives, just to get rid of boredom, and are a group of lonely, bored people in postmodern cities. The anchor he has also seen a lot, the earliest is in the scene of shooting advertisements, those models as soon as they have time to take out their mobile phones, in all corners of the set to talk to the mobile phone, posing, these gave him the initial thinking of "Internet celebrity".
There are Ning Hao's lectures, there are real events to lay the foundation, and the script is still difficult to write. "After the revision can be 20 drafts, the outline stage will be overturned eight or nine times." The olympic bid broke the index, "Police, Wu Hai, Yue Miaomiao... Whoever is the protagonist has changed several times, and the identity of the girl has changed several times from the bride and the lady to the anchor abroad, not to mention the structure and details of the story inside. Because I changed it too many times and couldn't see the head, when the producer Ning Hao finally said that "the script was OK", the Olympic bid did not dare to believe it.
Compared with writing a script, when you get to the set, you are much more comfortable with the Olympic bid. As soon as the monitor and camera were set up, he entered his comfort zone. "The Beneficiary" was filmed in Chongqing for 53 days, with two days in between to Hainan, a 55-day shooting period, and not a single day, which is very rare among young directors. Because of the use of Dapeng and Liu Yan, an old partner who is good at acting in comedy, and also invited his long-time friend Zhang Zixian to play the villain, on the shooting scene, Shen Olympic and the actor collided with a lot of comedy bridges, which made the film tilt from the original black humor style to the pure comedy direction.
This temporary adjustment can be seen in the finished film of "The Beneficiary". When the film first started filming, several scenes were still relatively serious, and it was indeed a black humor, but after filming the scene where Wu Hai and Yue Miaomiao ate at the restaurant, the style of the whole movie changed. In the script of the Olympic bid, that scene is Wu Hai chasing Yue Miaomiao and taking her to a high-end restaurant to eat, the other party orders too expensive, Wu Hai can't afford to pay the bill and run away, so that the accomplice Lao Zhong pays. In the actual shooting, the three actors felt that the scene was a bit monotonous, and a lot of comedic skills such as gestures and expressions were added during the performance, and a functional scene was instantly vivid. "Since actors are good at this, why not make good use of them?" The bid for the Olympic Games temporarily adjusted the shooting strategy, adding comedy sections to each scene, and these bridges were almost all created by directors, writers and actors on the spot before shooting.
<h1>Regrets and expectations</h1>
Small cost, black humor, grassroots life, dialect... "Beneficiary" has too many shadows of Ning Hao, and it can be said that it is the most similar to Ning Hao among the three "Bad Monkey Project" movies that have been released. Whenever asked about this, Shen Ao replied with a straight face: "Shouldn't a disciple be like a master?" Any questions? ”
The olympic bid regards Ning Hao as a "master", perhaps dating back to the university period. In an interview, he once said that in 2006, when he was just a freshman, Ning Hao returned to the film school with "Crazy Stone" to communicate, and he went to see it with his dorm buddies. Because the tickets were late and the screening hall was already full, he hid in the aisle and watched the whole movie. After watching it, I was excited, like "opening the door to the movie", and then for a long time, the Olympic bid and the dormitory brothers always had to re-watch "Crazy Stone", and after the lights went out, they had to chat in Chongqing dialect for a while.
This may also explain why he, and a group of "post-80s" directors like him, like to play with structure, shoot low-level small people, like black humor style, and even like to go to Chongqing to shoot movies.
Despite such admiration for Ning Hao, when the other party first asked him to make a movie, the olympic bid was rejected. In 2013, Shen Olympic and Ning Hao cooperated to shoot advertisements, and at the shooting scene, Shen Olympic had a sharp hand and a flexible brain, which made Ning Hao impressed. Looking back at his award-winning short films such as "River Dragon Chuangang" and "Tide Chasing Waves", ning Hao immediately wanted to sign this young director.
"You wait for me for another three years." These were the words left by the Olympic bid to Ning Hao. As early as when he was selected for the "First Golden Horse Academy", the Olympic bid set a rule for himself - not to make feature films before the age of 30. "The problem of being too young is that it is unstable. At that time, the movies you liked this year may not like them next year, and the aesthetic taste is too unstable. I don't want to make a work that will be self-negating in retrospect, so I have to wait until I am relatively mature to make a feature film, and 30 years old is a node. ”
In the three years after rejecting Ning Hao, the Olympic bid continued to shoot advertisements, and he even suggested that young directors go to shoot advertisements. That circle has money to make, can make people's lives not screw up, "the utilitarianism of making movies for money is too strong to write good things." Because they are willing to spend money, the advertising circle can provide the top equipment and allow young people to experiment with various ideas. Most importantly, shooting advertisements can deal with people in various fields. In those years, the Olympic bid encountered dictatorial customers, scammers of large companies who rolled money and left, and difficult small salesmen, who were able to train the director's emotional intelligence and ability to resist setbacks.
The day before the interview, the publicity company invited six film critics to watch "The Beneficiary", hoping that they would meet with the Olympic bid again and talk about their views. Film critics were not restrained, and almost all that was given that day was criticism. After the end, the staff wanted to comfort the Olympic bid, afraid that he would be uncomfortable, after all, those who engaged in art were vulnerable. The Olympic bid did not matter, "in the past few years of shooting advertisements, it was much more fierce than this scolding."
After bidding for the Olympic Games for three years, Ning Hao really went to look for him again, the only difference is that this time, Ning Hao was not looking for one of him, but a lot of young directors, and Shen Hao was one of them. "I thought I was a solo sprout, but now the sense of competition comes out." Shen Olympic said.
From the perspective of competition, "The Beneficiary" is the third part after Lu Yang's "Embroidered Spring Knife 2" and Wen Muye's "I Am Not a Medicine God", and it is also the lowest overall reputation and box office.
The Olympic bid is very clear, the biggest problem is that the type is not clear, "when I write it, people say, I don't understand, now I know." The Beneficiary is a mix of crime genres, comedy, and romance, and any two of them can be smoothly mixed and matched, but the three genres are twisted together and torn apart. Insurance fraud requires a complete, precise logic designed, which is rational. The love part, on the other hand, requires empathy and is irrational. The film is torn between emotion and reason from beginning to end. Although in the appearance of the film, Shen Olympic learned Ning Hao, in the film's thinking and insight into small people, he is still much weaker than the master Ning Hao, and the emotional logic of the characters is not so smooth.
He agreed with all my views, and he accepted them, but he still believed that "The Beneficiary" is a "film that I can agree with and will not deny."
As a directorial debut, The Beneficiary is indeed qualified and "appropriate." Although the process is arduous, it has helped him find the right way to bid for the Olympic Games, and it has also helped him find the confidence to "write a clear story and interact positively with the audience". This path and this confidence are what all young directors have yet to seek.
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