After the TV series "The World of Man" was broadcast on CCTV, the fate of the three brothers of the Zhou family in the play was ups and downs, touching the hearts of the vast number of viewers. This work, which aims to show the history of Social Change in China in the past fifty years with an ordinary family in northeast China as an incision, has undoubtedly received unanimous praise from the audience and the industry.
Poster of "The World of Man"
The play is adapted from the novel of the same name by writer Liang Xiaosheng, sprinkled with millions of words, and has won the "Mao Dun Literature Award". Shortly after the novel was published, Tencent Pictures and director Li Lu jointly chose to shoot and obtained the film and television adaptation rights of "The World" for 8 years.
Cheng Wu, producer of "The World of People" and vice president of Tencent Group, has publicly stated: "To obtain the copyright authorization of Teacher Liang, I feel the responsibility and burden on my shoulders, and hope to unite the best quality creative forces to jointly create a realistic theme masterpiece with both ratings and social influence." ”
At this time, finding a suitable screenwriter became the first priority of the TV series adaptation of "The World". Such a large and heavyweight work is a huge challenge for any screenwriter. Li Lu once asked two friends, one is Chen Daoming, the other is Zhou Mason: Who is the right screenwriter? Both recommend the same person: Wang Haiyu.
Shouting is right, but shouting alone is not right
Wang Haiyu has thirty years of experience in script writing, and popular dramas such as "Chinese-style Divorce", "The New Marriage Era" and "The Colonel's Daughter" are all from her handwriting. What she is best at is capturing the details of life and depicting the delicate emotions of the characters. Li Lu insists that such a realistic theme with depth and breadth as "The World of Man" must be controlled by a senior screenwriter with rich life experience and creative experience. "Wang Haiyu is the best candidate."
After the drama party made an invitation to Wang Haiyu, Wang Haiyu was very cautious and refused the book donated by the drama party, "taking the book sent by others, and in the end, if it is not cooperated, it is not good." So he first bought the novel of "The World of Man", and after reading it, Wang Haiyu thought that it was worth cooperating.
"What attracted me to the book was the author's thrust — to speak for the people living at the bottom. The gist of this is true. Wang Haiyu said that through "The World of Man", she was the first time to truly see the life of the low-level people in the 1970s, "After becoming a soldier, I went to the countryside to support the peasants, but I still did not know enough, which is equivalent to saying that this is a blind spot in my life and a blind spot in cognition." This, for me, is a perceptual complement to China's contemporary history. The shock to me is also very big, these people are so poor, so bitter, still able to live tenaciously, what is the reason? ”
Stills from "The World"
At the same time, the age written in "The World of Man" is personally experienced by Wang Haiyu, who was born in 1952 and is the same age as the protagonist of the novel, "Zhou Bingkun". She was very impressed by the fact that she had experienced the same era as the characters in the story. "At that time, it was so difficult, and it was really not easy for everyone to come together." Later, I was thinking that our Chinese nation has been strong, weak, bullied, and poor for thousands of years, but it has never been conquered or assimilated. I was thinking, what is working in this, and then I felt that Chinese civilization is a moral civilization, and the 'good man culture' in the novel is also something I feel more deeply. In the novel, I was impressed by the small streets and alleys called 'Ren Yi Li Zhi Xin' (the urban village area where the protagonists live) called 'Ren Yi Li Zhi Xin'. ”
While endorsing "The World of Man", Wang Haiyu also had initial concerns. As a veteran screenwriter, she is well aware of the difficulty of adapting this work. The Mao Dun Literature Award, which won the highest number of votes in the current year, was "serious literature with very pure blood". "Serious literature is written a lot of times about people, without too much storytelling, without too much drama. But the script adaptation needs drama and story, in addition to the externalization performance required by the plot, it is also necessary to externalize all the psychological descriptions, there must be coincidences, ups and downs, twists and turns, which is a difficulty. The second difficulty, only drama is only bones, only literature is only flesh and blood, then the combination of the two is a good script. The third difficulty, the novel is the writer's personal experience of life, then this part must be limited, is there only the bottom layer in "The World"? There are also elites, there are officials, there are entrepreneurs, there are intellectuals, and so on, then we must add and subtract. The amount of engineering in these three parts is relatively large. ”
Wang Haiyu analyzes the main difficulties in the adaptation of "Human World". But for her, these are all problems that can be overcome and solved, and for her, the most important thing is the recognition of the tone of the work, and she hopes to be able to agree with the creative team.
"I also disagree with the novel: shouting is right, but shouting is not right. I told the director that I felt that the tones were steely and gray, and of course gave people a tough and tenacious feeling, but at the same time heavy. And I personally for life, I want it to be bright and warm. Any life, it has two sides, just like everyone living in a collective, will have different feelings. At this point, Wang Haiyu and the creative team hit it off, and they also hoped that the tone of the "Human World" TV series was bright, warm and could give people hope. And so, the cooperation was reached.
The screenwriter loses himself in the adaptation, which is the most terrible
Wang Haiyu also expressed his gratitude to the original author Liang Xiaosheng, "I think he understands me very well, and for the adaptation, he will never interfere much, and will not disturb my thinking, views, and trade-offs." "In Wang Haiyu's view, screenwriters cannot lose themselves in the adaptation." The baton was in my hands by this time, and I listened too much to other people's opinions and lost myself, which was the most terrible thing. You make the screenwriter, you say that the east wall is not good, the screenwriter adds a brick to the east wall, you say that the west wall is not good, the screenwriter builds a piece to make up for it, and the screenwriter will be bad to this extent. Absolutely respect the screenwriter's first feeling, the screenwriter's self-awareness. ”
In addition to sorting out and screening the content in the "Human World" novel, Wang Haiyu also has to do a lot of desk work. For each era involved in the book, the background of each character's experience must be examined in detail. For example, the drama involves the experience of officials and businessmen, Wang Haiyu read a lot of official novels, business war novels, and also interviewed friends who have similar experiences around him. In the later stage of the script creation, many suggestions were also absorbed through the feedback of the cast.
She mentioned that Yin Tao, who plays Zheng Juan, is a very serious actor, and when she read around many times, she has made a lot of good suggestions for the character of Zheng Juan, and during the entire filming period, she has maintained close contact with Wang Haiyan and communicated with the character creation. Wang Haiyu also laughed and said that Zheng Juan, a housewife who has experienced legends, dares to love and dare to hate, and is soft and inward, is the female character she has written about as "the most difficult", but the intellectual women such as Zhou Rong, the daughter of the second daughter of the Zhou family, are more familiar to her.
Stills from "The World of Man", Yin Tao played Zheng Juan
Because of the high difficulty of creation and the objective reasons of all aspects, the script has not yet been fully finalized, and "The World of Man" must be started, "How much pressure do you say I am?" Wang Haiyu said, "People spend money there, just waiting for your revised script, I am very stressed, beyond my previous creative rules, I sit in front of the computer from the morning, take a nap for an hour at noon, and continue to write in the afternoon until the evening, which is very difficult for an old man." ”
"Every night, as soon as the script I changed passed, they read it around that night, gave me advice, and when they read it at two o'clock, they sent me at two o'clock, and sent me at three o'clock, and then I couldn't sleep at night, because I always wanted to wait for their opinions. Later I said, you still send me at six o'clock in the morning, or I won't sleep well at night. As a result, I was really self-inflicted, thinking about their opinions, couldn't sleep, and waited until six o'clock. Wang Haiyu "complained".
"You said that you want to praise me, if you criticize me, I will not sleep well, they don't like to praise people, once you read the script, it is all one, two, three or four, where is not good to change." I said there is no good place, they said there is, good will not say, I said ah, you can not positive motivation? Wang Haiyu laughed. She admitted that the final sprint stage was like this, "Everyone is bitter, but no one is bitter, I still feel a very pleasant process." ”
In the crew of "In the World", Li Lu and Wang Haiyu are both impatient, and the screenwriter and director are the two most important characters in the creation, and they are also the two people who collide and communicate the most. They lost their temper, and neither of them was convinced. "I was writing intently, Director Li Lu sent a WeChat voice over, what this scene wrote, this is not interesting, too watery." I sent WeChat over and told him, this play is not good, you passed it. As a result, I was told that it was good after the shooting. Later, I told him that sometimes you need some idle writing, you can't be a drama old and tense, all said to be grounded, where the earth qi comes from, is the real bits and pieces of life. ”
"Looking like I 'offended' you, you 'offended' me, in fact, it is all for drama, all for the sake of achieving a high degree of consistency in artistic creation and concept, so we don't care, we have a good impression of each other, we feel that we are comrades-in-arms, it is the tacit understanding that I say one you know two, this is a very beautiful relationship." 」
Don't try to cater to the audience, pander to the perpetual lag
In the process of creating "The World of Man", Wang Haiyu strongly felt, "The people who read the script now, the people responsible for reviewing the script, are of a much higher level than in the past, and they are becoming more and more literate. ”
"In the past, it was more important to the market, the TV era, saying that the remote control was in the hands of the uncle and aunt, so they should do what they love to watch." Now in the Internet age, young people are the main force, to write what they love to watch. "But for me, what I care about is that I have creative impulses for what, what I see, what I want to express." What you want to express, express well, can still attract many people to like. Don't try to pander, pandering has no way out, pandering is always lagging behind. ”
Speaking of the current audience group with young people as the main force, it is also talked about the double-speed viewing function of today's network broadcast platform. For the emergence and wide application of this function, Wang Haiyu has her own unique view: "First of all, young people are busy at work and do not have so much time to watch TV. In addition, sometimes a story, the details are not attractive enough, the plot makes you want to know the result, in the novel this is called popular fiction, when watching the rush to the end; then in the TV series, everyone will double the speed to watch. Wang Haiyu believes, "I personally feel with hindsight that the function of double speed viewing has actually put forward higher requirements relative to the creators. quality. If you were to watch my show twice as fast, I would admit that I wasn't writing well enough, because creating a TV series is not self-amusement, you still want to achieve a kind of communication with the audience, then communication can't be done, first of all, it's the problem of the expressor. ”
We must care about everyone as well as the small family
Some commentators on the Internet believe that "The World of Man" has a very moving point, that is, Zhou Bingkun, the youngest son of the Zhou family, who is the most "not outstanding", as the absolute protagonist. He does not have the outstanding wisdom and wisdom of his brother and sister, but he has a simple and kind heart, the courage to dare to take responsibility, practical and diligent, hard-working, and has created his own beautiful life with one hand and one foot on the bumpy road of life. The depiction of such a remarkable little person resonated with a wide audience. "In our social value system, people who are accustomed to recognizing the 'spire' will ignore ordinary people. Zhou Bingkun is an ordinary person, he is bound to be affected by these social value systems, compared to his brother and sister, he will feel that he is not out of the ordinary. But he is simple, kind and lovely, and he is also the one who pays the most for his family, for his elders, his wife and children. It's remarkable. ”
Wang Haiyu pointed out, "I personally feel that we have always been very concerned about the small family Chinese, but in the past few decades, it seems that as long as it is a personal matter, no matter how big it is, it is a small matter, and I do not agree with this." I don't agree with that in any era. A healthy lifestyle is to care for both others and yourself, both everyone and the small family. ”
"Not all people are born with an aura when they open and hang, that's a minority. Now that society is open to this extent, Zhou Bingkun's values should be accepted by everyone, and all ordinary people should be comforted from him. Most of us ordinary people, where the meaning of life is, not necessarily how much contribution has been made to mankind, we have made a great contribution to the family, which is equivalent to the contribution to mankind, there is no small family and no everyone. Wang Haiyu believes: "Everyone is willing to see heroes." But civilians write well, non-heroes write well, write things that are profound in human nature, and they will be recognized by everyone. ”