Image source @ Visual China
Text | Mirror Entertainment, Author 丨 Chestnut Wine, Editor 丨 Li Qianxue
Just before the Eleventh National Day, the tribute drama "Meritorious Service" was broadcast.
Starring Zhou Xun, Huang Xiaoming, Huang Zhizhong, Lei Jiayin, etc., the drama focuses on the true stories of eight "Order of the Republic" winners such as Yuan Longping, Tu Youyou, Shen Jilan and Huang Xuhua, and tries to reflect the trajectory of the era of historical development through meritorious figures who have achieved outstanding achievements in different fields. As of now, the popularity of "Meritorious Service" has continued to rise, and the Douban score has reached a height of 9 points.
It is worth noting that "Meritorious Service" adopts the mode of unit drama, and each character is independently made into a film. Under such a model limitation, the series has 8 industry-leading directors, zheng Xiaolong, Shen Yan, Lin Nan, Yang Wenjun, Mao Weining, Kang Honglei, Yan Jiangang, and Yang Yang, and each director has his own production team and creative team.
Therefore, from the perspective of the creative mode, this is a typical "platter director" work. Prior to this, from the high box office of the "Me and Mine" series in the film market, to the word of mouth of Douban with more than 8 points in the drama market such as "Together" and "Ideal Shines on China", and now, the two films that are being released, "Chosin Lake" and "My Father and I", lead the National Day file, as of now, the box office has reached 2.4 billion and 800 million, respectively, and the Douban score is also above 7 points. Obviously, the "platter director" boom in the industry is intensifying.
<h2>From movies to TV series</h2>
The "platter director" formed a boom, which began with the film market.
In the 2019 National Day file, the movie "My Motherland and Me", directed by Chen Kaige, Zhang Yibai, Guan Hu, Xue Xiaolu, Xu Zheng, Ning Hao and Wen Muye, directed by 7 directors "Platter", was released, and the box office soared all the way to more than 3.1 billion, ranking 4th in the annual box office list. The explosion of commercial value has allowed the market to see more possibilities, and similar film layouts have also entered an explosive period.
In 2020, although affected by the epidemic, "My Hometown and Me", also directed by 7 directors "Platter", was released and once again won 2.8 billion at the box office. Later, after the afterheating of "My Hometown and Me", "King Kong Chuan" was released, and the film gathered 4 directors Guan Hu, Guo Fan, Lu Yang and Tian Yusheng, and the box office eventually exceeded 1.1 billion. What needs to be understood is that in the whole of 2020, only 4 films broke the box office of 1 billion, and the "platter director" films accounted for half.
Nowadays, in addition to "My Father and Me" and "Chosin Lake" are still the works of "platter" directors, there are also "Brave You", "There is her in the world", "No Spring Will Not Come", "Seven-Piece Band", etc. Entering the creative period, the creative mode of "Platter Director" is becoming more and more common.
Gradually, this trend also began to spread in the drama market. In addition to the release of "Meritorious Service" in the mode of "platter director", the previously broadcast tribute film "Ideal Shines on China" has reached as many as 16 directors. After the outbreak of the epidemic last year, the anti-epidemic drama "Together", which triggered heated discussions, also invited 14 directors such as Zhang Li, Shen Yan, Teng Huatao, and Cao Dun to direct the "platter". In addition, dramas such as "Our New Era", "Stone Blossom", "Convention", and "The Most Beautiful Retrograde" have all rapidly entered the market under the "platter director" model.
Behind this trend, whether it is a movie or a series, the most direct advantage of the "platter director" work is to achieve the superposition of the director's popularity and the popularity of the relevant actors, that is, to enhance the probability of setting off a market boom. And for the current attempt at more unit-type "platters", as long as one or two of the units have a word of mouth, it can drive the reputation of the entire film and television work to rise, and achieve a certain degree of "flaw cover-up".
More importantly, for the drama market, the "platter director" work is currently more in the form of short film collections. At present, short videos have reshaped the habits of watching dramas in the market, and short dramas have gradually become a new development trend, and "short film collections" are actually more in line with market demand. Before the "platter director" formed a boom, unit dramas and short dramas were also tried on major video platforms, and such soil may make the "platter director" model usher in a more concentrated outbreak in the drama market.
<h2>Epidemic pressure + gift catalysis</h2>
In fact, the "platter director" model didn't come out in recent years.
As early as 1962, 9 French directors, including Philippe de Broca, Jacques Demi and Roger Vadim, co-produced a film Called the Seven Deadly Sins, which can be seen as an early attempt at the "platter director" model.
However, this model has not been widely rolled out for a long time, and it is difficult to verify the commercial return of the "platter director". An important reason behind this is that the gathering of multiple directors is not only costly, but also difficult to coordinate the division of labor and style, and most of the works of "platter directors" are "accidental events".
As far as some mainland directors are concerned, such as "Lumiere and the Forty Directors" co-directed by Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige's "Ten Minutes of Aging", Jiang Wen's "New York, I Love You", etc., are all international "platter director" works, but these works are more attractive than the film itself, and they are the affirmation of the director's international status behind them, so it is difficult to sustain from the creative level.
In contrast, perhaps the greater impact on current development trends may be the early attempts in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In the 1980s, a "Story of Time" in Taiwan caused a lot of repercussions, the film was directed by Zhang Yi, Ke Yizheng, Yang Dechang, Tao Dechen 4 directors "Platter", trying to reflect Taiwan's 30 years of social changes through the growth of 4 characters.
In 2003, Hong Kong focused on the "SARS" incident to shoot "1:99 Film Action", which invited 15 directors, including Stephen Chow, Xu Ke, Lin Chaoxian, Chen Kexin and other directors.
To some extent, from "The Story of Time" to "1:99 Film Action", the content of these two films points to very similar to the current mainland "platter director" films, that is, focusing on major historical or social events such as "main theme" and anti-epidemic. However, at that time, because the audience soil of these two types of themes had not yet been fully cultivated, under the influence of the "big environment", the works of "platter directors" took a "detour" in the mainland.
From 2005 to 2016, as romance films continued to emerge with high-grossing works, the "platter director" model also began to try this direction. However, according to the statistics of Mirror Entertainment, during this period, none of the related films even grossed more than 100 million. Especially in 2016, "Ben Ai", which was created by 5 directors zhang Yibai, Guan Hu, Zhang Meng, Teng Huatao and Gao Qunshu, stopped at the box office of less than 50 million, and the market's confidence in it was greatly reduced.
But at the same time, the main theme films such as "Wise Tiger Mountain", "Mekong Action", and "Wolf Warrior 2" have gradually found a narrative way of the new era. The post-90s and post-00s have gradually become the main consumer groups of movies, and the tide of national self-confidence and cultural self-confidence needs more footholds. What finally triggered this model was the overall atmosphere of the gift and the sudden epidemic.
First of all, these two themes are very large, putting aside the capital drive, just from the perspective of social value, it is enough to mobilize the rapid assembly of domestic leaders. Secondly, in the industry into an extreme period of difficulties, but also need to come up with reliable works in the shortest possible time, "platter director" is almost the only choice. The "Me and Mine" series, "King Kong Chuan", "Chosin Lake" and other related works are generally lower than the average creative cycle of the industry in two years from preparation to release. Later, the commercial value of these works became apparent, which also accelerated the participation of more entrants.
However, it is also in such a development environment that the theme and mode of the current "platter director" are very concentrated, and they are relatively dependent on the general environment of gifts and epidemics. Therefore, until the industry's creation jumps out of this limitation, it cannot be considered that "platter director" is a sustainable development model of continuous promotion and continuous innovation.
<h2>The migration of capital trust</h2>
From the capital level, the current overall development trend of the film industry is that the upper limit of the single film box office is constantly being refreshed. Up to now, 3 works with a box office of more than 5 billion yuan have been born in China, which will also invisibly raise the market expectations of investors. Generally speaking, under a reasonable market carrying capacity assessment, the capital side's investment in a film is directly linked to its box office expectations. This means that in the future, the investment of investors will rise further, and the corresponding risk will be greater.
It is also for this reason that there are more and more capital parties behind the head film, which is essentially for risk sharing and income sharing, while the film and television winter and the epidemic have accelerated this process, and the "platter director" has undertaken this trend.
For example, behind "My Motherland and Me", there are as many as 51 production companies, and Ning Hao's Bad Monkey and Xu Zheng's ZhenLe Dao are also co-producers, and they also participate in the film directing. And in "My Hometown and Me", the number of companies involved in the production has reached 45. Among them, in addition to the above two companies, Yan Fei and Peng Damo's Xihong City Film and Television, Deng Chao, Yu Baimei's orange image and other main creative companies appeared in the list of main producers.
The trend behind the refraction is that, on the one hand, directors are further grasping the control of film creation through the capital level; on the other hand, capital is concentrated and betting on the director, which also reflects that the creative layer represented by the director group is becoming a more important dimension in the capital market in assessing the quality of content.
Prior to this, the main theme content once focused on the "platter star" model, and the "Founding Trilogy" of China Film Layout was one of the representative works, and later this model was also extended to other genres, but did not have a sustained impact. Nowadays, "platter director" works continue to emerge, whether it is movies or dramas, there are works with both word-of-mouth and commercial value, which to a certain extent reflects that the overall orientation of the "star-centered system" is gradually migrating to the "director-centered system", which is undoubtedly a positive phenomenon for the benign development of the film and television industry.
Of course, every trend appears, and a bubble will emerge in the creation of the trend. At present, although the "platter director" model is becoming more and more common, it is still in the immature exploration period. "King Kong Chuan" released last year has been questioned in terms of director integration, and the same series of "Chosin Lake" no longer deals with the division of directors in "segments" and "perspectives", but tries to take their own strengths and cooperate, director Chen Kaige grasps the overall tone, and the two Hong Kong directors, Xu Ke and Lin Chaoxian, are responsible for the big scenes and action scenes respectively.
It can be seen that the current "platter director" works are still exploring the way forward in the collision with the market, and whether they can be continuously verified in the future remains to be seen, but it is certain that this road still has a long way to go.