Guided by the Beijing Municipal Radio and Television Bureau and sponsored by the Capital Radio and Television Program Production Industry Association, the 2022 Capital Television Program Spring Promotion Conference Drama Creation and Development Forum with the theme of "Staying with the Light: Innovative Exploration of the Diversification of the Development of Chinese Drama Creation" was held in Beijing, and the forum began, And Li Jingsheng, vice president of the China Federation of Radio and Television Social Organizations and director of the Creative Planning Steering Committee of the First Production Association, combined with the Q1 TV drama market blockbuster work "The World of People", and published the theme of "Three Beams of Light Illuminate the Three Levels of Life—— Reflections on the Creation of Reality-themed TV Series".
The following is the content of Li Jingsheng's speech:
Dear friends, guests, good morning.
Due to the epidemic situation, our annual Spring Promotion Meeting of the First Production Association will be held in the cloud this year. Every year at the forum, we have a theme for studying creation, and the determination of this theme is based on some hot issues in the creation, production and broadcast of TV dramas over this period of time, and the works that have aroused heated discussion among the audience, as well as some creative experiences and creative experiences of production institutions.
This year's topic is: realistic theme creation and light
Why the topic was decided? Because in recent times, excellent works with realistic themes have made great achievements in terms of quantity, quality, and social influence. The works are hot, the topic is hot, and everyone's attention is also hot. Today with this topic as the core theme of our forum, we all communicate together, but also invited the most influential production collectives, broadcasting institutions, and most influential directors in the creation of realistic themes to share with us, I will first make an opening statement, and I will exchange some of my recent thoughts on this issue with you.
Talking about the recent excellent works on the theme of reality, I have to say that this year's CCTV set of opening year drama "Human World", today is also a special honor to invite "Human World" director / chief producer Li Lu to share his creative experience. The broadcast of this drama, I personally think that its significance lies in the fact that this is a masterpiece of realistic themes that has appeared over the years in the creation of realistic themes, under the promotion of management departments, the efforts of the creative community, the enthusiasm of screenwriters and directors, and the various expectations of the audience.
This work concentrates our many expectations for the creation of realistic themes, and also reflects the unique ideological charm and artistic charm of realistic theme creation, and is also the culmination of some creative experience and creative methods that we have worked hard to accumulate in the creation of realistic themes over the years. I have the same feeling of the audience and industry colleagues may not be a few, I personally from the beginning of this drama has been following, before also promised to write an article after the broadcast, but the article has not been written out until now, is that I think there is a phenomenon in the broadcast of this show, from the first episode to broadcast with the review synchronization, as the plot progresses, with each episode broadcast process, are accompanied by a wave of comments. Not to mention the bullet screen, it is a formal commentary article, a formal broadcast report, and unlike other dramas after the broadcast, everyone has a collective discussion space, it is with the broadcast, with the watch, with the discussion, until the end of the show, the broadcast heat and the comment heat are synchronized, and it is also a very rare phenomenon.
Where is the success of "The World"?
First of all, from the perspective of the great historical view, a complete "human world" was written.
Where is the success of "The World"?
From the traditional perspective of realistic theme creation, the theme of this drama is not new, and the realistic theme has always been the mainstream of our creation in recent years, the leading broadcast, and the expectations of the audience. In terms of technique, the time and space narrative focusing on the family, similar dramas we have had in the past. Zheng Xiaolong's "Golden Marriage" is also 50 years, and "Parental Love" is also a family life from young to old. The theme and technique are the usual ways and methods of realistic creation, but what are its characteristics? Where is its power to move the audience?
I summarize this power as follows: the work writes a complete "human world" for the audience, and these three complete words are the biggest features of this drama in the creation of realistic themes.
Its completeness is manifested in the fact that, first, there is a narrative space of 50 years, and this time and space capacity can make the work completely and meticulously show the development and changes of Chinese society. It is not just a few people in one household, not a class, not a professional field, it does not carry out a kind of grid interception of 50 years of life, but from civilians to mayors, from families to society, from cities to rural areas to frontiers, from ordinary families to senior cadres, from laid-off workers to professors and poets, from police officers at police stations to the most ordinary civilians, almost everyone we live in every day in contemporary society can reach. The meaning of the complete "human world" is here, and the master of the creation of realistic themes is also here.
The second is that it not only focuses on writing about fireworks in the world, but there are two Chinese realities in it, and the superposition of these two Chinese images gives this drama a greater historical connotation and practical significance, one is political China, and the other is folk China. Through the stories of some residents of the civilian tribe of the light character film and the three generations of the Zhou family, throughout the 50 years of time and space, with political China as the background and folk Chinese life as the main body, this work, which the audience called "civilian epic", was completed. Epics generally praise heroes, and the moral of this civilian epic, the hero it celebrates, is the people who made history, and this work can bear this title.
In this sense, "The World of Man" has a very worthy experience for us to study and summarize the next step to promote the creation of realistic themes, and provides a lot of enlightenment, from which we can harvest many more ideas on how to promote the creation of realistic themes in the next step. It can look down on the development and progress of the society in the fifty-year era from the perspective of great history, and witness the hardships and twists of historical development with delicate life scenes and the fate of plot characters. This is the meaning of this whole world.
Where is the authenticity of "The World of Man"?
Illuminate the hardships of life with three beams of light
The second hot spot that everyone talks about "The World of Man" is that it uses a considerable amount of pen and ink to write about the tribulations of the characters' lives in the play, which everyone has seen. The difficult life of the ordinary people before the reform and opening up in the light character film writes about the various unsatisfactory things in real life, the ups and downs of the fate of the characters, and various embarrassing states of life. There are probably two views around this kind of depiction, one is that it is true, and the other is that there is too much suffering in the play, which leads to a question, where is the authenticity of the creation of realistic themes?
When we write about the current society and write about the life in front of us, many creators also feel that when writing about the light, writing about warmth, writing about the sunshine and other themes, the pen and ink can be let go, and there is no problem. However, when it comes to the tribulations in real life or some so-called grayscale spaces and corners of life in real life, there are often many scruples, often in the restraint of pen and ink, the scale of expression and some twists and turns.
In the pen and ink depicting the hardships and tribulations of life, this work truly, concretely and vividly writes about the various difficulties faced by China before and during the reform process and the difficulties in the lives of the people, but this precisely shows the sense of history and authenticity of this work, where is the reason?
If the first feature is that this work writes a complete "human world", but this is not easy for us to create a general realistic theme, because it is impossible to be like "The World of Man" in every work, all the characters of all social classes, all stages, all walks of life, and all corners are included in the scope of description, and it is impossible for each work to have a span of 20 years, 30 years, and 50 years. So to show some of the life tribulations, hardships, confusions, and difficulties encountered by some protagonists in the real society, here are the problems of angles and scales that are difficult to grasp in the creation of our realistic themes, but there are more problems in the concept of life and values, how do we control the creation of realistic themes.
The success of "The World" in this sense is that the work provides an answer to this kind of creation. I personally believe that although I have written about the hardships and tribulations of life with so much ink, not only to highlight its authenticity, if only the principle of authenticity is not enough, throughout the text, in the work of "The World", it has three beams of light that always shine throughout the play. Three rays of light always shine in the midst of life's tribulations, illuminating the hearts of the world's people:
The first light is the warmth of family affection and home. From the beginning of the first scene of the family's parting, to the middle of the division and union, the death of relatives, marriage and funeral, etc., in the end, each character still returns to the warmth of family and affection. I think this light is a kind of life force that overcomes suffering and tribulations, resists suffering and tribulations, and dissolves suffering and tribulations, and it is also the value that our film and television works and literary and artistic works can never give up to express.
The second beam of light is that almost every character in the work can shine the simplicity and kindness of ordinary human nature. Every character in the play, especially the small characters, even if sometimes there is still a little personal selfishness, but in the end, with kindness and kindness, to resolve the contradictions with others and reflect on their own shortcomings. This is the upward and good power in life that should be conveyed to the audience in literary and artistic works and film and television works.
The third beam of light is the courage and strength to never give up in the work, which always maintains people's efforts to strive for a better life. What this actually writes is the resilience of a nation. I think that with the warmth of family affection and family, with the simple kindness of the background of human nature, with people no matter what kind of situation they are in, they will never give up the struggle and effort of hope for life, so the power of the three rays of light is the tone and true color of this work.
When we see this three rays of light contained in the work, the hearts of each viewer will also be moved and illuminated. These three rays of light are intertwined with suffering, parallel to suffering, and shrouded in suffering. It constitutes the two dimensions of temperature and sharpness in realistic theme works, condensed into two forces that inspire life in the work, and also shows the cultural personality of a nation: hardship and hardship, Yuru Yucheng. From this point of view, the creation of realistic themes, whether it is warm or cold, whether it is full of warmth to describe reality, or to show the audience the difficulties in life with full sharpness, in fact, this is not the main problem of realistic theme creation, the important thing is the value and intention of the coordinates in the creation and the expression of art and aesthetics of real life.
Realistic theme creation
Look at the three lines of balance in real life
From a series of realistic works such as "The World of Man", we can conclude that there are three lines of balance in the works that contemplate real life:
The first is not to avoid the roughness and hardships of real life, because without these lives it is not real.
The second is not to question the warmth, kindness and beauty of human nature, because this is not only the background of human nature but also the background of society.
The third is not to give up the effort and confidence to fight for life, because this is the strength in life.
Grasp the three balance lines of realistic theme creation, you can more calmly and transparently understand life and express life, and your pen and ink can be more comfortable. I don't feel embarrassed where I feel when I write, this is actually that we have not done a better rational sorting out of some creative problems, and now that we have the successful work of "Human World", we can draw some experience sharing that is beneficial to the creation of realistic themes.
Expand the subject area and innovate the means of expression
The next step in the creation of realistic themes is also facing two directions of effort: the first theme will be further expanded.
"Human World" provides us with a panoramic "human world", its depiction brushstrokes reflect the panoramic social life, and our current realistic theme works are not extensive enough, or too much concentration on several types: urban, emotional, workplace, marriage and love, and so on. In fact, social life is far broader than these types, and everyone must also open their horizons, let go of pen and ink, let go of their courage, and have to accommodate more life and more reality. For example, in the past decade, our era of rapid development, the new spiritual outlook of the people, and the rapid changes in life, occupation and concepts have not been enough in the creation of realistic themes.
The second is that in terms of expression methods, our realistic theme creation is also facing the problem of innovation.
At the beginning of the year, I watched a TV series called "The Beginning" broadcast on the Internet, and you may have seen it, and from the perspective of the expression method of this work, it provides a good example of our realistic theme creation in the new way. This theme is actually a vicious public event that occurs in real life that individuals want to take revenge on society. However, after the creators changed their perspective, changed the way of telling, and innovated the means of expression, they turned such a theme into a story of seeing righteousness and courage, into a story of young people growing up and the germination of young love, and into a very realistic and infectious work that pays attention to the lives of small people.
What is the origin of this transformation? From the innovative method, our traditional narrative, the way of writing things, may be difficult to deal with this theme. Innovative methods not only bring some novel elements to the work, but more importantly, the change of angle can change the attributes of a genre, can turn a drama involved in a case into a life drama, and turn a story of a person who wants to carry out hatred into a story that warms everyone.
There is still a lot of room for the creation of realistic themes in terms of method innovation, which is worth everyone's efforts.
Today I will share with you the above points of experience, where it is not right, please criticize, purely personal views, but also impromptu speech, thank you.
The 2022 Capital Television Program Spring Promotion Conference Drama Creation and Development Forum is guided by the Beijing Municipal Radio and Television Bureau, hosted by the Capital Radio and Television Program Production Industry Association, hosted by the Creative Planning Steering Committee of the First Production Association and the Youth Working Committee of the China Production Association, and co-organized by Beijing Cooking Xiaoxian Culture Media Co., Ltd. and screenwriters. With the theme of "With the Light: Innovative Exploration of the Diversification of The Creation and Development of Chinese Opera", Li Jingsheng, Vice President of the Federation of Radio and Television Social Organizations of China and Director of the Creative Planning Steering Committee of the First Production Association, Xu Liguo, Deputy Director of the Television Drama Management Department of the Beijing Municipal Radio and Television Bureau, Zhang Heng, Vice President of iQIYI and General Manager of the Film and Television Literature Research and Development Center, Li Lu, Director/Chief Producer of "In the Name of the People" and "The World of People"; Hou Hongliang, Chairman of Dongyang Noonday Sunshine Film and Television Co., Ltd. and Vice President of the Capital Radio and Television Program Production Industry Association Guo Jingyu, chairman of Beijing Changxin Film and Television Media Co., Ltd., and other guests attended the event, and the forum was presided over by Zhang Ping, resident vice president of the Capital Radio and Television Program Production Industry Association.
The official website of the 2022 Spring Push Conference
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