Today's Women's Daily/Fengwang reporter Zhang Qiuying
The popular women's drama "Dream Hualu" finally came to an end, and for Zhang Wei, a big thing finally landed.
In the past month, this female costume inspirational light comedy starring "Immortal Sister" Liu Yifei has received rave reviews as soon as it was launched, and the popularity has remained high, and even triggered a Song Dynasty fever. A large number of viewers were moved by the delicate and subtle emotional dramas and vivid group portrait dramas in the play, and invariably became CP fans of "Gu Pan Shenghui" (the combined name of the male and female protagonists in the play) (referring to the fans' obsession with a couple set as a couple in a TV series) or became "recorded people" (the fan name of "Dream Hualu").
Zhang Wei is an independent screenwriter for the 40-episode TV series. Previously, she had written "Dulala Promotion", "The Legend of Lu Zhen", "The Biography of the Female Doctor Mingfei", "Growing Up", "Lonely World" and other popular dramas. Although it has always created female themes, "Dream Hualu" is very different, this is a group drama, or a female screenwriter and female director to tell the warm story of women in the city who help each other. In 2020, Zhang Wei handed the script to director Yang Yang through the staff of Tencent Video, and Yang Yang was immediately attracted. In Yang Yang's view, the heroines are very similar to the girls who are struggling in the north and Guangshen today.
Stills from "Dream Hualu"
At the end of "Dream Hualu", the reporter of today's women's newspaper contacted the screenwriter Zhang Wei and asked her to tell the story behind this "Tokyo Dream" from the beginning.
Zhang Wei
At the age of forty, I had the darkest moment of my life
Writing "Dream Hualu", in Zhang Wei's view, is a self-redemption.
At the age of 40, she experienced a life change. She really wanted to grab something to get herself out of the way and start trying to be a producer, she had never had any experience shooting, and everything needed to start from scratch. Two female students from more than ten years ago, now that they have become excellent producers, they came to help her without saying a word. From the preparation of the project to the search for actors, production, post-production, etc., just like the three sisters in "Dream Hualu", they led her to "start a business" hand in hand.
What she didn't expect was that life didn't reward her bravery and diligence in stepping out of her comfort zone. Her first TV series as a producer was interrupted for some reason, and she found a problem with her body. "It will feel like I'm stuck, in the middle of life, up and down, there are 70-year-old parents, there are 10-year-old children, what do I do?" 」 Zhang Wei described that feeling, just like the half-masked tea house of "Zhao Pan'er" in "Dream Hualu" was flooded, and her heart was scattered.
In the darkest moment, it was the girls around her who helped her. "My students, one moment said that there was something to talk about, the next moment said that there was a paper to ask me for tutoring, anyway, they made up all kinds of reasons to come to my house, accompany me, and watch me stabilize before leaving." 」 Zhang Wei recalled.
She looked around at the girls who helped and supported her, and decided to write a powerful play. In narrative creation, there is a way to rewrite the story of the visitor. Then she put "herself" in the story, and then in the story, she saved herself. The story is not Princess Wangsun, but the city merchant women, they take the abacus, kitchen knife, pipa, all are tools for making a living, starting from Qiantang, all the way to the liver and gallbladder, support each other, to the capital to create a new career for them, in this story, love is just a branch line.
"I hope she can inspire people, but also inspire herself, and get her spirit back." Zhang Wei said.
In 2022, "Dream Hualu" was launched, and it has been 4 years since her last play "Lonely World" was broadcast, but in these 4 years, she has been working every day.
Zhang Wei
It is not easy for girls to start a business in the Song Dynasty
A large part of the plot of "Dream Hualu" is the entrepreneurial history of the main characters Zhao Pan'er, Sun Sanniang, and Song Yinzhang. Starting from Qiantang, they opened tea houses and restaurants all the way, and used very beautiful tea drinks, fruits, and piano tones to attract customers. - It is not easy to write this plot well.
Unlike other historical periods, the Song Dynasty was a period of great development of the mainland's commodity economy. "BMW carved cars full of incense, more blown down, stars like rain" "Smoke willow painting bridge, wind curtain green curtain, jagged 100,000 people." "The exquisite Song Ci vividly portrays the exquisite and rich urban life of that time. Today, many of the lifestyles and aesthetic values of modern people can be found in the Song Dynasty.
Stills from "Dream Hualu"
As early as the beginning of the creation, Zhang Wei hoped to present the mellow city style in the "Qingming River Map", and naturally presented the four elegant things of the Song Dynasty such as "tea", "incense", "painting" and "flower" in the unfolding of the story. Although it was difficult to accomplish this ambition within the framework of the narrative, she still decided to challenge herself.
Zhang Wei's grandparents were all wenshi fang family, she herself has always been quite interested in history, when writing the script, she went to the advanced research class of the history department of Peking University, which has greatly helped Zhang Wei to study the historical details of the Northern Song Dynasty.
Once, Zhang Wei came across a book called "Song Feast", where the food author reconstructed more than seventy dishes from the Song recipes, covering the three levels of court cuisine, literati cuisine and civilian cuisine, involving hot meat, vegetarian dishes, cold cuts, soup soup, porridge noodles, cakes, drinks and fruits, each dish has a detailed graphic method, as well as related anecdotes, customs and utensils.
Zhang Wei was immediately excited, and went to find the author team of "Song Feast" and asked them to be script consultants. "They were also very happy, and they hit it off, as if they agreed to anything specific." Zhang Wei smiled and recalled. Subsequently, the team of authors of "Song Feast" sent Zhang Wei the food and drinks involved in the play with pictures, methods, molds, and names, even detailing whether to "eat a cup of tea" or "come to a pot of tea". In addition, she also invited Chang Yu, a teacher from the School of Humanities of Shenzhen University and a well-known young historian, to be her consultant for this play.
After the broadcast, the drinks and food in the play were fiercely fired, and many people who paid attention to traditional cultural diet also taught everyone how to imitate Menghualu drinks on the Internet. There are also many young viewers who lament that in the Song Dynasty, "fruit tea" was very popular.
In order to make Zhao Pan'er's tea order in the play more in line with the norms. Zhang Wei also invited Zhang Zhifeng, a non-genetic teacher of "Tea Hundred Plays" through friends, to open a video "Tea Lesson" for the lead actor. "In the video class, the main actors are quite serious, and Yifei has been taking notes and asking questions very seriously." Zhang Wei said. With the help of a number of historical consultants, the names of dishes, drinks, streets, titles, dresses and other historical details of people from all walks of life have been checked.
In fact, this kind of evidence-based script writing is not unique to "Dream Hualu", but Zhang Wei has always been a habit. When writing fashion industry dramas, she will invite senior consultants, buyers and designers in the fashion industry to be script consultants and pick faults one by one. She believes that these precise details can make the story more realistic and more immersive.
"Intentions or 'living', in fact, the audience can feel it." Zhang Wei said. Intentions are also the reason why Zhang Wei appreciates director Yang Yang and the crew team, "Director Yang Yang's aesthetic feelings are very special, and she hoped to create a concept of "women like water" from the beginning. After the broadcast, I watched many viewers also like the feeling of water vapor. "The careful restoration of the scene brings a unique aesthetic effect to this TV series.
"Dream Hualu" has ended, and the growth path of the heroines continues
Different from zhang Wei's previously written roles such as the girl's growth type "Lu Zhen", in this drama, Zhao Pan'er, played by Liu Yifei, is a mature woman, she has had love experience, but also has social experience. "Unlike other teenage girls, she is much more mentally mature, so she can accurately express her emotional feelings and experiences." Zhang Wei said that many viewers were very touched by the scene where Zhao Pan'er and Sanniang talked late at night, because this kind of mature woman's treatment of love's gains and losses actually fits the mentality of many modern women towards love: hesitation, weighing and uncertainty about feelings.
A few days before the finale of the series, Zhang Wei clicked on the audience's own production of the second video (short and medium videos made from the secondary editing of the original film and television drama materials by media people or netizens), saw the bullet screen full of screens, and was moved to tears. In the barrage, the audience instructed the characters in the play like they instructed their own families: "Pan'er Qianfan should take more care of her body, don't be too tired and too busy", "The third lady should always come back to see" "The introduction chapter should remember to eat well." ”...... Some bullet screens say that perhaps in another time and space, this group of girlfriends will still encounter countless challenges. Business, emotional. Like every woman who lives in reality who expects to grow and desires to grow: "difficult" is originally a part of life. But as long as you always carry the "strength" can always grow.
"Have a heart". This is also the meaning of Zhang Wei's initial hope to be completed through the script, she hopes to use her own efforts to let students, but also let themselves see: a woman can rely on a pen, can also live out what she likes.
First Instance | Yiyi
Second instance | Wu Duan
Third instance | Ouyang Lingxi