Last week, we chatted with veteran filmmaker Guan Yadi and movie blogger Miss Walking in the live broadcast room, the two guests have keen attention and insight into the industry situation, and also have rich feelings and experiences of film and television works, and the theme of the live broadcast room has been continuously extended and expanded, covering all aspects of the current film and television industry.
Today's live broadcast summary, we have excerpted the wonderful parts in text as usual and shared with you.
- Starting from Chen Kexin's turn to series creation
Fujii: In recent years, many filmmakers have come down to make dramas, and I think this phenomenon is very interesting. At the recent Busan International Film Festival, director Chen Kexin announced his new company, Changin' Pictures, while mentioning future production plans: his company raised funds to hire high-quality teams in Asia to produce and sell the series to streaming platforms such as Netflix. The news of the film's next filming is not a new topic, and the shock brought by this news to the industry lies more in Chinese content, elite groups, pan-Asian productions, and cross-cultural perspectives, providing high-quality content for streaming media platforms. What do the two guests think?
Kwan Yadi: The most important keyword in this news is streaming content. In the past decade, the huge demand for streaming content, mainly in the United States, has caused drastic changes in the film and television industry, and now these changes have finally spread to Asia, and the core creators in the Chinese market have also received the impact. It is a matter of time, so director Chen Kexin just stood up first, he has been in the film for many years, established an international production company in the early years, and his personal background and work experience are in line with this situation.
From a streaming content perspective, Netflix has demonstrated its ambitions since House of Cards a decade ago, with viewers noticing the difference between it and HBO: HBO is a cable pay-per-the-line channel with small production; And Netflix devours a lot of content, in order to lock in the amount of time users spend online, giving them as many options as possible. Among them, the stay time of the drama far exceeds that of the movie, which can firmly capture the audience, so it has become the first choice of the platform.
Many years ago, Netflix's chief content officer stood in the perspective of their business model, very crisis about potential competitors, this opponent is not Disney+, he believes that Netflix and Disney+ should join forces to think about what kind of content will steal users' time in the future, in his opinion, it may be a game company, so Netflix has also begun to lay out games. Based on this current situation, I think that Chen Kexin is now filming, and it does not rule out that he will also become a Game Creator in the future, because in the end, whether it is a drama or a movie, it serves creative content that eats up time and needs creators.
Miss Walk: Hong Kong films came into contact with industrialization earlier than us and understood the market better, in contrast, Hong Kong directors knew what kind of content was popular and what kind of works could win the market at an early stage, so I was not so surprised to see this news. What Mr. Guan said I recognize, the important thing in movies or dramas is good content. When it was mentioned before, from movies to episodes, there was always a feeling of dimensionality reduction. I spent a lot of time watching the series this year, and found that the content of the series has improved a lot, and a large number of good creators are carefully telling stories in the way of making episodes.
In fact, not only dramas, the level of many domestic variety shows has been improving in recent years. Seeing the theme of this live broadcast, I wondered what caused this current situation, in addition to the well-known reasons for the general environment, I think it is also related to the personal feelings of the audience and the collective mood of society, when the happiness obtained from life experience becomes less, it is easier to invest more time in electronic products, as an escape from reality. This should be one of the reasons why the series is particularly popular this year.
- The reason for the explosion of episode content
Fujii: In the early years in Cannes, there was no original streaming content in French theaters, and it could not be used as a film in the main competition unit, which caused a lot of discussion, such as the situation of "Roma" at that time. Since then, because Netflix is too developed, its momentum, the volume of its works, and the number of directors it cooperates with have become larger and larger, and the threshold of film festivals has become more and more blurred. Netflix's support for original quality content has visibly changed the industry. Since the epidemic, our movement has been somewhat restricted, and the time spent at home has increased, and for most people, watching dramas has become the first choice to pass the time, and the large number of episode content has emerged for many internal and external reasons. Is there anything else to add to Yadi?
Guan Yadi: The relationship between streaming content and film festivals and exhibitions, I am not very clear about the European market at present, I need to check it again, I think it should be reconciled; The US market has been completely reconciled, because Netflix has long been the top six MPAA, at least in terms of Oscars and Emmys. The vigorous content of the series, the epidemic is an external factor, the development of technology has also played a role in further promoting and guiding, and the most important thing is the internal reason of the industry.
For example, everyone is very familiar with Marvel, we call it "Marvel Cinematic Universe", Marvel Cinematic Universe, "Marvel Cinematic Universe" from "Iron Man" about ten years later, the whole changed the rules of the game in Hollywood, changed everyone's investment strategy. These series of movies are very easy to cross culture and market, and do not need to be understood by local cultural audiences in the United States, so they directly tilt Hollywood's funds, gather a lot of money to the head, and sell the international market, resulting in the probability of small and medium-cost films such as "Little Sunshine Beauty" and "Moonlight Boy" being invested is getting lower and lower. Based on this, the creative forms that should have been diversified became very limited, Hollywood itself rolled in, the diversification gradually disappeared, and creators began to find their own way out, first of all, entering the market of dramas.
- The influence of Korean film and television
Fujii: I personally have a deep feeling that Korean movies have been so good in recent years, "Squid Game" is popular all over the world on the series, and "Parasite" and "Determination to Break Up" in the movies have won awards. In particular, "Parasite", which won both the Cannes Palme d'Or and the Oscar for Best Picture, received professional recognition and appreciation on two completely different runways, which has never appeared in the history of film before. The vigorous local creative force and the height of industrialization have opened up the influence of Korean films in the global market, how to see the current performance of Korean films?
Miss Walking: I spent nearly half of my time re-watching Korean dramas this year, and when I was a child, I didn't like Korean dramas and thought it was too routine. Now, as a thirty-year-old adult, I have been bribed by Korean dramas. I got into My Liberation Diary, and as a content creator, seeing good content being realized, it's a very complicated feeling. Kong Liu said in the aftermath of this drama: "Every episode is like a rugby that doesn't know where to go, being hit in the back of the head by the screenwriter, and getting wonderful sores and comfort like a pervert." "That's how I feel.
Korean film and television works, whether they are movies or dramas, can clearly feel the power of the drama and the power of the screenwriter. In the domestic dramas of previous years, I rarely saw the subjectivity of the screenwriter, but in Korean films, I can see particularly subtle things, such as "My Liberation Diary", whose drama is detailed enough to describe the heroine sitting in her seat, can clearly tell you what is placed on the table, the curtains move for a few seconds, and her hair is blown from which direction. It may be less than 5 seconds on the screen, but these things are in the script, I have not seen such a script before, and it makes me respect the Korean content creators.
Another example is "Determination to Break Up", which I particularly like. For "love", East Asians were not very willing to talk about it before, and our culture was implicit. When I watched Korean movies this year, I found that their yearning for love is very Western, bold and enthusiastic, and I think this contrast is very interesting. As a nation with a particularly large proportion of Christianity, South Korea has put the divinity of love into their daily life. In "Determination to Break Up", the director and the heroine are desperate for human nature, do not have illusions and do not want to trust, but they believe in love, and in order to preserve the existence of love, people can disappear and destroy. Because the moment I feel love, I am already complete.
Korean films dominated the whole of Asia in the early days, starting from the type of romantic love, which was once popular. To this day, they are not like Hong Kong films, once brilliant, now in decline. Korean film and television has embarked on a benign development path, showing a richer, more diverse, and realistic appearance, and love, as a once important element and clue, is now integrated into daily narratives.
The reason why "My Liberation Diary" can cause such a big response, in addition to love, it also has a more solid expression of reality, and even South Korean government officials saw that the daily commute of people living outside the Seoul protein district in the play takes a lot of time and is very exhausting, so they decided to solve this problem. Their participation and strong attention to watching episodes is also an important feedback and support for creators.
- Non-replicable creator breakout
Fujii: "Squid Game" is a global hot spot, highlighting Netflix's ability as a capital giant to use the global distribution channels to explore and promote cultural resources around the world. A Korean-speaking drama is popular to such an extent, which is a great touch for Chinese and Chinese-speaking creators. Now director Chen Kexin also announced that he will cooperate with streaming media platforms to produce film and television works that can adapt to the needs of the world, let high-quality content speak, and mentioned at the Busan International Film Festival that he would shoot "The Case of the Murder of the Sauce Garden", which is difficult to set up in China, and doing streaming content is a helpless move and a new opportunity.
Guan Yadi: Director Chen Kexin's new move may trigger two effects, from a positive point of view, Netflix encourages localization, a lot of high-quality content will be produced in large quantities, and Chinese stories can be shot by Chinese-language creators with Chinese. From a serious point of view, Netflix does not have a mainland market, there is no way to establish cooperation, aside from the possibility of international film and television creators, there is no way to dock for the time being, and I will not repeat it.
- The strength of domestic video platforms
Fujii Shu: In the early years, TV dramas and online dramas started with 40 episodes, and in recent years, mainstream video platforms have made efforts to make dramas, Aiyouteng, B station, Mango Monsoon, have all come out of the boutique short drama mode, this model has gradually changed our habits of watching dramas, the number of episodes is decreasing, the subject matter is extensive, the quality is close to the movie, and the overall quality is very good. Do you pay attention to the performance of episodes on various platforms?
Miss Walking: The episodes of several video platforms are very different from the subject matter to the presentation. For example, "Sanyue Has a New Job" produced by Station B, many lines of this drama have been processed into golden sentences, which is especially suitable for screenshots to spread on other social platforms. It is very much in line with the habits of young audiences watching dramas, and many of the views expressed in it have been carefully changed into ways that are easy for young people to understand and accept.
As a funeral theme, it goes further than "Life Events", the movie is still expressed in the way of fairy tales, so as to weaken the impact of reality, and in the 13-episode drama, there are a large number of group dramas of different types, different encounters, different stories, and different relationships, including family history, hospice care, female aggression, and even Malaysia Airlines news and other particularly realistic content, it will all the issues that young people are now concerned about on the Internet, are reasonably told in the form of dramas, very concise, very satisfying the aesthetics of the young audience of station B, Through the barrage, it can be seen that they like it and are moved, and they understand everything they want to say. The content made by the platform is highly matched with its audience, forming a mature and stable cultural circle, and "Sanyue Has a New Work" is such a work.
This live broadcast has too many elements and is full of dry goods, it is strongly recommended that you go to the live broadcast room to click back to watch more, more sharing of popular dramas, and discussions about film technology.
Remember to lock Miss Fujii Shu's Weibo @ Miss Fujii Shu, next week we will see each other in the live broadcast room, continue to chat, stay tuned!
Today's topic
What's your favorite episode this year?