Author | Liu Que
She worked in a bank, worked as a storyteller, and participated in the audition for "Strange Words". She also studied classical dance, painting, handicrafts, tea ceremony, and incense. But all these things don't seem to fill that emptiness in life.
Then she opened a Douyin account to explain the movie, which has 20 million fans. Her videos have influenced many women's viewing choices and how to get to know a movie.
What "Jing Gongzi" wants to do is not only to explain a story, but to tell the wisdom and courage behind the story. She said that an account with a female perspective should have more voices from a women's standpoint.
01
Have your own expression before telling a story
2022 is special for Wen Jing. The baby was born, and her busy work slowed down for a while. Although her aunt took on a lot of childcare work, her life changed dramatically. For six months after the baby was born, she insisted on breast milk and swirled around the baby all day long. When she returned to work, she was full of anticipation.
Wen Jing runs a Douyin account called "Jing Gongzi", which does film and television commentary, and it is a relatively rare female commentary. Her approach to creation looks simple, but it's actually complex. In the past three years, Wen Jing has posted more than 700 videos in this way. Her account once had 21 million followers.
But sometimes she also feels tired, she thinks the audience is also bored.
In the fall, she lost her creative enthusiasm and wrote every day as exhausting as if she was completing a task. She said that if a person can't even move himself when creating, how can he use stylized content to move others? She simply did not force herself to update frequently, and when her thoughts dried up, she gave the team a holiday. This year, she often gave everyone a holiday.
For a while, Wen Jing even came up to do another TikTok number to shoot short dramas. She feels that many short dramas are now filmed very well, and more excellent talents have poured into Douyin. She really needed some new stimuli to save her dying enthusiasm for work.
Fast forward to November, the Qatar World Cup opens. She didn't really watch much football, but during that time her circle of friends was all World Cups, such as a news story that Iranian players refused to sing the national anthem before the game against England. She knew of the death of a 22-year-old girl who had been arrested for not wearing a headscarf, and that a large number of women in Iran had been arrested for not wearing a headscarf. At the same time, domestic Internet public opinion is very popular with the little prince of Qatar. At first, she laughed at these online memes. But the jokes of netizens became more and more popular, and even some girls said: "I am willing to marry and wear a hijab" - such words made her feel terrified.
Out of a professional sensitivity, Wen Jing immediately remembered a movie. The autobiographical film is about an Iranian girl who grew up during the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. She found the original comic of the movie and reread it. Iranian girls born in the sixties also grew up in a normal, open society, but overnight, the environment changed.
She quickly used the film to make a new explainer video. This is the first time that she has her own purpose of expression before choosing a film and telling the story of the movie. What she wants to say is the last sentence of her commentary: "Moving forward requires overcoming difficulties, and retreating is easy." ”
Her expression was echoed. In the comment area, some fans left a message: "I was born naked, and it is you who is dirty." The lyrics are taken from "NXDE," a song that reflects on the female gaze and encourages girls to break their self-shame.
Some people are glad that they were born in a relatively fair and open environment, and some people put forward further thinking: "I hope everyone watched this movie not to rejoice, but to think about whether similar things are happening around us." ”
02
Resigned to become "Jing Gongzi"
Many years ago, when Wen Jing first arrived in Shenzhen, she would not have imagined that her work would be related to movies. She studied simultaneous interpretation in graduate school and graduated from Beijing University of Foreign Chinese. In Shenzhen, she has a job that many people envy, translating for the president of China Merchants Bank. She remembers that she was desperately tutoring in financial literacy, and in two or three years she would be able to read those difficult bank reports.
In Wen Jing's translation career, she was most excited about translating for former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Following the president, she can see big people that can only be seen on TV from time to time. But that excitement and sense of glory was fleeting, and she gradually realized that it was someone else's light after all.
In Shenzhen, it's easy to appreciate the impact of technology. In 2017, Wen Jing suddenly discovered that the development of artificial intelligence is so rapid that the translation ability of translation software can almost replace humans. Everyone is sensitive to this, and her classmates frequently discuss it: AI does not need to understand, it uses big data to match language, and no one can turn over the machine in the future. They feel a crisis – it's only a matter of time before interpreting is about to be replaced by machines.
Sometimes she also feels empty and more and more shaken by this iron rice bowl. With a responsible attitude towards her work, she spent several years trying to learn about the industry, and in the end, she only confirmed that she really did not love finance.
She had thought of ways to enrich her life. She studied classical dance, painting, handicrafts, tea ceremony, and incense, but her hobbies were hobbies and she couldn't fill the void.
One day, perhaps out of boredom, she signed up for a storyteller competition held by the Fan Dengshu Club and got good results. She then signed a contract with Fan Deng's book club to become a part-time storyteller, and was also invited to participate in offline activities of Fan Deng's Shenzhen branch from time to time. Slowly, the bank job seemed to become a side hustle, and she found herself wondering all day, what book to talk about? How to tell a good book? The joy of telling and sharing made her decide to give up the iron rice bowl.
In 2018, Wen Jing resigned from the bank. That's when she bought a house and had some savings. She thought for a long time about what to do, but did not reach a conclusion for a while. She had always loved to read, so for the next year, she caught what she read and read one by one.
Among the books she has read, her favorite is "The Three-Body Problem". Since watching "The Three-Body Problem", she has been fascinated by science fiction, and she is a die-hard fan of Liu Cixin. The Three-Body Problem was so important to her that it even changed her worldview that she would love to recommend it to everyone.
She often watches short videos introducing books on Douyin, and after reading them, she thinks she can do it too. One day, she casually found a background at home, set up a stand, set up a mobile phone, and talked to the camera like the storytelling blogger she often read, and analyzed "The Three-Body Problem" in depth. This video was unedited and posted on TikTok. Unexpectedly, the number of likes soon exceeded 10,000. She was so happy that she named her account "Jing Read Science Fiction", and "The Three-Body Problem" suddenly raised her fan count to 100,000.
Not everyone can talk eloquently in front of the camera, but Wen Jing is fine. When she worked in a bank, she went abroad two or three times a year to give roadshows and give financial reports to various foreign fund managers and analysts. The investors she meets are demanding enough and always pose to challenge you at any time. Under those high-pressure occasions and merciless questioning, Wen Jing developed the strength and confidence to speak publicly.
After the Douyin number gathered 100,000 fans, it coincided with the launch of an animated American drama. She was particularly excited after watching it and immediately made a video. This time, she no longer appeared, but edited the film footage of the first episode, accompanied by her own commentary. After the video was released, the kung fu of a meal had 50,000 likes. She looked at the number a little stunned, thinking that something was wrong with the system. The next day, the number of likes rushed to 600,000.
The impact of the data was too strong, she didn't have time to think of anything else, and quickly finished the remaining eighteen episodes. After the series was completed, the number of fans reached 500,000, and she was greatly encouraged.
At that time, she was confident that everyone liked science fiction. So she made several issues of science fiction movie commentary, some of which have brain-burning plots, some have a cold tone and contain philosophical ideas, all of which are good works carefully selected by her from the movies she has seen. But she didn't expect that the number of likes quickly dropped from hundreds of thousands to thousands, and new works were "cool" one after another.
She didn't understand why, just a little discouraged. So he threw down the account of 800,000 fans and turned around to participate in the offline audition held by the variety show "Strange Words".
Sometimes she can't remember how many things she've tried since she quit. But she has a sense of urgency, always feels that she is not too young to wait, and she is eager to find a way out to realize the value of life.
After a big toss like this, a year passed.
One day, she suddenly noticed that the number of film and television commentary accounts on the Douyin platform had skyrocketed. When she was busy going to debate "Strange Words", the number of fans on several film and television accounts skyrocketed. She regretted it a little, but also made her way up. At the end of 2019, she re-picked up her Douyin account that had been drying for more than half a year and decided to officially enter this track. This time, she dropped her sci-fi hat and renamed her account "Jing Gongzi".
03
Get back to talking
The earliest film and television commentary video may be the CCTV Science and Education Channel in 2004, a program "The Tenth Screening Room" that explains and reviews the movie. Many movie lovers grew up watching "The Tenth Studio" and learned a lot of movie stories from it.
But more than a decade later, people's attention has shifted from TV to the mobile Internet, and they have begun to watch movies and TV commentary on mobile phones.
Some film and television practitioners have criticized such short videos, saying that they are compressing 120 minutes of stories into a few minutes of fast-selling products, which is producing "electronic squeezed vegetables" that lack nutrients. But few people know how much a simple short video can play a role in the promotion of film and television dramas.
Many short video viewers paid attention to the movie because they watched the film and television commentary, and even walked into the theater. There are also countless old films, literary films and niche directors' works that were originally little known, because short videos have become a topic again and have appeared on the hot search of Douban.
In the comments section, viewers often lament that they can always learn something from the stories told in these videos.
However, after two or three years of rapid development, many people have found that those films that they could not access in a lifetime have been "watched" through short videos. With fresh and exciting gimmicks alone, it is difficult to arouse the interest of the audience.
Wang Chenyuan, a young man in Langfang who has been a film and television commentary for more than three years, feels anxious and does not know how to be remembered in the same account.
Wang Chenyuan is a post-ninety generation who began to make short videos of film and television commentary in 2018, when he had a fairly stable job at the Sanhe City Bureau of Industry and Commerce in Hebei Province. But he was just an unstaffed contract worker, earning less than two thousand yuan a month, and sometimes after deducting insurance, he only had three figures left. Purely to make more money, he taught himself editing software and tried to open a TikTok account as a side hustle.
He named the account "Hanamachi Curator." At the beginning, he imitated other accounts to make bad movies and complained, specifically searching the Internet for movies with inexplicable names. Sometimes in order to complain, he had to watch a movie with confusing logic and no understanding four times in a row. After reading it, he seemed to have been sucked out of his soul, and he spread it obliquely on the sofa, and he couldn't slow down for a long time.
However, this side hustle brought him a monthly income of several thousand or more than tens of thousands, and also gave him the confidence to quit his job at the Bureau of Industry and Commerce a year later.
Also in 2019, Wang Chenyuan found that spitting spoof content could not keep up with the tastes of Douyin users, and he began to transform into more mainstream regular film and television commentary. For more than a year, he tried like a headless fly, and tried movies, TV series, documentaries, and anime. His work is no different from other film and television commentary accounts. Even if it has eaten a good number of views with the theme, the number of fans has never increased. He has a family, has children, pays his mortgage every month, and has to support a family of three. He carries a lot of financial pressure and counts on to get his account up every day.
At the beginning of 2022, a friend pushed him an account called "Bass Rap Lightyear", which suddenly became popular with rap commentary on film and television. Wang Chenyuan looked at it and felt that he could do it, he was also a rap lover.
Doing rap commentary is cumbersome, requiring writing lyrics, recordings, and having to pay someone to mix them. He bought a thousand-dollar microphone to record songs, and later equipped it with a professional sound card, which consumed energy and burned money. But the pleasant part is that music was his passion. He often listens to a variety of accompaniments to enrich his library of rap commentary.
Wang Chenyuan said that his works bring the audience not only a story, but also original songs. Music always infects people more directly.
His masterpiece that became a hit is "Lovesickness", which tells the story of a girl who missed her childhood sweetheart. He sang that regret in Chinese-style rap. Many fans were touched and told their love stories in the comment area. It is said that perhaps every boy has a missed girl in his life.
Wang Chenyuan has always thought that he is the kind of person who disappears when he is thrown into the pile of people. But under the "Hanamachi Curator" account, when he saw the fans' replies, he seemed to live a very existential life.
04
Share videos that have touched you with more people
In Shenzhen, Wen Jing also found that no one can copy the success path of others, and she needs to explore her own path.
When the fantasy genre was very popular in 2020, Wen Jing looked for strong suspense films from the Douban 250TOP movie list for explanation. But she soon discovered that there was no explosive logic that could be followed forever, and the audience's tastes were constantly changing. A fan said in the comment area: "How is it all these fights and kills every day." ”
For a while, she exploded four videos in a row, all of which exceeded one million likes. It excites her, and she gets a little bit of a pattern — all four videos are about movies featuring women.
The Jinggongzi account gathers mainly young female fans, and the heroine's stories are always welcomed, and perhaps they can get some inspiration from such narratives. And the films starring mecha and muscular men, the data is often not very good.
Wen Jing also thinks that perhaps her voice and expression are more in line with the stories of women and the delicate stories of emotions that attract her audience. It is her own female identity that determines the temperament of this account
In July 2020, the account reached 6 million followers. Wen Jing rented an office in a Grade A office building and began hiring people to form a team. During that time, she tried to use the production method of the assembly line to produce videos, with a division of labor in topic selection, writing and editing, and finally she revised the gates. But this way of working didn't last long, and she soon found that as long as there was a change of author, the perspective of film selection and the expression of the copywriting would be different, and eventually it would definitely dilute the character and label of "Jinggongzi".
She is increasingly aware that as long as she chooses self-media, she must accept the reality that most of the work has to be done by herself. She forced herself to the work intensity of "007", either watching films and writing scripts, or brushing film and television reviews on Douban.
Sometimes she feels that she can no longer clear her mind and immerse herself in movies as she used to. When she watches a movie, she will take a pen and write down the key plots, shots and inspirations on the paper at any time. She will consciously let her mind follow the protagonist's journey, and if at some point, she is touched by a plot or a shot, she will immediately record it - and these places will become alternatives to the beginning of the video.
At the beginning of 2022, Wen Jing decided to change offices. She moved to Bao'an District, a cultural and creative industrial park converted from an old factory area. She immediately fell in love with this new place.
The park has a large outdoor space, the buildings are not high, and the climbing plants cover the red brick wall. It's home to young startups and creative teams, and the atmosphere is relaxed and energetic. Young people will have cats in the office, and there are also people who lead the dog to work.
She carved out a large space in her office, with tripods, cameras and lighting equipment dedicated to her trumpet for live dance broadcasts. She danced classical dance for five years, but running a self-media business kept her busy and had no time to practice. She simply hired a dance teacher, maybe another TikTok number, so that she can also participate in the live broadcast, take advantage of the convenience of work, and stick to her hobby.
In late December, due to the coronavirus epidemic, the park was unusually deserted. Wen Jing had just finished a few days of high fever, she gave the team a vacation and returned to the office alone.
She began to experiment with new creations. For example, she selected a TV series that reflected the plight of women and made three videos. In the third video, she completely abandons the storytelling format and makes a nearly 7-minute commentary.
She also tried to make a video that was not about a film or television film, but a picture book called "The Lighthouse". When she herself read this book, she was deeply moved, and she wanted to recommend this book to more people. This video made her regain the sense of accomplishment of sharing good content when she used to talk about books.
She noticed that many people paid attention to "Jinggongzi" because of these works. She said that when she makes sincere expressions, she attracts fans who truly belong to her. More importantly, she rediscovered her passion for creating.
Looking back on the three-year Douyin journey, Wen Jing feels that this is also a kind of growth. At first, she just wanted to bring everyone a quick introduction to the movie in a relaxed and entertaining way, but as more and more fans and more broadcasts increased, she also began to have a sense of mission. Her way of interpreting is also changing, from interpretation to interpretation to the output of values. She said that when we express it, we also take more responsibility and hope to help more people.
She has also been reflecting on her past creations. An account from a female perspective, it is not enough to select female-oriented films, she should stand in the position of women and make more voices.
Those videos from the "Jing reading science fiction" period have long been deleted from the account. The introduction of the homepage of "Jing Gongzi" has also been revised, and now: the story is not only a wonderful plot, but also brings wisdom and courage.
- End -
This article only represents the views of the author and does not represent the position of the platform
Author | Liu Que
Edit the | Zou Diyang
Co-ordinate | Yang Yuan Garden
Typesetting | Quiet Mountain
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