Focusing on presenting the operation and maintenance ecology of a certain industry, vividly and specifically describing the real workplace, and writing what professionals see, hear, do and feel, workplace dramas have become a type of film and television works that appear frequently on the current screen. The rich industry types and hot topics in real life provide a steady stream of creative materials for workplace dramas, and are also an important part of contemporary Chinese stories.
However, some of the existing workplace dramas blindly chase dramatic conflicts, or blindly seek high topics, or the creative team lacks the necessary industry cognition, etc., resulting in the characters and plots in the work being seriously divorced from reality, becoming a "pseudo-workplace drama" with the workplace as a gimmick, some details are difficult to withstand scrutiny, and even some simply turn the workplace into a shell of the play, and the core is the Mary Sue routine of "the overbearing president falls in love with me", which is not only destined to be recognized by the audience at a glance, but also loses the meaning of workplace drama creation.
A compelling workplace story
It must reflect the real workplace ecology
The workplace has always been an important element that cannot be bypassed in film and television dramas. The industry opportunities and challenges, complex and multifaceted interpersonal relationships, emotional entanglements between people, etc., almost every link is enough to stimulate the ups and downs of the storyline.
One of the creative trends of domestic workplace dramas in recent years is to continuously enrich the display of all walks of life, such as "An Home" (real estate agency), "Ideal City" (construction cost engineer), "Elite Lawyer", etc., and the industry itself is a bright spot. However, if you want to write a convincing workplace story, choosing a wonderful industry is just the beginning, the main creative team must not only understand the specific situation of the industry, but also closely relate the workplace situation with the mentality and growth of the character, only in this way can the credibility of the story be enhanced.
The workplace drama with good ratings and word of mouth recently, is "Walking to the Wind". Taking a series of stories that happened in Luzhou Airlines as clues, the film selects nearly 50 real events in civil aviation in the past, connecting all aspects of aviation's work, life and family. As a result, the audience can understand the most real working and living conditions of aviation people, and will follow the advancement of the storyline to witness the process and development of the modernization of China's civil aviation industry with the protagonists.
Intimate greetings when getting on and off the plane, warm comfort when the plane is bumpy, timely briefing by the captain during the flight, etc... The trivial and real details of "Walking to the Wind" make the audience instantly recall every flight journey as a passenger. Behind the safety and comfort is the high professionalism of civil aviation personnel. The "Walking to the Wind" team has conducted in-depth research in the preparation, filming and production, and actively sought the guidance of professionals, repeatedly polishing the professional details and plot logic in the play. For example, when an emergency comes and passengers are extremely emotional, how should the staff calm them? The captain Gu Nanting's rigorous and serious response measures and timely and effective communication in the play all show the professional demeanor he deserves.
"Ordinary Glory", which tells the struggle story of white-collar workers in the financial workplace in first-tier cities, is also a masterpiece that digs deep into workplace topics, and related topics such as "interns turn positive", "how to deal with workplace factional struggles" and "middle-aged workplace dilemma" are all hot topics in real life, with a rather serious tone and accurate focus on the word "workplace".
The director of the play, Lu Xing, once publicly said that this work deliberately abandons the love line and purely presents a workplace story, which "will be different from the audience's psychological expectations, or with the 'workplace drama' advertised by some TV series."
Say goodbye to the "Mary Sue" cool drama routine
The character shaping strives to be grounded
From the workplace drama "Negotiator" focusing on the field of business negotiations to the TV series "Perfect Relationship" showing the public relations industry, to "Hello Prosecutor", "My Haggling Queen", "Dear Translator", etc., the wonderful content that originally relied on the protagonist's self-improvement and crawling in the workplace aroused the audience's warm expectations in the early days of the broadcast, but with the addition of a large number of love lines, the tension of the story line in the workplace was diluted, and the protagonist was often blessed with good luck in the process of "upgrading", invincible, and finally fell into the cliché of "Mary Sue" , This is far from the real workplace where the public is, and it is inevitable that word of mouth will fall.
The main body of the story is people, and the excitement of the plot content and the success of character shaping are inseparable. And the blind pursuit of the perfect "Mary Sue" cool drama character is not a trump card guarantee for dramatic effects, but will cause the suspension of the narrative. In the TV series "Ideal City", which takes the profession of construction cost engineer as the incision, the protagonist Su Xiao is set as a woman who has just entered a career in a female family, from an ordinary employee family in third- and fourth-tier cities, and entered a state-owned enterprise with her professional ability. She is like us who move forward silently in reality, without a strong family background, nor the favor of the "domineering president", relying on herself who has been fighting.
Although the workplace will not be smooth sailing, with the tenacity and excellent professional skills of not admitting defeat, Su Xiao has worked hard all the way, while adhering to his professional ideals and resolutely refusing to bow to the "unspoken rules" of the industry. The enterprise management models such as the industry subcontractor evaluation system, comprehensive budget management, and full holding of all employees involved in the play are extremely close to reality, and the professional and detailed interpretation of specific bidding cases quickly weakens the sense of distance between the audience and the construction cost engineer. Business dinners and late-night overtime work are all shown more realistically, and there are few deliberately set dramatic conflicts.
As a defender of professional beliefs, Su Xiao has always adhered to a positive attitude such as diligence, optimism and perseverance, and has gone through the tests of life, and finally proved his value with strength and become a leader in the industry.
Truly observe social reality
Infuse profound value discussions
Although "interlacing is like a mountain", all walks of life have corresponding social phenomena and problems, and the values and meanings they carry are interconnected. Therefore, how to avoid the "disease-free moaning" floating on the surface and strengthen the depth of workplace drama content is bound to strengthen ideological excavation, such as in-depth disclosure and criticism of industry ecology, or turning the workplace into a window to see through society.
The workplace drama "Dress" with the background of fashion magazines thinks about the value of the industry: its story background, based on the changes in the industrial environment, clearly shows the impact of the mobile Internet on traditional media, and discusses the idealists' adherence to the value of fashion media - not for brands and capital to make a megaphone, but to shoulder the value of beauty, even the English version of the title "Pride and Price" bears the point of "dignity and price".
Lei Zhilong, the screenwriter of "Dressed Up", has eight years of experience in fashion magazines, and based on his personal experience, he has unveiled the wonderful "insider" of the industry to a certain extent, and set precise industry topics: How can traditional media go against the trend and break the situation? How can practitioners stick to their ideals in Vanity Fair? "Dressed Up" gives observations and reflections from front-line practitioners.
But unfortunately, perhaps in order to enrich the content highlights, or perhaps to integrate into more diverse social topics, "Dress" did not further dig into the uniqueness of the industry after accurately outlining the industry ecology of fashion magazines at the beginning, but began to talk about the rookie progression, workplace crush, big guy game, female mutual aid, wine table culture, scumbag cheating and other clichés that the audience watched and watched, covering all aspects, topics repeatedly, and the themes were too mixed, and finally ended sloppily.
The root cause is either that the creative team has biased in the positioning of the series, or that considering the film and television presentation effect, the difficulty of creation and the audience's acceptance, it deliberately weakens the professionalism, resulting in a blind pile of many dramatic elements, which is out of control due to imbalance.
When the workplace becomes an embellishment, the industry highlights of workplace dramas are greatly weakened. In "Please Call Me Director", which takes the investor's industry as the background of the story, although the investment case runs through the series, there is also a clear sense of suspension. At first glance, the play presents the characteristics of the industry from multiple angles with multiple cases, but carefully one product, but all serve the emotional narrative of the protagonist, effectively promote the love process, but weaken the professionalism that workplace dramas should have, and less involved in deep investment concepts.
It is worth affirming that in recent years, the number and scale of domestic workplace dramas have increased significantly, revealing the mysteries of many industries, and there have also been novel attempts such as "suspense + workplace" "Female Psychologist" and other types, starting from the industry to observe society, carrying the spirit of realism, and excavating real human nature. In the new year, we look forward to more wonderful workplace dramas appearing on the screen, bringing inspiration to the audience in their careers and lives, so that the audience can think more and gain more in the process of watching dramas and discussing dramas.