Wen 丨 Chen Huiwen
"Rice is white and the public and private warehouses are abundant" is the scene of Guotai and civil security in Du Fu's eyes; "Under the eastern fence of picking chrysanthemums, leisurely see the South Mountain" expresses Tao Yuanming's natural state of mind; "From tomorrow, care for grain and vegetables" is the happy life that Haizi yearns for.
So for young people who are not doing their work at present, how can they truly experience the bitterness of farming and think deeply about the topics of agriculture and rural revitalization? The national comprehensive "Let's Farm" is here.
This interactive labor documentary program produced by iQiyi, Blue Sky Media, and jointly produced by Haixi Media and Yaowang Technology was launched on iQiyi on February 4, which truly tells the story of 10 young people who farmed on the edge of the field and completed the story of growing 50,000 jin of grain on 142 acres of land in 190 days, causing many netizens to sigh that "internal entertainment really has such a hardcore and down-to-earth variety show".
190 days of farming experience, showing real farming life
Compared with the previous variety show market flooded with reality shows and drafts, in recent years, the idyllic and slow popularity of "Longing for Life", "Typhoon Boy's Journey" and "Haha Farmer" has allowed more audiences to produce novel experiences of "living elsewhere" while entertaining. However, instead of creating content that creates a sense of leisure, "Let's Farm" starts from the root of "food" in clothing, food, housing and transportation, and explores the real farming life in 10 young people's 190-day farming experience.
Previously, the program team had selected 30 young people out of 200 people for test shooting, and sent them to farmers' homes in Beijing, Hangzhou and Qiandao Lake to eat and live with local farmers to strengthen their real perception of farming life. In the end, the program team selected 10 young people to go to Sandun Town, Hangzhou City, to experience the whole process from reclamation to harvest on 142 acres of land, and participate in a series of activities such as the operation of agricultural products.
Farming sounds simple, but it is actually a technical job, and it is even more difficult for young people who "do not work hard and do not divide grains". Therefore, before the official recording of the program, these young people were also given life skills training such as medical rescue, fire safety, and bricklayer, and some of them specially obtained driving licenses for modern agricultural tools such as tractors and rice harvesters. I thought I was well prepared, but when the farming team really got into practice, it hit a wall everywhere.
When they first harvested rice, they had to hurriedly wave a sickle to harvest due to factors such as technology and time, and with limited manpower and material resources, the harvest volume of the farming team that day was far from the 13-ton harvest. After the entry of modern technology, even if some people have obtained a harvester driver's license, they have repeatedly encountered overturns due to lack of experience, and in the process of harvester operation, some misunderstandings and contradictions have arisen between members and experienced masters.
It is reported that in the six days of the rice harvesting team of the farming team, due to the muddy rice field, the harvester was stuck in mud 27 times, and the agricultural machinery was repaired 48 times, and the final harvest of 62.66 tons of rice could be eaten by 10,000 people for a month. In the process of rice harvesting, "Let's Farm" also introduces crop types, farming knowledge, the development of mechanized agricultural tools, etc. to the audience through subtitles, narration and other forms, while revealing the hardships of farming, it also shows the profound impact of scientific and technological development on modern agriculture, turning documentary variety shows into farmland classrooms, and witnessing the growth process from a grain of wheat to a wheat field with the audience in front of the screen.
Focus on agricultural development and explore the new "vision" of national comprehensiveness
In recent years, the long-form video industry has become the main theme of cost reduction and efficiency improvement, and although the operational efficiency of the industry has been improved to a certain extent, audiences have suffered for a long time when drama content creators are unwilling to bear the excessive cost of trial and error.
The variety show "Let's Farm" can achieve the daily crown ×2 on the iQiyi soaring list and the ×3 in the Maoyan Network Variety Show Popularity List within 8 days of its launch, not only because it captures the audience's curiosity and curiosity about the matter of "farming", and creates a sense of contrast between the glamorous artist and the muddy field farmer, but also because it focuses on agricultural development and constantly explores the new "vision" of the national comprehensive in the process of content innovation, form innovation and value innovation.
In terms of content innovation, "Farm Bar" pioneered the "labor documentary" genre, using life as a way of creation, creating a new way of expression for domestic variety shows. For example, compared with the pastoral slow synthesis that focused on telling life feelings and life feelings and omitting specific work details, "Let's Farm" hardcore shows the whole process of guest farming, which effectively makes up for the gap in young people's understanding of "farming", the gap in knowledge of mainland food development, and the type gap of the pastoral variety show market.
In terms of form innovation, "Let's Farm" breaks the stardom, performance and stage-oriented characteristics of traditional variety shows, and upgrades the comprehensive production form of life, reality and popularization. Veteran variety shows such as "Ace vs. Ace" and "Run" have basically maintained a weekly update frequency during the broadcast time period, and the time from recording to production of the program is relatively limited. Variety shows such as "Goodbye Lover" and "Wife's Romantic Trip" are also to maximize effective content in the limited travel time. "Let's Farm" chose to extend the production cycle of the program and show the growth of crops and characters within 190 days, which has both popular science, entertainment and companionship significance, which shows the determination of the program team to make high-quality and good content.
At the same time, "Let's Farm" did not pay attention to agricultural development issues on the surface, but chose to explore more effective content in the form of "long variety show + short video", which drove the development of agriculture, achieved the purpose of edutainment, and also enhanced the audience's viewing experience and the commercial value of the program itself.
In terms of value innovation, "Let's Farm" breaks through the gameplay of traditional variety shows, regards the growth and harvest of crops as the "reward" of the guests' harvest, and the audience seems to be able to experience a different life in the content about farming, thereby promoting the understanding of agriculture by the younger generation, which has long-term value. In the past, we read in the book "who knows that the food on the plate, the grain is hard", which is from the theoretical level to understand the difficulty of farming and the preciousness of rice grains, but now through variety shows, we can feel the changes of the times of science and technology to help agriculture, rural revitalization, and agricultural development, and promote the spiritual world to prosperity on the basis of "cangxi solid".
Set off towards the land and look for a new direction in the variety show market
From "Mountains and Seas" in 2021 to "Second Uncle Cured My Mental Internal Friction" in 2022 to "Going to a Windy Place" in 2023, rural life has always been an important direction of entertainment creation, and its fundamental purpose is to care for the current situation of young people's life anxiety, and complete self-healing in the coexistence between man and nature. "Let's Farm" is actually one of the rural contents from the perspective of genre.
Carefully studying the performance of rural themes in the current film and television complex, there are mainly problems such as a lot of fine products, serious homogenization, and very little content that can be watched. The rural presentation is also a bottleneck in the creation of many rural variety shows. In this case, "Let's Farm", which has been recognized by the market and the audience, may be able to bring a little new enlightenment to "rural + variety show".
In the creation of rural variety shows, imagination has always been an indispensable part. The imagination of rural life in the national comprehensive is mainly focused on the four aspects of "clothing, food, housing and transportation": showing folk customs and local characteristics in the choice of clothing; express the customs in the production of food; Constantly approach the ideal life in the creation of living environment and living atmosphere; Demonstrate economic development amid changes in transportation. In short, under the framework of rural themes, the innovation that this kind of variety show can carry out is to follow the customs of the countryside and find the "texture" of content expression in the rough, and the underlying logic of whether a "rural + variety show" can be recognized by the audience often lies in whether it cares about the development of the times and whether it shows the creator's most real feelings about life.
The variety show market needs realism. For example, "Dream Transformation Home" takes our yearning for family as the creative point, "Goodbye Lover" and "Half of the Lovers" focus on hot topics of marriage and love, and "Let's Farm" takes rural revitalization as the creative background. The variety show market also needs emotional expression, variety show content is essentially a kind of literary and artistic creation, humanistic care is the key. Compared with the values hanging high and the suspended plot direction, grounded content creation can often arouse the audience's empathy.
From "Let's Farm", seeing how young people farm is only the most basic part, being able to gain an understanding of nature in farming, witness the common growth of crops and workers, and do a good job in the emotional expression of realism in the variety show market is its resonance with the development of the times.
Mirror Entertainment (ID: jingxiangyuler) original
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