Is it ridiculous to have 10 male artists farm in the countryside for 190 days?

This is a type of program that is not available in the domestic variety show market, which can bring companionship growth to the audience.

On the stage of "Talk Show Conference 5", Pombo left this paragraph:

"Let a group of boys without the power of chickens grow 10,000 catties of food in six months on a barren land. I understood at that time that (this variety show) is mainly for these two idols who have been waiting at home for the past two years, right? Real boy band re-employment. ” 

"Talk Show Conference 5", Pombo

Now, the variety show that Pang Bo ridiculed is really online, and the name is also particularly direct, just called "Farming".

No matter what level of view, "Let's Farm" is definitely an alternative in the domestic entertainment variety show market - almost amateur resident guests, ultra-long shooting spanning more than half a year, and the shooting content is only the process of farming, there is no so-called star coffee, and there is no reversal and exciting reality show plot. Almost every choice is constantly being asked "why" by the outside world.

After the first program was launched, Entertainment Studio exclusively talked to Yang Changling, the chief director of "Let's Farm", and threw out many questions we collected to him, trying to find the reason why the show dared to be so innovative.

Where?

The idea of focusing variety shows on farming dates back as early as three years.

At that time, various talent shows on the video platform were rising and falling, and boys and girls walked to the singing and dancing stage one after another, attracting the attention of many netizens.

As a practitioner in it and the behind-the-scenes production team of "Longing for Life" for many years, Blue Sky Group discovered one thing, "Today's young people are getting farther and farther away from the land. So the group leader made a suggestion: "Can you do another show so that young people can connect with the countryside?" ”

It was from such a simple sentence that Yang Changling's ignition cherry production company (a subsidiary of Blue Sky Group) began a one-and-a-half-year preparation, which was also the first project after the establishment of the company.

At first, it did not go well, even with the theme of "farming", but how to shoot, how to edit, and present, the team needed to make trade-offs in various schemes.

"We originally wanted to do a small program, about 8 episodes, and just shoot it in a partial documentary. Guests don't have to stay in the field every day, they choose a few days every month to come and shoot. But later, with the communication with customers and platforms, including our director's own investigation, we gradually had a clearer idea, and we felt that we would work for more than 100 days and farm steadily. ”

In the end, this shooting time was set for 190 days, from harvesting, sowing to harvesting, non-stop, uninterrupted, except for the Spring Festival to give the guests a few days off to go home for the New Year, the rest of the time everyone was in the field, continued to shoot until June this year, producing a full 39 issues of feature content.

This length of time is extremely challenging. Let's not consider the artist's own time, only from the content aspect, how to focus on the matter of farming with both a sense of documentary and a sense of variety? How do you keep your audience following?

Faced with this problem, the team is not worried. Yang Changling believes that the core of the show is to record what happened in 190 days, a process full of natural material. "This is a variety show with strong events, and the drama is particularly emotional, interesting enough, and good enough."

For example, the "double robbery" in the first phase (grabbing the crop, and then sowing the crop, which must be sown before the winter solstice), and the canal in the second phase are all challenges that must be faced due to weather changes. According to Yang Changling, such unexpected situations have been running through the entire shooting, "The back is really exciting." ”

In his opinion, "Let's Farm" can not design those complex game links, do not deliberately do the character relationship of the guests, nor do you have to entangle the so-called reality show reversal, the whole show is "like a chapter back to the body novel", open is 190 days of bits and pieces.

Because of this, the work of the director team is also very different from other programs.

The guests had to cultivate and shoot for 190 days, and the shooting cycle of the director team exceeded 200 days. These hours are not used to write scripts and set up records, but to "step on" in advance and personally do everything that guests have to do.

"Our director team started working six months in advance, to understand all the jobs and skills, to know what to do if the harvester gets stuck in the mud, if the animal is sick, where is the nearest veterinary hospital, how to prevent pests, and so on."

In the room where the recording took place, there is a bookshelf full of books related to agriculture, and guests and staff often come here to study. If it is not specially introduced, who can guess that this is a variety show?

Who will farm?

But Yang Changling is also very clear, "celebrities are watching their naps in the camera, we are not." ”

Many netizens' first reaction to the show was: "Who are these 10 boys?" "If you have to use the flow theory, the only person who has the top traffic can be Jiang Dunhao, who has participated in "The Voice of China" and "Creation Camp 2021".

Accustomed to watching celebrity reality shows that fight lineups and even fly guests in the past, "Let's Farm" is too "plain" for many viewers. Why this choice, Yang Changling bluntly said to serve the core of the program, "Farm steadily for 190 days." ”

"Very objective question, if we find celebrities, they will definitely not cooperate in time, then we will have no choice but to compromise and cheat." In comparison, although these children are not traffic artists, we are seriously doing a real thing to ensure the authenticity of the show. ”

Back to that question, celebrities don't work, just sleep and there are people who are willing to watch, so what does the far less popular newcomer rely on to attract the audience? Yang Changling feels that it is the truth and enthusiasm of the teenager, "I can only impress the audience by sincerity." ”

In the early days of the preparation of the show, the team did not openly recruit farming guests, but only shouted in the private domain of their circle of friends, which also received nearly 300 resumes, including many artists recommended by various agencies.

Yang Changling knows that many artists and agency teams use "Let's Farm" as a channel to accumulate popularity, and may also fantasize about becoming a hit. When screening guests, the first thing the team did was dispel similar thoughts and find people who were really willing to farm. This is also an important kind of "truth".

During the interview, the team set a special question: "What do you imagine the show to look like?" "Many artists compare it with "Longing for Life", thinking that it should be about working, chatting, and sharing their lives. And this just helps the show screen out people who are not suitable.

"I will tell them that you at your age should not focus on sitting and chatting and sharing your life, that is what Teacher Huang and Teacher He did. You really have to go to work, prove yourself in the work first, experience it first. According to Yang Changling, this "big question" has screened out at least two-thirds of the people.

When the interview was narrowed down to 30 people, the team first arranged for everyone to test shoot in three places for four days, just in time for the autumn harvest in September, everyone ate and lived and worked together in farmers' homes, and the program team continued to observe how true or false everyone's wishes to farm were true.

After the trial shooting, the team conducted interviews and in-depth talks again, and only then did they determine the 10 people who finally participated in the show - Chen Shaoxi, He Haonan, Jiang Dunhao, Li Gengyun, Li Hao, Lu Zhuo, Wang Yiheng, Zhao Xiaotong, Zhuo Yuan, Zhao Yibo.

And newcomers are far less idle than the outside world thinks. At the end of the year, many of them pushed off commercial performances, runways or annual meeting activities, and some pushed off the drama contract and devoted themselves to "Farming". Now that more than two months have passed, Yang Changling feels that many people have changed in their hearts.

"In appearance, they are all black and thin. In addition, some people will be anxious about not receiving the drama and will be entangled in their career development, and now they rarely talk about these things, focusing on the land in front of them, thinking about how to grow wheat well. ”

In his view, this is clearly a positive change, "young people can follow their own wishes and do something that they can control." ”

Who "pays" for farming?

So the next curiosity is: "These young artists come here to farm, what is the picture?" ”

If the draft can have a chance to debut in a group, what can 10 boys get after 190 days? Yang Changling told Entertainment Studio that the show did not give them any pay, and the final harvest was "to be able to harvest the wheat."

"We're really just a bunch of people together, seriously doing something stupid."

The participants in the "silly thing" are, of course, the platform. iQiyi was very excited when they first heard about the program planning, and they told Yang Changling that this is a type of program that is not available in the domestic variety show market, which can bring companionship growth to the audience.

As we all know, in recent years, due to the economic downturn caused by black swan events, brand customers' investment in variety shows has been greatly weakened, resulting in platforms being extra cautious about program projects, and many programs have been terminated because investment does not cover 100% of costs, which is no longer a rare thing.

Under this scenario, it is rare that Blue Sky Group and iQiyi can take money and do "Let's Farm" with various producers, and it is not difficult to find the determination of the producer and the platform.

"Although our program is not star-starred enough, the shooting time is very long, and all the costs are 1 by 190 days, so the cost is still quite high, close to a medium and large program. At that time, I also prepared for the worst, if there were no customers, I would rather invest my own money to make it, and attract the audience with sincerity and documentary.

Of course, there were also customers who came in after the filming of the show, but I really don't know whether the overall profit is good. Because both the group and the platform tell us to concentrate on the content, shoot well, and leave nothing else to worry about. ”

After the first issue was launched, Yang Changling wrote down his own experience with feelings, and wrote that he especially thanked the platform and customers at the end, "Because this show is too unlike the show, willing to pay for such an outrageous thing, to read the meaning of seriousness, I don't know, anyway, thank you in advance, thank you for the decision to make a decision on this matter of no traffic, no stars, only ten stupid children." ”

For him, even if the show has not yet broken the circle, the current shooting of "Let's Farm" has exceeded his expectations. There were two things he didn't expect: every day of farming was rich in events; The 10 boys who farm are really hard.

From the broadcast content, it can be seen that the flying guests after the show will be Gong Jun, Xu Zhisheng, and Pang Bo, who wrote the program into the paragraph. The team specially invited Pang Bo to experience the farming process in the show, and later he couldn't help but sigh: "I just came 15 minutes ago I knew that I used to talk nonsense." Because there is no long time to accumulate experience, Pombo and the 10 boys face the same job.

On the other hand, Yang Changling said that the post-broadcast results of "Let's Farm" have also exceeded iQiyi's expectations, which also has the popularity of "Crazy" to help, driving the overall traffic of the platform. "It was expected to take 10 episodes to bring up some topics, but now the first issue is available."

"The only thing we hope for now is to ask the audience to give us a little more patience!"