©️ Deep Sound Original · Author|Zu Yang
"I kill a hundred flowers after they bloom."
The "stamina" of "Summer Flower" is greater than expected. After the end of membership on February 28, #夏花 OE#, #The first day without summer flowers# appeared on Weibo hot search, many fans reviewed the details, analyzed and discussed, and created the ending under the topic, and the long-tail effect was obvious.
Since its broadcast, "Summer Flower" has repeatedly appeared on the Maoyan online drama popularity list and the lighthouse public opinion popularity crown, and the popularity has also extended to social platforms, winning 590 hot searches on Weibo and 182 hot spots on the Douyin list. From popularity to word of mouth, "Summer Flower" has taken a dark horse route.
"There is an urge to fall in love" is the first impression of most viewers after watching this drama. Contrary to the conventional routine of past romantic dramas, "Summer Flower" does not have short and bloody scenes in parents, only focuses on the romance and sweetness of the male and female protagonists after emotion, nor does it first abuse and then sweetness, entanglement, more is the firmness and bravery of a glance for 10,000 years and two-way redemption. In terms of picture presentation, the depiction of light and shadow and color is also far "heavier" than the previous romantic dramas.
Whether it is content narrative or audiovisual production, "Summer Flower" is an innovation and upgrade. As Zhang Na, senior director of Natural Studio of Tencent's online video film and television content production department and chief producer of "Summer Flower", said: "We used some literary and artistic tones to shoot a love pioneer drama. ”
The "anti-routine" methodology of "Summer Flower"
"Summer Flower" is different from the romantic dramas we have seen.
This drama tells the story of a young girl with leukemia who falls in love with a down-and-out uncle at first sight and starts a "straight ball pursuit of love", a theme and type that is rare in the market. "We have to do what others have not done", in Zhang Na's view, everyone stereotypes that it is normal for boys to like her because of their beauty and good figure, but if a girl likes him because of a boy's appearance or figure, she will be ashamed to say it, and the story setting of "Summer Flower" is to break this stereotype.
Different from the "silly white sweet" in past romantic dramas, He Ran is an "offensive" heroine, because she suffers from leukemia, she grew up in an overprotected environment since she was a child, and the seeds of rebellion and boldness were planted, and when she first met Xiao Han in the barbershop, the seeds began to germinate, deliberately omitting mobile phones, braving the rain to find mobile phones, borrowing umbrellas to return umbrellas to create a series of encounters, and taking down the male protagonist step by step in various active attacks. The overprotection of the original family, the character of bold love, various complex characters are intertwined, and the character image is fuller.
The male protagonist Xiao Han also brought a strong sense of freshness to the audience, at the beginning of this year, "uncle circle aesthetics" became popular, the public likes people to middle age "not greasy" and "precipitation", Yan Chengxu played by Xiao Han is like this, although a "middle-aged uncle", no formal work, relying on odd jobs to live, but the "sense of escapism" of one person, one cat and one house removes the greasy and discordant brought about by aging, adding a touch of vicissitudes and mystery.
The encounter and love between He Ran and Xiao Han is like dry firewood and fire, but the emotional layout of the two people is not brushed off, but some "anti-routine" plots are used gradually to increase conflicts and surprises. For example, Xiao Han and He Ran have an intimate scene in the flower room, and when they are about to kiss, they are suddenly interrupted by the people downstairs, in fact, the anti-routine here is that He Ran attacked Xiao Han, and the result was countered, and this ambiguous pull of wanting to refuse and welcome is more heartwarming than the straightforward kiss scene.
The innovation of the story is only the introduction, so that more people remember the episode itself, forming an exclusive memory point or another weight - texture.
Highly saturated blue sky and white clouds, stream of consciousness freehand images, and lens language with emotions, the visual style of "Summer Flower" is quite distinct, the color contrast is obvious, some retro and some literary art, which is also intentional by the main creative team. Zhang Na revealed that "Summer Flower" is the first time director Chen Zhufei shot a romance film, before he was better at crime suspense films, and the choice of Chen Zhufei to direct is to fancy his control of aesthetics and color, "using a director who makes detective films to make romance films is also an anti-routine."
In order to present the real light and shadow scene and romantic sense of atmosphere, "Summer Flower" did not choose the reinforced concrete and high-rise buildings in the city, respectively set in Sanya, Lingshui, Wanning, Hainan, and the abandoned houses by the sea are also specially built real scenes, using real natural light to shape the image texture, compared with how to meet Xiao Han's hazy light when he first met Xiao Han, and the contrast between the light and shadow when Xiao Han was biting his hand when he went to Xijing for treatment, all became the highlight scenes of netizens brushing the screen.
"Video is the art of light and shadow, and many times when I rehearse on the spot, I observe the actor to judge how to capture his state at a certain moment." Director Chen Zhufei said.
In the production process, the main creative team always adheres to the principle of "effect is greater than progress", and if it is not good enough, it will be shot in another way. For example, the scene of the blossom bloom, originally designed for the male and female protagonists to talk and bloom, the effect was not as expected after a round of filming, and finally it was replaced by the seaside, with two people facing away, opposite the sea, and the sunset created a feeling of time passing. "This play is a reproduction play, and every picture is very carefully managed." Chen Zhufei said.
Careful production also breaks the inherent audience of romantic dramas and attracts more viewers. Zhang Na said that after the play was broadcast, she found that the types of people and gender portraits that gave positive feedback were far richer than expected, and many people said that they liked it and filmed it well, "This is somewhat unexpected, especially I think "Summer Flower" has a more female perspective."
Innovative narrative, novel visual, picture texture, it can be said that "Summer Flower" is a new exploration from preparation to launch, and judging from the results, this drama does show the upgrade of romantic dramas: dramas that jump out of the template can also rely on the story foundation and exquisite production to break the circle and fight big with small.
How else can romantic dramas be innovative?
Romantic dramas have always been a hot theme in the market, when the number of portrayals of this theme is large, it is inevitable to form routines, bringing serious homogenization, especially in previous years, under the sweet pet and young age, the audience began to be immune to various "industrial saccharin" and "artificial teardrops", and innovation is imminent.
For Zhang Na, deeply cultivating the love track and making differences and upgrades in each drama are hard KPIs. "My philosophy is to respect the audience, give the audience good, high-quality, and constantly pursue innovative works."
Zhang Na's last romantic drama as the chief producer was "I, Like You" starring Lin Yushen and Zhao Lusi, which was popular on the market at that time was mostly the story of "the overbearing president fell in love with me", although the male protagonist of "I, Like You" is also a "boss", but in the plot for the boss to design repeated embarrassing encounters: went upstairs to step on the cabbage gang, listened to the song and was smashed by the wine bottle. This sense of contrast not only increases the jokes, but also dissolves the routines of romantic dramas.
Later, "Summer Flower" also took the initiative to distinguish it from the popular romantic drama when it was preparing.
In the past two years, romantic dramas have begun to move towards genre composite superposition, in addition to describing the love story of the male and female protagonists, they will also use a lot of pen and ink to tell the real topics of the professional identity of the two people, the original family and the general audience, and the overall is fuller and richer. The original intention is good, using romantic dramas to map reality and arouse circle-breaking attention, but when it comes to the landing link, there will also be a situation of putting the cart before the horse, and love and reality are mixed.
In the composite superposition has become the mainstream of romantic dramas, "Summer Flower" does the opposite, not preaching, not bloody, only telling the heartbeat of adults. "In fact, love should have been a very broad theme that the audience liked to watch, and we let the audience imagine after watching it through dreams, hoping that they could also encounter this kind of love." Zhang Na mentioned.
However, innovation and anti-routine mean "unverified", and in the empirical film and television industry, this form of creation is often not favored due to high risk. How to grasp the scale of innovation and how big the "step" of innovation must be tested, is the sensitivity of the video platform and the control of content.
In the whole cycle of project production, Tencent Video has maintained close linkage with the crew of "Summer Flower" and given a lot of resource support. For example, at the casting level, Xiao Han and He Ran are called "face-to-face" casting by netizens, "Yan Chengxu and Xiao Han's personalities are particularly suitable, and when I see him, I feel that I have come out of the script, although Xu Ruohan is a newcomer actor, but the platform supports us to do such innovation, and her interpretation also makes the audience have a sense of substitution." Zhang Na shared.
In addition to casting innovation, the title, color grading, and BGM application of "Summer Flower" actually mobilized multiple production teams, and the run-in between different teams also reflects Tencent Video's content control and overall synergy to a certain extent, and the good creative atmosphere also sets a sample for the film and television industry. "We are a very united team, we have a completely consistent aesthetic, there are almost no conflicts, we have worked together to make today's "Summer Flower", this is the strength of the team."
To sum up, the anti-routine innovation of "Summer Flower" comes from its own good story, the second is the ingenuity and intentions of the production team, and the third is the support and control of the video platform. However, the trend of the film and television industry is impermanent, and the audience's aesthetics are constantly changing, and how to move forward steadily in the changes and continue to produce high-quality content that the audience likes is still a challenge that creators need to face.