Although the "worker drama" of Generation Z is late, "Come on Today" opens a new perspective of post-00s workplace dramas

Author| fig

"Li Natural, gifted, congenital vision deficiency patients, advanced cases of hydrocephalus, social death and pit death of teammates of the ashes master, he is the variable of all plans, one in ten thousand mistakes, a buff with its own black hole, complete this task, it is him."

The recent hit drama "Come On Today" is a rare urban workplace sitcom, which gathers a large number of young people's hilarious points and laughs in the context of Generation Z, and its nonsensical form is combined with enough strange and representative characters to be hilarious enough. The male protagonist Li naturally has a heart that wants to roll but cannot be promoted, and the female protagonist Versace plays the skills of anti-roll and fish touching but fits with the three gods of planning, and this combination of "mindless and unhappy" made many viewers feel "stunned".

In addition to the comic comedy effect is particularly prominent, there is also a down-to-earth and practical side in the play, each episode of a theme presents the post-00 rectification of the workplace, krypton gold moonlight family, 007 work system, workplace "transparent people", 35-year-old crisis and other common topics of urban workers, for the daily and psychological portrayal of today's ordinary workers, as well as the irony of various bizarre social workplace phenomena, but also let "Today's Cheer" quickly and accurately find its own audience, called by netizens " The funniest electronic vegetable in recent times."

For this new type of attempt, the creators of "Come on Today" also have their own interpretations and experiences. When the post-00s also gradually become 9-to-5 professionals, jumping left and right between involution and anti-involution, what are the characteristics and tricks of the sitcoms they love to watch?

The hilarious "hot terrier" sticks to the young audience, and the emotional massage artifact of the "beating worker"

Every sitcom has a main scene, the story of "Come on Today" takes place in the three parts planned by Gaofa Electronic Technology Group, which is composed of a group of "anti-involution masters", namely Li Tian, who actively works hard but has never been able to do so, Versace, a "two-dimensional girl" who is a professional fish, Bai Mashuai, a handsome newcomer who "rectifies the workplace", a "working veteran" who lives with a rock soul in his heart, and a Chihuahua who transforms into a "ace pigeon" under the multiple pressures of middle age. Wu Yimei, whose appearance changes over the years, and Wu Ming, who cannot be eye-catching even in strange clothes.

From the names of the characters and their distinct attributes, it is already obvious that the joy of this drama is on the face, with the occurrence of one ridiculous office story after another, we can gradually unlock different aspects of each character, the interaction between the characters is closely related to the current hot spots, and there are many "knowledge points" that are of great interest to young people who are just starting out of the workplace, such as "the skills of online dialogue with leaders", "what do you do when the leader throws the pot", "what is the popularity of a person in the workplace related to" and other questions, can be answered from the perspective of the people in the play.

And "Monday syndrome", "paid toilet", "workplace shift to avoid work", etc., are not only key laughing points, but also can trigger strong empathy among people in the workplace, these topics are common "black words" on the Internet by post-95s and post-00s. Many of the inventions of the three parts of the project are brain-opening, such as the "folding mobile phone" of multiple mobile phones with the feeling of the imperial version, the "brainwave typing" without doing it yourself, the "healthy office chair" that gives health advice according to the length of time you sit, and the "smart window" that controls the scenery outside the window at will, etc., are all scientific and technological inventions that seem absurd but actually meet the needs of niche people.

And compared to topicality and skills, the audience loves to watch the process of love and killing between colleagues and the formation of the soul of the group, from everyone's complaining about the marathon, weekend dinner and other forms of team building, to the competition process of the third part of the plan and the first part of the plan burning the soul of the group, to all colleagues celebrating Wu Ming's birthday together, forming Li Nature's Kwakwa group, and witnessing the heart-warming text messages sent by Chihuahua to Bai Ma Shuai, these traces of fighting together and caring for each other are also the core values of the series. The emotional connection makes "Today's Cheer" act as an "electronic squeeze" while also giving the audience the role of "spiritual massage", as director Wu Qiang said, "Laugh after laughing, after laughing, there must be warmth, there must be touch." ”

In order to make the overall environment in the play close to the life of ordinary migrant workers, the crew found a physical office without a scene, and then added slightly exaggerated props and youthful color matching to create three offices, the real scene outside the window can see the nearby high-rise buildings, the light and darkness of the sky can make people feel the change of time, the green plants on the table, the colored lights on the wall have created a fashionable and bright atmosphere in the urban workplace. And during the filming, the actors went to and from work according to the 9-to-5 schedule like office white-collar workers.

"Our real scene office has a large glass, we shoot in winter after 17 o'clock it will be dark, so the daytime shooting should be restored to that time period to shoot, the office has our notice, can see that we basically more than 95% of the situation is according to the normal office workers' working hours to go, that is, 9:00 into the office, 17:00 off work, the actors have become real 'workers'", director Wu Qiang said.

From "topping" to "brace", exaggerated comedy creation based on life examples

A generation has a mission of a generation, Generation Z has a relatively happy growth experience, the influence of various things in the process of growing up, and the self-worth positioning under the comparison of elders, which all determine their "struggle" state is its own.

In the play, most of the laughter is not a castle in the air, but is based on the observation of contemporary urban young people, such as Li Natural and Vasce's "exquisite poverty" is the current situation of many "North Drifters". As a white-collar worker who goes in and out of high-end office buildings every day and has a bright appearance, it takes 335 years to buy a house according to Li's natural deposit method, and after spending happily for his hobby, he can only "eat soil" at the end of the month. High consumption and low desire have given them a general mentality of "wanting to work hard, but not wanting to live only hard work".

In stark contrast to the male protagonist who can't roll and the female protagonist who doesn't love rolling, the high moral score of the planning one, not only rolls up to a new height in the company, the kung fu of horse fart is better than the old fritters in the workplace, but also in order to save money and save clothes and food to the extreme, buying a house is just around the corner. These two very different cases can be found in many prototypes in the real society. The unstable and extremely forgetful leadership fish, as well as the 35+ "old people in the workplace" Chihuahua who are tired of coping with work, have also become a typical phenomenon in the workplace.

Chief screenwriter Xu Qianpeng said that the original name of "Come on Today" was "Lie down today, hold up tomorrow", which reflects the dark golden sentence that summarizes the mentality of beaters, "intermittent hesitation and satisfaction, continuous punctuality." She interpreted "Today's Cheer" as inspirational and happy atmosphere in the funeral, "No matter what kind of story it was at the time, we chose apartments, we chose co-working, including now an electronics company, in fact, we want to express a state of contemporary young people, which is the basis of our creation." ”

Director Yu Zhongzhong frankly said that comedy is sometimes "a serious nonsense", but how to make the audience accept it and not be embarrassed to watch requires just the right skills. "Come on Today" is to find a balance between suspension and grounding, take a median value between nonsense and realism, from "leaning" to "supporting", and find realistic exaggeration to become the cornerstone of comedy. "Our main creators have also had some discussions, forming the performance method that we see now, which is not particularly exaggerated, and sometimes it is a simple performance with a nonsensical product to form another effect."

To be able to make the audience laugh, the tacit understanding between the team and the comedy experience are essential. The team of "Come on Today" used the method of idol drama to shoot comedy when filming "Once Upon a Time There Was a Spirit Sword Mountain", and they hit it off when the director and chief producer Feng Le created a discussion, and the two wanted to put this style of sand sculpture happiness in modern times, and make a comedy with the resonance of workers, which has finally been realized now. Director Wu Qiang filmed "Today's Yi Fuel" after filming "Futuyuan", which also completed the transformation from ancient times to the present, and the starring actors of "Futuyuan" Wang Hedi, Chen Yuqi, Zhang Shaogang also gathered in "Today's Yi Fuel", acquaintances co-created, passionate collision, saving everyone a lot of running-in process.

Coupled with the addition of Zheng Kai, who has shot many sitcoms and comedy movies, He Wenjun, Zhang Yuechi, Wu Yaheng, who have participated in the "Annual Comedy Competition", and the actors have rich practical experience in controlling the rhythm of the baggage, which makes the comedy effect of the whole drama more solid and dense, and the wonderful chemistry between the actors is even more poking at the audience's laughter, and even the prologue, title, tidbits, and Easter eggs are reluctant to skip.

Workplace sitcoms look and feel comfortable, exploring another possibility of domestic dramas

Comedy is considered to be the most difficult genre to film, the creator knows that it is more difficult to make people laugh than to make people cry, and the requirements for the creative ability of the main creator are doubled in the case of long episodes, so comedy has always been less tried in the field of dramas, and there are only a few domestic "I Love My Home" and "Wulin Gaiden" standing at the top of sitcoms for many years and have not faded. There is a lack of comedic talent, but the threshold of the audience is raised very high. However, the main creator of "Today's Cheer" still chose the fairy ancient puppets and youth school dramas that are different from the market hits, and dared to move towards the "difficult bone" of sitcoms, and this courage to broaden the market type and not follow the trend is already worth encouraging.

Talking about the current living space of comedy genres, the director mentioned in Zhongzhong that the market is varied, short videos or sitcoms, all have their own fans, everyone can coexist, "In the era of sitcom blowouts, creators will have a bottleneck, there is really no better story or better comedy points, maybe they stopped for a while, but I believe that all comedians, whether they are directors or actors, in fact, most of them have not given up, and it has changed." ”

According to Xu Qianpeng, the chief screenwriter of "Come on Today", in the early script stage, the team absorbed comic-style laughs while carrying out innovative and localized adaptations, updating and adjusting jokes at any time in combination with real-time hot spots, and then repeatedly rehearsing with the actors in advance, modifying the text logic into language logic, and really put a lot of hard work into how to interpret a relaxed and natural comedy atmosphere.

"Dramas and comics are different comedy techniques, and we are constantly innovating in the process of chatting with actors, and even practicing while acting for several weeks in a row, we will test all the jokes, if you follow the original acting method, whether you will feel a little old or have seen it, so we will keep trying to interpret it in more ways." Coupled with these actors and teachers on the scene, they also used a particularly suitable and comfortable way to interpret the laughter, many of which were given well by the actors. Xu Qianpeng said.

Judging from the topics that closely follow current events, a large number of dense laughs and brain holes and variety comic-style packaging, "Come On Today" is a drama full of sincerity. The series aired to 30 episodes, and the audience was generally satisfied with this relaxed, comfortable, loving way of shaking baggage, exquisite costumes and scene arrangements, and 25-30 minutes of single episode length, "unexpectedly funny", "all members are cute", "recently excavated rice artifact", "real, interesting, in line with human nature" and other netizen comments also prove that this all-encompassing urban sitcom model is worth exploring and continuing.

Nowadays, the urbanization process and the iteration of science and technology urge the continuous update of various entertainment links, and the rise of short videos constantly reminds film and television creators that the audience's demand for fragmented entertainment is huge. Under the premise that costume dramas have developed various subdivisions, the theme of "urban workplace" is still a treasure to be developed, and at this time, the superposition of "urban workplace + sitcom" in "Today's Cheer" has made it burst out more diverse and more dynamic energy, and also found a new outlet for emotional release for a group of updated audiences. Chief producer Feng Le said that the new attempt needs to thank the support of iQiyi and the production company Straw Bear. I believe that the exploration of urban sitcoms by domestic dramas has just begun.