Gaokao! The magic weapon for the creation of film and television dramas
It is another year of college entrance examination season, and the big things and small things related to the college entrance examination are the focus of attention of netizens. The college entrance examination is not only a watershed for groups of students to move towards the future, but also the final assessment of parent-child education for countless families for more than ten years. It is precisely because the college entrance examination has a special meaning for Chinese people, so the college entrance examination is also the creative material that the creators of film and television dramas are happy to create.
The discussion of the "college entrance examination" in domestic dramas is often divided into two perspectives: one is from the perspective of society and family, using the education methods of different families as a sample to show the current status of high school education; Another perspective is to show the real learning life of students at this special stage from the perspective of high school students.
Under these two perspectives, many excellent works have been born in recent years, and this article will explore the correct way to open the "college entrance examination" in film and television dramas from the commonality of these excellent works.
Focus on education with realistic brushstrokes, and the family is the battlefield
In recent years, among the educational TV series with the theme of the college entrance examination, the "big examination" broadcast in 2022 is a work that has to be mentioned. As the only film and television drama in China that shows how the domestic education system copes with challenges under the impact of the epidemic, the drama currently has a Douban score of 7.1 points.
In terms of content, the highlights of the play mainly focus on the following three points:
1, unlike similar educational themes that only focus on "family" in the past, this drama has a more diverse perspective, from the Education Commission to school leaders, which are the main body of the story. Under the impact of the epidemic, how does the Education Commission ensure online teaching? How to escort the college entrance examination? How can schools create an environment for high school seniors to prepare for exams in an isolated environment? How can teachers solve students' psychological problems caused by the epidemic? The perspective from the education system not only enriches the story content of the educational theme, but also raises the pattern of the work.
2. The topics are fresher and the contradictions are set more objectively. Stories related to the college entrance examination inevitably render "anxiety". School district housing, cram schools, accompanying reading and other topics seem to be sharp topics that cannot be avoided in this theme. But in this drama, although several different groups of families are also used as samples to reflect the different choices faced by candidates in different environments, the above homogeneous issues are avoided in terms of family conflict settings. In this drama, unusual "families" abound, such as some families in which children are very motivated, but there is an "ignorant father" at home, and family conflicts are reflected in how the son forces his father to grow up, such a comic contrast setting makes the story vivid.
Even if it shows the "second child" contradiction that is commonplace in previous TV series, the perspective of this drama is also opening up a different way, the parents' intimacy of the second child and the neglect of the care of the eldest child are not due to subjective factors, but have to work hard outside, and setting contradictions from the perspective of the objective environment is obviously more advanced than simply setting up "eccentric parents".
3, as an important carrier of the story, the minds of high school students in the play are more mature. In the past, the theme of education was often based on Beijing, Shanghai and other first-tier cities, and the pressure faced by the candidates in the play was often how to show their personality under the pressure of the college entrance examination and family discipline, while this drama is based on the story of candidates in small cities, and most of the candidates face real family difficulties, so they have a more mature mind as a whole.
Some candidates are "left-behind girls" who have to live independently; Some candidates live with sick and weak ancestors and assume the pressure of life prematurely; Some candidates broke their hearts for their Internet addicted fathers. These precocious teenagers are the fighters in this "big exam", but obviously the college entrance examination is not the only stage in their lives, and the grind from life has accumulated a more complete character side for them, and they also have a more prominent character charm compared with traditional education themes.
The college entrance examination was originally a normalized social proposition, with natural drama points to be explored, and the epidemic is a variable with strong contradictions and conflicts, the play chooses to take the conflict caused by the epidemic on the domestic college entrance examination as the perspective, and undoubtedly has an innate advantage in creation. In addition, there are very few film and television dramas focusing on the epidemic, and the few that are also limited to doctors and other industries, to some extent, this TV series formulated and created by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television is as irreproducible as dramas such as "Crazy" and "In the Name of the People".
Compared with "Big Exam", which has natural creative advantages, the educational drama "Xiao Huanxi" with a more traditional perspective can ride the dust at the word-of-mouth level, and the Douban score of 8.2 points is obviously more rare. Like most similar works, the play selects several groups of families with vastly different social backgrounds as samples to tell the problems faced by candidates under different educational concepts.
But even in the homogeneous story, the play still shows a lot of commendable novelty. For example, the comic treatment of families with strong conflicts. For example, a mother who only knows "chicken babies" all day and a daughter who dare not disobey her mother originally have a repressive bitter effect, but with a funny and "unreliable" father, the daily life of this group of family chickens and flying dogs is a little less heartbreaking.
Another highlight of the play is the group of high school students in the play. When showing their pursuit of self, the play does not depart from the real context, and the children have a self-liberating side, but they do not jump out of the behavioral logic of ordinary high school students, nor do they deliberately increase the love line.
On the other hand, the similar theme "Youth Pi" with a Douban score of 6.5 points, although the play also has a lot of remarkable, the high school students portrayed in the play are too flamboyant, although such students exist in reality, but they are not mainstream samples. When the story chooses students who do not "care" about the college entrance examination as the protagonists, the whole work as an educational theme loses its due seriousness, which is also an important reason why the reputation of the play is not satisfactory compared with "Little Huanxi".
It can be seen that even traditional themes and traditional perspectives, if the content of the story is solid enough, it can also dig out touching stories under the proposition of "college entrance examination".
In the name of youth, freeze the good times on campus
Youth school dramas and educational dramas that depict the daily life of high school students from the perspective of students have a completely different style, and such works often follow a delicate nostalgic style, with sweet and sour first love and the friendship of the two in blood as the main story line. "The Best of Us" with a Douban score of 8.9, "The Sky of the Wind Dog Boy" and "My Calorie Boy" with 8.0 points, etc., are the correct way to open this youth nostalgic theme.
In these stories, all the narratives revolve around the emotions of high school students, and although the college entrance examination is the same "watershed" that the protagonists have to face as in reality, it is not the main contradiction of the story, let alone the drive of the protagonists. Their trivial daily life in adolescence is the biggest attraction for the audience.
To some extent, these works do not want to seriously express the importance of the college entrance examination to life, but emphasize the experience of high school life, and are committed to evoking the public's memories of youth campus life with fairy-tale-like beautiful adolescent emotions and arousing public resonance.
In addition to the same theme and story tone, these well-known youth school dramas also have many similarities in character. For example, in these works, there is often a male god who combines various good qualities, so that countless audiences shout "the country owes me a male god at the same table". There must also be a sunny and optimistic girl with joy, so cute that the audience can ignore her scumbag attributes. In these stories, the male god of learning is either at the same table as the scumbag girl, or a childhood sweetheart, in short, in the mutual help under the fate, there must be a beautiful and pure emotion. Of course, limited by the rule that high school students do not allow early love, the relationship between the male and female protagonists will be left for the college entrance examination to begin.
Just like the timeless overlord and Cinderella in idol dramas, the love and killing of students and scum in the youth campus are also tried and tested, and under continuous development, their creative templates have become more and more popular. For example, 2020's "The Sky of the Wind Dog Boy" has richer character lines and more diverse emotional types than 2016's "The Best of Us", and the play opens up two emotional lines, namely the story of the school scumbag boy and the school bully girl, and the story of the school bully male god and the school scumbag girl. And in "My Calorie Boy" in 2022, the male protagonist is set as a "cultivation system" school bully male god, who was very fat when he first appeared, and lost weight successfully with the help of a school scumbag girl, only to become one of the male gods of school bully.
After several years of exploration, the development of youth campus dramas has gradually matured, and the overall performance of word of mouth is good. However, the small and fresh narrative style, although it makes the circle audience highly satisfied, but also makes this type of theme have a distinct niche attribute, the story is difficult to get out of the circle, and the theme is difficult to usher in large-scale development.
Fortunately, today's video websites have a huge tolerance for niche themes under the concept of typed development, so that youth campus dramas have the soil to reach the target audience, and also allow "high school students" to get out of the field of serious education themes and have a new form of film and television expression.
Epilogue:
It is also a "college entrance examination" proposition, and some works are committed to digging family education concepts from the performance of high school students and discussing practical issues; Some works focus on the colorful daily life of different high school students in the context of the college entrance examination, evoking the public's good memories of youth.
For most people, the college entrance examination that can only be experienced once is destined to be a hard battle, so people hope to taste a different taste of the college entrance examination from film and television dramas. But there are always people who are going through the college entrance examination, and in the examination room that arrives as scheduled every year, those stories related to the college entrance examination are always innovating, waiting for film and television creators to discover and create.