Wang Zheng, who is not from a professional class, why did he rely on his 8.5-point debut "Under the Prosperous City" to "rectify the film and television circle"?
In the second half of 2023, the domestic film and television drama market will serve a plate of "hard dishes" with full color, flavor and maverick - "Under the Prosperous City". As soon as the series was launched, it received a lot of praise, and the Douban score reached 8.5, which is the highest score of the domestic costume suspense drama of the year.
"Under the Prosperous City" Douban score
Tencent News' "Super Party" column conducted an exclusive interview with Wang Zheng, the director and screenwriter of "Under the Prosperous City", talking about his life experience before becoming a director, Wang Zheng said: "Making short videos, reading a lot of films, and learning things in the middle is definitely an accumulation for me." ”
腾讯新闻《超级当事人》专访王铮
After all, before making "Under the Prosperous City", Wang Zheng was still a "vegan" who was not born in a professional class and had no feature film masterpieces.
Amateur Period: Seamless Switching Between Multiple Identities
Before becoming a director, Wang Zheng had many different identities. Under these identities, he is like a coordinate that roams freely in the quadrant of life, seemingly disordered, but every step brings him closer to the anchor point of "director".
Wang Zheng graduated from Wuhan University with a bachelor's degree in advertising. After graduating, he joined an international 4A advertising agency, quickly became a creative director, and then went to real estate planning. Later, Wang Zheng transformed into an original content development company again, and also started self-media, and was once ranked one of the "Top 100 UP Masters" of Station B. In 2016, Wang Zheng once produced the original web drama "Great Click", serving as the producer, chief screenwriter, chief producer, and director producer. In order to promote this drama, he made a self-media "Hee Hee Ah Look", which is a video program of the second creation of deconstruction and reconstruction of the movie, which has received a good response on station B.
"Hee Hee Ah Look" Douban score
"Hee Hee Ah" Station B homepage
The seemingly unrelated experience in the advertising industry allows Wang Zheng to achieve self-"training" at a relatively small cost, which is conducive to resisting pressure and completing the shooting of commercial films in a short period of time. At the Tencent News Conference, he revealed that he had the Xi of getting up early every day to write scripts, which was the case when he was an amateur and has not changed to this day. This kind of quality, which can continue to produce and self-renew in a rapidly changing environment, is also scarce, precious and necessary in the film and television industry.
At that time, Wang Zheng had no experience in directing big dramas, and these seemingly accidental experiences and the quality of always landing not only helped Wang Zheng continue to deepen his understanding of the laws of film and television creation and market preferences, but also made it inevitable that he could finally become a director and shoot a hit drama.
Wang Zheng speaking on the set (first from right)
"Under the Prosperous City": A golden business card for a small test
"Under the Prosperous City" may be the most special domestic drama this year, integrating costume suspense, surrealism, absurdism, black comedy and other elements, and there are almost no benchmark works in the market. Its logical highlights, foreshadowing and literary core are all exquisite, which is an in-depth analysis of social and historical, and a hearty deconstruction of complex human nature from different perspectives.
Wang Zheng finished the script of "Under the Prosperous City" in June and July 2020, and changed 10 drafts before and after, more of which were detailed adjustments and fewer structural opinions. The excitement of the plot has been well known, and there is no need to say more, and Wang Zheng's "more real" of various details during filming makes the script with wonderful content more grounded. The thick moss on the tiles, the fluttering wings of insects and birds, and the steaming heat on the food...... Under the almost obsessive-compulsive attitude of rectification, the charm of aesthetics and the perception of reality naturally coexist. The audience's feelings are treated with the utmost seriousness, and the play has weight and weight because of the credibility of the details.
Stills from "Under the Prosperous City".
In terms of aesthetics, Wang Zheng also has his own ideas. He once said to director of photography Wang Junming: "The current online drama is too sharp and bright, and it looks like 4K, and I want to have a little bit of a smudge feeling." So there is "Under the Prosperous City" in the bamboo green, the sky and the water are blue, and the grass-colored smoke and light are afterglow. A touch of smudging under the ingenuity has become a freehand on rice paper, creating the unique Jiangnan connotation of "Under the Prosperous City", and it has also been gratified by netizens to evaluate it as "finally no longer a heavy grinding and high-saturation costume drama that hurts the eyes".
Up to now, "Under the Prosperous City" has 140,000+ viewers on Douban with a high score of 8.5, as the third play of Tencent Video X Theater, it has beautifully continued "The Long Season" with a score of 9.4 and "Huanyan" with a score of 7.9, which also makes the golden sign of the X Theater stand.
Stills from "Under the Prosperous City".
Under the halo: the speculation and self-consistency of the heart
After the explosion of "Under the Prosperous City", Wang Zheng, who "came out halfway" in the director's circle, also became a hot rookie. Under the halo, various interview invitations poured in, and Wang Zheng patiently recounted his past journey over and over again. In the interview of "Super Parties", he narrated the affirmation of his past experience, although he did not systematically learn to write scripts and film, but the "local method of steelmaking" that relied on self-study by watching movies and short video training has become an extremely significant part of his growth trajectory. At the Tencent News Conference, he used Nietzsche's "Return of the Eternal Catastrophe" as an example to talk about his opposition to standard answers and his advocacy of breaking the teleological outlook on life, and that metaphysical speculation is not a source of belief in recognizing and creating the real world. Only with abstract interrogation can there be concrete answers.
Wang Zheng delivered a speech at the Tencent News Conference
The explosion of the work is a firework in the sky, and it will still be silent after the splendor has passed. Wang Zheng came from the silence as an amateur, and after creating a brilliant scene, he once again walked back into the silence of independent exploration. Making a hit drama did not make him complacent and stop because of satisfaction, but continued to think and innovate himself, so as to generate more desire for expression, exercise more expression skills and expand a wider space for expression, and even build a distinctive style discourse system. The next splendid one is in the making.
"Under the Prosperous City" is an excellent full score answer sheet, which makes the audience automatically have a heavy trust and abundant expectations, believing and looking forward to Wang Zheng's next works, they can still continue to see human nature, emotions, and sentient beings.
Wang Zheng on the set
epilogue
Cross-border breakthroughs in the film and television industry occur from time to time, but non-professional classes are common, but Wang Zheng is not common. The reason why "Under the Prosperous City" has become a hit is that, for Wang Zheng, on the one hand, it is his rich external experience that supports his own experience accumulation, and on the other hand, it is the internal speculative innovation that has built a unique style framework. One inside and one outside, one is indispensable.
Just like the English translation of "Under the Prosperous City" "ripe town", I hope that Wang Zheng can continue to maintain self-consistency between the transformation of amateur and director identities after picking this ripe fruit. As spectators, we continue to wait for his next wonderful fruit.