Sohu Entertainment Special Article (Hu Tutu/Text) 2023, domestic dramas will be "big scores" at the word-of-mouth level.
In the first half of the year, "The Long Season" scored 9.4 points on Douban, becoming the most word-of-mouth domestic drama in 2023, followed by works such as "The Three-Body Problem" and "Going to a Windy Place", with a Douban score of 8.7 points.
and the "big hit" "Hurricane" also has a score of 8.5 on Douban, which supports its popularity.
The "word of mouth" of domestic dramas seems to have risen all of a sudden. According to the data provided by Yien, in 2023, there will be as many as 25 domestic dramas with a Douban score of 8 points or above, setting a record for the most 8-point dramas on Douban in the drama market in the past five years, and four times higher than the number of works in 2019.
Is the creative quality of domestic dramas developing rapidly, or is there an element of "inflated" word-of-mouth? What are the industry problems behind this?
"Imaginary"
The word-of-mouth of dramas in 2023 has an "inflated" component?
This time, Sohu Entertainment talked to six industry insiders and four senior drama fans, except for one screenwriter who did not clearly affirm the phenomenon of "the reputation of domestic dramas last year was inflated", the rest of them all gave a positive answer.
This is not to question the quality of these works. On the contrary, many works have been recognized both inside and outside the industry.
For example, "The Long Season" with a score of 9.4 on Douban, "The Three-Body Problem" with a score of 8.7 on Douban, "Going to a Windy Place" with a score of 8.5 on Douban, and some "niche boutiques" "Ancient Acacia" and "I Have a Friend" have all received word-of-mouth and varying degrees of popularity. "Hurricane" is recognized as a rare "big hit" in recent years.
Screenwriter Wu Yao recognized the "industrial production level" of many of these works, which is the "film texture" that the public often talks about. The "Flowers" that has been broadcast recently and is indeed produced by the film team is a clear case.
Another screenwriter, Huang Fen, recognized the theme innovation of some of his works. For example, "Going to a Windy Place", which focuses on pastoral healing, "Three-Body Problem" with a science fiction theme, and "Ancient Acacia", a "niche boutique drama", have all broken through the creative boundaries of works of the same type to a certain extent and have a strong sense of innovation.
The advantages are outstanding, but they cannot cover the phenomenon of "inflated" reputation of these works.
started with last year's highest-scoring work "The Long Season" on Douban. Looking at the entire Douban 9-point domestic drama camp, "The Legend of Zhen Huan", "Parents' Love", "Daming Palace Ci", "Kangxi Dynasty" and "The Silent Truth" are all within the category, of which the Douban score of the first two works is 9.4 points with "The Long Season".
But the artistic attainments they have achieved and the people who radiate the drama series are not the same. Producer Li Xinran interpreted the works with a score of 9 and above on Douban, and in her opinion, 70%-80% of the audience should think that the works that can reach this scoring dimension should be considered "perfect", otherwise they will not be praised by five stars.
The so-called "perfection" actually refers to works that are very prominent in the artistic attainments of dramas and the values of works, and even make certain contributions or innovations to the entire drama industry.
"It has to be a 'hexagonal warrior, where to fight.'" Li happily shared.
Xia Jiuzi, the producer and screenwriter, recognized it, and she further affirmed the standard of 9-point dramas with the evaluation of "the need to take on the important task of promoting the construction of social spiritual civilization".
In the eyes of the two producers, works with more than 9 points on Douban in the past can reach this dimension. "The Legend of Zhen Huan", "The Awakening Age" and "The Silent Truth", which are a little closer, also have this meaning.
Li Xinran even revealed that Youku bought the video network broadcast rights of "The Legend of Zhen Huan" at a copyright price comparable to that of a new drama. From this, we can also see the long-tail effect of good dramas, as well as the "out of the circle" effect.
"Back then, who didn't know that the classic lines and famous scenes in "The Legend of Zhen Huan" were all 'pulped' by netizens. ”
In the eyes of Li Xinran and Xia Jiuzi, "The Long Season" has not been able to compare with the past Douban 9-point dramas in terms of the long-tail effect and creative expression of the work. They affirmed the audio-visual language, the presentation of the sense of the times, the acting skills of the actors, the character creation and other aspects of the whole work, but in the "suspense" setting, they thought it was not good enough.
"In terms of suspense, I don't think it's as good as "Chasing the Murderer in the White Night", and in terms of the idea of the work, "The Silent Truth" seems to be more profound. "The two producers have similar opinions.
There is still "moisture" in Douban's 9-point dramas, and the rest of the works with 8 points on Douban in 2023 will have more obvious "moisture".
Li Xinran and Xia Jiuzi both took the "big hit" "Hurricane" (Douban 8.5 points) as an example, in their opinion, this is an excellent work, but if you compare "In the Name of the People" with a score of 8.3 on Douban, it seems a little "unreasonable".
"Hurricane was selected by our company as a must-see and exemplary work for the screenwriter team to see and share their insights. The play has won unanimous praise from the public for its full-bodied characters and epic plot, and the screenwriting skills used are exquisite and fluent. It's rare, but it can still be imitated. "In the Name of the People" is a little different, its success is inseparable from a screenwriter like Zhou Mason, who is blessed with unique experience in the system and has a deep understanding of the ecology of officialdom, which makes the show a unique creation that is difficult to replicate. ”
So, you can see that In the Name of the People is more critical and reflective, and it has more stamina. "Hurricane" is a work with heroism and obvious 'coolness'. Xia Jiuzi shared.
Li Xinran also agreed.
In her opinion, "Hurricane" is indeed a rare work that can cause the effect of "national drama chasing" in recent years, but it has also eaten some theme dividends. Because since "In the Name of the People", except for the emergence of individual "anti-crime dramas", the rest of the suspense crime themes are more likely to take the "criminal investigation" route. There is still a slight gap between the two.
As for other Douban 8-point dramas to be broadcast in 2023, taking "The World" with a Douban score of 8.4 points, which was also born in the same two years, and overseas dramas that are generally considered by the audience to be inflated, such as the first season of "Succession War" (Douban 8.4 points) as an example, the quality of the dramas is immediate.
"In the previous market, Douban 8-point drama was actually a 'boutique drama' concept. It means that these works either reach an average level in script creation (story, rhythm), director's production level, actors' performances, and drama value presentation, or they are very prominent in one aspect, and some deficiencies are allowed at other levels, but they are not particularly crotch-pulling. Screenwriter Huang Fen shared his views on Douban's 8-point drama.
From this dimension alone, many Douban 8-point works in the table are also far-fetched.
Li Xinran said, "If you subtract a score of 0.5 from each of these works, it will be relatively objective." ”
"To evaluate whether there is a problem of inflated reputation in the work, I think it must be necessary to compare both horizontally and vertically. Based on the Douban scoring of previous years' works, the scoring of the same type of theme, and even overseas dramas as reference objects. I came to this conclusion above. ”
In 2023, the quality of domestic drama creation will improve, but there will be an "inflated" component in word-of-mouth.
Who is pushing for "inflated"?
So, who is promoting the "inflated" reputation of domestic dramas in 2023? This comes from various factors, and even some bad industry Xi.
Ordinary audiences in the "passive" link of the film and television industry chain will stage an "emotional" and "encouraging" scoring behavior in 2023.
Among the four senior drama fans interviewed by Sohu Entertainment this time, two drama fans mentioned this scoring game.
They said that the reason why some works scored "higher" was because they felt that the creators were sincere and serious about making content, and some were dramas with high difficulty in developing themes, because they hoped to see more works of the same theme;
Some of them are because they rely on their peers to set off and haven't seen "normal" works in this genre for too long, while some obviously have a "follow the crowd" mood - I didn't think this work could get this high score, but everyone else played it, and the work was really good, so follow suit.
There are corresponding technical terms in economics and psychology, namely "diminishing marginal effect" and "anchoring effect", and it is fitting to use them to explain the current situation of "encouraging scoring" and "emotional scoring" of the audience.
From the marketing side, the phenomenon of "brushing points" for works and even fans automatically joining the battlefield has also raised the reputation of domestic dramas in 2023.
Weiwei, who has many years of experience in drama marketing, revealed that Douban scores have always been a non-negligible part of drama marketing.
Especially in the past two years, after the market began to "reduce costs and increase efficiency", the filmmakers paid more and more attention to the reputation of the series, and even the phenomenon of "comparison" appeared.
broke the news slightly, in 2023, she met a customer who asked them to have a higher Douban score because she saw that there were works of the same type that had a good Douban score last year. "It is not excluded that there will be more filmmakers who will have such requirements, after all, in the list of 8-point dramas you showed me, there are three word-of-mouth dramas that we have done for word-of-mouth drama maintenance. ”
However, Weiwei also said that even if it is done for word-of-mouth maintenance, "striking iron also needs its own hardness". "The score that can really affect the fluctuation of Douban's score is about 0.2. And it costs 15w-20w just to maintain this reputation. ”
Weiwei shared, at present, a kind of word-of-mouth maintenance that everyone generally does, is to carry out a certain amount of "praise and praise" in the early stage of the broadcast of the series. "There's no way, because there are a lot of black fans now, and they will go crazy with rhythm. If you don't do word-of-mouth maintenance, it is very likely that you are a good drama in itself, and you will be deliberately given a low score because of the actors, or the factor of 'smearing' your family. ”
This also brings out another key topic in the marketing process, where the "fan effect" invades the Douban community, thus shaking the score of works. In the early years, "Who is the Murderer" and "The Wind Rises in Luoyang", which were in the "Pink and Black War" in the Douban comment area, should still be vividly remembered by the public.
In 2023, there will also be some works starring idol actors, and the Douban comment area will be officially posted with "abnormal ratings", and some works will be scored a few months after they are broadcast.
These are all abnormal phenomena. Weiwei shared some "anti-counterfeiting" methods:
The first is to look at the scoring time of the work, which generally starts early, and the score is relatively stable after the broadcast of the work, and the score is mostly scored by "tap water";
And smart netizens also gradually rely on Douban classification to identify the watchability of works: usually F-type works are absolutely word-of-mouth dramas; P-type works are highly watchable; D-type works require specific analysis of specific works; Type C is basically works starring idol actors, whose works are experiencing a "pink and black war", and B-type and L-type scoring works are basically not recommended......
Audiences, marketing people, including fans from the perspective of both inside and outside, some creators, from the "front end" of creation, are catering to the preferences of Douban users or market users, which is also the key to the overall "inflated" score of domestic dramas last year.
Producer Xia Jiuzi and screenwriter Wu Yao all shared this point of view.
"Like the CP culture that everyone likes more now, some social issues that are easy to spread, women's issues, and even the content often discussed in Douban's popular groups will become the focus of creators' observations. Wu Yao said.
Xia Jiuzi took the relevant incidents that happened in her team as an example. "This year, there is a work in the industry that overly 'child's play' of professional knowledge, which has been criticized by netizens. This led to the screenwriters in the team actively deleting some key content out of excessive concern about the public response when creating a certain industry drama and writing industry-related plots, forgetting that the screenwriter's creation should serve the theme, plot and characters as the highest purpose. ”
But fortunately, the problem was finally effectively solved. "We felt that the first thing to do was to stay true to the theme, the plot and the characters, and in the end, we decided to keep the plots, and soon brought in experts in the field to ensure that the plot was professional and logical. ”
For users who have been immersed in the Douban community all year round, Douban users are gradually moving from the former "literary and artistic user youth" to "sinking". This is also the key to the gradual rise of the word-of-mouth score in the drama market in 2023, or even earlier.
"It's a matter of iteration of discourse. In the past, most of the people who occupied the core gathering place of Douban were post-70s and 80s audiences, and most of the works they participated in scoring were movies, books, and music. Wu Yao shared.
In addition, in recent years, the Douban community has also continued to take further steps in the direction of commercialization, and there is obviously a problem of "fairness" in the drama scoring and even the movie scoring system.
But as drama fan KK shared, "Drama scoring itself is a relatively personal aesthetic. How can the judging dimension come from high and low?"
From the scoring mechanism of ordinary users "passively" raising the score of domestic dramas on Douban, to the "active" embrace of Douban scores by marketers, fans, and creators, as well as the "sinking" phenomenon of Douban users themselves, all of which have contributed to the "inflated" reputation of domestic dramas in 2023. This is an "unnatural phenomenon" caused by multiple factors and multiple groups of people.
What kind of "good drama" do we need?
In fact, whether it is the audience's encouragement, or emotional scoring, or the marketer's "deliberate" elevation of the reputation of the work, the creator is discussing the general audience from the "front end" of creation, in essence, it is to present a good work to the public, or a work with commercial value.
In the two dimensions of word-of-mouth and popularity, in terms of multiple-choice questions, many industry insiders still give priority to the "popularity" of the work. Screenwriter Wu Yao said, "Whichever work can go first, which one can go first." She does not rule out that the popularity of drama works will be ahead of "word of mouth".
"Film and television works are actually a commodity in the final analysis. Everyone wants to make a 'good reputation', and a core value is also because they want to have higher commercial value. ”
Wu Yao does not approve that some works are "not applauded" at the level of popularity, but they claim to be works of "word-of-mouth dramas".
In her opinion, most of the works that can be "applauded" in the word-of-mouth dimension will be accompanied by higher commercial returns and long-tail effects.
This goes back to the Douban 9 points + works that appeared in the drama market in the early days discussed above. Works such as "The Legend of Zhen Huan" and "The Awakening Age" had a very significant "sensational effect" in the drama market that year. In the early stage of the broadcast, the popularity of "The Awakening Age" was still relatively limited, and with the continuous fermentation of the word-of-mouth of the works, these works had the later "breaking the circle" effect.
This is an absolutely high-quality drama series, and it holds the commonality.
Producer Xia Jiuzi agrees with this view. In her opinion, if you want to promote the real "big hit" of the popularity of the series, the blessing of word-of-mouth is an inevitable event.
For some works with mediocre word-of-mouth performance, but also showing "hot" works, in her opinion, they can only be called "hits", not "hit" dramas, or even "drama kings".
Producer Li Xinran expounded his understanding of "good dramas" from the perspective of the return on investment ratio of works. In her opinion, using a small investment to leverage the core audience group can also be regarded as a good work.
Works such as "Ancient Lovesickness" and "I Have a Friend" that will appear in the drama market in 2023 all have an obvious "small and big" nature. For works of this level, if you want to leverage part of the audience, the quality of the work and the essential innovative elements are the key.
This is a standard for what a "good drama" is recognized by Li Xinran.
In the view of Ding Ding, an observer of the pan-entertainment industry, the good dramas that the audience needs can also be understood as idol dramas and ancient puppet dramas that have won the support of young people. "Film and television works should not have high or low subject types, and idol dramas that are well done can also be considered 'good dramas'. ”
Like "To a Windy Place" and "Sauvignon Blanc", which were broadcast in the drama market last year, in Ding Ding's view, they are also very desirable.
"To a Windy Place" brings a new solution to the problem of modern puppet works in a pastoral healing way, and the overall production level of "Sauvignon Blanc" is stable, each character is standing, the competition is exciting enough, the emotion is sadistic enough, and the sense of watchability and immersion is very strong. ”
"The plot market should be full of flowers. As an audience, we need to see good dramas, but we also need to see the themes and creative expressions of the works we love to watch. Drama fan KK said.
At present, judging from the public's sharing, it is not only Douban high-scoring dramas that are qualified to be called "good dramas".
In 2024, "good dramas" should also show diversity.
(Li Xinran and Ding Ding are pseudonyms in the article)