The strongest cool film of the year! Workers don't dare to say it, it says it all

The popularity of the New Year's Day file "The Annual Meeting Can't Be Stopped!" has not decreased.

"Because it allows workers to

In the cinema,

Solid and happy for 2 hours. ”

The strange phenomenon of miasma in the workplace,

was picked up by this movie.

The Douban score also rose to 8.2,

Praised:

I said what I wanted to say but didn't dare to say for the workers.

Screenwriter and director Dong Runnian from 2017,

I did 3 rounds of large-scale interviews,

Covering the employees of large factories, foreign enterprises and state-owned enterprises,

Collected nearly 100 workplace stories.

"Every time we talk,

Basically, after 10 minutes,

Everyone will automatically turn on the spit mode.

No matter what industry it is, everyone's pain points are the same.

I think all the complaints are actually a cry for help. ”

The following is a conversation with Dong Runnian.

Editor: Zhang Yalan

Editor-in-charge: Ni Chujiao

Jin Yucheng's "Flowers" series of prints show a different Shanghai style, click on an art applet or APP to purchase

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Screenwriter and director Dong Yunnian

Q: What kind of story does the movie tell and why did you want to make a movie about the workplace?

A: The movie mainly tells the story of Hu Jianlin (played by Dapeng), a factory worker, who was promoted three levels in the group by mistake. He is not smarter than these white-collar workers, but these smart people, over-interpreting his every move, being smart and being clever and misleading. The irony is that this is also the case in reality.

We want to make fun of the ridiculous state of the real workplace.

In 2017, when I was at a reunion with my classmates, I found that they often said Internet black words, such as "aligning granularity" and "forming a set of combination punches", these Chinese words are all recognized, and when combined, they don't understand very well, and there is a feeling of uncertainty.

There are also words like "the key to this problem is to find the key problem" and "background data management is to manage background data". I thought it was funny, and it was very comedic in the movie.

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In the movie, Pan Yiran (played by Zhuang Dafei), Hu Jianlin (played by Dapeng) and Ma Jie (played by Bai Ke) finally formed a three-person team to shout out their hearts for the workers

And the reality is very magical.

I remember seeing a real news story before. In the office building of a large factory, there is a homeless man who locks himself in the storage room where no one is there during the day, and when everyone gets off work at night, he goes to the pantry to find something to eat, and put together a few chairs, so he can sleep there, and outsiders think he is working overtime, so he has not found out about it, and he has lived in it for more than 1 month. I was particularly struck.

The reality is more exaggerated than what we wrote, no matter how strict your system is, in fact, there are many gaps in the middle, and strange and bizarre things happen. The world feels like a grass platform.

In the past, everyone said that watching a movie is to watch a "spectacle". In the past, the "spectacle" may be space and cosmic superman, but I think the real in real life can be more of a "wonder".

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After Hu Jianlin (played by Dapeng) was promoted two levels in a row to become a leader, it was inevitable that he would be hypocritical

Q: There are a lot of interesting memes in the movie, such as head count, "layoffs and promotion", etc., how did you create them?

A: Before we started filming, we hired some professionals as consultants. In the past three years, I have interviewed employees from all walks of life, state-owned enterprises, foreign companies, and large Internet companies, and got a lot of first-hand stories.

I have a classmate who used to be an HR director in a big factory, and he gave me a good story.

He said that one of their daily tasks was head counting, and we reacted the same as the protagonist Hu Jianlin at the time, "Hey, what?" is actually "counting heads".

When an enterprise has tens of thousands of people, the daily turnover rate is very high, and the leaders have no idea how many people there are in the enterprise.

There are a lot of overtime workers in large factories, and HR will stay late, and go down every day to see the actual number of overtime workers and go to roll call. I thought it was very funny to think that when I was in school, the homeroom teacher stood in the back of the classroom and looked at it secretly.

As someone who works overtime, an HR suddenly appears behind you, looks at you, and calls you by name, which is ridiculous and scary. We designed the plot to let HR take a roll call in the context of the company's layoffs, causing stress and panic to everyone.

There is also a stalk of "layoffs (financial resources) are widely entered".

When large enterprises want to lay off employees, they will give a secret code, generally named after animals or objects, and we have also used other names, and found that they are all really used by people, so we dare not use them, for fear that they are too targeted. Later, we brainstormed together and used a homophonic stalk, in fact, this code name is very stupid and ironic.

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In the movie, everyone protests angrily after learning that they have been laid off

Q: Can you tell us more about interviewing migrant workers in those three years?

A: It started in 2017, and until 2020, we had about 3 rounds of large-scale interviews, and we usually chatted for 10 minutes first, and then everyone automatically entered the spit mode.

When the sample size of the interview is large enough, it is found that no matter what industry you are in, there is a high degree of convergence between anxiety and complaining.

For example, first, I feel tired of working overtime.

Second, some people work hard to complete a job, and the small leader directly under them happens to appear and grab the credit.

They will also complain about their colleagues' sycophants and standing in line...... In fact, the most important thing is to doubt the value of your work.

Many post-80s and 90s generations have mortgages and car loans, and their children want to go to school, they dare not speak out, and they can't look for a job after being laid off, and they can't care about whether they are decent or not, just have a job. For many people, work is physically and mentally devastating.

Q: After so many years, what changes do you think have taken place in your workplace and mood?

A: The changes are still obvious. In 2017 and 2018, we mainly interviewed employees of large factories, although they also felt tired and complained about the unfairness in the workplace, but they were still full of confidence in the future, with a kind of self-deprecation, as a joke.

In 2020, the epidemic also began, and everyone began to have some worries about the economic situation and the future of the industry. In 2021, we interviewed again, and the pressure of layoffs has been hanging over everyone's heads, and the pressure is even greater.

Originally, the script was mainly comedy, but after hearing a lot of feedback from everyone, we also adjusted the script, because I think everyone needs to be sarcastic and need to say things that are usually unspeakable in the workplace.

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In 1986, the movie "Black Cannon Incident", which tells the story of Engineer Zhao's big misunderstanding in order to find a lost black cannon chess piece

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Stills from the 2010 workplace comedy "Du Lala's Promotion".

Q: In the past two years, workplace scenes in film and television dramas have been criticized as unreal, and the screenwriter has never been at work. How do you overcome it?

A: We also think that the most important thing in workplace dramas is truthfulness. Therefore, from the ceiling, wall, to carpet, desk and chair, it is all restored 1:1 according to the real work needs. The documents and PPT that appear on the computer are also in line with the work content of this department.

One of the screenwriters, Ying Luojia, has been working in the workplace since 2003 and has done most of the work in the workplace. Dapeng did not resign from Sohu until 2017, and he knows the ecology of Dachang very well. Bai Ke also worked as a choreographer before becoming an actor, and even worked as an account manager to negotiate business with customers. Everyone sat together, and the workplace atmosphere was very natural.

In addition, we interviewed a lot of people in the workplace and obtained a lot of material. When these are true enough, many difficulties will be solved.

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Bai Ke, as HR Ma Jie

Q: Why did you choose Dapeng and Baike as the protagonists?

A: Dapeng and Baike are the originators of short comedy such as the Internet, and they may even be competitors at the beginning.

Although Chinese comedy films have developed quite well in recent years, when arranging actors, it is found that there may be no more than 10 people with a clear label of "comedian" in everyone's cognition.

People still want to appreciate new things. So we also thought of letting Dapeng and Baike cooperate once. In recent years, they have all developed in the field of serious acting. They like and appreciate each other, and they want to work together, but they can't find the opportunity, so it's also fresh to let them return to comedy.

Q: After the movie was released, it sparked heated discussions, the Douban score is very high and has risen, the movie is so popular, did you think of it before, and what exceeded expectations?

A: I didn't expect it, and I wasn't prepared to make the audience laugh at first.

Because of the popularity of short videos, the threshold for everyone to laugh is getting higher and higher, and if you can't make people laugh within 5 seconds, the audience won't watch it. And the short video is also a relatively basic funny way, such as "drop a stool", "fall" and the like.

I actually wanted to do a "structured comedy". It is not supported by exaggerated performances or jokes. Rather, there is foreshadowing, the audience has to bring in the character, as an omniscient perspective, he knows the things that the characters in our play don't know, and when he sees that the protagonist is going to be stupid, he will have a sense of humor.

But I didn't expect that when I conducted the audience test, the frequency and degree of laughter of the audience exceeded my previous expectations, and I could get a very good idea of what we were trying to convey. I have a lot of respect for our audience.

Q: In the process of creation, you have come into contact with a lot of people in the workplace, what do you think they touched you the most, and how do you see the relationship between people and work?

A: People say that we are "mouth substitutes", but in fact, I didn't know what it meant at first.

Maybe because we express the pain points of everyone's workplace, so everyone feels as if they are understood. For example, Hu Jianlin will say, "The times are trains, but ordinary people cannot be regarded as friction."

I think there is a certain commonality in East Asian cultures, and people generally feel that the workplace suppresses the freedom of the individual and suppresses the individual's nature. At the same time, everyone is afraid that they will be left behind, afraid that they will be eliminated by society, and desperately want to keep up with the train of the times.

I have come into contact with a large number of young people, and I think that they are not afraid of hardship or tiredness, and what is really unacceptable to everyone is that they cannot reflect their own value and self-satisfaction at work. That's why I think people still have to work to gain self-identity.

All the complaints are actually calls for help. People who really feel that work and work are meaningless, he will not say anything anymore, and those who are willing to complain actually hope that the environment in the workplace can change.