Text: Buffy
In the drama market in the past March, "Little Days" is one with an extremely strong sense of existence.
With drama plots such as husband and wife sleeping on bunk beds, divorce for love, and only daughter-in-law in Jiangsu and Zhejiang fighting in-laws, "Little Days", which is well versed in the marketing logic of the short video era, exploded out of the circle, and the ratings were also very gratifying. Under the eye-catching clips of chickens flying and dogs jumping, the play does not forget to explore realistic issues such as parent-child and husband and wife relationships in a contemporary context, trying to show the multifaceted nature of contemporary family life.
The original work of "Little Days" comes from Douban Reading. In recent years, film and television dramas adapted from Douban Reading have been continuously released, and Douban Reading focuses on reality, mature age, focusing on women, suspense and other themes, which has stronger seriousness and literature than other online literature platforms. The novel "Little Days" is such a typical Douban reading novel that fits the above characteristics very well, compared with the drama, its content temperament is more awe-inspiring and sharp, and the portrayal of emotional relationships and changes of the times is more realistic.
"Little Day" is also the third work of writer Yibei to be adapted into a film and television drama after "Xiaomin's Family" and "Mature Years". We chatted with this writer, who is deeply involved in the field of family themes, to see how he dissects the contemporary urban family, observes the changes of the times and human nature, and also tries to understand Yibei's new views on literature, film and television creation in the continuous writing.
The small and big of "Little Days".
"Little Days" is very economical, the whole book is only a hundred thousand words, writing about the family life of a couple in their early thirties, and the story only unfolds from the folding perspective of the heroine Gu Jasmine, trying to explore and insight, but the problems are far more than the square inch of family and husband and wife, but touch a deeper and broader intercity and intergenerational field.
The couple Gu Jasmine and Zhu Jincao are not the more common combination of local peacock women × foreign phoenix men in literature, film and television works, both of them are outsiders, only children, and they have bought a house in Shanghai with the help of their parents and settled down, and have gained a firm foothold. Both of them are new Shanghainese who have migrated to Shanghai in the new round of urbanization, and this process is inevitably indispensable to the full support of their parents, which is also a unique reality of the moment. ”
As only children, they have received all the love and resources from their parents, and therefore they are more deeply bound to their parents. "What I want to talk about is that in this case, their relationship with their parents is involved in the relationship between husband and wife, and it can even be said that the parent-child relationship with their parents overrides the relationship between husband and wife, what kind of problem will it bring?"
Gu Jasmine and Zhu Jincao in the book, on the one hand, rely on the love and support of their parents, and have the material foundation to live a comfortable life in Shanghai. But on the other hand, they are not financially and psychologically independent, in fact, they are still giant babies, and the foundation for the so-called closed door to live their own small life is not stable. The parents of the two are also well aware of this, they can invade the lives of Gu Jasmine and Zhu Jincao at any time, and tear apart the appearance of the two and Meixiao's life.
The deeper reason for the disturbance of life is the crisis of trust, so an anonymous text message can turn their peaceful little days upside down, and the atmosphere suddenly changes from tranquility and beauty to suspense and tension. "I think this story can also reflect a common problem between people today, which is how difficult it is to build trust between people, and how to achieve it. ”
The discussion of trust is actually a continuation of the core of the text of "Xiaomin's Family" to a certain extent. "Xiao Min's Family" focuses on the remarriage of several middle-aged men and women to explore the establishment of trust among urban people, while "Little Days" introduces the trust crisis of an only child couple who are deeply dependent on their parents.
"Little Days" seems to be written about trivial and short family trivialities in the family, but the social reality reflected and the emotional relationship refracted are very vast and profound. The couple Gu Jasmine and Zhu Jincao are not only two individuals, but a microcosm of the times. In "Small Days", there is actually a big story hidden.
The flow and immutability of creation
Looking back at Ibei's creative experience, "fluidity" is a feature that is difficult to ignore.
This fluidity is reflected in the changes in its literary publishing platform, the stylistic preferences for its creative content, and the updating of its creative methods. However, there are some consistent and unchanged points in the flow, such as the creative attitude, such as the insistence on writing about the present and interrogating reality.
Yibei's initial publication of works was newspapers and periodicals, and he also directly published books, and then hit it off with the online literary platform Douban Reading, and serialized many works on Douban. In his view, the migration of the publishing platform is an adjustment of himself according to the changes of the times.
Yibei's creative attitude has always been serious, and he will not dissolve the literary nature of his works just because he publishes them on online platforms, but just output them in a more readable way. "The medium of publication will definitely affect the generation of content in turn, and creators have to adapt to different environments, but I think that no matter where I write, my original intention remains the same. ”
"Contemporaneity" is one of his creative insistences that he repeatedly mentions. Ibei attaches great importance to capturing the mood of the times. "My stories are all born from the soil of the contemporary era, and they naturally have a layer of color of the times. ”
Writing about the new reality of the present requires a writer to have a keen perception and insight into life, and to have the ability to grab materials from all sides of life. For Ibaki, new phenomena that are constantly emerging in his life will become the seeds of his works.
One of the manifestations of the ever-changing reality of life in Ibaki's work is that he always seems to be writing about people with a strong fluid nature. Gu Jasmine and Zhu Jincao of "Little Days" are Shanghai Drifters, "Xiao Min's Family" is written in Beipiao, and the story of "Six Sisters" is also a Jiangsu couple who came to the Huai River with their family to start a "Hui Drift" life.
"Drifting is a change, but also an uncertaintie. The drifting crowd is like a fish jumping out of the water, leaving the familiar environment will inevitably have a collision and a story, this is one of them; the second point, I think drifting is not a huge reality in China in recent years, the normal state in the process of urbanization, in the process of population flow, breeding countless stories. ”
Yibei will choose different presentation methods for these stories with different temperaments, change the perspective and language style of the stories, and adjust the story structure to make them better reflect the social reality they reflect. "The content or the way the writing is done is tailored to the local context, personalized, and tailored to the story. ”
But there are also commonalities and constants in these works. "I see these stories in my life, which is equivalent to my encounter with these subjects, and only when I am touched by them, I will germinate them and gestalt them into a new story. ”
Yibei is accustomed to borrowing the logic of life to build the logic of the novel to ensure the realism of the creation. "Creation only gives the writer of this story a person's logic, but the logic of life is the logic of the world, and its logic is stronger. Like painting, on this basis, the work will stand up. ”
The attention to the pain of the characters is also something that Ibei has always paid great attention to. "I wanted the character's frustration and troubles to be extremely real, to make the reader think about why he was depressed. In many cases, creation is another kind of questioning of people's hearts, society, and even the world, and I may not find the answer in the end, but I must ask questions, which is my constant desire to write. ”
From literature to film and television, from writers to screenwriters
Yibei's novels are quite film and television, in addition to the film and television "Xiaomin's Family", "Mature Year" and "Little Day", he also has the film and television rights of many works have been sold, among which "Six Sisters" is written by himself.
Regarding the relationship between novels and film and television adaptations, Yibei made an analogy. "The film and television side uses novels, which are the raw materials in their eyes, to fry their own dishes. So, they might remove some of the leaves, remove some of the poles, and use their own cooking style to serve a dish that represents their aesthetic preferences and level of preparation. ”
The original work of "Little Day" is streamlined, there is a large space for adaptation, and the series dilutes the suspense in the original work, amplifies the conflicts between generations, husband and wife, and parent-child relationships, and also expands many plots, which Yibei accepts well. "The producer has greeted me before, and will make some major changes, but the general direction of the story is still retained. ”
"Little Days" is a very contemporary story, which focuses on the dilemma faced by contemporary post-90s couples. Previously, most of the such works on the market may be for the post-70s and post-80s, but at this point, the story of this 90s couple is substantial, and it also occupies the market opportunity. Moreover, the producers of this story are also young people in their early 30s, and they happen to overlap with the protagonist of the story, and in the process of development, they increase their own perceptions, giving the story some new space, and constantly adding to the original structure of the story. ”
Referring to the period drama "Six Sisters", which is currently being filmed in Huainan, Yibei said, "The producer persuaded me to be the screenwriter of this drama, because "Six Sisters" is written about my hometown, and it involves the display of many hometown details such as customs and customs, and it may be difficult to find someone so familiar to write about it." And I also feel that I have a responsibility to do a good job in TV dramas related to my hometown. ”
The screenwriting work of "Six Sisters" has been carried out for more than two years, during which time Yibei also has a deep understanding of the production process of the film and television industry. "The way of writing novels and scripts is completely different, writing novels is responsible for oneself and having the final say, but the script is more of a negotiation, and there are many things that need to be communicated and run-in by many parties in the middle, and finally a result that is satisfactory to all parties is achieved. ”
For Ibaki, the happiest experience of adapting his own script is when he sees and hears his lines coming out of the actors' mouths.
"When I went to visit the class "Six Sisters", I happened to see a scene, and Teacher Wu Junmei had a line: 'Actually, you can retire early, and then you can live a few days of peace. When I heard the word 'Antey days' in my text on the sidelines, I was struck by the excitement because it was a very local word that was not very common in past episodes, and it was also a part of my own language style as a writer. When I heard it come out of the actor's mouth, it was like changing the scene I imagined when I was writing from 2D to 3D, and it was really exciting and gratifying. ”
For Yibei, writers and screenwriters are a kind of his creative identity, and novels and screenplays are different creative genres, which will bring him different creative insights and experiences, but they are the only way for him to move towards better works. "Creation is a process of constantly increasing one's self-cultivation in practice. Ibu said.