In March this year, there is fierce competition in various themes such as ancient costumes, fairy tales, and spy wars, among which there are many S-level dramas with volume lineups, volume IP, and volume creativity.
Under such a pattern, the costume detective drama "Flower Order" starring Ju Jingyi and Liu Xueyi stood out among many S-level dramas and became a big surprise in March.
Since the show was launched on Youku, the topic and popularity of the drama have continued to rise, "the biggest dark horse in March" and "all actors have made breakthroughs" are the praise given by the audience to this drama.
Breaking 10,000 in 3 days after the start of the broadcast, becoming the fastest Youku drama to break 10,000 in 2024, and ranking first in popularity on multiple platforms for many consecutive days, let the medium-sized "Flower Order" break through its own upper limit and burst out the energy of S-level costume dramas.
Almost overnight, the related plots in the play, such as the heroine's face change, Ju Jingyi's evil female appearance, and Liu Xueyi's beautiful male county order, have become hot words on the Internet.
Summarizing the key elements of the successful breakthrough of "Flower Order", non-IP, the original script takes into account the explosion point and depth, highlights the scenes and costumes of oriental classical aesthetics, reasonable and creative actors, the fast pace of the story, and multiple reversals, all of which make this drama have a small and broad dark horse effect.
And behind "Flower Order" is Shengxi Huashi, a veteran player in the field of Chinese dramas.
From "Walking on the Tip of the Knife", "The Great General Who Protects the Country", "The Character of Mortals", to "Good Days and Good Scenery Know Geometry", "Thin Ice", "Soul Suppression" and a series of acclaimed and popular works, Shengxi Huashi has experienced the exploration period, growth period and transformation period of domestic dramas, and has not only accumulated rich experience in the production of traditional TV dramas, but also personally accepted the blockbuster of niche dramas and genre dramas in the era of focus.
Recently, we had a conversation with Zhou Yiyang, the chief producer of Shengxi Huashi and the production director of "Flower Order", and talked about the production methodology and secret of "Flower Order", as well as the latest progress of Shengxi Huashi's next three key projects, "Salty Snow", "Palm" and "Magnolia Flower Blooming Again".
Original Screenplay: Social topics combined with bizarre stories
"Flower Order" ran out of S-level results with a small and medium-sized volume, which is really rare.
From the perspective of subject matter and audience, "Flower Order" is relatively niche among the dramas of the same period, but the combination of detective + emotion + high-value starring allows it to take into account both male and female audiences.
The strong setting of the heroine Yang Caiwei's "face change" is also a breaking point in the eyes of the producer during the preparation period of the project. Therefore, regarding the popularity of the broadcast, Zhou Yiyang said that there would be some surprises when he first saw this result, but there was still a certain expectation.
In 2021, "Flower Order" experienced a short stagnation of the epidemic after Youku's meeting, and at the end of 2022, Shengxi Huashi repositioned the project, adjusted the script, and coded the actors. From the start of production in March 2023 to the broadcast in March this year, it took another year.
There are three main reasons why Shengxi Huashi chose to do the project "Flower Order":
First, as an original content, the script of "Flower Order" has a high degree of completion. The strong setting of the face change is very attractive, and it catches people's attention at the beginning.
Second, the fate of the male and female protagonists in the play is closely related to all cases, the protagonist will not wander outside but participate in it, and the main suspense and unit cases are closely linked and interlocked.
Third, the six cases in the play are full of curiosity, but at the same time, they are humanistic and socially topical.
At the beginning of the story, the bride falling from the building connects the front edge and misunderstanding of the male and female protagonists; in the Lantern Festival murder case, the third girl (played by Chen Yaxi), the protagonist of the unit, chose to resist the bullying in an extreme way of violence and violence due to the pain of her original family, and the ending is embarrassing;
The ghost fire hook case talks about campus violence, calling on everyone to speak out bravely and not to be silent accomplices. These cases that expose the dark side of society and arouse the audience's thinking have extraordinary practical significance, and they are also the depth and value transmission that this costume detective drama wants to achieve.
"In the unit of the Lantern Club Murder Case, we felt the depth of its excavation in the text stage, coupled with its plot setting of many reversals, when everyone finally found out that the third girl was Gu Shan, it would be more shocking. Being able to arouse the thinking of the society and arouse the resonance of the audience is our original intention to make such a costume detective drama. Zhou Yiyang emphasized.
In the finale, the case has come to an end, but someone mysteriously appeared with a "one" token, triggering the audience's conjecture that the big boss behind the scenes has someone else. The voices calling for the second part are everywhere, which shows that the audience has established a deep relationship with the characters in the play.
Actor grouping: high appearance + fit the character
Although the core of "Flower Order" is a suspenseful detective drama, the audience's high requirements for the appearance of female frequency dramas and the adaptability of actors are also fully grasped by the producers, and they have not relaxed at all.
In history, the allusions of Pan Yang's goodness and throwing fruits, and the poem "Pan Lang is as beautiful as a crown of jade, and Yang Nucai is as tall as a phoenix", provided the audience with infinite imagination, and further increased the difficulty of casting "Flower Order".
In "The Order Between Flowers", the male protagonist Pan Yue passed through the streets and alleys in a sedan chair, attracting the girls to watch and shout with flowers and fruits, blocking the place where Pan Yue passed. This is also a relatively rare scene in costume dramas that presents the "fruit throwing car" recorded in the book.
It is bound to be a headache to choose such an actor, but the producer hit it right and chose Liu Xueyi to play Pan Yue, and the result was very happy.
"The setting of the character of Pan Yue is a beautiful man with a black belly, and he needs to have both the fairy spirit and inner contrast of an ancient beautiful man. I have seen Xueyi's other roles before, his facial features are Zhouzheng, and his eye drama is in place, and he plays the first beautiful man, which is absolutely convincing to the audience. In the end, everyone was satisfied with the effect presented by Pan Yue. ”
The heroine Ju Jingyi completed a breakthrough in personal character creation in "Flower Order". She is not only Yang Caiwei who pretends to be a wicked woman and lurks to chase the murderer, but also Shangguan Zhi, the villain who loves crazy demons.
In just two episodes, Shangguan Zhi, with her beautiful red dress and the murderous aura of lifting the curtain and raising her eyes, quickly conquered the hot searches on various platforms and broke the circle for the general trend of the project.
"Everyone has always seen that Xiao Ju's ancient costumes or images in Xianxia dramas are lively and smart, but in "Flower Order", she needs one person to play two roles, especially the evil woman design, which she has never tried. We hope to break the audience's inherent perception of her and bring more freshness and contrast. Zhou Yiyang said.
Bai Xiaosheng played by Wu Jiayi and Zhuo Lanjiang played by Li Geyang are another pair of popular CPs in the play. Bai Xiaosheng is alert and vigilant, he is a gangster who wanders in the ghost market, and Zhuo Lanjiang is a young gang leader in prison.
Both of them have hidden identities, from happy enemies to triangular relationships, to sadomasochism and BE endings, they are also a pair that has made many viewers go up.
In terms of actor selection, Li Geyang has a refreshing and jumpy youthfulness, which is very in line with the setting of Zhuo Lanjiang's 'Happy Puppy' in the early stage. Wu Jiayi has a sassy and neutral temperament, and she is full of cuteness when she dresses as a man. The chemistry between the two is strong, and their performance in the play is also remarkable.
Create a Chinese-style aesthetic costume detective drama with low budget and high specifications
Due to the limitations of volume and budget, the total production cycle of "Flower Order" is only 87 days, and the unit-based detective drama attributes lead to scattered scenes, many characters, and more cumbersome requirements for scenes, costumes, and soundtracks.
Under the high standards of the main creator, the overall production difficulty of "Flower Order" is not lower than that of an S-level drama.
It can be seen that the art style of "Flower Order" is more realistic, the tone is fresh and elegant, there are no thick filters and obvious visual effect traces, but it uses Chinese aesthetics to present a delicate and relatively down-to-earth costume detective drama.
In the face of a tight budget, the drama party still completed the production of more than 400 sets of costumes and the rental of more than 3,000 sets of costumes. And according to the themes of different units and different characters, ten OSTs were planned, and a group of singers such as Zhou Shen and Hu Xia were found to sing with both traffic and popularity.
So, sow melons and get melons, and sow beans and get beans. Many people have reported that the small and medium-sized "Flower Order" does not look "poor", and many scenes bring the audience the enjoyment of beauty and the surprise of "digging up treasures".
The chic courtyard surrounded by greenery, the ingenious winding water, and the grand scene of the lantern festival throwing fruit and cars, you can see that "Flower Order" has put a lot of effort into the scenes, props, and composition. Under a limited budget, the elegance of Chinese aesthetics is brought into full play.
The relevant scenes of the four major clans in the play are the most expensive and energy-intensive in the whole play. The Life and Death Workshop refers to the statues and patterns of Vajra Lux in ancient Chinese temples, and adds the modeling elements of five baht coins and water patterns and fire patterns, and uses the concept of yin and yang on the left and right sides to form two different expressions to express life and death, interpreting the traditional aesthetics such as the aesthetics of symmetry between square and circle.
Dill Garden is hidden in a market cloth workshop, and after passing through the secret passage, it is another world of singing and dancing and power and sex trading, which is full of curiosity, and it is also the strongest color in the whole play.
In fact, the cross-level projects handled by Shengxi Huashi are not only "Flower Order". Previously, it was "Good Days and Good Scenes", which was mainly focused on sadomasochism in the Republic of China. The premiere of the show was more than 9,700 on Youku, and the peak ratings of Zhejiang Satellite TV reached 0.8%, which was the runner-up in the ratings of the year, which caused heated discussions on the whole platform and broke the circle strongly.
At present, among the projects being filmed and prepared by Shengxi Huashi, there are many big dramas that have not been broadcast and have aroused strong expectations and high discussions in advance.
The fastest progress is the costume suspense drama "Palm" starring Liu Shishi and Dou Xiao, which started in March and is being filmed, directed by Bai Shan, the director of "Tang Dynasty Strange Stories". The setting of the heroine is a female psychologist in the Tang Dynasty, and the plot integrates multiple elements such as revenge and suspense, with novel settings and full of highlights.
"Xianxue", which is set in the late Qing Dynasty, tells the story of Su Jingyao, a legendary woman in the Lianghuai area, who returned to her hometown, took every step of the way, swept away rape and evil, and became a generation of female salt merchants.
The play is written by Chen Yu (representative works "Man Jianghong" and "Solid as a Rock"), which continues its usual fast-paced and strong style setting, combining a dark heroine with villain characteristics and an extremely refreshing revenge business war, with high expectations. At present, the head actors are in contact, and it is expected to start shooting in the second half of the year.
Since its debut, "Magnolia Blossom Blooms Again", which has received great attention in the industry, is Tencent's head project. Based on the legendary life of Ms. Dong Zhujun, the founder of Jin Jiang Hotel Shanghai.
Everyone's attention to the project is not only because it is a realistic work based on real historical figures, but also because its nearly 100-year life experience provides the audience with a perspective to look back at China's 100-year history, hiding the grand narrative of historical agitation behind the fate of women.
In terms of project development, Shengxi Huashi does not stick to choosing IP adaptation or original incubation.
"The company currently has 7 studios, such as "Flower Order" and "Palm", all of which are purely original content, and the incubation cycle of original content is long, which often requires more enthusiasm and patience. For the selection of IP, we will not take popularity and price as the core evaluation criteria, but will first look at whether the content of the top 10% or so of the IP is attractive enough to make people want to look down. However, whether it is original or IP incubation, innovative stories, fresh characters and the scarcity of themes in the current market are all important considerations in our decision-making. ”
As a veteran of the film and television industry, Shengxi Huashi has dabbled in different types of projects with different themes. Next year, it will also march into contemporary spy warfare, ancient costume light joy, and crime suspense themes.
There is no doubt that Shengxi Huashi has achieved a successful transformation, from "Good Days and Good Scenery Know Geometry" to "Flower Order", as well as the next "Palm", "Magnolia Flowers Bloom Again", "Xianxue" and other big dramas, Shengxi Huashi is continuing to make efforts, with the goal of creating more popular models.
Shengxi Huashi has forged a young and energetic professional team in project incubation, production control, publicity and promotion, etc., and the future is promising.
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