quarreled with his roommate over the rent ratio, argued with Party A for repeated revisions, was sad for his girlfriend and said goodbye, and anxious because the script could not be filmed...... The popular comedy film "Galaxy Writer" depicts the struggle of two young screenwriters living in Changying in Chaoyang District to realize their dreams in Beijing. A few days ago, Yi Feijun contacted Xu An, Yin Hang, and Juice, three young screenwriters who also came to Beijing to work hard for their dreams in real life, and their stories are even more exciting and inspirational than "Galaxy Writer".
Screenwriter Xu An
Xu An: The result may be late, but it will definitely come
Only three months have passed in 2024, and screenwriter Xu An's Beijing entry permit has been used six times, and according to the regulations, foreign cars can only apply for 12 Beijing entry permits a year, and one is valid for 7 days. The epidemic has barely been enough for three years, and this year's business is obviously not enough.
The first time Xu An came to Beijing for his dream of being a screenwriter was the summer vacation of his junior year, when the Internet job search was not developed, and Xu An, who had no industry resources, rushed to Beijing by train without knowing his parents with his suitcase, and she only contacted a neighbor who was resident in Beijing without preparation and direction, and after getting off the train, she went straight to An Zhenqiao, and this neighbor was "blowing up Jinhua" , Because he kept losing money, he couldn't get off the stage, so Xu An kept standing in the back until seven o'clock the next day, and was finally arranged by his neighbor to sleep in the lobby of a nearby bathing center. Because the bathing center was underground and there was no mobile phone signal, Xu An's parents were so anxious that they made more than 40 phone calls, and when they got in touch with each other, their mother said that they had rushed to the train station to find their daughter. It is not difficult to see that she is a girl with personality and daring to do.
As early as when he was in junior high school, Xu An tried to write things by himself, and at that time the novels of Han Han and Guo Jingming were popular, and Xu An felt that he could also write, although he didn't know where to publish it, and he didn't even think that he could publish it, but she still wrote tens of thousands of words freely. Looking back, although these words were immature, they satisfied her purest desire to create, and a seed of creation took root in her heart.
The first time she made a video of what she wrote was when Xu An was in her junior year, the class organized the shooting of a short film, and she wrote and directed a short film called "Fork in the Road", which tells the story of a girl who chooses two different life trajectories when she graduates: one is to marry her beloved boyfriend and have children to live a stable life, and the other is to overcome all difficulties and drift north without regrets to pursue her dreams. Looking back, this short film also seems to foreshadow Xu An's next life path.
During college, the film crew directed by Zhang Yimou came to the school to select actors, and many students flocked to the school auditorium to find an opportunity to audition after hearing about it, but the assistant director of the film stopped her after seeing Xu An on the road, hoping that she could also try. Because of this experience, Xu An met an assistant director in Beijing, and there were two internship jobs in front of Xu An at that time, one was an actor and the other was an assistant to the executive director, and Xu An chose to join the group as an assistant director.
This month's assistant director's work is very hard, because it is a newcomer and the first time to join the group, she works for more than ten hours a day and works non-stop, she remembers one day she was busy until three o'clock in the morning, and she had a headache that she couldn't move against the wall, but she still gritted her teeth and persevered, and got a "red envelope" of more than 1,000 yuan a month. Looking back now, the work at that time was far beyond the scope of assistant director, but despite this, it was still very meaningful for her to be able to participate in the filming and production of a TV series at that time.
Most of Xu An's classmates around her who are not from prestigious schools have chosen industries that have nothing to do with film and television, but she never thought about changing careers, in the first few years of coming to Beijing, she has done many programs such as Phoenix Satellite TV, Heilongjiang Satellite TV, Shanxi Satellite TV, Zhejiang Satellite TV, etc., from planning to post-production, from recording to business, in a few years, Xu An has gone from a director, editor-in-chief to an executive producer, although the project and income are relatively stable, but Xu An still feels the urge to express herself in her heart, she wants to write stories.
In 2017, just like the short film "Fork in the Road" written that year, Xu An was once again faced with a life choice, whether to choose the existing stable life to prepare for starting a family, or to follow his heart and start from scratch again?
The two screenwriters in "Galaxy Writer" defend their creative ideals and try their best to reject unreasonable script opinions, while compromising and retreating in order for the project to be successful, Xu An admitted that she is the same, she said that Party A and Party B are not antagonistics, there will be differences, and the key is the determination to solve problems together. For example, a film from Xi'an Film Studio that Xu An is creating, based on the fact that everyone from the filmmaker, the director, and the screenwriter are working together to create a good work, when there is a question about the script, even if Xu An herself thinks it is okay, she will first think: "Can there be a better solution?" Sometimes when a better version appears, the problems of the previous version will be naturally resolved.
is like a line in "Galaxy Writer": "Nine yellows for ten projects, and if you take a deposit, you are king." "It's not easy to get a project done. In 2019, Xu An led the team to write an online drama, and at the critical juncture of Party B's delivery of the script and Party A's payment, Xu An took the initiative to apply for a one-day late submission, because she wanted to further optimize one of the paragraphs in the script, but it coincided with the Chinese New Year, because of the delay of this day, the accountant of Party A's company was on vacation, and when he went to work after the New Year, the producer who had been docking with Xu An had left, the project was shelved, and the next two script fees were gone. When she told a colleague about the experience, the latter told her that she had been writing the script for ten years and had never received the final payment, "I was shocked to hear that. Maybe he's just typical, but he's by no means an exception. Xu An said.
In 2020, because of a successful audition, Xu An joined the online drama and film project of a famous domestic female director. Because the cycle of the movie is sometimes long, the first draft of the movie was written in 2021, and after continuous polishing, it is still being filmed.
To be famous in the film and television industry, in addition to strength, you must also have opportunities. Xu An agrees with this very much, some screenwriters around him happened to participate in a project, and after two months of writing, they started the film, and the movie became popular after it was released, which can be regarded as a fight to become famous, but he also has a strong ability, and he has been writing for several years, but there is no screenwriter who has any broadcast works.
Before the interview, Xu An and the reporter went to a café in Changying, Chaoyang District, which was once a frequent haunt for the screenwriter of "Galaxy Writer" and many film and television practitioners, Xu An was also a frequent visitor here, and many ideas and ideas were born here, but unfortunately this store has closed down, replaced by a beef skewer shop, and the door of the store is closed before opening hours.
Xu An has been creating non-stop over the years, although she told herself to enrich the present without asking about the future, but the epidemic has indeed achieved few objective results in the past few years, and it is inevitable to fall into internal friction. Xu An said that she did not take "becoming famous" or "making money" as her goal, and that what she could do was what she could do, and what she wanted to do now was that the story in her heart could be filmed and seen by more people.
Xu An is currently working on a realistic film "The Darkest War" and a suspense web drama "Down the North and Up to the South", the former tells the plight of a woman and has a portrayal of herself. The latter is a suspense drama that she has been conceiving and creating since the first day she was a screenwriter, both of which are stories she really wants to write, and she hopes that she can calm down and write the script as soon as possible until she is satisfied.
With the increase of experience, Xu An has become more and more in awe of writing, which makes Xu An feel relieved that the screenwriting industry is not a youth meal, and there is still a long way to go, "When I am anxious and question myself, I will tell myself very rationally that as long as I insist on improving myself, the result may be late, but it will definitely come." ”
Screenwriter Yin Hang
Yin Hang: Beijing has made my life after the age of 22
"My life before the age of 22 was given by my original family, and my life after the age of 22 was given by Beijing. Talking about the life of "North Drift" over the years, 36-year-old screenwriter Yin Hang summed it up like this.
This year is Yin Hang's birth year, he is a native of Dalian, born in a family that people "love and hate", his father is a director of the local police station, and his mother is a businessman. He lived a carefree life of the "rich second generation" since he was a child, but when he reached high school, his family began to fall, and his family was obsessed with selling 3D lottery tickets and owed a lot of debt. Yin Hang also has a sister who is 7 years older than him, and the matter of repaying the debt inevitably falls on his shoulders.
Yin Hang has been seriously biased since he was a child, and his composition can get a full score almost every time, but his math, physics and chemistry scores are a mess. In 2008, Sichuan Conservatory of Music went to the Northeast to enroll students, Yin Hang wanted to go to undergraduate, so he applied for the exam, although many people around him opposed it, but his father supported him, and finally he was admitted to the school's drama, film and television literature major.
When he was in college, he had 30 classmates in his class. He remembered that the teacher once asked in class, who will continue on the road of screenwriting after graduating from university? Yin Hang was the first to raise his hand to speak, and he said that he was the one who would not give up. "Because I really like freedom, I don't like to be constrained, I don't like to go to work in a regular way, and I don't like complicated relationships. Yin Hang said that many classmates were chasing stars at that time, but he never had this interest, because he had a kind of confidence that he would be able to do what he liked, "I think these stars will be my work partners in the future." ”
Yin Hang is very interested in constellations and Western metaphysics, he is an Aquarius, he likes a comfortable life, his ideal at that time was just to find a job that earns 3,000 yuan a month, and go to the sun when he has time. He was even a little resistant to going to Beijing, "because there is too much competition there." ”
In 2012, under the leadership of a teacher, Yin Hang and 4 classmates from another class came to Beijing to start the "North Drift" life. At that time, they lived in a semi-underground loft in Wukesong, with a room area of only 40 square meters, his bed was made of two square sofas, and the window was surrounded by an iron fence, so that he could not see the sun. What he couldn't stand the most was the "gurgling" sound of the wheels crushing the ground as the pedestrians pulled the boxes past, which made him feel irritable. But at the same time, he also made up his mind that he must mix up in Beijing, "because I don't want to be defeated by this city! If I leave Beijing one day, I must have obtained everything I wanted and proved myself. ”
In those years, Yin Hang only slept 4 hours a day, and he had to do 7 jobs by himself. He has to post invoices to the team, go out for interviews, sort out meeting minutes, write the script of the "Thank God You're Here" column, do the company's script planning, write the script of the popular law column, and write the script of the first domestic popular online short film "Love to Make Movies" launched by the movie channel. He writes 30,000 words a day, and he's very busy. His monthly salary is only 3,000 yuan, and he keeps 1,000 yuan for himself, and sends the rest to his family.
He was lucky enough to catch up with the opportunity of the explosion of China's film and television industry, and soon met a noble person, Li Han, the royal screenwriter of director Zhang Yibai, who helped him a lot. In 2016, Yin Hang created the script of "Demon Master Don't Kiss Me", which was broadcast on Tencent Video in 2017 and had as many as 3 billion views, and was even considered the originator of "sweet pet web drama". Yin Hang appeared in the list of screenwriters under the name of "Zi Buyu", but everyone in the circle knew that his other identity at that time was the chief planner of the show. Yin Hang regards the show as the most important work of his screenwriting career so far, which has given him a foothold in the industry.
In 2017, Yin Hang served as the chief screenwriter of the online drama "Oh! My Emperor Majesty", which allowed the talents of young actors such as Gu Jiacheng, Xiao Zhan, and Zhao Lusi to be fully brought into full play and displayed, and also brought Yin Hang's career to a higher level.
From 2012 to 2018, Yin Hang was in the early stage of his struggle in the screenwriting industry, he lived a life of "no fixed residence" in Beijing, first moved from Wukesong to a grass house, and later simply moved to Yanjiao in order to save rent, starting a two-city life in Yanjiao, Beijing. He remembers one time when he came home in winter, because he was too tired, he slept at the terminal, because he was reluctant to take a taxi, so he chose to walk home, when he was wearing a pair of thin-soled shoes, when passing a puddle, the shoes were wet with water, and the chill from the soles of the shoes was cold, just like his mood at that time.
Yin Hang soon ushered in his highlight moment, and the next two years were the most prosperous period for the development of online dramas, and as his fame grew, he earned a lot of money in his life, not only helping his family pay off all the debts owed by the family, but also buying a house in Tianjin. In retrospect, he felt that he was "a little floating" at that time.
Yin Hang didn't expect his "darkest hour" to come so quickly. He left Beijing in 2020 and lived in Hengdian for two years. In addition to the cold winter of the industry during the special period, he also had doubts about his previous state of life. Once he saw the couples walking by holding hands with happy faces, and he suddenly had the urge to fall in love. Yin Hang has the face of an idol drama student, tall, quiet, and soft-spoken, but he has never been in love. He really wanted to experience the beauty of love, so he quickly threw himself into a relationship, but this relationship only lasted 4 months. He moved to Hengdian, in addition to "healing", he also wanted to give himself a long vacation. In just two years, he spent all his savings in anger.
At the beginning of 2023, Yin Hang's father, who had suffered from heart disease for a long time, died, and he rushed back to his hometown to see his father for the last time, and the last words left by the old man were to remind him to "sleep more". Yin Hang's evaluation of his father is "a benefactor of a lifetime, an enemy of a lifetime". His father had a violent personality, and when he was a child, he once had a knife to cut the whole family, and the situation was very similar to the picture in the movie "The Shining" directed by Kubrick, when Yin Hang jumped from the third floor and ran to find someone, so that a tragedy was avoided. But his father also taught him to be a man in many places, such as being a person and doing things with "empathy", and achieving a "win-win" situation in negotiations, which helped him a lot. Yin Hang is currently adapting a script called "Fighter", which is about a father-son relationship, with the shadow of him and his father, "The relationship between people, no matter how good or bad it is, is ultimately a process of self-consistency and reconciliation." Yin Hang said that the death of his father taught him the most valuable lesson in his life, and also allowed him to "get out of the emotional wound of falling out of love".
At the end of 2022, Yin Hang returned to Beijing, which is still the place where his dream can be realized, and he likes Beijing's openness and inclusiveness. ”
Time is like water, 12 years have passed since graduating from university, and only Yin Hang and another classmate who was a director were still struggling to persist in the class. Every year he and this classmate will go to Lama Temple and Tiananmen Square to take a walk, classmates like to take pictures, Yin Hang doesn't like to take pictures, what he wants to feel most is the "fireworks" of the city. Even though he has been working in the field of online dramas, he hopes that his works can be close to life, rather than brainlessly attracting audiences with strong stimuli such as "kissing".
Yin Hang likes Chen Shisan, the screenwriter of "I Have a Date with a Zombie", "Wulin Gaiden" written by Ning Caishen, and "Lighting Store" by Korean cartoonist Jiang Cao. He does not reject classic narrative structures such as "three-act structure" and "fifteen metronomes". Yin Hang said that he is a realistic screenwriter, "If I don't give a deposit, I won't write." But he will remain flexible in the creative process, and if the investor has to add a few more "kissing" scenes, he will try to be satisfied. But he'll have a scale in his heart and know what makes a good storyline.
One year, a junior brother came to Yin Hang to complain, saying that he took the bus and squeezed the subway every morning to rush from Xicheng to Dongcheng, which was very hard, Yin Hang not only did not comfort him, but also asked him: "When you squeeze the bus and subway, aren't there people standing next to you who have the same dreams as you? They also came to this city because of their dreams, you don't feel that your dreams have been insulted because of the subway, that is a lesson you must learn in life." After hearing these words, the junior brother angrily left Yin Hang's residence.
In addition to being a screenwriter, he also serves as the producer of the project, which is the goal he has always pursued, "Be a producer yourself, write your own screenplay, organize your own best team, and shoot the most popular works." ”
Juice: Ten to fifteen years for the sake of ideals
After watching the movie "Galaxy Writer", the screenwriter Juice (pseudonym) was most touched by the process of the two young screenwriters in the film constantly "revising" under the supervision of Party A, "I have also had a similar experience. ”
Growing up in a northern city, Juice was admitted to a university in Beijing in 2018 and is currently a sophomore student. She has loved literature and art since she was a child, and she had a dream of becoming a screenwriter when she was in junior high school. She likes life TV dramas, such as "Friends" and "The Big Bang Theory".
As a girl who grew up watching online dramas and sweet pet dramas, Juice laughed and said that she did not have a particularly grand ideal in the pursuit of art, "It would be best if you could have some personal expression while being good-looking." ”
Juice's first time as a screenwriter was in 2021, when she was invited to create a short play, but after writing it, it was quickly rejected by Party A. The other party's attitude was very rude, not only criticizing the script for nothing, but also personally attacking her and asking her to revise the script "in real time". This embarrassing experience immediately extinguished her initial excitement and apprehension, and made her realize the cruelty of the screenwriting industry.
Juice is a smart girl who understands that as a student, she doesn't have any say in herself, which is the path most screenwriters have to go through when they get into the industry. In the following time, she consciously chose only one project for a period of time and focused on doing a good job in this project, after all, she has not yet stepped into the society, and she does not need to face the pressure of survival, she cherishes this time in school, and hopes to have a work of her own before stepping out of the school.
Juice understands the current employment situation very well, if it were put five years ago, many large companies such as "Aiyouteng" would also invest in some waist online dramas, which can provide opportunities for many fledgling young screenwriters to practice, but now the situation is different, many companies focus on those high-quality dramas, "The capital has ebbed, the cake is about to be divided, and the current graduates have not caught up." ”
Graduates majoring in juice generally have two paths after graduation: one is to go to some film and television companies as planners and do projects, and the other is to take the road of professional screenwriters, which is also a difficult road. Juice's current idea is the former, and she feels that solving the problem of survival is more important for herself.
As a student of a prestigious school, Juice has a lot of natural network advantages around him, such as some teachers will introduce the work to the students. The screenwriting industry is not like other industries that will recruit workers, it is more through the introduction between acquaintances and word-of-mouth effect to get job opportunities, in this regard, many brothers and sisters can also help.
Although she is still far from becoming a famous screenwriter, Juice wants to speak out through the media, hoping that "every screenwriter can be treated with dignity", and she also called on her peers who are very involuted to maintain their bottom line and not compete viciously, "If you desperately squeeze yourself in order to pursue your dreams, you will eventually lose your due dignity." ”
One of Juice's most recent works is a romance costume drama, which is currently in the preparation stage, and if it goes well, it should be able to start shooting soon. For the future, she is both sober and pragmatic, hoping to adopt the method of "saving the country with a curve", and finally make herself a professional screenwriter, "I don't have the pressure of getting married and having children now, and I don't need to buy a house, I hope to spend ten to fifteen years to realize my dream of being a screenwriter." Juice said that if the development of the screenwriting career does not go well at that time, she will consider returning to her hometown to find a job and become a professional woman.
END
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