Text: Love fishing
Editor: Principal
It is already an indisputable fact that the involution of Lianzong is not only abroad, but also at home.
But "Half-Familiar Lovers 3" has created a rare healing moment in the history of Lianzong. It may not be a grand romance, but in waiting for the sunrise and taking a walk on the beach, the audience can regain the details of their hearts, and it is not just a variety show that only talks about love, the setting of "frozen story" allows the audience to see the guests who open themselves.
As the key track of the platform, Lianzong has fixed users and a huge user base, but "Half-familiar Lovers 3" has brought a different sense of group portrait and story to the audience in its own exploration, and found a button to poke the audience's emotional world again.
In the third season, producer Yan Zhihua admitted that there is no methodology, just like skills fail in the face of love, methodology is also an insincere curse for Lian Zong.
One afternoon at the end of April, Hedgehog Commune (ID: ciweigongshe) chatted with Yan Zhihua, the producer of "Half-Familiar Lovers", and Wang Peng, the director of the third season, about the idea of making a love show, and found that this team is not only doing a love show, but also creating a rare and precious story for the guests and the audience.
It is simple and sincere, and it is a "light luxury" in the world of involution and love.
Lianzong began to produce "group portraits"
The involuted love comprehensive market is no longer satisfied with the simple "love" element.
In March 2024, the broadcast of Han Zong's "Love Brothers and Sisters" will once again open up new ideas in the Lianzong market. It turns out that a relationship is not only related to the opposite sex and an ex, it can also involve each other's families. At present, the score of this love drama on Douban has been as high as 9.3, giving the audience a surprise beyond the scope of love.
At the same time, the Lian Zong ecology of domestic entertainment has also changed. Yan Zhihua found in the process of user research that although the stickiness of program users is very strong, the content that the audience likes to watch is changing every year, "There was a batch of CP fans who came in to knock candy before, but in the past two years, the simple candy content may not be able to meet the needs of the audience, and everyone wants to see more open, inclusive, and exploratory things." ”
As a result, "Half-Familiar Lovers", which followed the "romantic" style in the first season, tried "drama" in the second season, and after constantly summarizing and reviewing, it set the tone of "storytelling" in the third season. In the midst of constant change, seek the freshness of the show.
The most important thing in reality TV is "people". As the key track of the platform, the Lianzong team has to try its best to dig out "good seedlings" from single men and women every year, but the pool is limited, and the demand for major program groups is too high.
In order to be able to select better guests, this time "Half-familiar Lovers 3" expanded the scope of selection to Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, China, and even overseas such as London, and the casting time was doubled compared to before, along with the casting criteria have also changed.
Director Wang Peng revealed that under normal circumstances, the guests' good looks, good jobs, strong representativeness, etc., are the general criteria for casting, but in addition, "Half-familiar Lovers" pays more attention to the guests' "character stories" in the third season, "The way everyone grows up to their thirties is closely related to his past life experience, original family or education." ”
Wang Peng gave the example of guest Lu Jiajun. At the beginning, Lu Jiajun was not a very conspicuous person, and even when the show was broadcast, because of the sentence "I want to find someone suitable for marriage", he left the audience with the stereotype of "machismo".
After the release of "Frozen Story", Lu Jiajun also ushered in a reversal of word of mouth. The program team set up a link to dig deep into the stories of the characters, and Lu Jiajun told the story of his mother and original family in this link. When he was ten years old, his mother was burned by a fire, which affected his childhood and adolescence, and he rarely made friends, but his parents gave him the strength to always put his family first.
Lu Jiajun's story makes the audience realize that he is not a person who does not crave love, but his mother's experience makes him subconsciously feel that "family is more important". The appearance of the frozen story has changed everyone's impression of Lu Jiajun, and Tang Yixin, a guest in the observation room, even sincerely apologized for his evaluation of Lu Jiajun in the early stage.
"When we look at each person, we will not only see this person, but also his past and future, and even the shadow of his friends and himself. Character stories can bring about changes in the direction of content, and we also hope that a variety of guests and character stories will make Lianzong richer. ”
As a program focusing on 30+ mature age, the appearance of 28-year-old guest Ma Jinlong also caused criticism that "the program team did not find a good positioning".
Wang Peng interpreted it from the perspective of the relationship between the characters. Lianzong is a two-way narrative related to men and women, but whether it is a user or a program group, it is obvious that 30+ women pay more attention, and the liquidity of high-quality men in the market is not high, if you do not expand the casting range of men, it is difficult to select male guests who match female guests. On the other hand, the existence of "year" and "year" also increases the narrative of gender relations, "We feel that there must be both boys older than her and boys younger than her, providing rich romantic relationships." ”
Ma Jinlong's age may not meet the definition of the show, but for the program team, he is an excellent template for younger brothers.
Compared with telling a "love story", "Half-familiar Lovers 3" wants to tell a "group portrait story" well, so that each guest's story and more emotional relationships can be seen by the other half and seen by the same kind.
Look inward for "life force"
From the premiere of the first season of "Heartbeat Signal" to the end of "Half-familiar Lovers 3", Tencent variety shows have been working the love variety track for six years. Some people find their favorite other half from it, some people use the power of the show to create their own personal social accounts, and some people continue to accumulate love experience.
But the smash hit love drama can't help but face a change in the direction of the wind. If it used to be a popular entertainment to knock candy, then in the past year, netizens have been discussing "love brain" at a high level, and they always criticize the heroine of love brain in film and television dramas mercilessly. The masses seem to need love more than ever.
But Yan Zhihua is not worried that Lianzong does not have his own spectators, "Love is a rigid need no matter what era it is. It's not that everyone doesn't fall in love anymore, but now everyone's demand for love is getting higher and higher, and the essence of love is becoming clearer and clearer. ”
This also requires the platform to constantly innovate when making content. This kind of innovation is not a form, but serves the content, carries out innovation at the "value level", and seeks the emotional connection between Lianzong and the audience.
"We are finding more and more that the idol drama-style love in Lian Zong is getting farther and farther away from the lives of the public, so that the audience has no sense of yearning. So this year, we not only took storytelling as a criterion for casting, but also vitality as an important criterion. For Yan Zhihua, "vitality" means strong energy, which can infect the audience to immerse themselves in the love story.
Li Mengdie is a classic representative. She has dark skin, a toned physique, and a proficient surfing appearance, which dazzles the audience as soon as she appears. Yan Zhihua feels that this is a manifestation of vitality, and the deeper energy is: "Actively believe in love, be willing to work hard, and have a healthy and mature view of love." ”
Being able to treat feelings correctly with self-consistent logic is a key step in the expression of Lianzong. If the guest encounters difficulties and deals with them in a negative way, it is easy to create a negative perception of the audience, and if he can handle each relationship maturely through his rich experience, taking responsibility for himself and others, it will affect the audience's "acquisition" index.
Wang Peng's understanding of "vitality" is related to emotions. The guests of Lianzong are often labeled as "elites", but Wang Peng does not want to stop the expression of the show at the appearance level, but restores the flat "label" to a three-dimensional "character". In addition to digging into the character's story, he also has to discover the emotional details behind the character's story.
Like Lu Jiajun, Shen Zheng's life is also very tortuous. In 2017, Shen Zheng had a serious illness, and for several years, she spent bone piercing and chemotherapy. During this period of life and death, she saw the world as it was from a different perspective.
But just like she said, "I want to remember the happy moments of the moment", for the twists and turns of the experience, whether it is Shen Zheng, Shao Jiarong, or Lu Jiajun, they have not given up, but still believe in love and continue to walk.
"The vitality of love will constantly uplift people. If you are walking alone, there is someone who can go hand in hand with you, you will feel not lonely, and in my opinion, this is the vitality that the show wants to express. ”
Although the program team did not deliberately present the "vitality" of each person, these three words have become the key influencing factors of "emotional value". A good character story will naturally form a resonance with the audience.
Lian Zong's "brave" expression
The creator of "Half-familiar Lovers 3" still wants to encourage everyone to "fall in love" in this era when more and more people don't need love.
In the whole production process, in addition to casting, site selection and mode are also difficult to operate for the main creator. The third season proposed the model of "full-time love", and the program team asked the guests participating in the show to start a 21-day long vacation to talk about a pure relationship without external interference.
After doing three seasons of love drama, Yan Zhihua found that if a person wants to fall in love, he must pay time and energy for it, "No matter what you do, it is only possible to get it if you put in it." ”
The same is true for love, but people in the 30+ age group, busy with their careers, take on more responsibilities in life, and the factors considered in the process of falling in love are often more complex, and it is difficult to set aside a period of time that only focuses on love. The creators hope to do the opposite, creating a long holiday for the guests at an important stage in their lives, so that everyone can devote themselves to it. Yan Zhihua believes that even if there is no result in the end, the process of full production will become a precious experience for the guests.
"At the decision-making level, there are two things that the half-baked team did better, one is that they put enough time into casting, although it is not perfect, and the other is that they come up with the 'all-time concept', which is brave and beautiful enough. ”
Wang Peng found an address that Lianzong had never chosen for this "full-time love", a seaside homestay, adjacent to the coastline, so that the guests could be more immersed in this long vacation.
Such a fairytale-like world inevitably makes people question the sense of reality in the love series. But Wang Peng said, "Whether you meet someone you like at a convenience store or on a trip, the location is never a challenge to whether their relationship is real or not." The only challenge is their long-term development, year after year. ”
In the eyes of the program team, no matter what time and place, the emotional impact caused by the other party must be real. The creators just want to create conditions for themselves and each other to open up themselves and each other for this passionate pursuit, so that they can seriously discuss the future.
Towards the end of the show, Li Mengdie and Jiang Junlin seriously discussed where they would go in the future, and the two did not regard "long place" as the old enemy of love, but discussed the possibility of continuing this love. When he saw this scene, Wang Peng was very pleased, because the variety show "Half-familiar Lovers 3" immersed the guests in the process of being out of production, and also gave the "long-distance relationship" some courage to look at the problem directly, "We want to encourage friends in long-distance relationships." ”
The growth of the "Half-familiar Lovers" series also gave Yan Zhihua a more courageous imagination in the Lianzong track. Even if the track is involuted, Yan Zhihua believes that everyone still has the opportunity to create new possibilities.
She is looking forward to a disruptive innovation in the Lianzong track, "such as expanding the age group of Lianzong to twilight love or exploring new character relationships." "But how to strike a good balance between content, word-of-mouth, and business still needs to be explored.
Chasing the audience's preferences can only lag behind, Yan Zhihua's feeling of doing Lian Zong is that she is always new, and there are different challenges every time. But it is precisely because of this that she feels that Tencent Lianzong can create more possibilities.