On May 14, the 2024 Shanghai International Film and Television Festival held a press conference in Beijing, officially announcing that the 29th Shanghai TV Festival, hosted by the State Administration of Radio and Television, China Central Radio and Television, and the Shanghai Municipal People's Government, will be held from June 24 to 28. The press conference also released the official poster of the TV festival and the list of the Magnolia Award jury, the famous director Yan Jiangang served as the chairman of the jury in the TV drama category, actor Haiqing, art director Han Zhong, writer/literary critic Li Yuesen, director Yang Lei, and actor You Yongzhi jointly served as the judges of the Chinese TV drama unit.
This is the second time that Yan Jiangang has served as the chairman of the Magnolia Award TV drama category after the 21st Shanghai TV Festival in 2015. Just now, Yan Jiangang conducted an online interview with the media such as Morning News, Thoughtful and other media. After nine years, he will meet "Magnolia" again, he described that he has felt the changes in social form, industry form and technology form, and also saw the obvious improvement in the quality of domestic dramas, "I think this year's evaluation is a difficult selection process, and I will work with the judges to uphold a professional and fair attitude to complete the work."
Talking about the selection: It will be a difficult choice
"The first feeling was that I was nine years older."
In 2015, director Yan Jiangang served as the chairman of the jury of the 21st Shanghai TV Festival Magnolia Award TV drama category, witnessing the honorary moments of classic works such as "No War in Peking" and "Ordinary World"; Nine years later, sitting in this solemn position again, Yan Jiangang first made a hearty joke about his age. Subsequently, he changed his words and bluntly said that the past nine years have changed and changed a lot, and the audience's perception of the series has also changed significantly.
"In the past, we have been emphasizing that TV dramas have the function of watching and entertaining, but now TV dramas are not just entertainment products, they are actually a virtual world. Today's audiences, especially young audiences, see watching dramas as a kind of participation and interaction in virtual life. In the Internet society, it has become a way of life for contemporary young people to communicate, care, compare, and judge the virtual characters in the series. ”
Not only that, but under the influence of new technologies such as AI, the creative thinking and way of creating dramas are also changing. "When a contemporary director expresses himself in the face of today's world, he must integrate technical thinking from scratch into the director's thinking, so that you can face and express such a changing world."
Specific to the drama market in the past two years, Yan Jiangang believes that the quantity and quality of dramas have also improved significantly. "It can't be seen from the data alone, maybe our absolute output will be lower than in previous years, but the number of our high-quality dramas and the number of popular dramas are almost one after another." He said with emotion that there have been a lot of good dramas so far in 2023, and these works pay more attention to reality, "I think this year's evaluation is also a difficult selection process."
Although the judging work has not yet begun, the outside world is inevitably curious about Yan Jiangang's personal aesthetic orientation and standards. In this regard, he said that he will not be entangled in the so-called "entertainment" or "artistry", "as long as it is a good combination of art and entertainment, it is a good work, and there should be a chance to participate in and win awards, and I have no personal bias on this point."
When talking about his views on performance awards, Yan Jiangang believes that if you want to evaluate an actor's acting skills, you must refer to the actor's series of works to observe the actor's expression ability and artistic ability in different types, different themes, different styles, and different characters, "But if it is an acting award, an performance award for a single work, I personally think it must be based on the performance of the work in which he/she participated."
Talking about creation: to discover the contemporaneity of the work
In recent years, a large number of film and television drama works have taken nourishment from serious literature, in addition to works such as "Flowers", which have aroused heated discussions, Yan Jiangang himself has also directed an adaptation of Lu Yao's novel "The Road of Life", and plans to adapt writer Yang Mo's novel "Song of Youth".
When it comes to the relationship between literature and film and television, Yan Jiangang does not shy away from saying that there are indeed some creators who are "not precipitated enough" and need good literary works to supplement them. "It used to be five, six, or even ten years where we could polish a work, but now it's difficult; And our writers have been very calm and spend many years to complete a work. ”
He believes that the life logic of good literary works is very solid, which can make up for the superficiality and loopholes caused by the hasty creation of TV dramas. "Literary works will provide me with a very solid literary foundation, which includes the author's cognition of social life, including the very reasonable character relationship and character positioning he constructed, as well as the human world that the writer has painstakingly created."
Of course, Yan Jiangang also used the analogy of house decoration, believing that when adapting good literary works into film and television, creators need to tap the power that can affect the life and spirit of contemporary people.
"This is not a simple decoration that I change the color and put two more shelves, but I have to consider, what kind of people are living in this decoration? What is their need for this house today? Why renovate? How do we decorate? He believes that it is necessary to dig out the contemporaneity of the work, "The same novel, rereading it ten years ago and today, the feeling will be very different." Because the reader himself is changing, the times are changing, only the text of the novel has not changed. Therefore, we should not simply translate the text, but also express the contemporary value of the work, that is, what we often say, what is the practical significance of the work. ”
Talking about the individual: Maintain social sensitivity
"I've seen some skits and short videos, and I'm really amazed by the level of their production, some of them are quite professional, which is enough to show that our industry is thriving." In the video connection, Yan Jiangang, who is over sixty years old, is full of gray hair, but from the early historical drama "Qin Shi Huang", the anti-Japanese war drama "China Land", the spy war drama "In the Silent Place" and last year's hit "The Road of Life", he has always maintained amazing creativity, and has maintained an open and positive attitude towards new video formats.
In Yan Jiangang's view, the creative energy of short videos cannot be ignored, "Long dramas are my main creative type, but I also pay attention to, understand, and support short video works. Including my own collection of some short videos shot by ordinary netizens, their perspectives, discoveries and expressions really inspire us a lot. I will humbly absorb all new knowledge and new styles to enhance and enrich my future creations. ”
In his eyes, there is no size in the subject matter, and creation is often the visual embodiment of the director's own world view, values, and outlook on life, as well as the embodiment of the creator's life feelings, "Everyone has their own nature, and your nature will be expressed in the work, which forms the director's creative personality." And after the accumulation of one work after another, you will naturally show a creative tendency. I think I pay more attention to the word 'life', no matter what the theme, type, or style, it expresses the values and pursuits of individual life or groups in the story. ”
In life, Yan Jiangang described himself as a "deep netizen", who will pay attention to all kinds of new information, and even make brilliant advertisements that make him watch them with relish, "I rarely watch dramas on the Internet, and even the so-called shopping platforms often watch it, to see why such a good-looking pot of flowers is sold for one dollar and free shipping?" Why do merchants do this? I think a director's sensitivity to real life and the ability to analyze 'why' are the criteria for testing whether you are still creative. I try to do that, and I hope that no matter how old I am, I can still be socially sensitive and innovative in my work. ”
Extension: The awards ceremony moved to Lingang, and 190 Chinese dramas registered
In the past year, a large number of high-quality products have emerged in the TV drama market. It is reported that the Magnolia Award selection and solicitation of this year's TV Festival has also been fruitful: nearly 1,000 works from 57 countries and regions on five continents have signed up for the competition. In the TV drama category, about 190 Chinese dramas were registered, and the number of overseas dramas increased from nearly 110 in the previous year to nearly 170, an increase of 53.7%; The number of entries in the documentary and animation categories has also increased significantly, and the proportion of overseas works has increased year by year. In the documentary category, 60% of the foreign works registered this year were registered, and well-known overseas TV organizations such as BBC, Sony, HBO Warner Discovery Channel, Disney National Geographic, etc., all selected high-quality programs to participate in the selection.
The improvement of data is only one thing, and the quality of the entries is also worth paying attention to. In the past two months, the Shanghai TV Festival has successively released the list of works that have taken the initiative to sign up through the online platform, and a large number of high-quality popular dramas such as "Flowers" and "The Long Season" are among the registrations. There is no doubt that the competition for this year's Magnolia Award is bound to be fiercely competitive.
During each Shanghai TV Festival, the Magnolia excellent program exhibition activities are quite popular with the public audience. It is reported that this year's offline Huimin screening carefully planned parent-child, sports competition, Guoman, overseas hot drama and other unit series, will be distributed in 16 districts of the city, about 20 art venues are open to the public for free. These venues, such as the China Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Jiushi Art Museum, the Shanghai Book City, and the East Branch of the Shanghai Library, are usually popular check-in places for citizens and tourists to watch art, connecting the cultural context of the city. Through the weaving of audio-visual content and urban space, the TV festival will give more wonderful fashion elements and social experience to "watching TV" in the multi-screen era.
In addition, the "Magnolia Bloom" award ceremony will be moved to the Lingang Performing Arts Center this year. At that time, the most shining stars of the TV industry at home and abroad in the past year will gather in this "young city, young city", drawing an end to this TV festival, and injecting heat into the new city with an industry feast, in order to resonate with the same frequency of cultural vitality and urban development.
Last year, for the first time, the Shanghai TV Festival included the entire section of online audio-visual content in the selection scope of the Magnolia Awards, adding weight to the gradually forming "big audio-visual" pattern. This year's Shanghai TV Festival will further focus on the strong growth of the network creation form, hold the Shanghai Micro Short Drama Conference, organize a series of industrial activities, hold a micro short drama theme forum, and select outstanding projects for performance, venture capital, negotiation, etc., in the process of advocating the improvement of micro short dramas from high traffic to high quality, showing the increasingly mature combination between humanistic heritage and human fireworks.