On May 16, the seminar on the TV series "City in the City" sponsored by the China Television Art Committee was held in Beijing. This seminar will exchange and summarize creative experience and enlightenment from multiple perspectives such as the resonance of the times, realistic ideas, character building, artistic expression, and broadcast results. During this period, the main creative group reviewed the creative process, and the participating experts and scholars affirmed the unique character creation of the play, the professional popularization of industry knowledge and the control of the storyline, and conducted in-depth discussions on the creative concept of realistic themes and the social value of film and television works.
Since its launch on April 9, the ratings and word-of-mouth of "City in the City" have continued to rise, with an average rating of 3.167% for CVB episodes and a maximum rating of 3.754% for a single episode; The popularity of iQIYI station is 9695, ranking first in many lists such as the hot list, soaring list, and hot search list of iQIYI station.
A "multi-perspective" narrative perspective on the financial industry
As an industry drama focusing on the ecology of the financial workplace, "City in the City" delicately outlines the growth and transformation and life choices of practitioners in different types of institutions and positions in the financial field, enriching the expression of dramatic conflicts in the financial industry.
Gao Changli, director of the TV Drama Department of the State Administration of Radio and Television, affirmed the artistic value of "City in the City" in his speech, "There is no shortage of epic practices in China, but what is lacking is the ambition to create epics. We always encourage literary and artistic creators to keep up with the pace of the times, touch the pulse of the times, and reflect the magnificent process of Chinese-style modernization, including some important events in various important fields and important groups, which are the most valuable materials and themes for literary and artistic creation. ”
Luo Yi, member of the Party Leadership Group and Deputy Director of the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism and the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Radio, Film and Television, said, "Shanghai's fiery real life is the source of film and television innovation. From "Flowers" at the beginning of the year to "City in the City" today, it can be regarded as a true portrayal of Shanghai taking the lead in carrying out financial system reform in different periods. There are significant innovations and breakthroughs in terms of subject matter expression, shooting techniques, and artistic style. "City in the City" expounds the major assertion that finance is the blood of the real economy through film and television language, presenting distinctive characteristics of the times, and is a masterpiece with the spirit of realism. ”
Xia Xiaohui, deputy convener of the Film and Television Drama Documentary Center of China Central Radio and Television, affirmed the good achievements and reputation of "City in the City" since its broadcast, and called it "a high-quality masterpiece carefully selected by the main station and created with the genes of the main station". At the same time, he said, ""City in the City" relayed "The Awakening Age", "Crossing the Yalu River", "Mountains and Seas", "Armageddon", "The World" and other head works, becoming another classic example: it not only carries forward the fine tradition of the main theme TV series, but also reflects the direction of social progress; It has also achieved innovative breakthroughs in theme exploration, artistic expression and industrialization capabilities, meeting the strong demand for high-quality products in the commercial market, highlighting the new artistic value and realizing the dissemination of breaking the circle. ”
Yang Bei, senior vice president of iQIYI, said in her speech, ""City within a City" dares to innovate, tries areas that were not considered in the past, seeks answers to real phenomena and real questions, and continuously improves the audience's aesthetics. ”
Yang Wenhong, Chairman of Hinge Media, reviewed the creation process of the series and said, "Literacy is the background color and intrinsic strength of "City within a City", which makes all the characters in the play have a complex spectrum; The realism of hand-to-hand combat is the edge of "City in the City", which tortures the characters in a real environment, so that the characters have a real environment, real reactions, and real emotions, so that the creation and reality are closer. ”
As for how to determine the creative direction and theme of the series in the preparation, Teng Huatao, director of "City in the City", shared: "The focus is on writing people. What did they do, what did they face, and how did they make choices? Let the audience pay attention to the people in the industry through the industry. ”
Zhong Chengxiang, librarian and literary critic of the Central Research Institute of Culture and History, affirmed the artistic achievements and significance of "City in the City" on realistic themes, he said, ""City in the City" has the depth, strength and breadth of realistic themes, it is not a workplace drama in the general sense, nor is it a financial drama. It is a drama that paints a portrait, a biography, and a Mingde for the Chinese-style modernization in the new era, telling us that realistic themes should not only face life and reveal contradictions, but also open up the future and give people hope. ”
Li Guoyi, the principle director of the Shanghai Cultural Development Foundation, the former deputy head of the Shanghai Leading Group for Major Literary and Artistic Creations, and a literary critic, said, ""City within a City" is of milestone significance in the struggle to promote high-quality financial development in the new era and comprehensively promote the construction of a strong country in the new era of TV drama art. The play provides a vivid artistic image for the TV drama art gallery, and creates characters with a high degree of life philosophy, depth of life analysis, and typical image temperament. ”
Inject social issues
"City within a City" selects current social issues with a degree of discussion in the context of financial stories, and shows the reform process of the domestic financial industry in recent years in multiple dimensions. At the same time, through the ideological inheritance and value comparison between the two generations of financial practitioners, the rich and three-dimensional "gray characters" are portrayed, leading the audience to think about serious issues such as justice and interests, legal principles and human feelings, and broadening the ideological thickness of the series.
Yu Hewei, the actor of Zhao Hui in "City in the City", said, "Zhao Hui's grayscale role is something I have never encountered before, as an actor, I love this grayscale character, I think he has realistic value." ”
Feng Jiayi, the actor of Su Jianren in "City in the City", also shared her feelings: "'I hope that in the art gallery, every character in "City in the City" can leave their own mark' This encouragement has spurred many people, and I have also been spurred. An actor should go deep into life, observe life, be a small person in life, and be a big person on the stage. ”
Li Jingsheng, vice president of the China Federation of Radio and Television Social Organizations, said that the innovation of "City in the City" is that "it makes us realize that TV dramas are actually 'human dramas'." The character of Zhao Hui has jumped out of bank dramas, financial dramas, and anti-corruption dramas, and opened up the channel of human nature and people's hearts. In addition to praising the truth, goodness and beauty and lashing out at the false, evil and ugly, literary and artistic works also have a rich and vast space between this opposition of human nature - excellent literary and artistic works should witness the hearts of the people in the world, describe the characters in the story, and write the real human nature. ”
In response to the shaping of "grayscale characters" in literary and artistic creation, Yin Hong, vice chairman of the China Literature and Art Critics Association and professor of Tsinghua University, also put forward new thoughts in his speech, ""City within a City" breaks through the comfort zone of the subject matter, reflects the complexity and arduousness of these financial anti-corruption very well, and enters the field of financial anti-corruption. Secondly, this play breaks through the safety zone of the characters, depicting the complexity of human nature and the changes that occur in the intricate hunting and entanglement. Third, the drama breaks through the simplification of the theme, showing that good people can also become bad, and they must keep the bottom line and keep their original intentions, which has very strong educational and disciplinary significance. ”
Relying on the background of the times to "blossom upward"
In addition to the success of ratings and popularity, the series has also received praise in word-of-mouth. Many viewers said that they had a sense of resonance and substitution in the process of watching the play, and gained reflection on real life from the stories of the characters in the play. Looking back on the creative process, Wu Nan, one of the screenwriters of "A City in a City", said, "The core of the TV series "A City in a City" is the artistic image of the characters, which has an excellent foundation in the novel. In many cases, from the perspective of solving the problem in realist creation, we need pioneers such as writers and literature, and then the drama extracts its seeds from literature and grows its own tree. ”
Xia Xinyu, financial consultant of "City in the City", said in her speech, "Through "City in the City", I can see the feedback of the financial industry, the Tao, law and technique of finance. Dao, what is the revitalization of finance, the whole drama first suppressed and then raised to find this answer; The law is how we take this path and how to drip feed good resources to the places where they are needed; Technology is the choice of nine good and one evil in the process of finding products and services, and the play also allows the audience to see that this is not an easy process. ”
Dai Qing, a professor at the School of Drama, Film and Television at Communication University of China, said, "Art is an adventure of the soul, and in this regard, "City within a City" outlines a very vivid and rich financial life with vivid realism. This work has a very strong reflective temperament. ”
Huang Yuning, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Shanghai Translation Publishing House, Vice President of Shanghai Translators Association, and Director of Shanghai Critics Association, affirmed the practical significance of "City within a City", the quality of workplace dramas, and the success of the play in breaking through the threshold of understanding and establishing an emotional connection with the audience.
Lv Fan, Director of the Audio and Video Office of the Convergence Media Center of Peking University and Deputy Director of the Television Research Center of Peking University, said, "'City within a City' shows the big waves and sands in the torrent, which is also the writing of Chinese modernization. The main creative team devotes itself to creation from a calm and objective perspective, bringing inspiration to many realistic themes. ”