The Chinese idol talent show debuted at its peak in 2018. This year is the fourth year. In the first three years, the same type of programs have maintained roughly the same style and tone, and although the average quality of the contestants has declined, resulting in the "sequel" being difficult to match the "previous work", it can still be done season after season by relying on fan stickiness. Although it has not reached the popularity of 2018, there is no lack of some "out of the circle" performance, such as the second season of "Youth with You" "Pale Yellow Long Skirt", "Creation Camp 2020" "Am I not standing high enough". In the context of seemingly continued operations, many idol talent shows have taken the initiative to carry out drastic revisions this year. They have revised and upgraded the format and set their sights on taking the international route overseas, resulting in a surge in the number of overseas players participating in China's talent shows.
Li Maru performed well in the show.
On the evening of April 24, the "Creation Camp 2021" finals were held, and 11 people made their debut in a group, namely Liu Yu, Zando, Li Maru, Mika, Gao Qingchen, Lin Mo, Bo Yuan, Zhang Jiayuan, Yin Haoyu, Zhou Keyu, Liu Zhang, of which Zando, Li Maru, Mika, Gao Qingchen, Yin Haoyu, and Zhou Keyu were all foreign players. The "Asian Super Cluster" and "Children of Tomorrow SUPERBAND" in preparation are all recruiting players for Asia and even the world...
Why do many idol talent shows choose to make a big fuss this year and introduce overseas players to participate? How are the overseas players who have participated in this year's competition different from those in previous editions? Can the internationalization route solve the bottlenecks commonly faced by Chinese talent shows? The Beijing News reporter interviewed Liu Dong, chief producer of "Asian Super Star Cluster", Duo Xiaomeng, producer of "Creation Camp 2021" and other relevant people to explore the reasons behind it.
Sweet Cai Zhuoyi.
Number: 51 overseas players whose nationality covers 14 countries
The Beijing News reporter combed through the 10 influential idol talent shows since 2018 and found that almost every program has overseas players, but this year, not only the number of overseas players has increased sharply, but the composition of personnel types is also more diverse.
The nationality of the 51 overseas players included in this statistics covers at least 14 countries, including Thailand, Malaysia, Russia, Japan, Spain, Brazil, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Ukraine and so on. Among them, the largest number of overseas players with Asian nationality: 8 from Thailand, 5 from Malaysia, and 16 from Japan, but most of them are from this year's "Creation Camp 2021"; the number of American and Russian players is second, with 9 and 3 respectively.
Mika gained a group of fans through the show.
From the perspective of participation time, 22 overseas players are scattered in the multi-talent variety shows between 2018 and 2020, accounting for less than half of the total number; the other 29 overseas players appear in the third season of "Creation Camp 2021" and "Youth with You" broadcast this year. In particular, "Creation Camp 2021" is the most important, which is a self-defined program as "International Youth Cultural Exchange Boy Band Growth Variety" as the main reason for the surge in the number of overseas players this year, with as many as 24 overseas players participating.
But it is not yet the end of the growth in the number of overseas runners. The other two talent shows scheduled to be broadcast this year, "Asian SuperStar Cluster" and "Children of Tomorrow SUPERBAND", have entered the preparatory stage, and both have expanded the scope of recruitment to Asia and even the world. The former also said that through the program, a number of idols who can represent the "Asian entertainment standards" should be selected to make their debut. It is foreseeable that with the broadcast of these two programs in the second half of this year, the number of overseas contestants participating in the Chinese idol talent show will usher in a substantial increase.
Thai player Zheng Naixin.
Overseas players also often have bright performances in Chinese talent shows. Malaysian You Changjing won the 9th place of "Idol Trainee" and debuted as a member of the NINE PERCENT boy band; Yang Yunqing and Li Ziting of Thai nationality joined "Rocket Girl 101" with the 8th and 9th places respectively; Zheng Naixin, a Thai player of "Creation Camp 2020", debuted as a member of "Hard Candy Girl 303" with a score of 5th place, Malaysian singer-songwriter Zhu Zhongai broke into the top 9; "Creation Camp 2021" Japanese player Zando, Li Maru has been recognized by the audience for its dance strength...
Composition: From foreign Chinese to "foreigners" to cross borders
Most of the overseas contestants who came to China to participate in idol talent shows in the early days were foreign Chinese. There is no obvious difference between their looks and language and domestic local players. For example, You Changjing of "Idol Trainee" is a Malaysian Chinese with ancestral roots in Fujian Province, who can not only speak fluent Mandarin, but also communicate in Hokkien; Li Ziting of "Creation 101" is a Thai Chinese with her father's ancestral home in Jiangxi Province. She can speak authentic Chinese since she was a child, and has also won the championship of the Chinese Song Contest; Huang Xinxun in the second season of "Youth with You", Huang Junrong and Sun Yinghao in "The Name of the Youth" and other overseas players, are also foreign Chinese who have no barriers to communication Chinese.
"Creation 101" Li Ziting's ancestral home is China.
But this year's overseas players, the number of foreign Chinese has become less, and the number of real "foreigners" has increased. Yuta Hashimoto of the third season of "Youth With You", Zando Uno, Rimaru Konda, Daiho Ikyo, Takeshi Haneda, Hayabusa Sumida in the third season of "Youth With You", it can be seen from the name that they are Japanese Japanese; Although David and Lee Luxiu are fluent in Chinese, they can easily tell from their looks that they are definitely not Chinese but foreigners; Andy is a Ukrainian who came to China to study, and Yin Haoyu and Gao Qingchen are Thais who have worked hard to learn Chinese... Many of them did not speak Chinese before, needed to overcome language barriers while attending the program, and relied on the help of translators to communicate with other students at the beginning.
In Creation Camp 2021, Liluxiu, who has always wanted to retire, becomes a strange being.
The few "foreigners" in the program who are proficient in Chinese are mostly admirers of Chinese culture. Luke, an American who graduated from Princeton, has lived in Chengdu for 4 years and knows everything about hot pot and other delicacies, and can even communicate in the Sichuan dialect. He said on the show: "In the eyes of many people, I am an overseas student, but in my heart, I am half a Chinese student. I want to be a real Chengdu native. Another overseas player, David, has lived in China for nearly a decade. He is a graduate of Tsinghua University with a master's degree in comparative literature, the champion of "Chinese Bridge", a foreign host fluent in Chinese on various TV programs, and a deep lover of Chinese culture who likes Chinese characters since childhood and is "addicted to calligraphy and unable to extricate himself" in daily postings by Ouyang And Wang Xizhi.
In the past few years, the overseas contestants who participated in the Chinese idol talent show were more concentrated, most of them were "quasi-idols" from singers or trainees, and some had even debuted as members of idol groups before participating in the festival: Zheng Naixin debuted as a member of the Thai girl group MilkShake in 2015, Yang Yunqing was already a member of the female singing group A.N.D in 2014, and You Changjing was a member of the trainee group Trainee18 in 2016. In contrast, many of this year's overseas contestants are cross-border: Lin Dou, who is 1 meter 92 tall, is a model and has no singing and dancing experience; Asuka Ichinose is the beauty up master of millions of fans on the B station; LiLuxiu used to do daigou to create a camp as a translator to participate in the draft, but his dream is to design a fashion brand and does not want to become an idol.
Yang Yunqing participated in variety shows such as "Mars Intelligence Bureau" in China.
Internal cause: The draft encountered a bottleneck, forcing the show to attract reinforcements overseas
"Trainee training is a long-term process. South Korea's trainee training is generally closed for five years, these five years do not participate in any programs, fully enclosed training survival of the fittest, and finally winners have the opportunity to participate in idol talent shows. But now because there are so many Chinese idol talent shows, many trainees have only trained for three or five months to participate, and the level of performance is definitely very uneven. Liu Dong, senior producer of Ali Entertainment Youku, head of T Plus Studio and chief producer of "Asian Super Star Cluster", said in an interview with the Beijing News reporter that the most critical thing in the idol draft is people, and the lack of high-quality trainee resources has forced domestic idol talent shows to make changes in order to maintain the standard and set their sights on overseas.
The lack of resources for trainees has long been traced. The trainee training model originated from the Japanese and Korean entertainment companies, the company for the trainees to sing, dance, acting and other aspects of training packaging, as little as three or five years or more than seven or eight years, until the quality of the trainees matured and then announced by the company debut, or through other programs or platform debut.
Before 2018, there was no trainee culture in China's entertainment industry, and even a perfect trainee training mechanism was lacking, and the head company such as Lehua Entertainment would choose to send trainees to overseas for training. The popularity of "Idol Trainee" and "Creation 101" in 2018 has certainly made the public understand and familiar with the culture of trainees, but it has also consumed most of the few high-quality trainee reserves. In the idol talent shows of the following years, "back to the pot meat" (the contestant who participated in the draft many times but failed to debut) gradually became a high-frequency word. The actual situation is that the current number and level of domestic trainees are no longer enough to support several idol talent shows that are still expanding every year.
To solve the problem of lack of domestic talent through overseas reinforcements, "Creation Camp 2021" is the first to eat crabs. Talking about the original intention of this year's "Creation Camp 2021" to be an "international group", program producer Duo Xiaomeng said, "Before, whether it was analyzed from the perspective of program casting, or every year to go to various companies to see the preparation of the draft, we found that everyone has entered a bottleneck period, and more elements need to be added to stimulate the development of all parties. We feel that doing international groups is the trend of the times, and the introduction of international variables will push the entire industry forward to continue to take a step forward. On the other hand, he also pointed out that the "Creation Camp" series has entered its fourth year, and both the audience and the producers are prone to viewing fatigue, and change and innovation are also the requirements of the program's survival.
Qingpi eventually failed to make her debut.
Why is change and innovation happening this year? ——
A very coincidental situation is that this year's idol selection variety show dominated by the three major video platforms of Aiyouteng, whether it is the second season of "Youth with You" that has been broadcast, "Creation Camp 2021" or the "Asian Super Star Cluster" in preparation, are all choosing "boy group", but the number of male trainees in the market is already less than that of female trainees. Because the base of girls who love to sing and dance is larger. The number of male trainees is already small, and there are even fewer talents that can be taken out in all aspects. Liu Dong said: "We have been doing boy bands since the beginning of "In the Name of the Group", and we have noticed that this industry (trainees) has always had more girls than boys. Many programs find contestants from all walks of life who are not trainees to participate, and the objective reason is that there are too few male trainees, which is a very serious problem. The head idol talent show of the three major platforms selected the "boy group" this year, and the original lack of domestic male trainee resources reached the extreme, which aggravated the "talent shortage" and prompted the platform to make up its mind to attract aid overseas.
External factors: The Chinese market has gained overseas attention, and more opportunities have attracted players
Not only do the video platforms and production companies that dominate the domestic idol talent show have the inherent motivation to expand overseas, but overseas players and their brokerage companies also have a strong willingness to seek development in China. Gong Lei, head of Tencent Video's artist agency project, revealed that after announcing at last year's press conference that "Creation Camp 2021" will build an international boy band, many overseas brokerage companies took the initiative to contact and hope to participate in the program. Such positive feedback also makes him full of confidence in the export of the "international boy band" to be built by the program to overseas markets. In the process of recruiting overseas players for "Asian Super Star Cluster", Liu Dong observed that overseas agencies have a high degree of recognition of the Chinese idol market. Even Japanese and Korean entertainment companies that were once the object of our study in the idol draft are now very willing to cooperate with Chinese video platforms and production companies to send their contestants to compete.
"The demands of overseas brokerage companies and domestic brokerage companies are essentially the same, and they all hope that their trainees will become popular by participating in this program, gain popularity, and achieve business realization." In Liu Dong's view, what attracts overseas brokerage companies and overseas players is China's huge and still growing entertainment market, which has actually surpassed Japan and South Korea in terms of commercial value and influence. "Stars born in such a market must have more influence than other countries in Asia." It is entirely possible for him to go out of Asia and even to the international. We have communicated with many overseas performing arts companies before, and everyone thinks that there has been no superstar for a long time, and the next Mike Jackson should be born in the Chinese market. ”
For many overseas players, the entertainment environment in their home countries is fiercely competitive, with few opportunities and limited career development. In contrast, China's vast market can bring them more opportunities and has a strong attraction. Gao Qingchen, a Thai player in "Creation Camp 2021", said that he had four TV series and twenty advertising interviews in Thailand and was rejected, believing that luck had hardly taken care of himself, and that he came to China to participate in the draft in the hope of continuing his acting dreams. Another Thai player, Yin Haoyu, told the media bluntly: "I think China is one of the fastest growing countries in the world, getting better and better, constantly developing." I feel that opportunities are available in China, both for me and for others. "Japanese player Zando is the youngest hip-hop world champion, but it is considered that there is no future in the Japanese idol industry, and he came to China to participate in the draft in the hope of being liked by more people.
Zando chose to come to China to develop.
Difficulty: Multicultural integration into a difficult point, and the difference in strength has caused controversy
Judging from the current "experimental" effect of "Creation Camp 2021", the introduction of high-level overseas players to take the international route can indeed bring changes to the talent show, and to some extent, it can also re-stimulate the audience's curiosity and attention to the idol draft, but it also brings new problems. For example, netizens inevitably divide overseas players and domestic players into two camps for comparison, and the number of shots is easy to cause controversy, and rises to the crusade against the "intentions" of the program group. The gap between the overall strength of overseas players and domestic players has exacerbated this controversy. Many supporters of domestic players are frustrated by this, believing that the participation of overseas players reduces the chances of domestic players being "seen" through talent shows.
In fact, the gap in strength between the two has a reason. Overseas agencies hope to make a difference in the Chinese idol market, and most of them are high-level players; while the domestic trainee resources have been consumed by various talent shows for 4 years, and it is difficult to match the same number and quality of players for a time. The two compete in the same program, and it is indeed easy for people to see the "world's differences". However, Duo Xiaomeng believes that this also provides a better entry angle for the program to do "international integration". Because in the "inner volume" state, the idol draft industry itself has some problems. Due to the lack of competition, domestic players cannot truly and objectively evaluate their own strength, and it is easy to determine that they are the best. "In fact, there are mountains outside the mountains, when you go out to face the world and face wider competition, can you still be the most powerful in the industry?"
Yin Haoyu is loved by many fans.
A number of members of the production team of the idol talent show said in an interview with the Beijing News reporter that an important reason for choosing to take the international route this year is that at this stage, the Chinese people have a strong sense of great country honor and cultural self-confidence, and they can already accept and appreciate the exchange and collision of diverse cultures. "The idol talent show is not a competitive show, everyone has a different shining point. Moreover, Chinese audiences now have full self-confidence and pride, and most people can look at the gap directly and will not feel that foreigners are better than Chinese is a faceless thing. Liu Dong used another variety show from Youku last year, "This! It is an example of the third season of "Street Dance". The show invited the French hip-hop champion Bubu to participate, and the audience did not feel that there was anything wrong with his strength, because in everyone's mind, this was originally an international program.
——How to integrate players: solve it from the casting stage -
As for how contestants from different cultural backgrounds can merge into an idol group and continue to operate, the idol talent show hopes to solve it from the casting stage. Most of the overseas contestants selected for the broadcast program are from the Asian cultural circle, and a small number of non-Chinese players from Europe and the United States have an understanding of Chinese culture. The "Asian Super Star Cluster" in preparation has circled the casting range of overseas players from the name of the program. Liu Dong said that this was decided from the perspective of the cultural reception of Chinese audiences. "The countries around China in Asia have commonalities with each other, and cultural trends influence each other. At present, the audience wants to see the integration and exchange between players from different cultural backgrounds, as well as an Asian boy band with world-class influence. Our original intention in making the show is also to show the asian trend culture to young people around the world. ”
Beijing News reporter Yang Lianjie
Edited by Tong Na Proofread by Chen Diyan
Source: Beijing News