Recently, the nomination for the Magnolia Award at the Shanghai TV Festival was announced, and the realistic theme won a big victory, and a "lost pearl" also entered the audience's field of vision. With 7 nominations for "killing" into the selection, the unpopular drama "Loading Stage" that filmed the story of "poor people" was finally seen.
In 2020, a data once shocked netizens, with 600 million Chinese an average monthly salary of 1,000 yuan. What does life look like for low-income Chinese? The TV series "Loading the Stage" gives the answer without embellishment.
The douban rating of the drama was as high as 8.3, and it landed on CCTV and Mango TV in one round, and the ratings of the premiere once exceeded the topic drama "Great Qin Fu".
However, in Weibo, b station, douyin, Kuaishou, the hottest and richest big platform, it has no traffic, no topic, no hot search, the second round of Broadcast in Beijing Satellite TV, the highest rating rushed to the 7th place.
It is said that domestic TV dramas are not poor, but they are really filmed, "no one watches"?
For those creators who dare to challenge capital and speak out for the "silent majority", deeper questions also arise, how can we break through this fault line?
Straights
Diao Dashun, the protagonist played by Zhang Jiayi, is an old household in the heart of the city cabbage, who has guarded the dilapidated low house in the urban village for half a lifetime.
At the table of the coolie, the pasta that can fill the stomach sings the main tune. The steamed bun is steamed by the daughter-in-law, the noodles are hand-rolled, the cheeks are also burned by themselves, and they are usually fried with oil and a mouthful of garlic, and the little life is very beautiful. The eating scenes in domestic dramas are finally no longer meat and vegetarian with exquisite plating, and the home-cooked dishes of the low-level people are on the table.
The sad thing is that the name is Shunzi, but life is not "smooth" at all: the first wife ran away with others, leaving her daughter Diao Juhua; the second wife died of cancer, leaving Han Mei, the daughter born to her ex-husband.
The eldest daughter Chrysanthemum "looks ugly", has a strange temper, and has not read books, not only looks down on her hard-working father, but also does not wait to see her half-sister of the "drag oil bottle", and hates Shunzi's third daughter-in-law, Cai Sufen (Yan Ni), even more hateful.
Watching her sister enter the college and find a good object, Ju was unbalanced in her heart, vowing to keep the hostess status of this family to the death, so the "women's war" broke out frequently.
The family is a mess, and when it goes outside, Junko has to face a bunch of things that set up the stage.
Nearly 50 years old, he led a group of strong men in the Qin Cavity Regiment. Installing a platform is to set up a platform, set up lights, lighting, packing boxes, and where the number of lights is, you have to remember clearly, both effort and brain.
But in this work, there is still a ride to do, and there is a performance to eat. As the head of more than a dozen people, Junko must appease his brother to eat well, drink well, and save energy to work:
On the right, it is necessary to work three times and four times in front of the leader, and the waist plate has never been straight.
What is more tired is that he still has to let the contractor run away at all times, and the bottom ticket person points to Shunzi to eat, and he has to try his best to chase back the promised money.
Even when he was sick, Junko gritted his teeth and insisted, and the unspeakable hemorrhoids tortured him to the point of grinning, or continued to climb up and down, did not dare to delay for a minute, fell ill and was sent to the hospital, and slipped away because he was reluctant to spend money on surgery.
When there is no performance, Junko does not want to waste her energy, riding a three-wheeled bicycle to the street to find opportunities to pull goods. When a large family wants to eat and drink, and one day he can't get silver in his pocket, so he scratches his head in a hurry.
But even if it is a mess of hemp, Junko will be happy in pain. Catching the empty, Junzi took Cai Sufen with her, took her up the mountain to find a good place to watch the performance, bought her new clothes, and looked at Cai Sufen happy, Junzi was also happy. He wanted to open, chrysanthemums are quite entangled, in the end is his own daughter, this life owes her, blood and sweat money was taken by her to waste and endured.
His kindness to everyone, the brothers all remembered. The hard money was swept away by the developer, and Shunzi spent half a day to get back a part of it, all to his brothers, and as a result, everyone took the initiative to pull out one and did not let Shunzi do it in vain.
Although life has never been taken care of, this group of stage people still find ways to find some hope, understand each other, and strive to live for themselves and others.
Big Birds, Iron Directors
"There are all kinds of people living in the village in the city", the brilliance of the little people is also the essence of this play.
The most hard-working big bird in the loading class (Ji Ta), is Shunzi's most powerful assistant, carrying a tricycle and a refrigerator with his bare hands, looking for opportunities to do odd jobs, as if there is nothing he can't rely on strength to pry, often tired to sleep, the body directly dragged down.
On the one hand, he can earn the most, and the most able to cut, the big bird never eats breakfast outside, and when the co-workers go to the restaurant, he finds an excuse to go home, and is suspected by the brothers of raising "second milk" outside, in fact, it is to save money to operate on the daughter who was burned and disfigured.
The deputy director of the Qin Cavity Troupe's drama tie (played by Sun Hao), who helped the loading team to do the work, was one level higher than Shunzi, carrying a briefcase everywhere to put the score, and when he reached the richer gold lord, he changed his appearance and bowed his waist to make the higher position qu tuan and investors as gods.
In order to save money to buy a car for his daughter-in-law, Director Tie did not hesitate to swallow the salary of the worker with a clear conscience, and also found a remedy for himself, "the heart is soft and poor, the rich and the noble are in danger", and the layers of pickpocketing contractors are all at a glance.
What is rare is that "Loading the Stage" also faithfully shows a kind of "folk logic", what should migrant workers do if they are pit money? Crying is useless, taking legal procedures to delay work, the first plan is to immediately block people, sell miserable people, get how much is how much, can not get it will endure.
In the final analysis, this is a kind of survival wisdom at the bottom, because they know that even if the "level" is as small as the iron director, they can't afford to offend, and they will have to rely on him to eat in the future.
Looking down on Shunzi's big brother Diao Dajun (You Yongzhi), who sells coolies, lives by gambling, obviously the turnover is not good and spends money like dirt, staying in a hotel to live in a suite, the next restaurant to be star-rated, and the mouth still reads the words: "The bigger things are done, the more low-key it is."
The eighth aunt (Played by Chen Xiaoyi), who opened a supermarket, was poked in the brand toothpaste by the shrewd chrysanthemum when he checked out, and quickly cleared it: "Ah, it has been changed again, this is monitored, can't see it." ”
Even the doctor at the Muraguchi Clinic did not appear several times, but the mantra that he said that he had "studied in the Central Medical College" when he fooled the patients still made people laugh once.
At a time when suspended urban dramas fill the screen, "Loading Stage" shows the ability of domestic dramas to shape real characters. Behind this, there is a role in borrowing power from serious literature.
The novel "Loading The Stage" won the first "Wu Cheng'en Long Fiction Award" and was selected into the "New China 70 Years and 70 Novels Collection". The author is Chen Yan, winner of the Mao Dun Literature Prize, who has worked at the Shaanxi Provincial Academy of Opera for 23 years and has also dealt with people who have been installing stages for 23 years.
Unlike the magic drama that wastes popular IP, in Douban, the TV series "Loading Stage" has a rating of 8.3, even surpassing the novel (7.6) in one fell swoop.
Mutual achievements with literature make "Loading The Stage" seem calm.
No one is watching? Red and "not red"
In fact, to say that "Loading Stage" is "no one to watch" is not to say that it is not cared about, according to the words of screenwriter Song Fangjin, it is more that its "influence has not reached the breadth it should have".
According to @Sina TV, after the drama was broadcast on November 29, 2020, the average ratings of csm52 in the first week were airborne in the second and third weeks, and in the second and third weeks, it was even more powerful to suppress "Great Qin Fu" and "Centimeters of Love", ranking first in the ratings of 52 cities.
But nowadays, many young people have no habit of chasing tv dramas, defining a drama is not hot, ratings are only a consideration, under the standards of Weibo topics, starring popularity, short video playback, and hot drama reading, "Loading Stage" is not inferior to the same period of network dramas "You fei" and "Wolf Highness".
According to @Maoyan Professional Edition, in the case of Mango TV, CCTV, and CCTV online broadcasting, as of May 26, the cumulative playback of the drama in the 179 days since it was launched was only 487 million, far less than the 5.422 billion of "Youfei" (163 days online) and the 1.163 billion of "Wolf Highness" (189 days online). According to China's audiovisual big data, when "Loading Station" was broadcast in the second round of Beijing Satellite TV in March, the highest rating was only 0.359, ranking 7th.
Half a year after the broadcast, the Douban rating of the TV series "Loading Station" just exceeded 30,000, which is quite different from the "Mountains and Seas" (320,000) and "The Age of Awakening" (150,000) that were also shortlisted for the Magnolia Award.
Obviously the reputation is in hand, why is there no "fire"? The first thing that comes to mind in the industry is operations.
Such a strange word as "loading stage", 9 out of 10 people do not know what it means. There are also many people who regard "loading station" as the abbreviation of "CCTV" as "loading mat station".
Screenwriter Song Fangjin said that "Loading Stage" "has not reached recycling in business, and there are shortcomings in operation."
Some media have counted the hot search situation of "Loading Station" for one week, except for the start of broadcasting, the rest are after 20.
Image source: Xi'an release
Jitter data was also flat.
Under the premise of excellent quality, ignoring the current communication law, this drama lacks the sharpness to break the circle, and has a good reputation but a limited audience.
The shortcomings in the data have also caused pressure on the income.
Drama critic Li Xingwen revealed: "The distribution is very difficult, but it is still sent out in the case of losing money. ”
It is worth mentioning that the drama version has specifically considered the problem of expanding the audience, and has deliberately treated the "dark side" of the novel, hoping that the audience will see it more warmly.
In the original work, in order to chase debts, the indifferent scar uncle who cleaned the relics of the Diao army turned into a funny responsibility in the play, the fierce appearance was loaded with a vice warm-hearted intestine, holding the little Teddy to collect rent, he lived leisurely, there were not many lines, often hummed out one or two breath sounds, with the black boss's way of doing the pie to beg for a dead beggar to stage the "chasing (ex-wife crematorium", so that the audience could not help but be funny.
And the innocent but ugly-looking Diao Chrysanthemum in the novel, after tickling the audience's teeth in the first half, the second half also grew, with a hard mouth and a soft heart, and kind enough to spend money on the stray dog to treat diseases, the actor Ling Zi has a long face and legs, but deliberately did not dress up well.
The drama version even arranged a rich second generation for her to treat her sincerely, no matter how rude and humiliated Ju was, the second generation was always obsessed, and whether the human design was divorced from reality once became a hot topic.
Chen Yan, the original author, once explained the reason for this: "The audience is more pleasant to accept, which is carried out in accordance with the creation rules of TV series. ”
"From a certain point of view, literature and film and television assume the same and different functions: the same, are the truth, goodness and beauty that lead the society; different, may be the way literature is handled more abundantly and multi-faceted, but this may bring ambiguity in the presentation of film and television dramas, so film and television dramas will be more concise and clear."
It took a lot of thought, but it was almost a fire, and it can't be said that it is not a regret.
"We have to live a solid nagging life"
Nowadays, when the screen is opened, the poor people in domestic dramas seem to be collectively "missing", whether it is farmers or ordinary citizens, the overall image is like adding a layer of filters, and the living conditions may be more moist than the middle class in reality.
In the chicken baby theme drama "Little Shed", the plot acting skills have nothing to say, but the Hardcover flat floor of the Nanli family in the high-end residential areas of the first-tier cities, the tens of thousands of unblinking expenses per course when paying the tuition fee of the tutoring class, the brand-name clothes and a large number of toys of the two children, and the couple's per capita monthly income of more than 10,000 yuan and the support of the original family of hundreds of thousands, really cannot be matched.
The poor girl in the idol drama of the North Drift, who hit someone with a car and lost money, turned out to be everything, she lived in a luxurious loft with a height of 4 meters.
Even if the domestic drama arrives at the construction site, the role is cleaner than one, and there are not too many shots for the people who do the hard work.
"Filters filter out the authenticity of our lives and mislead aesthetic judgments from life to art, which is the double sadness of creation and aesthetic activity." Chen Yan, the original author of "Loading The Stage", sighed.
Art is higher than life, but in the end it comes from life, the living conditions of ordinary people, and the audience has a deep understanding of which place is not right, everyone will immediately feel "false".
However, the TV series "Loading Stage" did not underestimate the audience's aesthetic judgment, they respected the spirit of the original work, whether it was the director or the actor, they all ran towards realism.
Drama critic Li Xingwen revealed that Zhang Jiayi put forward the idea of remake after reading the novel, as an artistic director, he personally went to the team and grasped the script, the whole process of participation is very high, and even the release is what he is trying to promote.
In order to restore the true appearance of the stage decorators, before filming began, Zhang Jiayi and other leading actors went to Xi'an Diao Jia Village a month in advance, working with the stage fitters every day and familiar with the types of stage fitting.
Ren Xiaolei, the "Dane" who plays the daughter-in-law of Director Tie in the play, is also an authentic Qin Cavity, Meido, Bowl Cavity Danjiao, a national first-class actor, and the winner of the "Plum Blossom Award" of Chinese drama.
The production team did not drag its feet, taking Diao Jia Village as an example, in order to restore the style of the village in the city, the drama side built a scene of the street and community in Xi'an, and any shot swept through, from the location of the house and the store, to the light sign of a hotel, which was full of texture.
Director Li Shaofei said in an interview that the entire film crew, from the actors to the main creative team, is all Xi'an people. In terms of cultural understanding of the place, they have no barriers, even in the urban village, many actors have lived, or their home is next to the urban village.
There are observations and experiences, and the drama is really filmed.
Asked why the show does not have a traffic star, the heroine Yan Ni said: "Now whoever has the most traffic will let whoever plays it, but is he suitable for this role?" You can't let him play a role that he doesn't fit in, and the audience doesn't adapt to it in the end. ”
When the standard goes up, good actors have room to play, excluding a group of non-powerful factions who are trying to use the theme drama to raise their coffee. Such a threshold is a good thing for many middle-aged powerful actresses who are suffering from no drama.
For the screenwriter, it is also a reminder. Chen Yan, the author of the novel, believes that "writers should not be professional writers, which may solidify their own circles and cognition, and inevitably affect their creation." There are many ways writers go deep into life, one of which is that you are on the spot yourself, which may be better for writing. ”
And the screenwriter of "Loading Stage", Ma Xiaoyong ("Six Groups of Serious Cases"), is a native of Shaanxi, who grew up in the courtyard of the literary and art group, and his father is a famous opera musician, and the food beauty, development and changes and theater culture in the play are all naturally displayed according to his experience.
It is worth noting that the Xi'an Film Studio and the Xi'an Qujiang Film and Television Investment Group, which are jointly produced, are the main forces that promote the film and television Shaanxi Army to the whole country. At the same time, the propaganda departments of governments at all levels in the filming location also gave strong support, and "Loading The Stage" was even listed in the "Shaanxi Provincial 2021 Government Work Report", which was classified as a proof of the prosperity and development of Shaanxi's cultural undertakings.
Everyone worked together to let the audience see such a sincere work.
The market and the official should be discerning, and provide more funds and support to such a practice, so that film and television workers believe that if they shoot dramas seriously, even if there is no traffic, some people love to watch.
"We have to live a solid nagging life." Chen Yan's words are what the audience wants to say, and it is also what domestic dramas should do.
Fortunately, the Magnolia Awards announced last week used 7 nominations to justify the name of "Loading Stage", so that it brushed a sense of existence in a number of popular dramas with the nominations of awards such as "Best Chinese TV Series" and "Best Actor and Actress".
As a cultural commodity, it can be affirmed by weighty industry awards, which will bring encouragement to creators and make people believe that if the realistic theme is filmed solidly, there is always a chance to be seen.