Directed by young director Shen Ao and starring Dapeng and Liu Yan, the upcoming movie "Beneficiary" released on November 8 has entered people's attention. There is no super gorgeous creative lineup, no strong publicity, only Ning Hao's producer makes this movie a little "famous", but this does not affect that "Beneficiary" is a good movie.
The movie "Beneficiary" tells the story of Wu Hai (Dapeng), a substitute driver, in order to treat his 6-year-old son with asthma, at the instigation of his friend Zhong Zhenjiang (Zhang Zixian), deliberately met a network anchor Miao Miao (Liu Yan), who was also at the edge and bottom of the network, and was determined to brew a story of marriage fraud with ulterior motives.
Although the director Shen Olympic is a rookie in the directorial world, his strength should not be underestimated, and in 2010, he won the Jinpeng Best Short Film Award, the highest award of the first China International New Media Short Film Festival, with his short film "Helong Chuangang". After that, Shen Ao was "matched" by Ning Hao and became the signed director of the "Bad Monkey 72 Change Film Project", and "Beneficiary" is his debut work in the plan, and it is also the third work launched by the plan after "Embroidered Spring Knife 2" and "I Am Not a Medicine God".
Tribute to Ning Hao's dialectical relationship between portrait and unlikeness
Director Shen Ao said that this film is a 100% tribute to Ning Hao, absurd comedy style, plot logic rigor, concern for realistic feelings, marginal character presentation, Chongqing live shooting, the film is full of Ning Hao's shadow. From the first draft of the script to the revision of the next few drafts, Ning Hao checked the whole process and "escorted" the new director. For example, the choice of the two professions of "substitute driver" and "network female anchor" in the film was changed under the guidance of Ning Hao draft by draft. "Contemporary" is the reason why the Olympic bid finally chose these two careers, "the world does not necessarily have as many substitute drivers and so many anchors as China, and it is a new industry that has only been derived in recent years." ”
After the character is formed, the choice of actors becomes another key element, and the Olympic bid does not go straight to the famous first-line actors, nor does it pursue traffic artists, but uses the actors who are most suitable for the characters. Dapeng and Liu Yan were chosen because of their "vitality", "When I interviewed female anchors, including the substitute drivers, I felt that they all had a very vigorous vitality, that is, they grew very hard, worked hard and survived. There are a lot of places in them that fit the characters. ”
The performances of Dapeng and Liu Yan did not disappoint the Olympic bid, and produced a chemical reaction that exceeded expectations, and even changed the original temperament of the film. "After the two actors came in, including another actor, Zhang Zixian, I had to go in the direction of comedy, and it was a wave blowing me away." The film eventually shifts from a black crime genre to a comedy genre, a shift that is not deliberate but natural. All the actors have invisibly completed the comedy performance, which Liu Yan calls "a comedy without screwing".
The Olympic bid defines this kind of comedy as "natural", "all comedy melodies will happen, I don't write it for funny, I just act like this." All the people are doing their own thing very seriously and persistently, but the chemistry they form is very funny. ”
This kind of textured comedy is also Ning Hao's style, in the face of "very similar" Ning Hao's voice, Shen Ao has his own understanding, "shooting movies, writing scripts He is my master, and it is understandable that an apprentice like a master is beyond reproach." But in fact, "The Beneficiary" is very not 'Ning Hao', but the audiovisual language, including some aesthetic tastes, is very close to Ning Hao. But the core theme is not the theme that will appear in Ning Hao's films, the authorship of Director Ning Hao and my authorship are completely different from those of two kinds of authorship. In all my creations, I attach great importance to emotions, but they are not the same as him. ”
Acting breakthrough Dapeng experience "performance open trick"
In the movie, Dapeng and Liu Yan present opposite but symbiotic performance methods, the former designs the role and becomes a role, the latter is the true color of the role, naturally revealed, the tacit understanding of cooperation for many years allows the two to maintain a unified frequency in performance at all times. For the role modeling, Shen'ao put forward clear requirements for Dapeng to "find a performance method that suits you, a specific method", for which Dapeng invested a lot of energy in Wu Hai, "We really went through calculations, rehearsals, styling studies and directorial guidance, including my long-term search for my appearance in this play, and even the temperament I hope to be able to change because of this." ”
In order to be closer to the role, Dapeng did a lot of "design", some fat, some hunchback, sluggish eyes, after each modeling, he would go to the streets of Chongqing to walk around, and even achieve the effect that even the director could not recognize.
After this performance, Dapeng bluntly said that "the performance is open", one of the highlights of Wu Hai's crying, "I have been brewing, I have been thinking about what to do from the time of makeup." However, the crew's birthday surprise interrupted the prepared mood, "(After eating) returning to the play, I suddenly found that all my preparations were invalid, forgotten, and my weapon could not be taken out. But it was this interruption that made Dapeng unprepared to perform the highlight moment of successfully interpreting the character, "I suddenly stood there panicked, there was actually no such word in the script, I dragged everyone and said, 'She is my wife, you see, this woman is my wife', the script just stood there and moved, crying, I don't know why, I just stood there (that performance), became a very successful performance experience." ”
Thinking back on the whole performance, Dapeng sighed, "In this play, many moments, are right. ”
Liu Yan is inseparable from the character
Compared with Dapeng's "design", Liu Yan is unable to distinguish whether to play a role or play himself, Dapeng commented that Liu Yan's performance is "pure non-acting", while praising acting, "The highest realm is to act like not acting." Liu Yan also admitted that "in private, I really look more like Yue Miaomiao." Inside and outside the play, Liu Yan is associated with the anchor, and she hopes that the audience can pay attention to the many aspects of the anchor after watching the movie, less prejudice. In order to play a good role, Liu Yan "made a big compromise", "is to give up my aesthetic, why is this network anchor not popular, her aesthetic must be problematic." "So Liu Yan's outfit in the film is very exaggerated a lot of the time."
In addition to making compromises, Liu Yan has also made many breakthroughs, including eating peppers and live makeup removal. The fragment of eating the pepper made Liu Yan cry, "I also added chemical mustard to that pepper, so that the tears will have the effect of directly spraying." In the face of the question of "eating bell peppers" and "not dedicated", Liu Yan hit back that "it is really peppers", and even more questioned, "I must eat Chaotian pepper in front of you to be called dedicated?" ”
The most surprising passage in the whole film is Liu Yan removing makeup from the live camera, to which Liu Yan also shouts "cruel", "This is very cruel, layer by layer to tear off the false eyelashes, take off the wig, wipe off the makeup." For the scene of makeup removal, The Olympic bid explained that it was the result of the emotional development of the plot, "I can't say that if I write such a scene for this (makeup removal), that scene will become very thin." When the movie gets there, she should do it, and the characters will go with the plot. ”
Liu Yan completed the role with "50% of the true color performance and 50% of the acting skills", she bluntly said that she likes "The Beneficiary", "It is a very grounded, very deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, let you think about life." ”
Dialect charm The collision of Chongqing dialect and Hunan plastic Mandarin
Dialects are used throughout the film, with Dapeng speaking in chongqing dialect and Liu Yan speaking Hunan plastic Mandarin. The olympic bid was associated with dialect because of "Crazy Stone", "I was so impressed when I first saw 'Crazy Stone', I never thought that the film could be spoken in another language, and when I saw the charm and joy it presented on the screen, I was completely sucked in." 」
Speaking Chongqing dialect has become a big challenge for the "northeasterner" Dapeng, "Chongqing dialect is really very difficult for me, very early to get the script, the crew has a teacher, the whole content is recorded, I listen to every day, do everything to listen, run to listen, sleep also listen, and then marked on the script." "Every day I listened to and kept saying during the shooting, Dapeng could only follow the script from the beginning to the scene to improvise the words, it took more than a month, "That time was enchanted, I dreamed myself, whether it was Chinese or foreigners in the dream, I spoke Chongqing dialect." "Originally, as long as Dapeng realized that people outside the Sichuan-Chongqing region could not hear right and wrong, and finally became the people in the Sichuan-Chongqing region, they could also accept it."
At first, Liu Yan also asked to speak Chongqing dialect, but in the end, the Olympic bid chose to let her speak Hunan Plastic Mandarin, "After the director listened to my Hunan Plastic Mandarin, he felt very right, so he made me completely give up speaking Chongqing dialect." ”
Both Liu Yan and Dapeng have found a performance fulcrum through language, "Language will make you believe in your characters and characters more." ”
At present, the film market is "uncertain" and the phenomenon of "blockbusters" is continuous, but most films cannot escape the fate of "sitting on the cold bench". As a freshman director, the Olympic bid is not worried about the upcoming market test, "It's a good movie, not a bad movie, so I'm not too worried about it." (Text/Yang Yingying)
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