Per reporter: Bi Yuanyuan Per intern reporter: Li Jianning Per editor: Dong Xingsheng
Before the arrival of the fierce National Day file, the films in the Mid-Autumn Festival period were still playing "residual heat". Among them, "Everything About My Mother" as a small and medium-cost film, but earned enough tears from the audience.
According to the data, "Everything About My Mother" is produced by Chinese films, Xiyan Culture, Taobao tickets and other companies, starring Xu Fan, Zhang Jingyi, Xu Yajun, and directed by Zhao Tianyu. According to Lighthouse Pro, as of September 28, the film had grossed 128 million.
As the only in-depth financial media cooperating with the 11th Beijing International Film Festival, Daily Economic News launched a dialogue with Zhao Tianyu, director of "Everything About My Mother", a shortlisted film of the Temple of Heaven Award, during the Beijing Film Festival. In his view, to avoid the disorderly competition of the homogenization of family film, the most important thing is to find their own uniqueness and perspective from the creation and production side. "Not only to find something that really empathizes with the audience, but also to find differentiation."
Zhao Tianyu Image source: Courtesy of the organizer
Compared with high-cost, high-investment commercial blockbusters, small and medium-cost family films are easier to touch the audience's heart, and also add a guarantee to the box office of the film. As more and more family movies appear on the market, how to avoid earning cheap tears with similar plot design has become the key to breaking through the competition of such movies in the Red Sea.
<h2>"Slowly forgot to be filming, she became Ji Peizhen</h2>."
"Tears down! Men and women in the theater are crying back and forth, left and right! "Teacher Xu Fan acted exactly like my mother." "I just want to hurry home and listen to my mother's nagging and hug her." This is the real thought in the hearts of many netizens after watching "Everything About My Mother".
"Everything About My Mother" tells the story of a sick mother, Ji Peizhen, who continues to convey her love and warmth in the face of the complicated character relationship of the family in the final farewell time of her life. In fact, whether it is a movie or other artistic expression, it is an eternal proposition about motherhood and maternal love, but how to grasp the expression of emotions so that it can both touch people's hearts and not use too much force is not easy.
"The most important thing about making such a scene is not the skill, but the immersion, which requires me, the creators and the actors to fully immerse ourselves in it." Zhao Tianyu believes that it is necessary to face life with patience and concentration in order to enter the emotional world of Ji Peizhen's family and express the most simple and sincere emotions.
Stills from "All About My Mom" Image source: Maoyan Pro
At the beginning of the script creation, Zhao Tianyu asked himself to concentrate, he and the screenwriter interviewed a number of mothers and daughters, and during the interview, he noticed that the daughter and mother knew each other very richly, but not enough. "Everyone will notice my mother's 'management' and 'manipulation', but I know very little about my mother's dedication and beauty, which makes me feel the meaning of this film."
Speaking about the widely acclaimed character Ji Peizhen, Zhao Tianyu praised that Xu Fan integrated the experience and emotions of his and his daughter's years of getting along into the role. "When we are with Teacher Xu Fan, we will slowly forget that we are filming, but live in it, and she will become Ji Peizhen." In Zhao Tianyu's view, the actor is like a treasure that needs to be excavated by the director. "At first I would say what I wanted and how to do the scene, but then something came naturally, and I preferred to sit in front of the monitor and expect a wonderful performance to come out."
<h2>Family film competition in the Red Sea to find "empathy" and "differentiation"</h2>
In recent years, realist films have ushered in an outbreak, and the subdivided family love films often poke tears and obtain a double harvest of word of mouth and box office.
According to Lighthouse Pro, as of September 28, two family film", "Hello, Li Huanying" and "My Sister", entered the top ten of the 2021 box office list, with a box office of 5.414 billion yuan and 860 million yuan respectively.
"Hello, Li Huanying" is the dark horse of the Spring Festival file, counterattacking "Detective Chinatown 3", not only becoming the champion of the Spring Festival file, but also sitting on the current second place in Chinese film history, just one step away from the box office of the champion "Wolf Warrior 2" of 5.694 billion yuan.
"Hello, Li Huanying" stills Image source: Maoyan Pro Edition
In the subsequent Qingming Festival period, the box office of "My Sister" exceeded 500 million yuan in the 6 days of release, making this year's Qingming file create the highest box office record in the same period of film history.
These two films, one about the mother, one about the sister, are small costs, both are dark horses in the market. Returning to the original family, these two identities often mean giving, forbearance and tenacity. The "mystery" of peeking into success is nothing more than a strong topicality and empathy.
Father's love is like a mountain, mother's love is like the sea, Chinese relationship naturally has a bondage to blood, family affection can not be avoided no matter what, family affection is also the most intimate and important feeling in life. Different from love and friendship, which can be full of reversals and accidents, the success code of family love movies only needs to be real and make the audience feel empathy.
Stretched out, "Send You a Little Red Flower" released at the beginning of this year, "See Nara Again" released in March, including the previous "Dear", "Lost Lonely", "Take My Brother Away", "Long Day" and other films, can be classified into the category of family film.
Commercial blockbusters can't escape family affection, and even genre films with prominent styles such as "The Wandering Earth" and "Nezha's Demon Boy Descending" also explore the relationship between father and son.
In the process of the development of Chinese film genres, romance films, action films, martial arts films, and comedies have long matured, and family love films have achieved surprising box office results step by step, which is a kind of progress in Zhao Tianyu's view. "The success of 'Hello, Lee Huan Ying' is a good inspiration for us filmmakers, and audiences are accepting and loving some new genres into the positive filmmaking nutrition pool."
"My Sister" stills Image source: Cat's Eye Pro
Commercial blockbusters have higher requirements in terms of cost and level of industrialization, and pure family films are easier to return to their costs and have certain box office potential. Zhao Tianyu also said that the budget and cycle of "Everything About My Mother" are very limited, and the idea of shooting is more to make "trade-offs", and finally leave the most important "real temperature".
"Chinese audiences are increasingly fond of things that are simple, sincere and heartfelt. It is both a work of our creators and a commodity in the commercial circulation link. Combining the attributes of creation and business, it is actually difficult to maintain a 'sense of truth'. ”
For films with small and medium costs, the creation of family affection has become a new "wealth code", and competition has also intensified. How to avoid homogeneous disorderly competition, Zhao Tianyu believes that the most important thing is to find their own uniqueness and perspective from the creation and production side. "First, find something that really empathizes with the audience; second, find differentiation, that is, your story is not fresh enough for the audience, not deep enough." Sometimes you want innovation, sometimes you want depth, sometimes you want surprises. ”
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