Let the creation of the series outperform the audience.
How important are the first three episodes to a show? From the comparison of the popularity of "Ideal City" and "Joe's Children", there may be some perception.
The two dramas were broadcast almost at the same time, "Children of the Joe Family" began to introduce the original family and the "scum daddy" of this very topical plot, and frequently appeared on the hot search, the first few episodes of "slow and hot" "Ideal City" is hidden in the field of public opinion, a large number of industry terms also dissuaded the audience who do not know how to do, and the people who insist on watching it are evaluated as "applauded and not applauded".
As early as 2019, Sun Hongzhi, editor-in-chief of Tencent Video's TV Series Operation Center, put forward the saying of "golden seven minutes, three episodes before life and death" according to platform data: almost 40% of the audience will abandon the drama in the first three episodes. Of the first episode's abandoned users, 35% abandoned the show within the first 7 minutes. After the 7th minute, all drag, fast forward, and showing impatience are increased by 20%.
When the viewing scene is transferred from the living room to the bedroom, and the domestic drama is upgraded from a non-stop background sound all day to a consumer product that needs to be watched intently, the audience puts forward higher requirements for the opening of the domestic drama, and this requirement is reflected to the platform side through data.
Until now, the audience's viewing habits are still continuing, but the reaction of the creators of the series is relatively "lagging" compared to the platform closer to the market.
Some creators were aware of this problem earlier and are looking for changes in the way they create. But there are still a lot of dramas that need to "survive the first three episodes", and for most creators, the rhythm of the episodes is still producer-oriented.
The question to be pondered is, to what extent does the content production of the series need to be affected by the market, and within what scope should the freedom of self-creation be guaranteed? At present, the first three episodes are still controversial at the creative level.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="9" > "First three episodes" What to watch? </h1>
The first scene of the heroine Su Xiao, played by Sun Li in "Ideal City", is the scene of squeezing the subway commute.
The subway drama seems to have become an indispensable bridge for shaping people in the workplace, and even in the sweet pet drama "You Are My Glory", there are scenes such as the subway played by Yang Yang, an aerospace engineer Yu Tu. The ubiquitous drama as the opening chapter, coupled with Sun Li's familiar face who just starred in "An Jia" as a "working woman", it is difficult not to make the audience feel aesthetic fatigue.
In the view of Xiao Leng, a senior practitioner in the drama industry, in addition to the unintentional opening, the stories told in the first few episodes of "Ideal City" are not very helpful for the character shaping of the protagonist. It seems to be a plot with strong conflicts, but the heroine Su Xiao plays the role of a bystander, and the audience's sense of substitution will be very poor.
In fact, when the audience watches the first three episodes, they can already judge whether they want to chase down based on these plot elements. The process of watching the first three episodes is actually a process of "picking goods".
The platform was the first to capture this demand, and even affected the audience demand to some extent. Qin Wen, a well-known screenwriter, told Poison Eye that when the platform now measures whether to buy episodes, it often only looks at the first three episodes of the script, because the color of the first three episodes determines whether users are willing to buy members to continue watching.
In fact, in the case of further differentiation of user interests, matching is the most important consideration when watching the first few episodes. The audience's pursuit of matching degree reflects the typology of the drama market in recent years, and further consultation and coupling in production and demand.
In this era of increasingly clear labeling of episode types, audiences are divided into different circles according to their preferences. The typification of content and the stratification of audience circles make the first three integrations a touchstone for matching supply and demand.
Xiao Leng, a senior practitioner in the drama industry, told Poison Eye that now the audience only watches the first few episodes, and can roughly feel whether the tonality is in line with their preferences, "Those who watch "Ideal City" and those who watch "Children of Joe's Family" are definitely not the same group of people. ”
Whether it meets the early publicity will also be put into the audience's criteria for considering the series. Xiao Leng said that when watching the promotion of "Ideal City", it felt like a "workplace cool drama", but with this mentality, it would feel like it was actually a somewhat depressing and industry-oriented drama. This sense of dislocation will also lead to some viewers "abandoning the play".
Also "the goods are not on the right board" is "Daming Style". On the eve of the broadcast, Guan Bo released a trailer, and the magnificent scene gave people a sense of historical drama, but when the first episode was clicked, it was a comedic style love story. This difference has also triggered controversy among netizens. The title of the Douban Gaozan drama review reads: "All scattered, and it is a mary sue cloaked in historical drama."
Audiences will also have different requirements for different themes. Historical dramas and period dramas, due to the relatively grand story structure, the pace of the first few episodes can also be understood; suspense dramas emphasize fast pace, and whether the beginning can "catch people" is very important; the production of sweet pet dramas has been relatively stereotyped, and each episode has several plot points, and there are requirements for "sugar density".
The genre-based production company style of the series will allow the audience to preset the episode itself before clicking on the first episode. Known as the "light of national drama", the noonday sun has produced excellent works with both word of mouth and popularity, including "Langya List", "Mountains and Seas", and "Great Rivers". Out of trust, most viewers are relatively "tolerant" when watching the noonday sun.
The audience's psychological expectations are also reflected in the cast. A very interesting phenomenon is that most of the domestic dramas starring film actors "XiaFan" will cause great controversy in the first three episodes, which will affect the subsequent popularity and reputation.
In 2019, Zhang Zhen's first drama "Chen Xi Yuan" with Ni Ni was broadcast. Although the Douban score stayed at 8.3 points, and the drama reviews were mostly positive reviews such as "large-scale true incense scene" and "from disgust to true incense", due to the larger fairy tale theme of the story structure and the styling problems that were initially criticized, many viewers did not survive the first three episodes.
"Ruyi Chuan" and "Shangyang Fu" also face similar problems, Zhou Xun and Zhang Ziyi are set to be less than twenty years old when they appear, and there is a big gap between the age of the actors themselves, so it triggers negative public opinion and affects the follow-up heat of the series.
Wang Yan, 14, in "Shangyang Fu"
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<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="27" > this audience, more and more impatient? </h1>
In the era of radio broadcasting, the first few episodes were not as important as they are now.
In the past, the audience's choice was trapped in the channel of linear live broadcasting, and what determined the interest and order of watching was the content that happened to appear on the screen when transferred to a certain channel - few people remembered the classic episodes that existed in memory, such as "Spring Brilliant Pig Eight Commandments" and "Iron Tooth Copper Tooth Ji Xiaolan", and what the plot of the first episode was.
"Journey to the West" has only 24 episodes of the topic, but also caused heated discussion on social platforms, "on the wrong flower car to marry the lang" only 20 episodes, "Huan Zhu Ge Ge" one or two combined is only 40 episodes. Some netizens said: "I feel that in my memory, I can't watch these dramas, but the result is only 24 episodes." These are all "memory biases" caused by the TV broadcast mode.
The monkey king was born in the first episode of Journey to the West
The advent of the web drama era has completely changed the viewing habits of the audience of the series. The selectivity of the audience is greatly improved. The series became the selected goods of the department store, and the first three episodes were the most eye-catching trademarks and slogans of each drama.
"In the past, when you could only watch TV, the audience's choice was not so much, you have time to tell the story, the audience can always look at it," screenwriter Qin Wen once mentioned in an interview with Poison Eye, "but now there are many episodes on various platforms a day, and the audience's choice has become more, which will require the creator to quickly catch the audience's attention." ”
The way the episodes are broadcast changes the audience's viewing habits, and the changes in the media environment also subtly affect the user's mind.
In 2009, the emergence of Weibo created the form of short text dissemination, and the fragmented dissemination of text began. At the beginning of 2018, Jiang Nanchun, chairman of Focus Media, said that the entire media environment has undergone very big changes, and information has changed from the previous diversification to fragmentation, and then entered the current era of dust.
Weibo TV series super talk
The text becomes shorter, and the video becomes shorter. According to the "2021 China Online Audiovisual Development Research Report", the usage rate of short video short video netizens in 2020 is currently close to 90%, occupying a market size of 57.5% year-on-year, and the volume is more than double that of comprehensive video.
Short videos even have a substitute for watching episodes. Zhu Zhenhua, the founder of Little Sugar Man Culture, once mentioned in an interview with Poison Eye that in the past, the carrier of the introduction of the episode was text, which played a role in guiding the viewing, and when the carrier became a short video, the essence of the original episode content would be condensed.
In order to cater to the fragmented time of modern people, the streaming media platform gives the audience the freedom of various dimensions: the rhythm is slow, it can be double-speeded, 2 times the speed is not enough, and even has 5 times the speed; a branch line is not good, you can choose to "only see TA", and even provide double editing for "OH CP" lovers; if you want to enjoy companionship, you can only watch one episode a day, want to know the ending quickly, you can drive ahead of schedule...
Changes in the media environment have also facilitated audience communication, which used to be more intimate, but now viewers of a series often discuss the series on social media.
Because of this, the quality of the first three episodes will not only affect the abandonment rate, but also greatly affect the reputation and popularity of the series.
In terms of word-of-mouth, taking the Douban score as an example, compared with movies that are difficult to leave after buying tickets, episodes can jump out at any time. As a more authoritative domestic drama rating platform at this stage, the audience who scored a certain drama when it was first broadcast provides reference opinions for those who "decide whether to open it".
The level of discussion on social media also determines the increase in the number of people watching the show. If the first three episodes cannot attract as many viewers as possible, resulting in a loss of popularity or a decline in word-of-mouth, then it is almost impossible to rely on post-publicity to complete the "resurrection".
"If the heat doesn't pick up in the first week, it's basically gone." Episode publicity Zhao Si told Poison Eye that for some of the dramas that did not meet expectations in the first week of popularity, there was an industry joke in the follow-up publicity, that is, "the main creator went crazy", which means that the main creative team, including the actors, will release some unexpected content on social platforms, "As long as it can improve the degree of discussion, everything wants to try." ”
Even then there is no way to go back to heaven. "The cooperation of the early artists will be relatively high, and if the heat cannot rise later, it is difficult for the artists to cooperate, and the adjustment space of the program is not large." Unless the quality of the work itself is really good, the second half is very good, and there will be running water, otherwise most of the time it is unlikely to be 'low open high'. ”
On the contrary, the high-heat drama in the early stage will only rise, word of mouth is one thing, and once the discussion scope on social platforms is formed, it is difficult to retract. In addition to the credit of "tap water", Sun Hongzhi also mentioned that in the case of good actual broadcast effects, the platform will also increase its promotion efforts.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="47" > creators who fight inertia</h1>
By creating topics that can cause public discussion to increase the popularity of the initial broadcast, it has become a consensus in the drama promotion industry.
Zhao Si mentioned that now some episodes not only know this well, but even seem to be a little too strong, but let the content itself be interfered with by marketing.
"For example, which paragraph may be on the hot search, or what topic will cause widespread discussion." There are also many dramas that will now market a very strong crying scene, as if this hysterical scene is the so-called plot highlight. But in fact, like in "The Biography of Zhen Huan", there are many extreme emotions that are often not presented with the so-called "explosion", but completely serve the series itself, but can be more deeply rooted in people's hearts. ”。
Compared with the episode promotion link that summarizes the methodology quickly, for the creators, how important the first three episodes are and how to create them is still inconclusive.
After creating the script of "Flowing Golden Years", Qin Wen vaguely felt the importance of the first few episodes to a drama. "I may not have paid much attention to it before, but I just wrote it down from the beginning more intuitively, or told you a story, which is the way we Chinese more accustomed to storytelling, starting from the groundbreaking." 」
"In the past, when I watched foreign works, I would have some unwritten experience, until I followed director Wong Kar-wai to write the script of "Blossoms" in recent years, about where to tell the story, and gradually realized that there were really some methods." In Qin Wen's view, the creators of the series need to step out of their comfort zone, explore expressions that are closer to the audience, and develop at the same frequency as the market.
The screenwriter of "Joe's Children" also mentioned that the first three episodes are indeed very important for a play. As the author of the original novel, she believes that novel writing and screenwriting are two completely different sets of logic. "Many things in the novel can be completed through the turning of time and space, the description of large sections of scenery and the elaboration of psychological changes, as long as it is to flatter the characters. But drama cannot do this, and drama has the rules of drama. ”
The first scene of "Joe's Children"
However, under the previous inertia, how to change the creative idea is more difficult than cognition. "How to tell a good story" is an eternal problem in front of all screenwriters.
Qin Wen admits that until now, she is still groping for ways to change the narrative structure to answer the question of "how to catch the audience at the beginning". For example, what kind of rhythm should be a good drama or a good beginning, she admits that she can't explain or define it. "It's not that fast pace is good, slow pace is bad, the rhythm of a drama is breathing, fast and slow and good or bad are two different things."
Xiao Leng also believes that "paying attention to the first three episodes" does not mean infinitely accelerating the progress of the development of the storyline. "The recently broadcast of "Radiance" has given me the feeling that the first few episodes are too fast, rushing to do things, and there is no breath. That's a bit of an overkill. ”
More important than the fast and slow is the "how to start". Qin Wen mentioned that in the previous class, the teacher once used the drama "Thunderstorm" as an example to try to summarize how a story should start: "When you push a thing backwards from the beginning, all the way to a certain point, and then push back, this matter is not clear, then start from this point." ”
In addition to accurately finding the "starting point", setting up suspense points at the beginning is also a way to capture the audience. The "suspense" here is not a subject matter, but a means of expression. Ma Lilingshan, the founder of Wuyuan Culture, once mentioned that "suspense" can actually be used in a variety of themes to arouse the suspense of the audience.
"I'm fine in other places" Hu Jingjing jumped off the building as a "suspense point"
However, although the first three episodes are very critical for a drama, if too much attention is paid to the early plot and ignores the integrity of the work, the audience will not pay for it. "Bad tail" is one of the results. Xiao Leng believes that compared with the collapse of the previous episodes, the phenomenon of the rotten end of domestic dramas is more obvious now.
More practitioners revealed to Poison Eye that the first few episodes of some scripts were mostly worn for a long time and constantly overturned and restarted, but the project did not wait for anyone, so the follow-up script had to continue to be created after booting. Some small-budget series even ask professional screenwriters to write scripts for the first few episodes, and the scripts that follow are ghostwritten by other screenwriters on the team.
This involves another simple logic: "Valuing the first three episodes" doesn't mean "just writing the first three is enough." Qin Wen explained that the so-called "waste play" is a useless role for the promotion of the storyline, the development of character relationships and character shaping, and as a creator, you should be wary of such bridges in your works.
The importance of the first three episodes has become the consensus of the market, but to what extent do creators need to tilt to the market under the huge inertia? In Qin Wen's view, the statement that "it will be good to survive the first three episodes" is actually asking the audience for more patience, we have no right to ask the audience so much, it is time to step out of our comfort zone.
"We should try to outperform the audience's demands on the series, not ask the audience to wait for us."
Text | Zhang Jiaqi
Edit | Zhang Youfa