"Post-90s" illustration, teachers and students hiding from air raids. (Photo/ Courtesy of respondents)
New Weekly's focus on realism and cultural content has a long history.
Last year, we set our sights on "her series", suspense dramas and humanistic documentaries; this year, we observed new changes and new trends in the creation of dramas and documentaries.
On August 9 this year, the TV series "Sweeping The Black Storm", which was adapted from the real cases screened by the Political and Legal Commission of the CPC Central Committee, was simulcast on Oriental Satellite TV and Beijing Satellite TV, and its appearance was of great significance to domestic dramas.
On May 29, Xu Bei, the director of the documentary "Southwest United Congress" with a Douban score of 9.4, returned with her new work "Post-90s". This documentary about the shining era of China's stars set off a wave of word-of-mouth before the Dragon Boat Festival, and became one of the few domestic cinema films with a Douban score of 8 points this year.
Domestic audiences are very familiar with the subject matter of these two typical cases. They can win applause in this era of fast-moving consumer goods in film and television, and the fundamental reason is that the creators respect and dissatisfaction with this familiarity.
The drama involved in the case is not only large-scale
With the continuous advancement of the national special struggle against organized crime and evil launched in early 2018, some major and important cases of a bad nature have been disclosed.
This year, the anti-gang crime and anti-evil work has entered the normalization, and 500 directors who have created the phenomenon-level web drama "White Night Pursuit" have gathered old partners and new friends such as screenwriter Zu Ruomeng, Yu Xiaoqian and co-director Wang Siyang to jointly create a contemporary crime drama with a distinct style.
In the face of the story material composed of major and important cases such as the Xinhuang playground burial case, the Hainan vegetable bully Huang Hongfa case, the Hunan officials and businessmen colluding with Wen Liehong, and the Sun Xiaoguo case that shocked the whole country, the mood of the creative team was pulled to the two poles of excitement and anxiety.
As the plot of the whole drama, it is difficult to properly adapt these real cases, and it is difficult to rely only on the main creator.
According to the data, "Sweeping The Storm Against Organized Crime" was guided by the Propaganda and Education Bureau of the Central Political and Legal Commission, the Information Center for Comprehensive Management of Political Science and Law of the Central Political and Legal Commission, and the Political and Legal Committee of the Hunan Provincial CPC Committee; Chen Yixin, secretary general of the Central Political and Legal Commission and director of the National Anti-Organized Crime Office, served as general adviser; Wang Hongxiang, deputy secretary general of the Central Political and Legal Commission and deputy director of the National Anti-Organized Crime Office; Lei Dongsheng, who was former deputy secretary general of the Central Political and Legal Commission and deputy director of the National Anti-Organized Crime Office; and Li Dianxun, member of the Standing Committee of the Hunan Provincial CPC Committee and secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, served as chief planner.
How high the level of the endorsement lineup is, how difficult and stressful the creation of the show is.
For Xiaoqian, the main point of the adaptation of this creation is how to objectively reflect the results of the case, and not to make it like a documentary, but also to balance the relationship between dramatization and authenticity. To this end, he mainly focuses on the portrayal of the relationship between the characters, and strives to present a work that looks both enjoyable and well-oriented.
In terms of character shaping, the drama also shows quite excellent extreme ability, shaping Li Chengyang (played by Sun Honglei), He Yun (played by Wu Yue), Sun Xing (played by Wu Xiaoliang) and other unforgettable characters.
Zu Ruomeng shared in a previous interview: "We will pick some particularly typical plots from the existing materials and then pinch them on the current characters. For example, the villain Gao Mingyuan, played by Wang Zhifei, this character is "spelled out" by the screenwriting team with typical plots and bridges.
With characters, there are naturally lines. How do the different groups of people involved in all parts of the case speak? According to Zu Ruomeng, they mainly write lines through three layers of work. The first level is to check the information, the second layer is to find reference from the dialogue with professionals, and the third layer is to ask the leaders or staff of the relevant departments to check the professional wording.
Wang Siyang once revealed to the media that some of the bridges and lines in the play were personally written or polished by the prototype characters or the staff of the corresponding units of the characters.
It is reported that "Sweeping The Black Storm" has a "behind-the-scenes heavenly group" WeChat group composed of more than 70 people, including relevant personnel of the crew, government staff at all levels, political and legal cadres, forensic doctors, etc. The crew will consult and communicate creative doubts in the group in real time, and the corresponding personnel will answer at the first time when conditions permit.
If the plot and characters are regarded as the software of a play, then the means of shooting are a very important piece of hardware.
Cao Dun, the director of the first anti-poaching drama "Wolf Hunter" in China, is known for his use of long shots. In the view of producer Peng Khotan, this technique is excellent in creating a sense of oppression in the overall atmosphere, but it also faces high difficulties in shooting. In particular, this type and theme that emphasizes "authenticity" must start from the details, and even spend much more time than traditional TV dramas to achieve their self-requirements.
The drama's arduous shooting period makes the director of photography Xu Xiaochuan remember vividly: "When I went to Xinjiang to shoot, it was already late autumn, and the temperature difference between morning and evening was very large, and it was snowing when we filmed. ”
The local altitude difference also made it difficult to shoot. The scene on the snowy mountain must first use a normal car to send people and equipment to a location, and then take it to the mountain through a pickup truck or four-wheel drive vehicle that can be off-road. Xu Xiaochuan said that the mobile group teacher basically has to send more than fifty trips up and down every day.
In addition, "Wolf Hunter" is also the first domestic drama to be filmed with a 2500 reference sensitivity throughout the whole process.
Xu Xiaochuan said: "We use 2500 high sensitivity, not because the brightness is not enough. Now in the shooting of many TV series or movies, brightness is no longer a problem. The biggest use of this feature for me is that it gives me more options for control of the depth of field. ”
The show's commitment to the auditory level is also unambiguous. In the case of the sandstorm scene in the sixth episode, which the audience talked about, for example, the sound effects department made a differentiated and separate treatment of the sound of the gravel hitting in different places.
Stills from "Sweeping The Black Storm".
Between "combustion" and "spontaneous combustion", there is a good script
The script, the basis of a play. Among the several creative levels mentioned above, script creation is obviously the most important. It is not only the most powerful carrier of the creator's will and emotion, but also the soul of the work.
When China's film and television industry first started, some people may still question this. With the increasing maturity of the industry, there have been a number of works with high topics, such as the series "Mao Deception" and "The Promotion of the Princess Princess", although it lacks heavyweight teams, star actors, large productions, and strong publicity. It can be seen that a good story is the magic weapon of contemporary Chinese film and television.
Looking at the development of China's film and television and video industries in the past five years, it is not difficult to find that the word "real" is regarded as a guideline by the vast majority of creators. For realist works, the word is even more vocal.
Director Yu Chun took "sense of reality" as the core issue when creating the case-related drama "The Overseas Action of the Criminal Police". He and director Lu Zibo reached a consensus before the start of the film, striving to create a work that "truly reflects the experience of Chinese police officers working and living overseas".
Not only to restore and present the three real cases involved in the plot, but also to show the image of the Chinese police era and highlight the national image of China through film and television creation, in order to achieve these two points, the core team members have done a lot of preliminary work.
Producer Xu Tai pointed out at the seminar that some real criminal cases are not as violent and thrilling as people think, and the audience has also developed a certain degree of aesthetic fatigue with European and American-style film and television that renders the audiovisual atmosphere, so they decided to impress the audience with real Chinese stories and true feelings from the perspective of the grounded Chinese police.
During the creative process, the team had several heated arguments over the dramatic structure with contradictions and conflicts, as well as the choice between real plots, real events, and real people.
Lu Zibo said: "After reading a large number of files and understanding a large number of real cases, all of us are deeply moved, so "Overseas Action of criminal police" would rather make the audience feel that the presentation of the story is not so exciting, and also hope that this drama can be closer to the real deeds of real heroes." ”
The sense of realism can create many fascinating works, and if this quality is greatly reduced, then the original unique "ignition" posture of the drama involved in the case is likely to evolve into a "spontaneous combustion" farce.
Of course, this does not mean that all dramas involved in the case must complete this "irritation" by eliminating the character composition of children's love or pursuing the "all-male class". What the audience wants is nothing more than to respect the authenticity and rationality of the characters and professions involved in the subject matter, and to create around the core of the story that best fits these themes.
This requires creators to remain sober and restrained.
As a woman, Hong Leng, the director of the undercover anti-drug female police drama "Dark Horse" "Rose Walker", provided the team with some suggestions for the diversification of female roles.
The main creative team led by her has given the audience a grounded heroine image, and there are no "faults" that the heroines of romance dramas, workplace dramas or youth dramas are accustomed to. At the same time, from the beginning to the end of the whole drama, there is no old love bridge that destroys the "burning" atmosphere.
Tap into the extremes of the ordinary
In the field of documentaries, although the design of the plot usually does not occur, this does not mean that documentaries do not need good stories. In the recent year, a large number of pan-cultural documentaries that are good at storytelling have emerged in the field.
Why classify these documentaries as "pan-cultural"?
In fact, there is no fixed uniform standard for the classification of documentaries. According to the difference in theme and expression method, it can generally be divided into political theory, current affairs reporting, history, biography, life, human geography, stage, thematic series and other categories.
For today's markets and audiences, history, biography, human geography and feature documentary series tend to be "you have me, I have you". Moreover, they sometimes cover subject matter beyond the scope of "culture" in traditional cognition. The driving force behind this phenomenon is precisely the change in the relationship between individuals and between individuals and times.
Today, we are more concerned with others who are close to us. Therefore, the number of humanistic documentaries that tell the stories of ordinary people and excavate the highlight moments in the ordinary has also increased.
"Little Boy" focuses the camera on children who are obsessed with a specific field, and expresses their love and growth with a pure documentary, dialogue-free and extreme presentation form. Before the official start of filming, the creative team tentatively defined 6 broad fields such as art, technology, nature, and sports, and then began to cast a wide net, research and find suitable subjects.
Sun Chao, director of "Little Boy", believes that children from different cities across the country, with different living environments and different family backgrounds, and who have basically not been exposed, are "suitable". She hopes that these children can enter the group in a primitive, pure state, with wonderful stories and personality charm.
In the lives of ordinary people we are familiar with, there are subtle stars. In order to capture this shimmer of light, the main creative team is willing to pay and wait. This is not only reflected in the process of finding the subject, but also throughout the shooting period.
To the delight of the crew, the children welcomed them and quickly adapted to the shots. As the shooting progressed, the trust between the two sides became more and more stable, and the camera shot almost from morning to night. Sun Chao revealed that the 60-minute length of each episode presented in front of the audience may be four or five hundred hours of material behind it.
The documentary "Tiangong Suzuo" tells the past and present lives of 9 traditional crafts in Suzhou through the story between the inheritors and the crafts. Director Sun Zengtian has nearly 30 years of experience in the industry, and as early as 2016, he began to prepare this documentary about Su Zuo.
In the field investigation and style collection work that began in 2017, the main creative team found that song jin, nuclear carving and other well-known traditional crafts actually have many little-known stories and details. While conveying intellectual content, this film casts a more warm gaze on ordinary craftsmen.
After all, the ultimate shooting method brings audiovisual enjoyment, and what really moves the audience and can survive in the world is the story, history, characters, artifacts, techniques, living environment and the soul of the times. How to give it a complete and extremely vivid life is what film and television creators should consider.