Recently, like the general audience, the author has collectively participated in a mysterious search for people.
Who is "throwing the stick"?
2020 is the year of decisive victory for China to achieve the three-year goal of the special struggle against organized crime and evil forces, and as a rule of law drama "Circuit Procuratorial Group" that profoundly demonstrates this grand theme, it has successfully broken through the siege and jumped into the eyes of the audience in one fell swoop. In this widely discussed drama, the classic motto of male number one Feng Sen - "Willing to cut a body, only dare to do politics and law", won a large number of praise from audience netizens, brushed the screen, and hit the cool point of the drama in one fell swoop. Zero publicity began broadcasting, "Circuit Prosecution Group" all the way to the high, the ratings climbed steadily, for many consecutive days the real-time ratings of the double network broke 4 nearly 5, which really brought a huge surprise to the drama market at the end of the year.
With the advancement of the plot, the main line of the series cases "930 Murder Case", "Feng Sen's Wife Murder Case", "Prison Broker Case", "Shen Guangjun Fracture Incident", "Huang Sihai Negligence Death Case", "Miao Miao Disappearance Case", "Zhang Yiwei Case", "Mi Zhendong Incident" and other eight cases slowly unfolded, gradually forming a complex story background of multiple cases parallel and interrelated, looking for the key threads that connect these cases, becoming a popular event after tea and dinner of netizens, full of bullet screens appearing in an endless stream and extraordinary grand situation. The influence of the annual drama king can be seen.
The bowl of "spiritual food" of "Circuit Procuratorial Group" is becoming more and more popular, and Li Lu, the director and director of the drama who has successively created a popular drama of rule of law procuratorial dramas, has also deeply attracted the attention of audiences and friends. How can content creation be unexpected, and how should business operations balance art and market? With a curiosity to find out, the chief writer of the Pengxx01 Alliance chatted with Li Lu, the director who is good at creating phenomenal works and the director of the play, Li Lu, who was busy in his studio, and he casually ate something to eat in the afternoon and chatted with us about the story of the "Circuit Prosecutor Group".
National level director/producer Li Lu
The project launch of the "Circuit Procuratorial Group" has profound social roots, and the national special struggle against organized crime and evil has entered the final year, which is closely related to the country's rule of law and the people's safety and happiness. Culture and art have always shouldered an unshirkable social responsibility in influencing the hearts and minds of the people in the world, and writing the spirit of struggle at present is a social responsibility that literary and art workers must shoulder.
Taking root in social reality and telling the stories that the people really care about is the mission that the creative team of the "Circuit Prosecution Group" has tried its best to achieve. Li Lu, who has been in the industry for more than thirty years and has a resume of producing thousands of TV series, calls himself a "dinosaur-level young man". In his view, "everyone comes with a mission, come to this society must do a few meaningful things, time white colt gap, energy accumulation, now at this age, it is a good time to have experience precipitation, but also still passion to spray thin, to take advantage of the morale and high morale, and then do their best to shoot some good drama, worthy of the original intention." ”
Li Lu was on the set
Anyone who follows Li Lu knows that he rarely repeats himself, and the Circuit Prosecutor's Group is an exception. After in-depth interviews, the author learned that this time to direct this drama on the theme of the rule of law again, so that Li Lu firmly and sincerely gnawed this hard bone again, on the one hand, because of the old partner who had cooperated with "The Name of the People" - Fan Ziwen, who is also the producer of the "Circuit Inspection Group" and the full-time deputy director of the Supreme People's Procuratorate Film and Television Center, and Li Xuezheng, the chief producer of the play and the director of the Golden Shield Film and Television Center, the repeated invitations of the two old acquaintances made him very moved, on the other hand, it was the script of screenwriter Yu Fei, although there were only 6 episodes when he saw it. But the uniqueness and profundity of the subject matter is at first sight.
Li Lu said: "In real life, judicial issues are actually encountered in the lives of ordinary people, from small quarrels to judicial intervention, how to make the bowl of judicial justice level, which is the meaning of the title of the "Circuit Procuratorial Group", and it is also the place where I think this drama is meaningful. ”
At the script seminar that was first held three years ago, director Li Lu and screenwriter Yu Fei reached a tacit understanding, Li Lu said that he would try his best to loosen the shackles for the screenwriter, write that there is nothing to regret, and then do subtraction, find a feasible way to finally pass on what we think to the audience. "One release and one collection", a clear division of labor, director Li Lu's artistic vision and screenwriter Yu Fei's passionate creation laid a solid foundation for "Circuit Prosecution Group". "I worked very well with these old partners, although it was the first time I worked with Yu Fei, but now I have become a good friend, and the creation of TV dramas is a collective battle, and everyone must be twisted into a rope."
"Circuit Procuratorial Group" and "In the Name of the People" belong to the same rule of law procuratorial drama, and the main creative team overlaps to a considerable extent, which makes many netizens think that "Circuit Procuratorial Group" is a sister article of "In the Name of the People". However, although they are all projects led by himself, Li Lu has repeatedly stressed that he does not want to rub the heat of "Nominal", and he is unwilling and does not need it, and he even has the idea of changing the name of this drama first. In his view, the de-"popularization" of the title of the play is mainly due to two considerations.
First, they are unwilling to rub the heat of "successful IP". "In the Name of the People" is one of the few coordinate dramas in the current domestic drama, and its success is the result of a variety of occasional chemical reactions due to collisions, which cannot be copied to a certain extent. "Itinerant Procuratorial Group" is a brand new story, with its own strong vitality and legal significance that is not similar to any work, and "rubbing" has a glorious glory, but it will make the ideas that should have bloomed more lose their shine.
Second, the name of the play was changed to be closer to the theme. Li Lu told us: "'Circuit Procuratorial Group' not only hits the theme, but also has a sense of action, which is more convenient to approach the audience, reflecting the theme of the work itself that promotes judicial justice and calls for everyone's fairness and justice." Judging from the current market feedback, the title of "Circuit Prosecutor Group" does express its unique charm.
Li Lu has always been particularly fond of "group portrait dramas".
"I like the appearance of sentient beings, looking at it will not be tired, in the months of shooting time, feeling the vividness of each character, the tension of each space, will stimulate great creative impulses." 」
From "The Happy Life of the Boss" 10 years ago to "Take the 88 Bus Home" to "The Name of the People" are all the stories of a group of people, in Li Lu's view: "There are only small actors, no small roles." The director's task is to "simplify the characters in the story into complexity", which is originally a simple thing, make it complicated, and embed the characters in the work like a game of chess, one by one. ”
Rule of law dramas such as "Circuit ProsecutorIal Group" are rare special themes in the drama market, and there are many characters and interlocking cases, which requires the comprehensive ability of the project "traders" to be extremely high.
In Li Lu's eyes, such a project is very challenging, he said, "This kind of subject matter first needs to strictly grasp the policy orientation, and the requirements for the main creative team are not simply to experience life, but to study the public security law very well." ”
For group portrait dramas, character shaping is crucial, and each character must be good-looking, enduring, and able to withstand scrutiny. As a proper "group portrait" work, the choice of characters has become a key factor in the success or failure of the work. There are more than 70 characters in the play, large and small, who can count names, in order to depict a good group of like sentient beings, as a director, Li Lu, as before, reached a tacit understanding with the main creative team: the final decision on casting must be in the hands of the director.
Like to shoot group portrait stories, no matter the size of the characters, Li Lu must finally finalize it himself. For the choice of actors, Li Lu has two points that he values the most.
First, appropriate. Suitable roles will not use too much effort to interpret, the actors themselves have role attributes, will not deliberately "act", the actors behave naturally, and the audience is comfortable to see.
Second, the play is good. Li Lu said: "Our actor training is still to "de-actor", more sincere. Therefore, Li Lu chooses actors, generally there is no audition, he likes to observe the overall performance and role fit through the actor's previous works.
Depicting sentient beings has always been a big challenge, always taking the role selection power in his own hands, Li Lu's creative method with "people" as the core has also made his works truly enter the "crowd". From "In the Name of the People" to "Circuit Procuratorial Group", under the lens of Li Lu, works with special themes such as rule of law dramas have truly entered the public life and have the temperature that "the world" should have.
From the explosion of "In the Name of the People" to the continuous rise in popularity of "Circuit Procuratorial Group", it can be said that works with special themes such as rule of law procuratorate not only enrich the main theme of the drama type, but also let Li Lu come to more people.
In his creation, Li Lu never deliberately emphasizes the artistry of his works, especially for the main theme works, he has his own understanding. In Li Lu's cognition, the main melody is definitely not shouting slogans, he believes: "The main melody we shoot is the main melody in the bones, not the main theme of the slogan style." A good work must be after the audience has watched it, the spirit is raised upwards, and it feels that life is still very meaningful, and it is necessary to continue to contribute to this society. ”
Li Lu does not deliberately define the genre of his works, but anyone who knows Li Lu's works can feel the "warm" background from his works. Li Lu said: "My film has two words that can summarize their characteristics, that is, 'warmth', no matter how tortuous the process is, how many kinds of humanity are expressed, but the final landing point must hit the warmth and fall in the light. ”
"Whether it is 'The Happiness of the Boss', 'The Love of the Hawthorn Tree', or 'In the Name of the People', 'Circuit Prosecutor's Group', people can feel that justice holds the darkness, and the light is always ahead."
Li Lu said: "The whole society is becoming more and more progressive and civilized, in the final analysis, because this society is warm, and this warmth should be felt by more people." In the interview, Li Lu also always carries a kind smile, giving people a warm feeling of approachability.
For creators who pay attention to the balance between content and market, balancing art and market is a topic that can never be escaped. In addition to the identity of the director, Li Lu is also a chief producer who controls the whole picture, for him, literary and artistic creation must be both applauded and applauded, grasping the content with one hand, grasping the market with the other hand, and neither hand can be loosened.
As a well-known director and chief producer in the industry, Li Lu has always switched between art and cost savings.
In Li Lu's view, as a director, he is responsible for the artistry of the work, and the director mainly grasps the four directions - style, rhythm, time, and space. What style the scene is made into, what the final rhythm is, how to deal with time and space, this is what the director should do. ”
"If the drama of the 'Circuit Prosecution Group' is too positive, others will think that you are preachy, and if it is too unorthodox, people will feel that your style is not right, and you must have innovation but also grasp the direction and scale." Therefore, in the "Circuit ProsecutorIal Group", we saw the completely different images of Zheng Tianming and The handsome procurator Feng Sen who had a big back before and after their transformations, and saw two parkour uncles going up the streets and alleys of Orange Prefecture to uncover the tiles...
The persistent pursuit of art allows Li Lu to constantly present new and good ideas to the audience when he creates for the second time. But as the chief producer, how to save money is also a must-answer question for him.
"It's a tough question to get the content right and save money, there's no formula to explore, it's all in the blood," Li Lu told us.
Although there is no formula, Li Lu has his own principle, that is, "we must spend money on the blade."
So, how exactly is this money spent?
Li Lu gave us an example. Prison scenes need a large number of group performances of the big scene can not save money, "inmates" need to be realistic, in the cold weather let the group performance shave the head, this can not use special effects, must be real people, this money can not be saved; but some scenes can be borrowed through their own personal relationships to use, friends do not take anything, save a lot of costs, such as Zhang Youcheng's home in the play, Zheng Shuangxue's office, these are the venues he and his friends borrowed, every time filming is particularly grateful for everyone's support.
Content creation is art, cost saving is also an art, the creators of the new era of the main theme drama really need to understand these two arts at the same time.
"Mission" and "warmth" are the creative attitudes pursued by Li Lu.
Works such as "Circuit Prosecutor Group" are not a small challenge for creation, and now this work that makes people look more and more flavorful not only allows the audience to change their perspective to see the vast number of sentient beings under the lens of the creator, but also allows the warmth to continue to be transmitted in the upcoming "Human World".