On April 3, the 31st TV series "Feitian Award" was announced in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. The war epic drama "38 Lines" won the Outstanding Television Drama Award for Major Revolutionary Historical Themes.
"Feitian Award", "Golden Eagle Award" and "Magnolia Award" are the three major awards in the domestic film and television media industry, of which the "Feitian Award" is the only government award in China's TV drama industry, and the outstanding works it commends mostly represent the creative direction advocated by the official and attract much attention from the industry. At the same time, the "Feitian Award" is also a review of the artistic level and production level of domestic TV dramas in the past two years, so winning the award represents that the award-winning TV drama works are well affirmed by the state, society and audiences in terms of artistic level and production level.
"Three Eight Lines" is written by Wang Pei as the chief producer, written by screenwriter Kuang Da, directed by director Meng Ji, well-known screenwriters Yan Gang and Wang Hailin as literary planners, and starring Zhang Guoqiang, Wang Ting, Cao Xiwen, Wang Pei and so on. The drama, which depicts two small characters bearing national hatred and family hatred and participating in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, profoundly expresses the heroism and righteousness of our volunteer army, and is a rare TV drama on the theme of "Resisting US Aggression and Aiding Korea" in modern China.
"Three Eight Lines" won the Feitian Award, which made Wang Pei quite encouraged. A few days ago, we had a dialogue with her, and she explained to us in detail her concept of drama production and the future direction of drama.
<h1>From a soldier to an actor and then transformed into a producer, Wang Pei has always been "seeking new and challenging"</h1>
For the public, Wang Pei is more well known as an actor.
She describes herself as a lucky person, "I have basically been the protagonist since I started acting (laughs), but when I was acting, I found that there were many plays that were too old and routine, and if I didn't want to watch the plays I was acting, what else would I talk about showing to the audience?" It's a bit big to say 'sense of responsibility', but I really want to make something different for the audience," Wang Pei said.
It is caused by the inner innovation, but also the accumulation in the industry to a certain extent, Wang Pei chose to transform as a producer. The first time, he picked a difficult bone - "Three Eight Lines".
In fact, in addition to actors and producers, Wang Pei was once a soldier. Having served for more than 10 years, she has a strong military complex in her bones, which may be one of the reasons why her first drama after transformation was a war theme.
When talking about the difficulties of transformation, Wang Pei felt deeply, "First of all, the change in mentality. Strictly speaking, the actor is the party that is served, the producer is the party of service, and all aspects need to be stared at, which is a test of people's energy; secondly, it is a technical difficulty, and it is necessary to learn a lot of new things, from script creation, pre-preparation, photography techniques during shooting, how to edit, promote, release, etc. in the later stage, almost every link must be understood. ”
However, for Wang Pei, who likes to challenge, these bring her a lot of fun and fulfillment, "As a producer, you need to control the direction from beginning to end, and the specific things still have to be left to professional people to do, I will not interfere too much." But I understand these links and can make effective suggestions, which is the most important. ”
Wang Pei also mentioned an interesting thing, "My way of finding actors is not the same as other producers, usually I will pick actors who have not played similar roles to play, and ask them to dig out different selves (laughs). I've been an actor, so I know what they're thinking, and most actors don't really want to play repetitive roles. ”
According to her, the modern drama "Watchmen", which she will launch in June this year, is a retired special forces soldier, and she chose a popular mesozoic actor who was previously known for her urban drama elite image.
<h1>Starting from "38 Lines", the commercial production concept of "new, strange and special" will run through each play</h1>
The "newness" that Wang Pei pursues is not only reflected in her own life choices, but also in the projects she operates.
Take "Three Eight Lines" as an example. This is a very new drama, and the "new" is manifested in two aspects.
First, the theme is new.
"38 Lines" is the first film and television drama on the theme of resisting US aggression and aiding Korea after the founding of the People's Republic of China, which can be called an ice-breaking work.
"The biggest attraction of this drama is that the theme is relatively rare, and many viewers will be curious. But this can only attract them to see, to retain the audience, or rely on emotion and novel shooting style," Wang Pei said.
Emotions needless to say. In the play, the six squads that perform the lurking mission, in order not to expose themselves, all maintain a dormant posture until they freeze to death, which makes countless people off the screen moved.
Not only that, "when this section was filmed, the crew was crying, and everyone seemed to really see the sacrificial soldiers and feel their feelings," Wang Pei said.
Second, the shooting style is new.
Audiences who have watched the drama should be able to find that the picture presentation, explosion reaction, shooting style, etc. of this drama are different from previous war dramas, quite fresh, "We do not want to design the explosion point and place the camera according to the previous experience at a glance, but infinitely close to the real design of the explosion scene without fire, the camera is basically shouldered, so that the shooting will be more dynamic." ”
Therefore, when this drama was broadcast, it was not easy for this drama to occupy a place surrounded by several urban emotional dramas and win the fourth place in the country in the same period for Beijing Satellite TV. This time, "Three Eight Lines" won the Feitian Award, which means that its quality has been recognized, which can be called a work with both quality and marketability.
"Three Eight Lines" is the starting point, after that, there are several dramas under planning and preparation with Wang Pei as the core, which is expected to start next year.
The predecessor of Huanteng Yijia was "Jiaren Media", which participated in the production, production and distribution of "38 Lines", and also took Wang Pei as the core of creation.
When talking about the concept of drama production, Wang Pei summed it up with "new, strange and special", "The theme is novel, the idea is wonderful, and the story (content) is unique, which will be the concept that we have always upheld in our drama." In addition, commercialization will also be our pursuit. ”
Wang Pei's understanding of commercial drama means that "from the perspective of theme and creation to the choice of directors and actors, to the standards of the shooting process, etc., we must uphold the commercial thinking to select the most suitable people and do the most appropriate things."
<h1>Original and adapted two-wheel drive, element mixing aims to explore the path of domestic drama genre</h1>
Since last year, realist works have flourished, and with the guidance of industry initiatives and the change of audience viewing habits, originality and realism have become the two keywords of literary and artistic creation this year.
"The influence of mainstream guidance on the creation of film and television dramas is very positive, it will prompt our creators to take a serious attitude towards creation, which is conducive to the birth of quality dramas." What we have always done is original, but we do not reject IP adaptation, and literary and artistic creation should bloom in a hundred flowers," Wang Pei said.
She said that whether a work is adapted or original is not the most important, what is important is the creator's attitude and production concept of the play.
"I've always advocated new ideas, sometimes several well-matched elements converging in a play, sometimes it's the director's shooting style, the actor's acting style innovation. However, this must be done on the basis of the real environment. Even if you do IP adaptations, you will not change the concept of making dramas. For example, the "Watchmen" we are currently preparing is an innovative work that integrates business warfare, espionage warfare, and military elements. ”
Watchmen is a work with an international perspective. At the production level, the drama integrates commercial elements favored by audiences such as local war, business war, spy war, and love, and strives to create an excellent work that is different from the past with cinematic shooting and narrative techniques.
"But we are by no means 'commercial' for the sake of 'business'. As a work that reflects the living conditions of Chinese security personnel stationed abroad and peacekeepers, we take the real situation of these "heroes stationed abroad" as the starting point, and will focus on the portrayal of human nature and emotional shaping. It aims to restore a real, credible and international "group portrait of heroes stationed abroad" for the audience, Wang Pei introduced.
In the process of creating "Watchmen", Wang Pei, screenwriter Yan Gang and his team conducted many interviews and data collection work, "Our play has archetypal characters, and in the process of script creation, there are many people to interview; before shooting, we also need to go to Africa to do field research." Only when these processes are truly completed can the script and shooting feel like it, and people will not feel suspended. It is understood that this drama is expected to be broadcast in the first half of 2019.
This pragmatic creative attitude reflects the positive energy of jubilation and joy, "We want to excavate and promote the positive side of society through film and television works, and inspire the audience to love life, love relatives and friends, and love themselves," Wang Pei said. At the same time, this pragmatic and positive creative attitude also continues to other plays they will start.
"The dramas that our company wants to make are actually not divided by original and adapted, but defined by different broadcast methods, which are divided into network dramas and pure network dramas." The style of pure web dramas is more comedic and relaxed, and we must let people know that in addition to making heavy dramas, we are also well versed in the preferences of young people," Wang Pei laughed.
Wang Pei introduced that the company also has a historical drama "Daqianmen" in preparation, "This project has been preparing since 2014. The screenwriter is Teacher Wang Hailin, and the chief planner is Teacher Liu Heping, telling the story of the Kangxi and Yongzheng periods, with the experience of the male protagonist who is engaged in business, alluding to the dispute between the concubines at that time. However, there were few scenes involving the court, mainly about commercial warfare. ”
Talking about why it dragged on for 4 years, Wang Pei was a little helpless, "The market environment in previous years has had a very big impact on our creative direction, and it has undergone several major changes during the period, until the second half of last year, when we decided to adhere to the realist style, which coincided with the change in the audience's aesthetic taste." We adhere to the principle of creating high-quality and relatively rare 'new' dramas on the basis of the audience's aesthetic orientation. It also proves that our persistence is right. ”
It is understood that this drama is expected to start in the first half of 2019, and the broadcast time is expected to be at the end of 2019 or the beginning of 2020.
"Three Eight Lines" won the Feitian Award, which made Wang Pei very pleased, "This affirms my creative philosophy." In fact, it is really not easy to insist on innovating. Before the drama took shape, few people trusted you, and the award of this drama gave me confidence to insist on doing the drama with the word 'new'. ”
【Text/jin】