Sherlock, the name derived from the Western detective Sherlock Holmes, and gradually became a pronoun for the profession of detective. The film "Sherlock on the Plains" tells the story of a country man Chaoying, who has some savings in his hands and wants to build a new house for himself, and his friend Shuhe, who came to help build a house, was knocked unconscious on the road. In order not to let his friend Shuhe be injured, Chaoying and another friend, Zhan Yi, transformed into a village detective and began to look around for the perpetrator.
The title of "Sherlock on the Plains", which has a Western feel, if you only listen to the name, it is difficult to think of a Chinese film, but also a Chinese vernacular film.
Interestingly, this film combines the connotation of "Sherlock" in the West with the local characteristics of the East, which not only tells an interesting story for the audience, but also a breakthrough in domestic vernacular films.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >, domestic vernacular movies, how difficult it is to applaud and applaud</h1>
Vernacular films, as a type of genre film, originated in Germany, and most of these films show audiences a rural world that is not polluted by modern civilization. Simple rural life and simple folk customs are the obvious labels of this type of film.
In the rapidly developing film and television industry, local films are not a very pleasing subject.
It seems to us that in the television industry, TV dramas have long been occupied by TV dramas such as palace dramas, workplace dramas, and emotional dramas, and local TV dramas are either arranged to be broadcast in non-prime time or on some smaller TV stations; and as FMCG movies, fewer people are willing to sit in the cinema and spend an hour or two watching rural scenery and rural stories on the screen.
In fact, since the reform and opening up, the local films in the Chinese film market can be said to be endless, and many films have their lingering aesthetic value when they are seen now.
Films such as "Xiyingmen", "Qiu Ju Fights a Lawsuit", "Ju Dou", "Red Sorghum" and so on, not only many contemporary audiences are still analyzing the characteristics and connotations of them, but also in the film market at that time, it can be said that the scene was full and full.
The reason why local films were so popular at that time was not only related to the exquisite film production and the superb acting skills of the actors, but also related to the general environment of the film market at that time.
At the end of the last century, the leisure and entertainment methods of Chinese people were still relatively scarce, and television sets had not yet been popularized to ordinary people's homes. Going to the cinema to watch a small number of movies became the most popular form of leisure and entertainment for the public at that time.
In view of the fact that the national aesthetic at that time had not yet been raised to a certain level, and the supply of spiritual and cultural products was very small, even if the quality of the film was not high, it would not reduce the audience's love for the film.
Therefore, vernacular films, which account for a large part of the total number of films, are very popular with the audience.
Now, vernacular films can be said to have developed a bottleneck, and the box office of vernacular films with good reputation in recent years can be described as dismal.
In 2011, "Mr. Hello Tree" had a Douban score of 7.8 and a box office of more than 2 million; in 2015, "Labyrinth of Hearts", Douban was 8.7, with a box office of about 10 million; in 2016, "Shouting Mountain", Douban scored 7.9 points at the box office but less than one million.
Not only that, even the well-known director Jia Zhangke, who is good at telling the story of his hometown, his film did not have the highest box office of more than 100 million.
I have to say that today's vernacular films seem to be a film type that stands on the opposite side of commercial films, and compared with popular commercial films that often exceed hundreds of millions or even billions of box office, the living space of vernacular films has become smaller and smaller.
Even a few years ago, the director of "A Hundred Birds and a Phoenix" knelt down and begged the theater to arrange the film, which shows how difficult it is for local films to be distributed. If a movie can't bring high returns, few investors will pay for it; without a big-name actor willing to star, it will not attract the audience to watch.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >2, the film "Sherlock on the Plain" opened a new breakthrough in the development of Chinese vernacular films</h1>
The film "Sherlock on the Plain" is directed by a new director Xu Lei and won the "Best Film Text Award" at the FIRST Youth Film Festival. As soon as the film came out, it was widely praised by industry insiders.
The box office is less than ten million, although it is not very brilliant, but the total investment in the early stage is less than one million, considering the rich return on investment of one to ten, and the current audience's cold to local movies, this film can be regarded as excellent both at the box office and word of mouth.
Talking about the development of Chinese vernacular films and opening up new breakthroughs, I think it is mainly reflected in the word "integration".
1. Popular expressions blend with the local background.
The biggest shortcoming of the vernacular narrative lies in the blandness, and in today's spectacle, how to make the vernacular story interesting has become the biggest creative obstacle for directors.
The story in the film takes place in the North China Plain, and in terms of region, the North China Plain itself has no obvious characteristics of its own, without the extravagance of the Shandong region in "Red Sorghum"; nor is there the independence of the Bashu people in "Three Gorges Good People"; compared with the Loess Plateau, it is a little less cheerful; compared with the three northeastern provinces, it lacks some frankness.
In the absence of geographical labels, the director uses black humor to express the narrative of the entire film. Black humor runs through the entire film: Chao Ying went to the hardware store to pretend to buy an air pump in order to cover Zhanyi, and finally was forced to buy it under the persuasion of the boss; in order to pay for the hospital, Chao Ying went to the market to sell horses, and after learning that the horse was going to be killed, he posted two hundred yuan to redeem it.
Many crying and laughing plots, let the audience in a relaxed and pleasant state, after watching this film with a criminal plot, but also for the film to put a humorous and witty label.
Black humor, a popular expression at the moment, adds a lot of vitality to this vernacular film, breaking the inherent bland weakness of vernacular films.
2. Social hotspots are integrated with local backgrounds.
The integration of vernacular films with social hotspots can avoid the problem of disconnection between the film and the audience's real experience. Since most of the movie audiences are young people, if you want to catch the attention of young people, you must combine them with the current hot spots to let the audience gain a sense of identity in watching the movie.
In the film, the director arranged the plot of the two leading actors pretending to be takeaways, combining two rustic farmers from the countryside with the current popular takeaway, giving the two leading actors a more diversified character image, breaking the thinking of the single image of the countrymen.
In addition, the film also added the element of "little three", even if there is no direct connection with the main line of the story, the topicality that this unique element can bring can divert the attention of the audience when watching, and it attempts to transfer the audience's attention to the local area to the eye-catching elements in the plot.
It can be said that director Xu Lei uses the form of integrating the countryside to make an ordinary vernacular film more easily acceptable to the audience, breaking the biggest barrier of vernacular films.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > third, how to applaud and popular Chinese vernacular movies</h1>
The film "Sherlock on the Plain" provides a new breakthrough for the development of vernacular films, we are based on the current film market, how to make vernacular films from good reputation to good box office, is the biggest problem to be solved by vernacular films.
Allowing vernacular films to enter the theater and compete with mainstream commercial films, rather than just becoming the object of criticism by film critics, requires a more in-depth analysis of vernacular films.
1. Local films must not lose their true colors first.
The biggest feature of local films is the simple characters and the characteristic story environment, both of which are indispensable. If the rural character is placed in the background of the big city, or the urban character is placed in the background of the story of the countryside, then he loses the foothold of the local film, and if he is not good, it will make the film seem different.
Characters and the environment are the two elements that can most impact the audience's vision, and when the audience watches the film, the visual organ can accept the largest amount of information, so it is necessary to retain the local nature in the audience's vision.
Retain the true color, in addition to the characters and background, but also strive to enlarge the regional label of the film story, to create a regional wonder.
Such as the northwest desert, the rugged landforms of the southwest region, the lofty mountains in the north, etc., can play a role in attracting the attention of the audience, and the narrative in the regional discourse environment can make the story appear more real and more representative.
The famous director Jia Zhangke's films have strong Shanxi characteristics, and he integrates Shanxi characteristics into the context of the story, making his films full of unique story connotations.
2. Vernacular films need to keep up with the trend of the times and narrate in a modern context.
In addition to telling Chinese stories and regional stories, local films must also tell modern stories. Modern storytelling, not to say that the background of the story is modern society, but the narrative of the film should be narrated in a modern popular style, and modern elements should be added to the story.
This has been reflected in the film "Sherlock on the Plain", and the modern popular narrative method and the addition of modern elements make the whole film unconventional.
3. Deeply explore the elements loved by young people in the countryside and cultivate young audiences.
China is a large agricultural country, in recent years with the progress of urbanization, many local characteristics have been forgotten by people, and efforts are made to find elements that young people like in the countryside and adapt to the aesthetic elements of the public, so that they can gain something from the box office.
A few years ago, the TV documentary "China on the Tip of the Tongue" caused a strong response in China, and many of the filming locations in the film were rural, and the director deeply explored the food culture in the countryside and put it on the screen.
Little attention has been paid to rural food culture before this, and diet happens to be something that young people love. The combination of the two not only has a high amount of movies, but also drives the output of rural culture.
Therefore, directors should continue to dig deep into rural culture and always find connotations that meet the needs of contemporary audiences.
summary:
Local culture is the treasure of our country, hundreds of millions of people grew up here, rooted in this, local film is an important carrier of exporting local culture to the audience.
For vernacular films, we cannot give up on local films because of their small market share and small number of hands, but on the contrary, we should develop and grow them and make them an important part of national culture.
To develop vernacular films, we, as the audience, must be able to discover excellent vernacular films, be able to go to the theater to enjoy excellent vernacular films, and excellent films can only develop in the long run with the support of the audience.