Author | Xiwei Editor| Tons ton Ton
Goethe said in the prologue to The Troubles of Young Werther: Which teenager is not affectionate, which girl is not pregnant.
After visiting the tour of ancient Babylonian civilization organized by the school, Chen Meiru, a 12-year-old girl, began to record her fantasies in her diary: falling in love with a Babylonian prince, surrounded by love enemies such as the princess and the prince's bodyguard. The diary was made public, which attracted ridicule from family members and classmates.
Growing up, she has long regarded this experience as a "black history" to face. However, on her 24th birthday, all the characters in the diary came to the real world: the prince was chasing after her, the princess was trying to make things difficult, and she said the lines that came from her extremely embarrassing shame...
This is the beginning of My Babylonian Lover. Since its broadcast, this seemingly absurd and bizarre story has gained recognition, and many "tap water Amway" can be seen on social platforms.
Behind the brain-opening plot and setting is the bold adventure of the creator "crossing the river by feeling the stones", and the novel subject matter attributes make them unable to find any film and television dramas as a reference. On the eve of the end of the show's membership, Entertainment Capital theory talked with director Zhou Nan, producer Zhu Mo, and chief screenwriter Zhai Yiwei with creative problems.
How were fantasy settings and lines that resonated with female audiences conceived and created? Why let the actors learn Sichuan opera and Akkadine and go to France, Morocco, and the Sahara Desert to shoot? How did the actors with a high concentration of "mixed-race faces" join the crew?
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="17" > tailor-made "half-blood prince" and found "girl history officials" all over the country</h1>
"My Babylonian Lover" didn't follow the usual process of film and television projects: writing the script – casting the actors – starting the film.
The production team was released in the summer of 2016, when the IP adaptation of film and television dramas blew up, but the team still insisted on originality. At first, they created a light-weight drama with a total of 12 episodes and 20 minutes each, which was very different from the current version, and confirmed Feng Xiaoyue's participation. But a year later, the project was evaluated by the platform as too sharp and sharp. The team had to change the angle and overturn all the previous settings.
The new script has not yet begun to be created, and Feng Xiaoyue offered to continue to cooperate with the team in depth. Although the start time has not yet been determined, everything is full of unknowns, Feng Xiaoyue is also willing to leave sufficient schedules for the crew. He also became the key to his creation, and Zhai Yiwei told Xiao Yu, "All of Murong Jaylen's character settings, mechanisms, and even the origin of the story, all of the creations are related to Feng Xiaoyue himself." ”
In the process of contact, they found that Feng Xiaoyue himself was very different from the image of Gong Huan in "Little Times" that the audience was familiar with before, and Zhou Nan said: "The elegant and charming qualities that Xiaoyue showed us made us feel that we had to fall in love with him on the screen. ”
According to the mixed-race characteristics of Feng Xiaoyue himself, the main creator created a male protagonist image of a "mixed-race prince". As if planting a seed, the subsequent characters and storylines naturally break through the ground: the beautiful princess has unrequited love for the prince, and the prince has a bodyguard; these fictional characters with superpowers are derived from the diary of a little girl in reality, the diary has left scars for her, and the girl who grows up heals herself through some experiences; the girl must have a girlfriend, and this girlfriend must have a sense of contrast with her...
Following the determination of Feng Xiaoyue to play Murong Jay Lun in 2016, in 2017, the crew also determined that Xu Weining and Wang Ruichang would play the Nine Heavenly Dragon Girls and Ouyang Wenshan respectively. It wasn't until 2018 that My Babylonian Lover (then titled Ai Before THE YEAR) was officially launched.
With the actors and the script in place, the team faced a new question: How do you fit the actors into a drama with rich elements and a sense of comedy?
In order to help the actors develop a tacit understanding and build a sense of faith, they decided to train and test shoot. In the view of the main creator, this process is the key to the smooth film and television of the brain hole and the praise of the audience.
Before starting the camera, the actors entered the group 40 days in advance and tried to shoot at the Black Box Theater, "At that time, our script was already very 'flying', so the lines had to be said by the actors all over again to see the effect." ”
Later, under the leadership of Akka German teacher Chen Fei, action director Zhao Donghe, rehearsal director Liu Rongjun and others, the actors systematically learned Akkadine, Sichuan opera, dance, ancient Babylonian etiquette, systematically trained physical fitness and performance style, and enhanced their understanding of drama.
This kind of training is very helpful for the actor's performance. When the crew shoots in the middle and late stages, Feng Xiaoyue can give his own three performance plans for a certain plot, and finally the crew chooses the most suitable one for shooting. Half a year after the completion of the shooting, Feng Xiaoyue was even able to completely leave the manuscript when dubbing in Akkadine.
After learning the gestures of women in the ancient Babylonian murals with the etiquette teacher, Xu Weining almost formed a "muscle memory". Although the Nine Heavenly Dragon Girls in the play left Babylon and came to modern times, they still maintain the gesture of overlapping hands. This is the performance detail set by Xu Weining herself.
In addition to the six protagonists, the actors of other characters in the play also gave the audience a lot of surprises. For example, "Little Jiang Huizhen", who can easily lift his legs above his head like Zhu Yanmanzi, has an 8-point similarity with Bu Guanjin from appearance to appearance.
In order to assemble a large number of ancient Babylonian girl historians in the play, casting directors Zhang Xiangzi, Wen Zhen and Wang Yang almost all the foreign or mixed-race actresses of the right age in China were recruited.
In addition, a large number of flesh-and-blood and personality-oriented supporting roles in the play also need actors with high adaptability: the actors of the Sichuan Opera Troupe team must have a certain foundation, some must change their faces, some must play the Monkey King; as well as Chen Meiru's boss and colleagues, the security guards of scenic spots, and the three Internet celebrities under Duan Shuiliu... They were carefully selected by the casting directors one by one.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="110" > Filming in Chongqing, restoring ancient Babylon, and creating a fantasy love idol drama</h1>
At the beginning of the preparation of the project, Zhu Mo's positioning of "My Babylonian Lover" was very clear - fantasy love idol drama.
What is an idol drama? The creators reached a consensus: in the fantasy dream of a young girl, no matter how absurd and unrealistic the story can come true. "It's a girl's dream. In front of the audience, we can make her cry, make her laugh, make her afraid, but we can never make her wake up. Zhou Nan summed it up like this.
In order to create a stylized fantasy love idol drama and make this girl's dream special enough, Chongqing and Babylon have become two key elements.
For a long time, idol dramas have been filmed in the north, Guangzhou, Shenzhen or coastal cities, and "My Babylonian Lover" is set in Chongqing.
Entertainment Capital theory has previously launched the article "Chongqing Suspense, Yanji Crime, Xiamen Youth, and The Full Disclosure of China's Scene Selection Map", which comprehensively analyzes the selection rules of film and television dramas. As a common filming location for suspense dramas, Chongqing's weather is gloomy, wet and rainy, and foggy, and you can feel the depressive depression across the screen, for idol dramas, no matter how you look at them, it does not seem to be a suitable choice.
Just like the creation of the script and characters after the male actor is determined, this once again reflects the characteristics of this crew - setting backwards in details. It was precisely because of the physical teleportation to Wushan after using the "Go to Wushan Mountain Together" in the play that it was decided to set the place where the story takes place in Chongqing City.
At the same time, the plot of "My Babylonian Lover" is originally a bit absurd, if the background is set in Shanghai, Shenzhen and other first-tier cities, it will only make the whole drama more suspended. And Chongqing is a well-known, noisy, and life-like place, which can give this story more fireworks and human touch, and strange people such as Murong Jaylen and the Nine Heavenly Dragon Girls appear in the daily life that the audience is familiar with, and there is also a sense of contrast.
Babylonian elements occupy a considerable amount of space in the play, and the ancient Babylonian kingdom was born in the two river valleys, about 4,000 years ago, whether it is time or space, which brings difficulties to creation.
In order to restore the real Babylon, from books to the Internet, the creators collected all the relevant historical materials they could find, and traveled abroad to reproduce the costumes and ritual movements of the characters through ancient Babylonian portrait bricks and sculptures. The presentation of the royal life refers to the "Records of the Palace Women", which was dictated by the Cixi Palace Lady, and Murong Jaylen said that he was afraid of being poisoned and only ate five bites of each dish, as well as the plot of spraying water on a towel to wipe the feet of others after containing warm water in his mouth.
The most Babylonian flavor is the 19th episode, Zhu Mo mentioned that this is also the episode with the largest input cost in the whole series.
In addition to filming at the filming location of "Game of Thrones" in Morocco, several other important scenes shown in it - the Shiguan Hall, the Prince's Training Ground and the Water Prison were all built by the production team with a lot of time and effort. The floor tiles in the main hall were carefully made by the scenery team led by art director Chen Weiren, and while they were handmade, each floor tile had a different shape.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="111" > "Go to Wushan" Terrier: The core of comedy must be tragedy</h1>
It is worth mentioning that the advanced female consciousness in the play: the mutual redemption between the characters and the self-growth of women have aroused the resonance of many female audiences. They posted their feelings on Weibo, dared to dissect themselves, and shared many of their own stories. Seeing these comments, Zhai Yiwei felt, "It's like a night talk among girls." ”
However, this is not the direction they thought of when they created, "We didn't want to make a flag drama." To label feminist, or make a sweet pet, which kind of audience are the three pairs of CPs targeting... I didn't deliberately consider these questions when I created it. "Zhai Yiwei said." For us, it's really just about writing about love. But the cuteness of women in the matter of love, the beautiful imaginations and wishes we have for all women, may have achieved the resonance between this drama and the audience. Zhou Nan added.
The idea that really exists in the subconscious of creators is that the core of comedy is tragedy.
In the play, whenever Chen Meiru and Murong Jaylen "go to Wushan Mountain together when they are in love", the two will physically teleport to the top of Wushan Mountain, which has become one of the most "out of the circle" plot at the beginning of the show. This idea comes from director Zhou Nan. At that time, all over Beijing was full of grilled whole fish in Wushan Mountain, large and small, and Zhou Nan was making a comedy movie about teleportation, so he naturally thought of this comedy plot.
And this plot is not all made for funny, but also has its "comedy core is tragedy" connotation and meaning. People are always easy to overlook, in Li Bai's poems, "Wushan Yunyu" is followed by "broken intestines", "Wushan Yunyu" This is the sad story between the king and the goddess.
Before the age of 24, Chen Meiru, because of the harm caused by the diary, the beautiful fantasy of love was only limited to this "Wushan" that only had a vague understanding at that time. "The whole of Wushan is a trembling spire, painted there, nothing more. So it is enough to reach a certain position, but Chen Meiru's life and her understanding of love and love have been locked in. When the love is strong, one more point is sad. ”
For the creators, the biggest surprise and emotion after the broadcast of "My Babylon Lover" came from the audience, which is a two-way healing process. "All the budget we spend, every effort we make, the audience sees, and that's what we're very satisfied."
In the eyes of the creators, the audience is also one of the creators of this show. Some viewers interpret that the Nine Heavenly Dragon Women in the play were imprisoned in the water prison when she appeared, and her ability was to be able to call the wind and rain to manipulate the water, which was the teasing of fate on her. And Duan Shuiliu's name is pronounced "Broken Water Flow", and he is destined to rescue the dragon girl from the water prison and make her no longer suffer from the captivity of the water.
This is not a deliberate foreshadowing of the creator, although the team members have a vague feeling of the relationship between the three when creating, but it is not clear what it is. And it is this "secondary creation" from the audience that adds a wonderful and appropriate chemical reaction between the characters.
Comments and feedback don't all consist of praise, and My Babylonian Lover has flaws.
For example, in the play, Jiang Hui is really not the original voice of actor Zhu Yanmanzi, and many viewers criticize the dubbing for not sticking to the face; the later changes in the lines make Jiang Hui really unable to lip-sync, which makes the audience play; and the audience reflects that the pace of the first few episodes of the series is too fast, and when the entanglement of the two time and space is fully presented in the later stage, the plot has the problem of procrastination.
In the view of Zhai Yiwei, in this ambitious project, the creator must make a trade-off. Having to sacrifice the integrity and fluency of the story to a certain extent comes down to the lack of experience and skill of the creators.
But in any case, "My Babylonian Lover" is a flawed work. The bold attempts of the creators have pushed genre works to a new level of creation.
When it comes to whether there will be a sequel to this drama in the future, Zhou Nan said that everything depends on coincidence. Because the show is so unique, in order to avoid doing one of the most taboo things - repetitive, even if there is a possibility of creating a sequel, they will only make a completely new story. If possible, new stories would be Related to the Maya or Ancient India, exploring the possibility of more exotic cultures.