Zhou Qimo already knew from his father, a singer who had acted in the scene all his life:
Performers must go online to have a chance to become famous and break the circle,
Only in the future of fame and fortune.
He has been a little hesitant about this,
Now with the help of "Talk Show Conference",
He's still not proactive enough.
There's always some self-persistence,
Make his turn seem slow.
Purple printed short-sleeved shirt OPICLOTH
Zhou Qimo stood in front of the 1400 spectators, a little dizzy. This is the first performance of his solo special "Long Live Don't Understand", and the 2,000-seat SAIC Shanghai Culture Square only sells 70% of the tickets due to the epidemic. Compared with the small theater he has been accustomed to performing for many years, this stage is larger and farther away from the audience. Throwing out a laugh point, wondering why the audience did not laugh, the laughter came from a distance like an ocean wave. It turned out that it was because of the distance, and the sound came a little slower.
It seems that the father's reminder was right. The day before the performance, the singer's father, who made a living from the performance, specially taught him the experience: "The sound of the big venue hits the ears of the audience more slowly, and you must be slower when you perform." ”
With personal experience, Zhou Qimo knew why he should slow down the speed and rhythm of speech - saying that the audience could not hear clearly, and thought that the actor was panicked. This is just one of the key points of the big venue performance, the second trick is "amplification", from sound, emotion to body movements, the entire amplitude must be directly proportional to the venue amplification, the audience can receive in place.
Stimulation and confirmation
This round of touring is the most beautiful one since Zhou Qimo's career, 21 cities, spanning more than two months, starting from Shanghai, terminal station in Wuhan, Sanlitun hung a huge poster. However, his focus is not on the scenery or not, for Zhou Qimo, the motivation for starting this round of touring is that he needs a verification.
Last year's "Talk Show Conference (Season 3)" suddenly turned him into a controversial talk show actor, appearing with the title of "the ceiling of domestic talk shows", which was questioned by a large number of viewers. After many years in the industry, Zhou Qimo had a fundamental doubt about himself for the first time: Am I funny or not funny? Usually, when performing live, everyone laughs. Have I been living in hallucinations for so many years?
He desperately needed to return to the theater to see what his relationship with the audience really looked like, and get a confirmation from it.
In the first five years of entering the industry, Zhou Qimo's overall state was "quite recognized in the industry, and no one outside the industry recognized it." Some of the audience would go to see his performance, but it was recognized on the street, and it didn't happen until after "Talk Show Convention".
He also remembers that in the earliest days, the host or the first actor had to popularize what a talk show was before going on stage, and there was a fixed set of words, "Have you seen "Tonight's Post-80s Talk Show"? Explain to you ah, our performance of the paragraph are original, not we copied it on the Internet..." Explain for 5 minutes, and then start the performance. Some viewers don't even know whether to laugh or not, can't tell whether the actors are serious or joking, and whether they should take it seriously after listening. The whole industry is in the reckless stage, which performance is particularly good, everyone thinks it is quite strange.
In 2017, another talk show actor, Boss Shi, founded a stand-alone comedy company, and LaZhou Qimo joined the gang. On the other hand, the English training institution where Zhou Qimo worked has always asked to sit in the shift, he looked at his savings, estimated that it would take a year, and resigned. At that time, Boss Shi was one of the first actors to do full-time talk shows, and Zhou Qimo found that he made rapid progress after full-time, pondering passages during the day and watching other people's performances at night, and he also wanted to do so.
Blue shirt OPICLOTH
Blue denim coat REDCHARCOAL
That year, Zhou Qimo was determined to become a professional talk show actor. People around me have always felt that talk shows are "not doing business" and are a hobby that does not make money. After working full-time as a talk show actor, he began to tell his family that he was a serious talk show actor, much stronger than before. There are companies, five insurances and one gold, regular performances, and everything seems to be on the right track. Also that year, he won two consecutive titles at the CSM China Pro Talk Show Contest and the Shanghai International Comedy Festival hosted by iQiyi, but he didn't have much emotional ups and downs because he was confident in his comedic ability at the time. Both games are within the industry and have not attracted attention at the mass level.
In the next few years, I continued to talk about talk shows in small venues, and personal specials were also held, and gradually I became tired. Looking back, I feel that the paragraphs I wrote when I first entered the industry were better than now, when I was full of momentum, and I was full of new undiscovered material in front of me, often hit by inspiration, and inspiration pushed me forward to write. Now, the material that can stimulate my own creation has been almost talked about, and after so many years of talking, I still haven't established a distinct personal style. It's time for some new challenges and excitement.
Online and offline
Before going to the "Talk Show Conference", Zhou Qimo was very entangled, and he vaguely felt that his performance style was not suitable for variety shows.
Earlier, he participated in a "Tonight's 80s Talk Show", when the program was almost finished recording, the host Wang Zijian finished speaking, the audience felt that the celebrity was gone, you can go home, the on-site director said: "Don't go, don't go, there is another person, there is a next one." Without even a name, Zhou Qimo took the stage. In this situation, it should be said that there is a little cushion to reach a certain emotional connection with the audience, but he feels that the recording time is precious, and cannot be delayed in laying the mat, directly telling a lonely paragraph, there are very few people laughing, and the laughter when the program is broadcast is added later.
This time, after the entanglement, he still decided to go to the "Talk Show Conference". At least one more opportunity to put their own paragraphs on the mass platform, many paragraphs have been told offline for many years, one by one accompanied by themselves to gain the recognition of the audience, Zhou Qimo wants to find a good home for them, and show them on the most exposed stage.
"Talk Show Conference (Season 3)" aired, and the spit came to the face. In the years of offline performances, Zhou Qimo had never heard so many voices that did not like himself. Of course, the actors want to blow up the stage, but they will not be as demanding as variety shows. Which offline performance is not performed well, reflect on yourself, change the paragraph, adjust the state, and the next performance is good, such dynamic adjustment is the norm, and it will not negate yourself. Variety shows have a clear competition format, and under the high pressure of the two choices of promotion and elimination, they must be blown up in the sky and laughed at to be considered passed.
He suspected that he had been in the greenhouse for so many years before, the offline audience and the actor were face to face, and he might not be embarrassed to say it if he didn't like an actor, and the comments received by variety shows online were as direct as they were. This made Zhou Qimo feel uncomfortable and panicked, and he slowly accepted that there must be many factors beyond expectation and control in the recording of the program, which he could not accept before.
There is much more to work to adapt to. The paragraph has not been polished enough for a month, and it is necessary to perform on such a large stage, which is impossible for Zhou Qimo before, and now he has only tried to write a new paragraph and only tried it a few times to speak on stage. In addition, what theme and how long to talk about a paragraph, there is no rule for offline performances, as long as they can be strung together, but the program usually has a theme competition, which must specify the content around the theme, and the structure is complete.
Recently, at the "Talk Show Conference (Season Four)", Zhou Qimo came up and took out the best passages. He thought that the opportunity was too precious, and maybe he would be eliminated in one round. Last season, he was still struggling with "whether a good paragraph has to be left behind", and now he knows that it must change.
In many ways, he was still a bit stubborn and turned slower than others. He was very passive about "casting the audience's favor", partly because he really didn't understand it, and partly out of inner resistance, unwilling to "try so hard to reach".
"Although talk shows are a form of entertainment, they also have artistic components and personal pursuits," Zhou Qimo said, "for me, what the audience loves to hear, the scene can be fried, not in the first place, or from what they want to say, and find an intersection with the audience." He also wants the performance to be good, but there must be a premise - not to 100% cater to the audience, but to have its own starting point. The topics on the hot search list must have a high degree of attention, but if it is not what he wants to talk about, he will not talk.
Variety and art
On the stage, the emotional performance style is easier to mobilize the atmosphere, but Zhou Qimo is not that kind of personality from the stage to the stage. His style is consistent, not pursuing speed, not pursuing dense high-frequency laughter output, and slowly unfolding his observation and understanding of life in a seemingly bland narrative. This is not the performance style that young people are pursuing today, and he also perceives that his audience is older.
Over the years, Zhou Qimo has accepted and identified himself. Last year's impact did not make him want to change, but instead saw more clearly, "You can only attract a small part of the audience that likes your style, there is no way to cater to too many people." Can't do it, and don't want to do it so much. ”
Now, he is busier than before, with more business activities that have hardly been done before, and has a certain degree of audience recognition. His criteria for judging stand-up comedy performances, established prior to Talk Show Convention, would not be shaken by some sudden fluctuations.
Zhou Qimo also gradually understood that "Talk Show Conference" is a variety show with talk show components, which cannot be completely equated with talk show itself, "This art has its own development law and its own judgment standards." "Looking at talk shows separately from Talk Show Convention, self-doubt and entanglement are all good.
6 years ago, Zhou Qimo, an English training teacher, watched a talk show on the Internet, and there was only one person on the stage, talking about the trivialities of life, with a special angle, witty and full of wisdom. There is only a cup and a chair behind him, and the stage is large but unusually simple. It was this one-hour performance that attracted Zhou Qimo to want to enter this world.
The performer is Jerry Seinfeld, the benchmark of the global talk show industry, who became famous in the golden age of American talk shows in the 1980s and 1990s, appeared on several well-known TV shows, made a series of sitcoms that set record ratings and golden globe awards, Emmy Awards, and became the world's highest paid comedian, with a special copyright fee of more than 100 million US dollars, a large collection of Porsche cars, living in the rich area of Long Island, New York.
Is this the future of Zhou Qimo's ideal? He doesn't think so, at least not the goal at this stage, as long as you have no worries about food and clothing, find your own creative path, and write a special session that you are satisfied with.
The performance of Jerry Seinfeld, which led Zhou Qimo into the industry, seems to be in a grand theater. Once famous, go up, stand-up comedians will go to the coliseum, the input-output ratio is higher, and the audience's perception is more solemn and high-end. But for Zhou Qimo, the coliseum also means less live play and interaction, becoming decent, and the audience's response is not timely enough, not as vivid as the performance of the small venue.
Those small venues don't have too many spectators, so everyone sits in peace and listens to what today's actors will share. In such a warm and relaxed time and space, Zhou Qimo has established connections with strange people countless times, gained laughter and recognition, and has the motivation to continue walking.
Blue hoodie MARK FAST
Khaki trousers OPICLOTH
For stand-up comedians, setting up a solo show is a huge challenge: it needs popularity, and it needs a lot of stage experience. Zhou Qimo, who stood out from the draft and then entered the industry, is not afraid of these, and his "Long Live Not Understanding" national tour is walking through more than twenty cities in a few months.
Interview, written by: Maggie
Planning, editing: warm small group
Costume styling: Ao Han
Makeup, hairstyles: Ian, Swing Ding
Art Editors: Sun Yi, Murphy
New Media Editor: Neil
Special column planner: Liu Han
New Media Execution: Zi Qing
Espresso X 36 Kr joint presentation