Film and television dramas rarely make work their main narrative content.
Have it? Of course, there are, but generally of this nature -
War, crime, detective or athletics.
They are all human activities with their own dramatic tension, but they are far from the lives of ordinary people.
Fortunately, there is a magical existence in this world - the island people.
Island people are really a very work-loving people, and even the most tedious work will be put on the silver/screen by them.
"The Chronicle of the Boats" talks about how to compile a dictionary.
"Reprinted! " about how to publish comics.
"Naoki Hanzawa" talks about how to do credit.
Even "New Godzilla" (2016) is mainly about how to meet.
The new Japanese drama that I want to talk to you about today is about how to run a school.
"But I Was Born First"
The show began airing in Japan on October 14, and has just aired one episode.
Starring Sho Sakurai and Yu Aoi, the Douban score is currently 8.3.
I have to admit that the hearts of the island people are really big.
Such a theme is actually very easy to drive the audience away.
After a day in the office, when you get home, who would want to take another school management course?
To make such a boring subject attractive, you must find a way to create an original idea.
"But I Was Born First" only took 10 minutes to do this.
In the first 10 minutes of the opening, the contents of two space-time are cross-edited.
First, the new principal came to the school for the first time and interviewed the teachers of the school in turn.
The second is to explain where the new principal came from through flashbacks.
In just 10 minutes, information is rushing towards us like a storm, and each one is extremely rich in gold.
First of all, it was a very young headmaster, in his thirties, probably half a year younger than the vice-chancellor who received him.
Second, the school is in a bad position, with difficulties in enrolment and a constant deficit on the fiscal side.
Third, the new principal was a business talent who had turned a store around in a short period of time, but had never been exposed to the education industry.
Why is this information gold-rich?
Because, each of them, means "impossible" -
Is it possible for a young man to gain the respect of all the old drivers?
Is it possible for schools to get out of trouble?
Does business thinking still work in the education industry?
In addition to this information, there is another piece of information, although different from the above information, but it can instantly make us empathetic to the protagonist.
This young man's career, suddenly such a big jump, is completely out of helplessness.
He took the wrong side in the company, and the boss lost his position, so he had to follow the demotion.
This is a pain point that will make every office worker feel empathy.
Successful people will not make us interested, but the fate of a loser, we will be very concerned.
So far, the show has successfully aroused our curiosity with three "impossible" and one pain point.
Of course, the so-called "impossible" is actually a promise.
It promises us that this unfortunate young man will eventually make earth-shattering achievements.
Such a commitment will make both the promised and the promised feel very excited.
However, after the cool, how to fulfill the promise is a very headache.
The director and screenwriter are faced with two convenient choices –
First, focus on portraying a certain character of the protagonist, because of this character, he eventually succeeds.
Second, take a method from management theory, because the protagonist finally succeeds because of this method.
Neither of these two options can be chosen.
If you choose the first one, you will turn the series into a successful chicken soup.
Chicken soup, when drunk, will make your blood boil, but it is usually not so believable.
This choice is not unused in film and television dramas, but it is generally used in reverse.
A gangster, because of a certain weakness in his personality, will eventually die.
Even so, a certain admonition of such works can sometimes be disgusting.
If the second option is chosen, the episode will be turned into a thesis, or a research report from a consulting company.
Of course, the audience does not want to see this kind of thing in the film and television drama, especially if it is still a layman.
The problem with both options is that their views on the world are too certain.
They believe in a very stable set of causal relationships.
However, the problems that reality presents to a person are usually chaotic, volatile, and difficult to grasp.
Only superheroes are given the privilege of solving everything in a simple way.
Ordinary people, in the face of these complicated problems, the most appropriate response should be to be anxious.
Chicken soup and reports are aimed at providing answers, while self-respecting film and television dramas make it their job to simulate reality.
It must convince us of the world it has constructed for us.
At the beginning, the creator raised our expectations for the protagonist, at this time, we need to pull him off the altar and reduce him to an ordinary person.
They did.
After the opening ceremony, the new principal came up with two ways to solve the school's dilemma.
First, loans.
Second, admissions publicity.
Both of these tactics failed, and he could not borrow money, nor did he get the support of teachers and the outside world in publicity.
This is a countermeasure that everyone can think of, and I want to take it for granted, because none of them is based on reality.
However, in the process of running for publicity, he gradually understood the problem of the school -
This private high school does not have any competitive advantage.
It has neither its own direct-entry university nor tuition-free like public schools.
Only students who fail the high school entrance examination will apply for this school.
In order to increase the number of students, it is necessary to improve the performance of graduates.
In order to improve student performance, it is necessary to recruit excellent students.
This is simply a chicken-and-egg problem.
With such a problem, the plot is like a perpetual motion machine, and it is not a problem to last until 50 episodes.
Because, there is no clear answer to this question.
The new principal began to have stomach pains because of this problem.
His last term, also because of this problem, fainted on the podium.
By concretizing this problem into a number of small questions, the creator can create setbacks and victories for the protagonist again and again.
And these setbacks and victories will draw the audience's curiosity and let them continue to watch.
At the end of the first episode, the new principal gathers all the teachers together and has a meeting.
Citing scholarships, he said schools should teach students some knowledge of social formation and norms.
Then he talked about the sense of crisis.
Then he talked about how teachers should be business-minded, treat knowledge as a commodity, treat students as customers, and treat parents as shareholders.
Finally, he proposed to lay off the staff.
It sounds very reasonable, but in the end it seems to have become his impulse again.
He drew a backlash.
It is said that teachers should do their jobs well and should not worry about business.
It is said that doing education is not doing business.
What's more, he accused him of utilitarianism, saying that he only wanted a promotion and a raise.
This is a big failure, if it is given to the average person, it is estimated that they do not want to stay in school.
In real life, we, as employees, often criticize the new leaders who parachute into the company.
This time, we have great sympathy for the young man in the movie.
I especially want to see the next episode and see how he improves the situation next.
This is so because the creators are asking very credible questions at the beginning.
This problem cannot be solved by publicity, by teaching students social composition and norms, by relying on a sense of crisis, and by relying on commercial awareness.
It reflects the real situation faced by a reformer who is trying to reform.
To ask such a question, you must have solid research and serious observation of life.
We are often told that drama and everyday life are two different paths.
Many Japanese film and television works, on the other hand, can combine drama and everyday life well.
They do not rely on the theme to win, but through the setting of the big premise, the boring daily life also has the magic of addictive.
On the other hand, because they speak of everyday life in themselves, we feel that they are close to our lives.
What these works do, to put it simply, apply the laws of drama to life experience.
However, it may be more demanding than those films with explosive themes.
Because, if you want to make such a good work, you must understand the law well, but also understand life.
Text | Sweet Uncle