The Paper's reporter Yang Kaiting
Director Zhou Nan and screenwriter Zhai Yiwei are friends who have known each other for many years, in 2016, Zhai Yiwei told Zhou Nan that he had a particularly fun and experimental project in hand, and wanted to cooperate with him, Zhou Nan happily agreed, "For me to try new volumes, new themes are a very fun thing." This led to the later "My Babylonian Lover".
The web drama "My Babylonian Lover" is a project with a unique temperament, and the crazy "sand sculpture" comedy shell wraps a bitter female growth story with a core. No matter from the theme, content, tone, lineup and other aspects, it is currently a relatively rare work in small and medium-sized domestic dramas.
Poster of My Babylonian Lover
Zhou Nan thinks that he is a nitpicking person, such as making a ppt, maybe he will get up countless times in one night to change, this place page number is not proofread, the font in that place feels not good, here is a serif or no serif is better... So in the whole process of creation of the work, Zhou Nan is also obsessed with details, "Sometimes I will be asked: Is it necessary for you to make this thing?" Are you going to put your energy in the wrong place? But my own creative inspiration and confidence come from these details. ”
At the beginning of the project, the key word Zhou Nan got was to do a "sex comedy", but after several iterations of the script, to the official preparation, it was completely different from the initial idea. Before the original idea of doing "sex comedy" was abandoned, the original story had attracted Feng Xiaoyue to participate, and the creators also hoped to retain the triangular character relationship of the previous group of "princes and princesses and ordinary girls", at this moment, Zhou Nanqi's strange and strange ideas, one after another, were all born from small points:
"We wondered if we could be a half-blood prince." I thought that I have a good friend, she has liked Jay Chou since she was a child, I thought, or we will be a not very reliable prince, called Sima Jaylen, and later become Murong Jaylen, then Murong Jay lun has a good friend called Ouyang Wenshan, forming a pair of 'Bi people'. When I had Jaylen and Wenshan, I remembered the lyrics in the first Jay Chou song that my friend recommended me to listen to. So I slapped my head on the door and I said do we want to be a babylonian prince who crossed over to the present day? ”
My Babylonian Lovers character relationship diagram
Then, in the process of creation, the team found that everyone almost had a common memory: "Who didn't write a novel when they were young, and who didn't have shame in writing a novel when they were a child?" Like those stall literatures, it is mixed with a very crude, yet very pure, understanding of love and desire in our youth. Finally, the prototype of "My Babylonian Lover" was formed—the novel "The Shame of Secondary Two", written at the age of 12, became a reality when he grew up: the ancient Babylonian prince came to the side of the ordinary city girl.
Let the "fairy tale" fall into the "city well"
But how does this wild story land? The content and characters involving ancient Babylon are convincingly executed and are crucial. In this regard, Zhou Nan believes that director Chen Guofu, the helmsman of the producer Gongfu Pictures, has given great help to this project. "What kind of form and length should ancient Babylon use to show, Chen Dao will ask, is your ancient Babylon going to be filmed?" What were your ancient Babylonians like? ”
In this regard, Zhou Nan had preliminary thoughts in his heart, and the character Jiang Huizhen in the play was set as a Sichuan opera actor, "I thought at that time, in a very staged way, the content of ancient Babylon was put on the stage in an abstract and very stylistic way. "And this way, of course, is not as immersive as it is presented in the real scene." Director Chen encourages us, you just do the real ancient Babylon. ”
"My Babylonian Lover" was a photo, when the title of the play was "Ai before the Western Yuan"
Zhou Nan suddenly opened up and decided to "try his best to save money and save the money to do the ancient Babylon part as much as we can, to be acceptable and convincing enough to enhance the overall tone and texture of a medium-sized project." He said of one thing he had learned in Japan before: there is a lot of real estate in Japan, and the apartments on the four corners of a building are particularly expensive, but the house in the middle of the first floor is cheap, "Its business logic is actually to use the expensive apartments with particularly good scenery on the four corners to subsidize the ordinary houses in the middle, so ordinary income families can also buy the houses they want, and the rich people buy the 'luxury goods' on the corners." I think this is a business model worth referencing. ”
Stills from "My Babylonian Lover", Feng Xiaoyue as Murong Jaylen, Bu Guanjin as Chen Meiru
And Chen Guofu also raised a question: What do the ancient Babylonian characters in the play say in dialogue, do they speak English? Zhou Nan went to check the language of ancient Babylon and found that there were scholars who studied ancient Babylonian Akkadine. "I also paid a little attention to the following two points: first, whether Akkadian has a large tongue tone and a small tongue tone, because many actors cannot pronounce this sound without systematic training; second, whether Akkadian can fully meet our line translation needs. After finding that there was no problem, we were lucky to find a scholar at Peking University who studied the civilization and language of the Two Rivers Valley, and had the honor of inviting him to translate lines and train actors for us. Thus, in this seemingly "absurd" story, every "ancient Babylonian language" heard by the audience is translated and proofread by experts, and the real Akkadian is authentic.
When he was a child, Zhou Nan's parents let him read a lot of classical poetry, which he believed helped him develop his visual and visual imagination. "Classical poetry, in a sense, uses the shortest words to describe a visual mood to a greater or lesser extent. This gives me a lot of precise possibilities for imagining images, spaces, or situations in which a story takes place. ”
"My Babylonian Lover" is mainly filmed in Chongqing. In Zhou Nan's view, the city of Chongqing itself has a mottled and urban side, but also has a magical and dramatic side, which can provide an interesting texture for the story. "If you think of an ancient Babylonian prince, in the city of Chongqing, doing something, there will be a wonderful conflict. If we change our thinking, the story takes place in the north, Shanghai and Guangzhou, although it looks bright and beautiful, but it lacks the kind of thing that is very original and very strange, it is difficult to form, a contradictory effect between China's urban culture and ancient Babylonian civilization. When the ancient Babylonians came to reality, it was already far from the audience, and if we were to give another fantastic modern city, it would be too far away. ”
Stills from "My Babylonian Lover", chongqing's city well
The bitter kernel comes from "digging the heart"
"Many years ago, I met a Hollywood movie veteran who, after watching some of my short films, said something that had a big impact on my future, and he said that he found that all my comedies were particularly sad." This made Zhou Nan reflect on his own creation. "All the comedies I make contain some sad emotions that may be self-pity, maybe pity for others." And in "My Babylonian Lover", this sadness is also reflected.
"The 12-year-old self healed the 24-year-old self with a pure and beautiful love vision, which is no problem, but we need to find: Why do we need to be cured? What kind of trauma did she suffer? What are the details of the trauma? And these details should be constructed solid enough, Zhou Nan believes, mainly relying on the screenwriter to "dig out the nest."
"I know the screenwriter very well, and I know that many of these words are a kind of view and emotion about the world that trickles through her heart, and she just holds them out without reservation." Although the story is about the trauma suffered by a little girl growing up, but as a male Zhou Nan was also deeply moved, the script has been revised several times, Zhou Nan said that once on the way to the location, he received a scene from the screenwriter, when he was climbing the mountain, but looking at the script on the mobile phone, it made him cry, so he cried and said to the screenwriter: "What if I cry so much that I can't climb the mountain now?" ”
The young actors of "My Babylonian Lovers" are from the Weibo of the same name by zhu Mo, the producer of the show
The concept of "luxury subsidy necessities" in the front, Zhou Nan feels that it can also be used in script creation, "Each of our life experiences is too limited, I don't know how many times a creator can pluck out his heart and lungs in a lifetime, but I think every 'digging' is a very luxurious part of the work." Although I am a man, I am still touched by the female stories written by the screenwriters, and I feel that every word pokes into my heart. "Zhou Nan believes that it is precisely because the screenwriter provided such a good text that the whole crew invested all their time and energy to do this story without hesitation." It's not just a 'luxury', it's like a gamble, the screenwriter comes up with a 'luxury' to put on it, of course we have to press on another 'luxury'. ”
For the cooperation between the director and the screenwriter, Zhou Nan admitted that in the creative process, there will definitely be countless conflicts between the two. "Maybe as a screenwriter, he or she thinks that my words have conveyed everything I want to convey, but the director may not feel enough, or the two will feel the same way in turn: the director thinks I have made your script well, but the screenwriter thinks you are shooting something?" 」 Zhou Nan believes that in order to reach a tacit understanding between the two, they need to consider clearly together: in the process of transforming from text to image, what are the things that are inherited in the same vein and which are left behind and which are abandoned? And what do those that are abandoned are left behind for the better?
Stills from My Babylonian Lover
"There is a concept in the translation industry called 'Sinyada', and I think the process of the director shooting a script is also a kind of 'translation' process. It must be able to help two culturally isolated people to establish the deepest connection. In other words, the connection between the screenwriter and the audience, the connection between the screenwriter and the actor, the connection between the screenwriter and the whole crew are all established by the director, in a sense, the director is a 'translator', is a technical work, so how do we use the cost controllable situation, with the 'Xinyada' way, to achieve this thing? What the director has to do is first of all to respect and understand the screenwriter enough, and in turn, of course, I also hope that the screenwriter can understand the director, because the director sometimes, of course, hopes to find his own expression in a story, if the director in the story, do not complete an expression that he agrees with, I think it may just be a job. ”
When the director goes looking for "expression", he does not say "hiding private goods", "because sometimes I just need to find a sense of resonance." But in the process, on the one hand, the director has to convince the screenwriter, convince the actors, and then use the story with everyone to "convince" the audience, Zhou Nan said, "In this process, in fact, I also look forward to the understanding of the screenwriter, and even the screenwriter is a little more hardworking, because sometimes 'this play can not be rewritten', these words are really difficult to say, but once we say it, it is indeed because we have to use the smallest sacrifice in exchange for the greatest victory." ”
Comedy is a bridge of communication
In 2011, Zhou Nan won the championship in a "Young Director's Talent Show" variety show called "I Want to Make a Movie" broadcast by Hunan Satellite TV, when he showed his talent for creating comedy content in several short films created in the program for a limited time.
Zhou Nan said that his father is a person with a special sense of humor, "He likes to tell jokes, the whole family likes him very much, so I will feel that having a sense of humor is a very worthy of emulation, a very worthy of respect, to make others happy, but also a very meaningful thing." 」 So since that time, I've always wanted to be an interesting person. Including when participating in the competition, why all of them do comedy, it is also for this reason. I found that comedy is something I make a living for. ”
In "My Babylonian Lover", Zhou Nan almost gave full play to his comedic talent, "and colleagues from the screenwriter, actors, editing and the whole creative production, have helped me to create a little bit of comedy, especially well protected." ”
Zhou Nan believes that in the process of comedy creation, different directors' understanding of comedy will be subtlely different, comedy also has its own diverse classification, for actors, comedy creation is a relatively painful search process. "Because to ensure a lot of small sense of rhythm, a lot of subtle specificity is not accurate enough." As a comedy, the director will give the actor a lot of unconventional performance guidance, and the actor basically cannot express it with his own experience. ”
In addition, comedy performances also require actors to let go of their habitual states and ways. "For example, Feng Xiaoyue, when he was shooting on the spot, he has found the state of the 'big dog' that many netizens discussed, he gave us a very good performance foundation, at this time as a director, I am just doing something icing on the cake; like Bu Guanjin, she also completely disregards her own image in this play, and only considers whether the performance has found the fulcrum." At this point, I am grateful that the actors have so much trust in me that I can play more in comedy. ”
Zhou Nan also mentioned that before this play, all the comedies he made were edited by himself, "but this is the first time I feel that the editing teacher cut it out, better than my own cut, because we met Liu Yongjie, a very good editor, who once again improved the concentration and tone of our comedy part during the editing process." ”
"Comedy sometimes has to be put in front of the audience, and you know it's funny or not." Zhou Nan said, "Moreover, a person calmly watches in front of the screen, a person opens the bullet screen to watch, a group of people watch around the screen, a group of people are locked in the theater to watch, different viewing scenes, everyone's threshold for comedy feelings is also different." Sometimes the slightest difference can also make the accuracy of the comedy inaccurate. Luckily, the audience was very protective of us, and they looked at this somewhat experimental work with a good expectation. ”
"Comedy is not only a genre, but also an element, and it should serve more genres." Zhou Nan said, "For example, spy dramas and romance films will also have fun comedy elements, and even horror movies can be done with comedy." Comedy, in fact, is a bridge that establishes a deep connection between the audience and the film, it will make you let down your guard, let you accept a story with a lot of goodwill, and actively understand what the author wants to convey. ”
For "My Babylonian Lover", Zhou Nan said: "From every creative production link to the audience's understanding and acceptance, it's like, I threw a small stone into the water, then I heard a clear sound, I saw a circle of beautiful ripples, and finally I saw it fall to the bottom of the clear lake, everything is in line with what I expected, which is the luck of the comedy creator." ”
Editor-in-Charge: Zhang Zhe
Proofreader: Luan Meng