's new drama "Black Meow Knowing", recently launched on LINE TV, is the first Taiwanese drama based on "Pet Communication" in China.
Xie Zongchen, who served as the script writer for the first time, revealed that the time pressure in the writing process is the most painful. During the script writing period, I am afraid to hear the bird chirping. The bird chirping means that it is dawn, which means that I have not finished writing from early to night. . This pressure cannot be digested, because as soon as it drags on, the crew is delayed.
There are more than a hundred animal actors in "Black Meow Knowing". In addition to writing human lines, there are also animals, and there are changes in emotional personality. Xie Zongchen believes that the difficulty lies in the fact that each episode requires communication between animals and people, as well as communication between family members. If it is not well written, it will appear verbose and too routine. It is necessary to describe the emotional connection with sufficient detail. The first four episodes of
are very broken, because there are many things that cannot be balanced. He revealed that at the beginning, because the story was too simple to think about, especially the drama used a suspense main line to span the entire episode. He also hoped to use pets to communicate themes and use animal events to solve human problems. I naively thought it was okay, because if all incidents were solved by communicating with animal pets, it might be solved very quickly.
From writer to chief writer: Xie Zongchen’s rookie screenwriter development story
Xie Zongchen’s first attempt to write a script was "Recruit Diary". He bluntly said that he wanted to change his career as soon as he wrote, because the gap between what the school learned and the industry is a huge gap. Farewell.
"When writing a script in school, the teacher would want you to write some dialogues that will appear in your life. At that time, the TV station had to take into account the Hokkien market, and there would be some Taiwanese slang. I didn't understand it at the time and questioned whether the director really wanted this? Is it better to take pictures like this? Later, when he went to the south, he discovered that some elders really talked like this. At that time, it took about half a year to write, and Xie Zongchen slowly corrected some concepts, because the audience paid for the things that were questioned at the beginning. Then he wrote I joined the TV station as a producer for a while, and during that period he also produced an 8 o’clock series.
He described that the 8 o’clock position may be a distance from young people. After all, he hesitated at first, but after actually participating, he found that they had a very The complete formula-such as marriage must have an accident, or betrayed his wife with the mistress, looks happy and happy, but within a few episodes to make them suffer retribution-if you violate this formula, the audience will punish you with ratings .
I suddenly discovered that those strong plots did not violate Shakespeare . If you look carefully at the content of the eight-point file, it is included in every Shakespeare play, and it does not deviate from the essence of the drama. But he believes that the eight-point file script It is impossible to start a new screenwriter, because most of the protagonists in the drama have been in the society for a while, and the dialogues required are more realistic than expected. The screenwriters must have enough life experience, and if they are not in place, they will not be able to write about their lives. A verified thing. After working as a producer for two or three years at
, Xie Zongchen still couldn't calm his inner creative desire, so he returned to the screenwriting industry. But the anxiety of the screenwriter’s unstable life still exists, until this time in "Black Meow Knowing" Serving as the chief writer can be regarded as giving a little rain and clearing results in the anxiety. But the pressure of being the chief writer is directly facing the producer, broadcasting platform, director, etc. The pressure caused him to sometimes think about it in the half-dream and half-awake period. What to write, just jump up and sit at the table and start thinking hard.
The most important homework for screenwriters: self-internalization after Tian Tiao
The early Tian Tiao homework of "Black Meow Knowing" helped the script to a considerable extent. Xie Zongchen at that time In addition to pet communicators, the field survey subjects include veterinarians, legislator assistants (professional actor), etc. Among them, the field survey of veterinarians made him discover the unknown hardships of veterinarians, including the need for them to stay late at night after closing business every day. I went to the veterinary hospital for three days to go to the veterinary hospital for further studies and classes. "I was so tired that I had to go to the veterinary hospital to see their work and rest. The doctors never sat down. I went to the clinic at 11 o'clock, and when I closed at noon, it might be the doctor’s operation time. Surgery. After that, I went to see the doctor all the way to 9 pm, and I never saw the doctor sitting down to eat. The target of
's field adjustment is a small veterinary hospital, which is different from the large veterinary hospital with a shift system, so their work and rest are not pulling down the iron gate. It is over afterwards, because the follow-up will continue to observe the hospitalized animals. When I get home, it will be almost 11 o’clock. Sometimes I am worried about the hospitalized animals in the middle of the night.I got up and ran to the animal hospital to see the hospitalized animals, and went home at 4 or 5 o'clock and went to bed again. Although this process is transformed into the plot, there are different interpretations, but the love and hard work of veterinarians can still be seen in their lives in the play.
Another highlight of the show is to let the animals speak. Animal characters have to develop their lines with different personalities. In the past, the well-known "Weird Doctor Dolittle" treats animals as adults and talks directly, but after these animals speak, how much can they keep? Animal feeling? There is also a very literary way, in which the animal does not speak, and the subtitles are on the side. It is very Japanese, but this will not fully present the original intention of the play.
"Black Meow Knowing" expects to integrate the rhythm of entertainment and the fun of life, so it needs to be adjusted from the growth background of the animals themselves in the play. For example, the guinea pig in the play is a mixture of Mandarin and Taiwanese. Xie Zongchen said that it was originally a guinea pig from Grandpa’s grandmother’s family and was later adopted by Lian Yu Han. However, in the play, Lian Yu Han is a pet communicator, knowing that guinea pigs will be afraid in a new environment. It missed the 8 o'clock Taiwanese stand with grandpa and grandma while eating snacks at 8 o'clock every night, so she watched it with her after adoption, so this paragraph added a lovely Taiwanese dialogue.
However, animal speeches still have to meet the expectations of the audience. If you want to see cute cats speak cute words, you can't be an adult or Korean drama-style dubbing. Director Chen Baozhong said that there were twists and turns in the late dubbing of the crew. At the beginning, a lot of professional voice actors were recruited. However, too professional voice actors came with a sense of unnaturalness. It would be weird to see a dog speak Korean drama style. Come here many times. For example, in the play, the Golden Retriever must be a child and not be naive. Finally, an 11-year-old child was found to be the voice.
Reflecting on the value of life from life and death
Although "Black Meow Knowing" focuses on pet communication, it is still controversial in the thinking stage, but the screenwriter Xie Zongchen hopes that people who do not believe in pet communication can at least watch this show. We must know that animals have their own inner world, and we must find ways to make them comfortable.
For example, when he was working with pet communicators to make air conditioners, he learned that communicators are mostly vegetarian. They dare not pass the seafood shop. As long as they pass by, he will hear howling because the aquarium is full of creatures to be slaughtered. He puts this state of mind into the play, so that the actor will be served with a live jumping shrimp at a certain meal, making him seem to hear the cry of shrimp. In addition to adding interest to this scene, it is also a reflection on the value of life.
In addition, the play inevitably talks about life and death. The director sets the tone of the play not to be too heavy, and try to maintain a positive tone, but the audience will inevitably project the story's emotions into realistic sadness. The screenwriter Xie Zongchen believes that modern people will put all their emotions on their pets, thinking that only pets need him and stay with him for a lifetime, so they will be completely unacceptable after pets are gone.
After the pet is gone, how do people deal with this emotion? Xie Zongchen frankly, in the process of screenwriting, this emotional advancement is the most difficult to deal with. The pet communicator may be just a medium. Xie Zongchen hopes to remind viewers who love animals through "Black Meow Knowing" that after love is let go, it can still stay in mind forever. This is also a rare lesson he learned while writing the script.
