Embrace the artist.
Author | Bobby (Beijing)
In January 2023, "The Three-Body Problem" was launched on Tencent Video, which was like a thunder, stimulating the entire drama market.
For the public, domestic dramas have long been a traffic chaser. Although there are occasional masterpieces, they are more often used as fast-selling electronic mustard products. For a masterpiece like "The Three-Body Problem", it makes more sense to have it produced by an overseas platform like Netflix.
looks back at this year after 2023 ends. The high reputation of "The Three-Body Problem" has greatly changed the public's stereotypes. After "The Three-Body Problem", high-quality drama series such as "The Long Season", "Happy Face" and "Under the City" appeared one after another, running through Tencent Video throughout the year of broadcast.
These works have been carefully crafted, and some even have certain literary value and humanistic care, bringing more content possibilities to the drama market. The explosive growth of
premium products did not happen overnight, but was the result of Tencent Video’s long-term embrace of industry craftsmen and encouraging them to innovate. More and more craftsmen are coming to Tencent Video and producing more groundbreaking dramas in the open environment provided by the platform.
In the past year, Tencent Video has been using various methods to express the platform’s respect and support for these craftsmen. In the tribute video at the end of the year, the platform chose to change the lens and focus on the craftsmen standing behind the screen. In 2013, they jointly wrote the "key frame" of the high-quality drama series.
1. Tribute and go to
"I would like to dedicate this film to every craftsman who loves images!"
Tencent TV series
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In Tencent Video's annual tribute video, the curtain slowly opened, and familiar scenes appeared one after another. The work appears before the audience. The camera extends back to the many creators of the work. The final conclusion is a tribute to "people".
provides an overview of the craftsmen who appear in the video, covering multiple types of work in the production of the series. In addition to directors and producers who are more familiar to the public and are easier to come to the front desk, they also include screenwriters, photography directors, art directors, composers, editing directors, styling directors and other jobs behind the scenes.
Some of these craftsmen are cutting-edge forces in the industry. For example, Qin Zhen, the chief director of "Sauvignon Blanc", has studied abroad for many years and has a deep understanding of the industrialization process. "Sauvignon Blanc" is her first time to control the structure and world view of such a huge project. Liu Fang, the chief screenwriter of "The Hidden God", has emerged in recent years and has written many scripts for hit dramas.
Some are experienced industry seniors. Hou Yunyi, the styling director of "Legend of the Magpie Sword", served as the stylist of "Emperor of Hanwu" as early as 2005.
Many of them have experience outside of the series. Zhu Wenjiu, the chief producer of "Return to the Ruins of the South China Sea", has served as the producer of film masterpieces such as "The Eight Hundred" and "King Kong River". Su Zhaobin, the chief director and screenwriter of "Jade Gate", rose to fame in 2000 with "The Love of the Hand" and was regarded as a talented screenwriter.
The drama series created by these craftsmen cover a variety of themes such as science fiction, suspense, costume, urban, medical, and the Republic of China. These works either avoid the hottest market themes, or innovate in genre fields, or choose storytelling methods that go against user inertia, but they have all gained good reputations in the past year.
These craftsmen all have one thing in common, which is the craftsmanship of their works.
When filming the scene on the ice of Shichahai in "The Sea in Dreams", chief producer and art director Yang Xiaopei insisted on real shooting, because this can bring a visual sense that is far superior to that created in a studio. Before the filming of "The Long Season" started, director Xin Shuang told the crew to look for a corn field in Yunnan. In the end, the crew bought a large piece of land in Xishuangbanna and planted corn in advance.
This is also indispensable for Tencent Video’s support for these craftsmen. After the two-episode script of "Happy Face" was written by the chief screenwriter and director Xu Bing, the feedback was not optimistic about the market prospects, so it was shelved for seven or eight months. It was not until the producers of Tencent Video saw the unique style in it that they A more complete story will follow.
As for the long preparation period for "The Three-Body Problem", chief producer Bai Yicong hardly heard any requirements from the platform in terms of commercial returns. The addition of
craftsmen increases the platform’s confidence in the work. Tencent Video was originally cautious about development because it could not find a historical benchmark for "The Long Season". But after Xin Shuang joined, the platform gave the project enough patience. This also promoted the birth of an atypical suspense drama.
It is this two-way rush that has brought many craftsmen to Tencent Video, and finally presented a drama market that will bloom in 2023.
2. Anti-typing
Full typing is the prerequisite for the development of dramas in recent years, and it is also the framework that restricts the innovation of dramas in recent years.
Too many creators dare not step out of the safe zone of creation. Outside the safe zone are non-mainstream drama types and unconventional creative grammar. The formulaic production of the series has turned a lot of content into a collection of routines. Such works are like retail products in supermarkets, with fixed labels and shelf life. Once time passes, they disappear from the shelves.
The craftsmen who came to Tencent Video brought more anti-type and new type attempts.
"Three-Body Problem" represents a completely new and dangerous type, with no precedent in China. When the producers were looking for a director, they thought that they must have a certain foundation in special effects, a very good realism approach, and be a fan of the original work. Finally, they found director Yang Lei. He and his team spent seven years polishing it repeatedly, and this resulted in the release of this hard-core science fiction series.
There is no doubt that the extremely high degree of completion of "The Three-Body Problem" is an important milestone for the industrial development of the series and the breakthrough of hard-core science fiction series from 0 to 1.
Entering a new genre is undoubtedly an adventure, but challenging the audience's viewing habits in existing genres also requires the creative awareness and courage of the creator.
Xin Shuang's works have always had a distinctive label. In "The Long Season", he once again showed his transcendence of the suspense genre, changing the focus of the narrative from solving cases in the past to telling the story of the people behind a murder case. relation.
In the past few years, the explosion of suspense films has certainly raised the level of the genre, but it has also caused the audience’s understanding of suspense films to be framed by several hit works. "The Long Season" has undoubtedly expanded the narrative space for domestic suspense films. The
anti-type is a systematic project. It requires both a change of perspective and a change of grammar. Ding Ke, the composer of "The Long Season", has composed 12 completely different titles of music in the 12 episodes. The change in music style makes the work more unique. "Three-Body" music director and composer Chen Xueran also incorporated a variety of styles in the ost.
Du Yuan, the editing director of "Good Things Come in Twos", has worked with Zhang Yimou for more than 20 years, and has served as editor of films such as "Red Sorghum", "Raise the Red Lantern", "Alive", and "Speak Well". In "Good Things Come Two", an unusual urban drama, the editing style she incorporated accelerated the drama's reversals and ups and downs.
3. The industrialization of people
In the past few years, the drama industry has tried to move from an extensive stage to a more intensive stage. Many works have been praised by social platforms for their details, and have gained reputation and popularity as a result. However, the industrialization level of domestic drama series has not improved rapidly. A producer of a fairy tale drama once told "New Voice Pro" that he will still face many of the same problems as five years ago. The core of
industrialization still lies in people. Only when people in the system carve out more details can we produce works that are recognized by the "textual research party".
The most outstanding breakthrough in industrialization this year is undoubtedly "The Three-Body Problem". Because of its magnificent imagination, science fiction films have extremely high requirements for creation. After visual director Lu Beike learned that he was going to shoot "The Three-Body Problem", he first wrote a 20,000-word shooting strategy and technical analysis.When
restored the highlight of "Operation Guzheng", it involved a lot of imagination about future technology, which had no reference in reality or in film and television dramas. In the end, he cooperated with the team, consulted the opinions of scientific researchers in the early stage, and used computers to conduct simulations. We also scouted locations everywhere, and finally completed this 25-minute highlight with 23 days of shooting and 2 years of post-production.
Tian Liangliang, the chief screenwriter of "The Three-Body Problem", has invested in the script creation for four or five years. What is finally shown in the series may only be one-tenth of what he and his team prepared in the early stage. But he believes that this character can be believable only if nine-tenths of it is understood.
Costume dramas are mature genres that test the most industrialization capabilities.
After reading the script, Chen Mingyuan, the art director of "Under the City", made a ppt of more than 300 pages to explain his understanding of the script and the planning of the world view. He proposed to create a realistic feel like "Along the River During the Qingming Festival", while at the same time weakening the feminine temperament and adding some Chinese suspense. The team of
had a month of historical research time before the shooting started. He made a special trip to scan many ancient building models and tried his best to ensure that they did not violate the rules. In the end, this work presents a more textured version of a small Jiangnan town called "Ji County" in the 37th year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty.
The difficulty of costume dramas lies in restoring the world of yesterday, while realist themes require in-depth investigation and exploration into life. Professional dramas, in particular, are almost the weakest link in China’s film and television industry that is most likely to reveal flaws. Before the start of the
medical drama "Ask the Heart", director Li Zhi led his team to organize and summarize dozens of medical cases and stories, and discussed them face to face with medical consultants. Later, the crew was divided into several teams and went to the hospital for on-the-spot observation and learning. During the filming process, I also kept in contact with the medical consultant.
The efforts of these craftsmen are also contributing to the development of the industrial system. When every piece of fine carving is put down, a new aesthetic standard is established in the hearts of the audience, and it also brings more methodologies for refinement to the platform.
4. Humanistic Feelings
Before filming the period drama "Glory of Our Fathers", director Kang Honglei led the show's creators to read the script intensively for nearly four months. He believed that screenwriter Zhao Dongling's script had great literary value and humanistic feelings, and the main creator A deep understanding of it is very necessary.
The drama series must express something in order for it to not be a fast-selling product. The craftsmen behind the series are key to injecting soul into the story. The so-called literary value and humanistic sentiment are the result of the creator integrating self-thinking and social concerns into the content of the drama.
Humanistic care must first be based on the present. Yue Yang, the chief producer of "Hometown, Goodbye", based the story on young people aged 24 to 35. Behind these people are the epitome of hundreds of millions of Chinese families. She hopes that these stories express more universal human feelings and the sophistication of the world, and that it is not easy to live in a foreign land. Hometown is not a paradise to live in. Lying down and involuting cannot cover the mentality of today's youth. The expression of
comes from the present, and it is not a simple pandering to public expression. This is probably the key to this life-stream work being loved by young people.
These expressions sometimes come from history. When writing the script of "Happy Face", Xu Bing framed the story as a story of a young man's rapid growth within one month. The teenagers in the road movies of the Republic of China contain an understanding of modern times: in that era, pursuing one's ideals was a "cool" thing. The character Yu Yixiu introduces thoughts on China's thousand-year clan society.
These all go beyond the simple paradigm of the red theme in the past. History is not a restoration of one thing or one person, but a concentration of deeper social forces. They collide in a specific time and space and complete their self-expression.
"The Long Season" is a climax expression of the Northeast Renaissance in recent years. This play imitates the fate, destiny and will of people in the changing times, and the literary nature in it contains the power of transcending space.
In order to express this power, director of photography Chao Ming tried to use different combinations of lens and light sources to express the different eras of the characters, and used some clever transitions to connect the plot and the fate of the characters. The changes in light and shadow construct different eras, and also give the audience a real sense of time and space jumping. The
drama series is an abstraction of a certain moment, but when the audience decodes the work, the content has a "resonant snap" in current life.
The craftsmen we mentioned above are only representatives of the past year. In their teams, there are more artists who have devoted their experience, hard work and aesthetics to excellent works. Their work is divided into categories and constitutes a content as a whole. These craftsmen have struck countless "snaps of resonance" with the audience and the platform. It is their love for content that allowed the drama market last year to have these gorgeous moments, which point to a deeper life and a more distant yearning.
Only these can transcend cycles and remain in the hearts of the public for a long time.
