How to produce professional, real workplace dramas that can resonate emotionally with ordinary audiences has been a topic that countless directors and screenwriters have painstakingly considered. A reporter from the Beijing News interviewed the creators of workplace dramas such as "City Within the City", "Fearless", " Ask the Heart ", " Surgery Live Room ", etc., and tried to uncover the production methodology of high-quality workplace dramas. They found that no matter which category they focus on, Industry, regardless of whether the workplace is the core of the narrative, the drama creator's awe of the reality of life, respect and empathy for human nature are the eternal fulcrum of this type of work.
Don't "shoot on the forehead" when it comes to industry dramas. You can't figure it out at home.
"You can't figure it out at home." Zhou Yifei, the screenwriter of "Ask the Heart" summed it up this way. Any theme creation is inseparable from long-term and large-scale on-site interviews, and workplace dramas derived from life require "practice to produce true knowledge."
Jin Shijia starred in "Ask the Heart".
"Ask the Heart" tells the story of three cardiologists who had friction and collision due to their different professional backgrounds and professional philosophies. However, in the process of treating diseases and saving lives, they gradually got along and reached a tacit understanding, and finally fought side by side on the battlefield of life. This is Zhou Yifei's first time to challenge a medical subject. Before that, she had no medical foundation at all and read a lot of professional books. More importantly, she needed to go to the hospital to experience the real life of a doctor. During the creation of the script, she went to many hospitals to collect information for several months. On the one hand, she observed the working status of doctors and nurses, and the real doctor-patient relationship in the hospital. On the other hand, she adapted it into a dramatic story by referring to real cases and conditions.
Zhou Yifei still remembers that on the first day she went to the hospital, she attended the doctor's shift meeting and then went with the doctor for ward rounds. At first, she used every opportunity to ask and answer questions, but some doctors were willing to chat more, while others were relatively aloof. Until one day, Zhou Yifei interviewed a director of the pediatric cardiology department, and he said: "We have a doctor's party tonight, will you go with us?" That night's party included doctors and staff from major hospitals in Shanghai, including medical staff. Office, social work department, and hospital office. "At that time, I discovered that the content of serious questions in the hospital was different from what they talked about in a relaxed state." These can only be captured by the screenwriter who actually goes to the scene and enters their lives.
It is reported that many professional screenwriters will ask for on-site interviews for six months to one year after receiving invitations to work on workplace themes. Even if the production cycle is tight like " County Party Committee Courtyard ", screenwriter Wang Xiaoqiang went to a county party committee compound in Jiangxi to experience it for half a year. Speaking of "experience", considering the particularity of the work, Wang Xiaoqiang flexibly assists grassroots cadres and observes their work process, but taking this opportunity is enough to fully understand all the work details and processes in the county party committee compound. . "The greatest advantage of experiencing life is to break the imagination and return to reality." Wang Xiaoqiang gave an example. Many people imagine that grassroots cadres are wearing serious shirts, sitting there reading manuscripts and making speeches; or building roads in the village and going over to provide guidance. Work. But during those six months, Wang Xiaoqiang attended meetings with grassroots cadres every day and observed them receiving petitions from villagers; after get off work, he also chatted with the cadres. For example, the grassroots cadre Mei Xiaoge played by Hu Ge in the play is partly based on a real cadre Wang Xiaoqiang met. He has a very charming personality. From receiving petitions from the masses to doing everything big and small, he is always hands-on. He has a smile and is very approachable. People are very willing to communicate with him, and many things can be solved easily. In the play, the wife of a township cadre called to "scold" him for not taking his antihypertensive medication. This detail also comes from Wang Xiaoqiang's real experience. "During the time when I was experiencing life, the county was busy with flood control, and it rained continuously for more than ten days when I first went there. On the other hand, it happened to be summer, and there were a lot of drowning incidents in the south at this time. The county We must do a good job in safety at all times. When these things are combined, I have personally seen that many grassroots cadres are working day and night. Sometimes they have family problems, and the elderly are unable to go home for many years. It is inevitable that family members will be unhappy at times.These details are all intended to break the outside world's impression of grassroots cadres as serious and serious, and make them more down-to-earth and real. "In Wang Xiaoqiang's view, writing about a career is a long-term process, and it cannot be written with a slap on the forehead.
But if you really go into the workplace to collect stories, will you be able to write a workplace drama well? The answer does not seem to be the case. For example Under the influence of European and American workplace dramas, in recent years, most domestic workplace dramas have adopted a narrative structure of "main thread running through and multiple events running in parallel", laying out as many typical events in the industry as possible, and a large amount of real materials and observations accumulated in the early stage. How to combine knowledge and professional accumulation with drama to achieve empathy and emotional resonance with the general public, and how to avoid the threshold of preaching. This further tests the creator's understanding of the workplace and his keen insight into public sentiment.
Starring Dai Xu. "Surgery Live Room".
For example, the original author of "Surgery Live Room", Zhenxiong Chumo, is a doctor. His original work has provided a large number of real and distinctive surgical cases, and the original intention of this drama is to relieve pain. The contradiction between doctors and patients provides the public with a channel to understand doctors, hospitals, and medicine. "There is a 'wall' between medicine and ordinary people. Most people can only perceive diseases and treatments from the role of patients or patients' family members, which will naturally occur. Many deviations and misunderstandings. "So in the end, the play's screenwriter Shi Shi Que chose more cases that were closely related to people's daily lives, such as lipstick poisoning, weight loss leading to dream eating syndrome, tongue stuck in a drink bottle, etc.
In the adaptation of case stories, Shi Shi Que We also hope to be "down-to-earth", for example, a cancer patient is ruthlessly abandoned by her husband, an elder brother runs a food delivery service to help his younger brother go to college, an internet celebrity anchor commits suicide and takes risks, an old man who loses his only child insists on having a second child at an advanced age... even if the first episode has a catchy sentence. There have been real news reports about people being stabbed while walking their dogs without a leash. In Shiquque’s view, hospitals are a microcosm of society. Patients come to the hospital not only for physical pain, but also for mental illness. "Sometimes to heal, often to help, always to comfort, that's what health care workers are all about. "
Expert consultants check that the reality of the environment is the basis for the reality of the characters
In fact, whether it is medical, legal, cultural tourism, or media, it is difficult for any industry to be completely understood by screenwriters after a few months of "experience", so The presence of professionals and the construction of real scenes are essential external blessings.
For example, there are more than 50 medical consultants for the script of "Ask the Heart", and there are three general consultants who accompany the show from launch to completion. They are senior directors of tertiary tertiary hospitals. They reviewed the script outline and final draft, including every word of the flying pages during the filming period. "Surgery Live", which has a large number of professional surgical scenes, also invited many people from tertiary hospitals in Beijing. Professional doctors serve as medical directors. According to Qiu Zhongwei, the director of the show, the show has also set up a special "medical coordinator" position to coordinate the communication between various departments of the crew and medical directors, such as the costume department is responsible for the clothing format, and the props department is responsible for the medical equipment. Special props are responsible for the production of internal organs and models of conjoined twins, ranging from hospitalization orders to C-arms used for intervention. Everything must be carefully confirmed with the medical director. "We will mention it according to the content of the operation. The department found corresponding experts who came to the scene to guide the actors in the dismantling of each surgical procedure. Therefore, there are 11 medical directors on site every day when there are most of them, and there are three medical directors who assist us in completing the work when there are few. "
Legal drama "Fearless" In order to ensure the authenticity of the stories and cases in the drama, the screenwriter Zhao Dongling asked the producer to hire a professional team of legal consultants during the creation stage. In the drama, every case is as big as every case, and every line is as small as every line. They were all adjusted and approved by legal advisors. “Most of the cases were actually fought by two lawyers I know. Including the other party taking out an earphone in court, and the other party asked if it was a recording device. This is what my lawyer did. Scenarios like this are well documented. For example, when switching from a trainee lawyer to a full-time lawyer, we use the very professional term "transfer to practice"."
Reyza plays a lawyer who returns to work in "Fearless".
In the scene, the workplace scene is restored as much as possible, which not only provides the actors with a sense of immersion in the play, but also makes it easier for the audience to have a sense of reality. A sense of immersion. For example, "Police Honor" specially built a pyrotechnic Balihe Police Station, including various facilities such as the main building, auxiliary buildings, and playgrounds, as well as restaurants, barber shops, photo studios, residential buildings, etc. on the streets. The scene is very life-like. The play also uses a long shot at the beginning. There are people on the street corner, including people delivering food, cleaning up garbage, sending children to school, and people going to work. Then it is directly inserted into the police station. The story of Balihe Police Station unfolds in a steamy and highly textured life style. "The reality of the environment is the basis of the reality of the characters," said the director of the play Ding Hei "Police Honor" truly reproduces the life of the police station. Daily.
The folk rescue drama " Light Chaser " uses a "combination of reality and reality" to complete the rescue scenes. For example, during the earthquake rescue, the scenes inside the collapsed building were shot in a studio, while the collapse after the earthquake was in real scenes. Construction; In "Cave Rescue", on the one hand, the team went deep into the real mine to take some real scenes. On the other hand, the rescue scene in the cave was that the art team built a "cave" in the shed and used a real concrete machine to pour it into it. The actors climbed in and acted for a whole day. However, the water was turbid due to the mud, and the shooting effect was unclear. Afterwards, the actors reshot some scenes in a professional underwater studio. , just for the underwater rescue scene in a cave, the crew had to change three or four places to complete it.
“I don’t think levitation (in workplace dramas) can be solved in one work. What I pursue first is the reality of external form, such as space and environment. "Director Li Zhi said. Previously, many domestic medical dramas were too obsessed with the beauty of the picture, so that the walls and floors were so white that they could reflect light. However, in order to pursue a "daily feel", "Asking the Heart" built a "tertiary A hospital" in real life, including a consulting room. , offices, inpatient departments, intensive care units, etc., there are nearly 200 conventional mechanical equipment such as cranes, ventilators, micropumps, echocardiographs, anesthesia machines, and medical beds. We also rent or borrow ecmo (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), etc. Large-scale high-tech medical equipment, including hospital aisles, could have been made wider. Many large-scale mobile equipment and tracks would be more convenient for movement, and the camera could be stretched more. However, after interviewing all hospitals, Li Zhi found that the hospital aisles were not the same. It won’t be that wide, “Even if it’s inconvenient to shoot, we still have to retain authenticity. Including the hospital requiring everyone in the intensive care unit to wear masks and hats. Although this will prevent us from seeing the expressions on the actors' faces, in terms of the pursuit of authenticity, we would rather abandon the performance part. "
Behind the workplace are "people", which leads to deeper emotional resonance
Before the broadcast of "City Within a City", many works describing the financial industry did not have satisfactory broadcast results. Most of the reasons were: the elite characters were not grounded. The financial industry has high barriers to entry and it is difficult to empathize with ordinary people. "City Within a City" has the same bottleneck: the drama focuses on China's financial reform period from 2016 to 2018, when competition in the hinterland of urban financial circles continued, and banks supported small businesses. There are many difficulties when it comes to micro-enterprises, and incidents of malicious short-selling of private enterprises overseas occur one after another... "How do we write about industries that seem very close, but whose professionalism is far away, so that the audience can be interested in reading it? The idea of solving the problem still returns to 'people'." No matter what industry, the audience can understand it. " Director Teng Huatao said. In the end, he and the screenwriting team set the theme as "human nature hunting in the context of financial reform" - bank president Zhao Hui, representing the group of people who have the power to decide the flow of money; Xie Zhiyuan, Wu Xianlong The trust companies and real estate companies represented are "bad capital". After peeling off the cocoons, all the incidents surrounding banks and finance can actually be attributed to hunting and counter-hunting between bad capital and the power class, in which morality and counter-hunting are discussed. The boundaries of greed, the battle between emotion and law, the sophistication of human nature in financial wars, and the complex choices of human nature.
"City Within a City" tells the story of the game between the financial world and real estate developers, as well as the greed of human nature.
"When a person holds power, he will be passively involved in many human choices of 'rejecting' and 'not rejecting'. When making industry dramas, we must first think about how to shape this living person and establish a relationship between them and the audience. Contact. Our efforts to shape the reality of the industry are also to make this 'person' more credible," Teng Huatao believes.
In essence, the core of workplace dramas is not just to show another type of life sample. Under the realistic depiction, the fundamental of "de-suspension" is to provide a peek into the workplace perspective of human nature's struggle, hesitation, and reconciliation, allowing "people to "Showing real flesh and blood under the complex human sophistication.
For example, the reason why "Ask the Heart" chose to take place in the cardiology department, in Zhou Yifei's opinion, is because many conditions in the cardiology department are often sudden and more urgent, and patients and their families will always face such heavy topics as "life and death" , may involve the complexity of human nature and social ethics topics, and can truly reflect the diverse emotions of ordinary people in the current society, and lead the discussion of issues and emotional resonance to a wider and deeper level. Including the selection of cases, Zhou Yifei also tried his best to balance different ages, genders, and classes, including men and women, old and young; poor and rich, as well as children and fetuses. Different cases demonstrate different expression functions, involving family, love, friendship, and taking into account the emotional interaction between patients and doctors. Zhou Yifei said frankly that she did not want to write about a group of "sage doctors". When everyone has conflicts or contradictions, everyone has their own reasons. This is the real world.
Ding Hei, the director of "Police Honor", also believes that the characters in the play all have persistence in the police profession and recognition of police honor, but when it comes to each person, they have independent personalities, characteristics, and ambitions, " They must all be real people." The whole play begins with four young people entering the police industry, but it also includes the veteran police officers teaching their apprentices through words and deeds, and also includes the growth inspiration of young people who have experienced setbacks and tests to upgrade and fight monsters. "The police industry is considered to be the most important. It is a relatively special workplace, which will make the audience feel a certain sense of strangeness, but the confusion encountered by young people in the story is the same as that of today's young audiences, and it resonates." Ding Hei said that the relationship between the characters in "Police Honor" is also similar. It is very similar to workplace advancement, which includes promotions, changes, rewards, and punishments. "Everyone can treat these relationships positively, which becomes a good environment. Even if everyone has quarrels, everyone is focused on what to do." Do your job well, this kind of (workplace) relationship may be something that young audiences may aspire to and identify with.”
It is worth mentioning that nowadays more and more workplace dramas dare to take off the cloak of love and reduce the number of emotional scenes. This is also a way to get rid of creative shortcuts and turn drama into drama. The scales tip in favor of choices shaped by human nature. "For workplace dramas, current domestic creations are not very successful, including legal dramas. Often everyone's focus is not on lawyers' work, professional ethics, or the conflict between lawyers' professional ethics and general morality, but on the relationship between male lawyers and female lawyers. How do lawyers fall in love?" Zhao Dongling said bluntly. This is why, when "Fearless" was broadcast, even though the audience strongly expected the male and female protagonists to have emotional scenes, Zhao Dongling still greatly reduced the emotional advancement, and even the male protagonist did not confess his love until the ending, "I just want to discuss the lawyer." The growth of the industry, lawyers, and the professional confusion they encounter are too superficial. There are too many problems to deal with in life, and for the lawyer industry, the problems that lawyers have to deal with are far greater. Emotional issues are much deeper. "
Even though works such as "You Are My Fortress" and "Light Chaser" are originally based on love, the creators insist on not deviating from the main clue of the workplace and always surround the emotional drama. A workplace incident unfolds. For example, compared to the original work, "You Are My City Fortress" deliberately strengthens the career lines of the male and female protagonists, fills in many real cases about special police and medical treatment, and maximizes the professional beliefs and feelings of the two people about their family and country, making the two People know and love each other better because of their professional sympathy.The emotional lines of "Light Chaser" are also centered on public welfare rescue. For example, the heroine was trapped underwater during the underwater rescue process, and the hero searched anxiously. In the end, the two met their true love in adversity. "I think the foreshadowing of these emotional scenes is very real, it is not a bubble. We try not to use tricks or show off our skills when filming emotional scenes, so that not only the characters' emotions will grow in life, but also in the career line, so that the audience will Only then will they feel that their emotional scenes are real and natural," said Zhang Tong, the director of these two dramas.
Beijing News reporter Zhang He
editor Tong Na
proofreader Zhai Yongjun
