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For many viewers, it seems like yesterday's event for "Dream Pursuit Runner-up" and "Hao Shi Cheng Shuang". In the blink of an eye, " Annual Comedy Contest 2" (hereinafter referred to as "Er Xi") was launched The curtain opened. What really happened the day before yesterday was the end of the first stage qualifying competition for "Er Xi".
Over the past three weeks, with the return of the show, the joy of the audience has returned. In the first stage, there have been many interesting works: "Rehearsal Crazy Cloud", "Vulnerability in the Night", "Master and Me", "Paper Man", "Mama's Taste"... And behind them, you can also See some interesting changes.
In addition to sketches in the first season, mancai , etc., there are new forms of comedy on this stage: black dramas, puppet dramas; the map of comedians constructed by 25 comedy teams is also richer in layers: once took a bath The talk show actor of Boss Tang, the graduate from the Chinese puppet drama department, and the 30+ stage actresses with more than ten years of stage experience...
During this process, the Douban score of "Er Xi" reached 8.8, more than In the first quarter, it rose from 8.0 to 8.5, and the data performance is also quite eye-catching. From this dimension, the second season bottleneck experienced by many phenomenal IPs has been broken.
What makes people curious is, how did the production team start the second season in the face of the previous results? Why is it always Mi Wei who makes explosions?
With these questions, Entertainment Capital met Ma Dong in Mi Wei's office. He told us that after the end of the first season, the team took a long time to do the review, and everyone often cried in the meeting, "Because I didn't expect it to be so difficult to do comedy, the team paid a lot of money to light the lamp and boil the oil. The torment."
But there is no entanglement in continuing to do it. After releasing the exhaustion and emotions accumulated in the previous 9 months, they threw themselves into the preparations for the second season. Ma Dong recalled, "At that time, the 'empty cup' was repeatedly mentioned, and it was a difficult state to achieve." From the perspective of the production team, they did not want to be bound by the framework of the first season and its achievements.
At the same time, of course, there is no lack of consistent persistence. In Ma Dong's view, the most important point is to do warm comedy from the perspective of goodwill. He affirmed, "No matter how powerful comedy is without warmth, it is not our direction." This is beyond the scope of the "Annual Comedy Contest", and you should go to the World Contest." After reading a group of post-00s works, the flight president Na Ying said with emotion.
In addition, "Er Xi" made her feel that there are many new, unseen and fun moments. The main reason for this is that, as before, the second season also maintained the variety of comedy formats. In addition to sketches, comics, one-man shows, etc., there are new comedy types appearing here.
This is also what makes Ma Dong and the team feel gratified, "We still saw the comedy incident. Under the logic of co-creation, there is a feeling that there is a source of living water." " is a puppet show. When people saw this word in the past, their first reaction would think of a hand puppet that was performed on their hands, but the teacher of the puppet drama department explained that the real charm of puppet drama is that everything on the stage is lifeless. things into living characters. The main characters of "Paper Man" come from kraft paper, and other than that, any object or material may become a character through the hands of the actors.
Although there are works related to musicals in the first season, "The Best House" has found a more suitable presentation method for this stage. The style of its works is named "Songketch" by two actors Zhou Ke and Zhou Shiqi A combination of sketches.
Another example is the first issue of "National Games". In this work, the actors are constantly on and off the stage. There is no relationship between the bridges of each scene. The laughing point comes from the contrast between the performance and the narration. This super-short comedy form is called black drama,It is characterized by only making one bag at a time.
In addition to the form, the selection and expression of the content are also the keys to determining the quality of the work.
Judging from the feedback from the audience, the material and expression of the second season is one step closer to ordinary people. Looking back on the first season, there are many works in the show that focus on the cross-section of life. For example, the payment for the video website corresponding to "Internet Physical Examination" is a phenomenon that is commonly seen but not necessarily experienced in person.
And watching many works in the second season, the audience will have a feeling of "this is not playing me".
For example, "Rehearsal Crazy Cloud", most people will not experience the extreme situation of video rehearsal, but in the current era, online communication methods such as voice and video have become the norm, and they are more or less tortured by signal jams and interruptions. The setting of "Vulnerability in the Darkness" poked at the subtle emotions and mentality of the workers with the sunshine on the surface and emo behind the scenes.
At the same time, there are many works that hit the more universal emotional resonance . One side proof is that it is no longer only , Yu and who are easily moved to tears, and other presidents also use the word "tears in laughter" more. For example, "Mama's Taste", based on a restaurant called "Mama's Taste", only talks about the trivial matter of ordering food, but borrows the roles of customers, waiters and managers to restore the relationship between daughter, mother and grandma with daily status.
After watching all the works in the first stage, it is not difficult to understand a few words on the program poster. Next to the smiling faces of the presidents, it is written: Laughing is powerful. But in order to achieve this, there are problems that the audience cannot imagine.
Empty the cup before starting
Before the start of the first season, Mi Wei set a goal of at least three years. When the first season was still on the air, starting from the third issue, the director team inserted the recruitment information for the second season at the beginning of the program.
For the production team, the question is what to do. Especially when the word-of-mouth and popularity of the first season reaches a certain height, how to maintain the standard and even improve it becomes the key, and it is also what the outside world expects. In the past half a year, the audience has been urging more eagerness, and the voice of the industry is equally strong. Xiaoyu noticed that at the recent iQiyi Yuexiang conference, when Mi Wei co-founder and CMO Liu Xu came to the stage to promote "Second Edition". "Hi", the scene broke out with almost the warmest applause of the day.
Anyone who is familiar with variety shows knows that programs that performed well in the first season often face pressure in the second season, and they need to think about how to maintain their standards and even surpass them, so the more common strategy is to upgrade. But in this regard, the answer that Mi did not give is two other words: empty cup.
Ma Dong told Xiaoyu that after the end of the first season, Mi Wei held a long-term review meeting, and the colleagues of the production team who produced and witnessed many happy production teams often cried at the meeting. The difficulty beyond expectations made everyone Too many emotions have accumulated.
He feels that this process is like secreting endorphins after exercising, sitting on the ground crying so tired, but it can also gain a lot of happiness. It was also from that time that the team began to repeatedly mention the concept of "empty cup". "The ink in the first season is too thick, and it is easy to soak into the back of the paper. I am afraid to bring this thing to the second season."
First Just don't try to replicate successful experiences. In the first season, the discussion on waist actors from , Jiang Long, , Zhang Chi and others was one of the points of the circle, so naturally, everyone will be curious about what topics can be extracted in the second season.
In fact, there is no shortage of topic space for comedians in the second season, such as graduates who came to Miwei looking for a job, the first Chinese puppet drama students whose graduation drama was cancelled, and 30+ drama actresses... But Ma Dong The answer is "don't know".
Because the point of the waist actor is not designed in advance, but chatted on the spot. In his opinion, the biggest charm of non-fiction variety shows lies in this, "We have concluded the show for so many years. The core of non-fiction is to let the audience and public opinion find it by themselves. What we can do is to follow up and respond quickly. This is Mi Wei's core competence."
Secondly, "Er Xi" does not pursue the so-called "upgrade", such as in the form,Too many adjustments are made on the rendering. When the audience opened the show, they could still see a familiar picture: Ma Dong, Huang Bo, and other five presidents sat on the scene, laughed to tears and stood up for the work. Digging a hole"...
More changes are happening externally, and those changes will backfire on the show. Based on the influence of the first season, the number of actors and screenwriters who signed up reached 3,800 and 1,800, respectively. Ma Dong can clearly feel that the overall quality of the players has reached a new level. "In the first season, there are still some amateurish actors. In the second season, there are more professional actors, many of whom have many years of stage experience."
Open for registration Later, the screenwriters were also more "rich" than before, and each of the 25 comedy teams selected finally had a screenwriter. This is undoubtedly a blessing for programs that emphasize the co-creation model and pay attention to the polishing of works. So after the first episode aired, some viewers commented on Douban, "In the first episode, almost every work was in the top five levels of the previous season." Many viewers were impressed: the two actors seemed to be fencing, but in fact they were testing each other's nucleic acids. When seeing this scene, everyone will be surprised by how realistic the reaction is while laughing, "Is this possible to act?" A little persistence: Do comedy with a temperature.
In Ma Dong's opinion, a very important criterion for this is whether the starting point is good-natured, "Cry and sarcasm are completely different comedy methods. Talking about the same thing, sarcasm will make you feel alienated and sarcastic. There is warmth. In Mi Wei's comedy framework, warmth is particularly important, and comedy without warmth is not our direction."
"You can always trust Mi Wei"
It turns out that "the" "Er Xi" broke through the bottleneck of the second season. The second day after the second episode aired, the Douban entry of the show scored 8.8, higher than any stage in the first season.
Obviously, the empty cup theory is not Mi Wei's only "weapon". During the first season of
, the audience saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's waist actors, and the recognition of these actors in the industry has also increased. Recently, the media has calculated their development status in the past year. Jiang Long, Zhang Chi, Wang Hao, Shi Ce , Jiang Shimeng and other popular players have more job opportunities and appear in different film and television dramas.
In addition, although it is difficult to jump directly to the head, everyone unanimously feels the change that is gratifying. In the project, whether as screenwriters or actors, they have more right to speak, and their creative ideas are listened to more. From this perspective, it is not only the audience who need this show, but also the comedy industry and the people involved in it.
Through these changes, a wider range of practitioners can also gain more confidence, which in turn will inject power into the show.
Therefore, more and more professional actors are willing to join, and the open recruitment of screenwriters has received enthusiastic responses. Ma Dong mentioned that the screenwriters who appeared on the show last year have also increased their prices. It stands to reason that they can go to the market to pick up jobs, but they are still willing to spend a few months in Miwei and experience the same as before. stage process.
Since the first season, "The Annual Comedy Contest" has been based on co-creation as the main creative mode. In each work, the actors, directors and screenwriters are "wrapped together", and everyone contributes ideas. Take responsibility for the good and bad results together. To some extent, there is a similar logic between comedies and shows. Comedy is always part of the show, and the show is the product of the comedian and the production team.
When people are more confident about something, they will put more enthusiasm and produce better results.
There is no doubt that many people, including audiences and practitioners, hope that the "annual" of this IP can continue to be realized, and everyone has made no secret of this longing on social platforms. Ma Dong said frankly that the team did not anticipate the development of IP, "I definitely hope to keep going down.Yes, but we don't do long-term projections. Can a 10-year plan make every season better? It is actually a kind of ego. It needs to be controlled, but there are expectations. The show is done on a one-by-one basis. "
If there is a problem with the supply, the show will be suspended, just like " in the summer of the band", it also decided to take a "summer" due to the problem of the band's resources, until recently, the official announcement of the opening of the third season of the band recruitment.
It is also because of this toughness that is responsible for the content, which fundamentally guarantees the quality of Mi Wei's production. After the broadcast of "Er Xi", in addition to the evaluation of the comedy works and the overall performance of the program, the audience's voice is not lacking. Mi Wei's approval converged into the phrase "You can always trust Mi Wei", and some people asked, from " quirky talk about ", "Summer of the Band" to "Annual Comedy Contest", why does Mi Wei always make hits ?
For a program alone, the answer can be a production system that has been practiced for many years, and a complete ecological chain in which all aspects of casting, production and post-production are controlled internally; it can also be a keen sense of smell when looking for topics, from debate, band When it comes to comedy, you have to step on it.
goes big, and it has to do with the methodology of running a company. Ma Dong has been asked similar questions by brands on many occasions: We put so many variety shows in advertisements every year, how should we advertise? How to judge which theme will be popular? And his answer is often, "You shouldn't judge the theme at all, it depends on whether the team is reliable. "
Like many companies, Mi Wei also has a set of metaphysical theoretical guidance: mission, vision and values, which can be seen everywhere in Mi Wei's office area. Among them, "making the world happier" is the company's mission. Ma Dong Tell Xiaoyu that every time a project is completed, the entire company will sit down to discuss and revise it. He said, "This set of things is not for the purpose of making a show. It can also be done well if it is used as a restaurant. The key is whether it can be done well. Gather so many people. "
It's hard to say this is a joke, after all, in his opinion, if "Wonderful Flowers" and "Summer of the Band" are pre-made dishes, then "Annual Comedy Contest" is about farming, harvesting, and serving the dishes. On the table. What is certain is that we have reason to expect the follow-up of "Er Xi" and more possibilities for Mi Wei.
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