Sohu Entertainment Zhuangao (Wei Jie/Writing)
"It looks good when you look at it", "Endures the explosion of the plot after two episodes", "The more you watch this drama, the better it looks" Amway methods like these are not widely used in today's Internet. Not uncommon.
seems that "it doesn't matter if the first episode is not attractive" has become the potential consensus of many viewers.
During the 11th holiday, many viewers gave a "high quality" evaluation to the first episode of the short drama "Xu Yan", and were very satisfied with the fast pace of the short drama. The first episode of
's domestic drama "guaranteed the trump card" was once again noticed by the audience.
Sohu Entertainment and several industry people chatted about the current situation of domestic dramas "the more you watch, the better", found that the so-called "law of several episodes" is probably a marketing strategy. For the first episode of taking on the responsibility of attracting attention, people in the industry have a consensus on the focus of filming, have their own skills, pursuits, and also have no choice but to do something about the status quo, and even a little angry. Guo Chen, the producer of
, who was marketed as the "law of the first three episodes", believes that the so-called "it's good to watch after three episodes" is actually a marketing strategy.
He explained that in fact, new dramas are the same as new movies. "Movies only look at the box office data of the first three days. If the data is not good, the number of films will be reduced. If the audience data in the first few episodes of the TV series is not good, the resources will be withdrawn and given to other content."
"Top three Once the data is collected, advertisers will come," he said.
Advertising statistics of a certain drama Source Douban
He even felt that the audience was too tolerant towards TV dramas.
When the screenwriter reported the script to him, Guo Chen had higher requirements than the TV series.
"I've always told the screenwriter that one sentence within 50 words, if you can't tell your story clearly, you don't need to talk to me again." directly out of the theater.
What surprised him was the beginning of the episode " New World ". At the beginning of the episode, Zhou Dongyu appeared with bangs on his eyebrows and a little red jacket, but he went offline in less than two episodes at the beginning.
"I thought she was the protagonist at the time. My feeling was that the heroine was offline in the first episode, so what happened next? Actually, it broke the audience's expectations." Guo Chen was impressed. The recent impressive beginning of
drama Xuanmis is a dream of the protagonist Hu Bayi in " Kunlun Shrine ". In the
picture, Hu Bayi saw his friend being bitten by wolves but could not do anything. He was frightened and "woke up" and found out that it was a cat pressing the bed. Then his friend Fatty turned into a carrion in front of Hu Bayi, and Hu Bayi ushered in the second time. Wake up, a dream within a dream is over.
But such excellence did not last.
"The rhythm in the back is a bit slow, it's too slow, and it feels like the plot is dislocated", except for this dream, Mies can't remember what happened in the first episode, even though she just finished watching the show for a week .
Mies doesn't like the beginning of a routine. For example, the first episode of Xianxia talks about the war between two races, the male protagonist, the god of war, and the female protagonist being bullied, and the youth drama talks about the confession of lost love in the rain, "It looks like this, just It feels like it's ineffective to watch the movie, it's all things I've seen before, and naturally I can't remember what happened."
At the same time, Mies expects the actor's line speed to be improved. "I turned on 1.5 times or even 2 times the speed, only to think it was my usual speaking speed, so of course the rhythm would be slow." Huang Mingxiao, director of
, bluntly said that in the era of online content grabbing traffic, the first episode played a vital role in life and death.
"Now that the double-speed of episodes has become routine, the patience of the audience is gradually decreasing, and the more extreme requirements should be the first eight-second rule."
She believes that in an era when audiences choose content, to do a good job of content itself is to have a sense of urgency and crisis. The first episode of
, how to shoot? Director Huang Mingxiao of
believes that in the filming of the first episode, the protagonist's appearance and time transition must be spent.
"We focus on character building in the production of dramas, and the characters' characters, characteristics and target action lines must be clearly defined through performances and lines." She believes that the introduction of characters in the first episode is helpful for the audience to obtain information, but it should not be too much. Guo Chen, the producer of
, has precise standards for this, "the background introduction must be finished within one minute". At the same time, he doesn't like to use words or lines to introduce, "Using pictures to explain is what we film and television practitioners should do, although the cost is relatively high, because actors, machines, directors, scenery, art and other types of work are required. "
For the episode, Huang Mingxiao believes that the protagonist's history is suitable for appearing in the later period. The first episode of focused on shaping the characters and reflecting the relationship, allowing the audience to follow the action line and have a subtle empathy with the protagonist. "This is the main factor that determines whether the drama is good or not."
"But many dramas mix too much information in the first episode, including expressing the character's personality or temper through the character's history, etc. I don't think it's clever enough. Of course, this is also related to the setting of the script." She said helplessly. .
screenwriter Zhang Que agrees. She told Sohu Entertainment that she wrote about the cause and effect of the relationship between characters, mostly flashbacks in later episodes. For example, when you write about a pair of childhood sweethearts, don't write about their experiences from birth to the present. "Such a running account will affect the rhythm of the plot."
Zhang Que bluntly said that in addition to character relationships and personalities, what is more important is a hot event. "This is used to catch the audience's attention."
For suspense dramas, it may be a case, such as the subway hidden corpse in " The Silent Truth ". For Shuang drama, it may be a happy face slap.
As for the plot being watered, screenwriter Zhang Que doesn't feel that way.
The more situations she encountered were due to the limitation of the shooting time, which led to the deletion of the later shooting scenes. She told Sohu Entertainment that there is a high probability that the script of the first episode cannot be completed in one or two drafts. "The script of the first episode will determine the tone, style, and even rhythm of the entire show, and it is the most important part of the platform and the company." Director Huang Mingxiao of
admitted that a good beginning is not limited by genre.
"It's like a drama we just finished, jumping from the comic world to the real world, starting with the collision of two-dimensional and three-dimensional, which is very cool."
Guo Chen believes that from a certain point of view, Guo Chen , the best opening is a passionate play.
"Eating sex is also what touches the essence of human desires the most. But obviously, not all works can do it."
Another important node is the end of the episode. "The ending point will be related to the click rate of the next episode."
Huang Mingxiao summed up three tricks for the card point of online dramas: fall on the protagonist group, preferably the heroine; fall under the promotion of relationships; fall in the presence of The composition of the atmosphere of the picture. "I usually consider these three factors when I collide with the later stage." The proportion of the main and supporting characters in the first episode of
also has a rough range. Huang Mingxiao's personal experience is that for a 30-minute web drama, the ratio of the protagonist and the supporting role should reach 6:4, and the ratio of the protagonist and the supporting role in the short drama of 3 to 10 minutes is 9:1.
"Very exaggerated," she exclaims.
Huang Mingxiao bluntly said that if a drama is pointed out that the pace is slow, there is no excuse.
"This shows that the creation of the characters by the creative team is not interesting enough, the villain is downcast, the audienceBeing ahead of the creator is of course boring and normal. I have repeatedly emphasized that in fact, creators should always be one or two steps ahead of the audience. "
can't escape the "restriction"
's works vary in quality. Producer Guo Chen believes that it is inseparable from the sales mechanism of episodes.
He explained that TV series is a pure to B business, and the core drama party is to sell content to Platform. "Now CCTV is 2 million per episode, and local satellite TV may be more expensive to buy TV series. During the most prosperous period, one episode can reach 16 million. What the platform cares about is whether the series can convert traffic, so as to attract advertisers to realize the appreciation of investment. "
" In fact, very few people in our entire drama industry pay attention to what the audience wants to see. Domestic TV shows are free for viewers to watch. , and the membership fees for all foreign content add up, it may cost 10,000 yuan a year, and the website can make better profits. "
Video platform annual fee price
In more cases, the drama party is working hard for the "taste" of the platform, "Many of them are too young, and the types of movies they like are very limited. "This means that the taste of the platform determines the "life and death" of an episode.
"Not to mention, there may be a gray area behind such a transaction. Guo Chen reluctantly said.
At the same time, he also mentioned that a very real problem now is that the products of brand owners are not very popular whether they buy advertising space on video platforms or not. "The consumption desire of ordinary people has shifted to In the live room. "Is the
brand willing to pay huge sums of money for the exposure that is difficult to convert into purchases? Guo Chen thinks it is getting more and more difficult.
is followed by funding restrictions. Huang Mingxiao, director of
, told Sohu Entertainment, generally speaking, no The first episode will be filmed from the very beginning.
"This is too extravagant! She explained that most of the projects she participated in were filmed at a low cost. Generally, according to the schedule of the scene or the actors, the coordinating scenes were given priority. In many cases, the first episode was filmed "in the middle".
5 cents Later special effects were also born. Guo Chen admitted that in the case of limited remuneration, the bulk of the production funds will still flow to the stars. "The later period does not belong to 's effective assets in the eyes of capital. ”
He revealed that in order to save costs, producers will communicate with later-stage companies to convert their wages into shares of movies or TV dramas, and later-stage companies can only make money from the premium of the secondary market to ensure their own cash flow . Therefore, it becomes their choice to hire college students with limited skills from colleges. The result of
is that although the producers will spend a lot of money on the first episode, the later stage is limited and the effect presented is still not enough Excellent.
and overseas drama productions will have more sufficient funds. For example, the cost of an episode of " Game of Thrones " is as high as 10 million US dollars, which is about 100 million US dollars in one season. "There are very few domestic dramas. To achieve this level of funding, the number of episodes shot is still more. Naturally, it is impossible to have that level of special effects. "
Guo Chen bluntly said that if you want to truly benchmark American dramas and British dramas, at least in terms of funding, the producers must have sufficient level and freedom, the platform must change the evaluation standard of "big production", and the audience must be willing to pay more for the content. The fee.
"But who dares to be the first to eat crabs ? "
(Mies and Zhangque are pseudonyms in the text)
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