The Magnolia Award is judged together for two years, and the chairman of the jury said that "double yellow eggs" cannot be ruled out
June 20, 2023 | Total Issue 3272
Yesterday afternoon, the 28th Shanghai TV Festival Magnolia Award TV Drama Jury Chairman Master Class was held as scheduled at the Shanghai Exhibition Center. Hu Zhifeng, chairman of the jury, shared in depth the topic of "Observations and Thoughts on the Phenomenal Works of Chinese TV Dramas This Year".
Professor Hu Zhifeng is the first scholar-turned-TV drama jury chairman in the history of the Shanghai TV Festival. In the past, Professor Hu Zhifeng had more dialogues with TV series creators through theoretical speculation and work research and evaluation. Now as the chairman of the Magnolia TV drama jury, what kind of evaluation criteria will he bring into the judging process? Is there a difference between "good dramas" in the eyes of scholars and "good dramas" in the industry's evaluation system? What variables will the biennial evaluation bring to this year's Magnolia Awards?
The jury chairman's master class has become a good window for observation.
The "Three Highs" of Phenomenal Drama
"A drama can become a phenomenal work not because of a single attribute, but because of the combination of various complex factors. I summed it up as the 'three highs'. Hu concluded his speech straight to the point.
The so-called "three highs" refer to "high artistic quality, high market value, and high topicality".
Specifically, high artistic quality emphasizes the artistic exploration and innovation value of the work, "to be able to leave a name in the history of art, especially the history of the development of film and television art." "High market value means high ratings, high market share and high returns. High topicality refers to the fact that the work has aroused widespread attention in the industry and society at a specific time, become a topic of discussion on the street, or stimulate relevant discussions in the professional field.
"From the perspective of the three dimensions of art, industry and society, if it meets the standards of the 'three highs', it can be called a phenomenal drama." Hu concluded.
In an interview with the judges of this year's Magnolia Awards in their first collective appearance, Hu Zhifeng once said, "Like other literary and artistic creations, the good standards of TV dramas should meet the 'three essences', that is, profound thinking, exquisite art, and excellent production." At the same time, it should also meet the 'three highs' standard. ”
From the perspective of coverage, these two sets of standards form an organic supplement, but they are slightly different at the practical level. The evaluation of the "three essences" mainly relies on the qualitative accumulation of experience of the judges; The "three highs" also refer to broadcast data and public opinion performance. When sharing his observations and thoughts on phenomenal dramas, Professor Hu Zhifeng also clearly listed specific data such as the ratings, broadcasts and number of Weibo topic discussions of his works.
It can be seen that the methodology of combining qualitative and quantitative evaluation of dramas should reach a consensus among the judges of this Magnolia Award.
6 dramas highlighted above
In the master class, Professor Hu Zhifeng highlighted 6 phenomenal dramas, namely "Mountains and Seas" and "Age of Awakening", which shined at the last Magnolia Awards, and 4 finalist dramas for this year's Magnolia Award for Best Chinese TV Drama - "The World", "Menghualu", "County Party Committee Compound" and "Crazy".
As for the reasons why "The World" has become a phenomenal work, Hu Zhifeng summarized it into three points: sense of history, warmth, and sense of art.
The sense of history comes from three levels: the life history of the Chinese people in the past 50 years, the history of family changes that have gone through twists and turns, and the growth history of characters with different characteristics. The sense of warmth comes from "warm realism" and "deep exploration of people's hearts". The sense of art is reflected in the three aspects of artistic presentation, emotional expression, and ideological meaning.
When elaborating on the artistic sense of "The World", Hu Zhifeng specifically mentioned a detail of Yin Tao's performance in "The World": after Zhou Nan learned of his life, he confronted his mother Zheng Juan and used "he" to refer to his adoptive father Zhou Bingkun. "Yin Tao is really a good actor, she didn't move here, but looked at her son, and then slapped herself twice, improvisationally. The actor of the opponent did not know at all and was shocked at once. "The whole scene was not even expected by the director, he didn't design every scene to be very dead... It's about wrapping the actors into the situation and letting them live in it. In this way, even if it is a cutscene, it can still be filmed like a heavy scene, which is shocking. ”
It can be seen that the long board of "The World" in the performance not only won the hearts of the audience, but also won the hearts of the judges.
"Menghualu" is the only pure online drama nominated for the Magnolia Award for Best Chinese TV Series (the other is "The Beginning"). Hu Zhifeng summarized the reasons why he became a phenomenal work as the contemporaneity of traditional culture, the fashion sense of classical elegance, and the time and space bridge of social emotions.
"The most prominent thing is Menghualu's creation of a classical fashion sense. It reflects the food and living of the Song Dynasty, the residence courtyard including entertainment activities as much as possible, but it has been reinterpreted and packaged... Like the tea, snacks, tea sets, and even a small fan in the play, they have become the fashion chased by young people today. He elaborated.
For "The Courtyard of the County Party Committee", Hu Zhifeng affirmed the expression breakthrough of this major theme creation from three aspects: epochality, panorama and uniqueness.
The sharing of the master class ended with this year's opening drama king "Crazy". Talking about this drama, Hu Zhifeng first mentioned the difficulties, especially the difficulties in shaping negative characters. In terms of content presentation, how to expand the scale with appropriate means of expression is also the key point of "Crazy". In addition, the highlights of "Crazy" in facing real problems, extreme artistic standards, and balanced tonality, and the slots caused by public opinion turmoil and hasty ending, Hu Zhifeng also pointed out in the sharing.
This year's Magnolia Awards gathers two years of drama collections, which can be regarded as hundreds of competing streams. In the interactive session of the master class, Hu Zhifeng also clearly responded, "This year's award situation is quite complicated" and "the problem of 'double yellow eggs', because two years (together) may be difficult to avoid." ”
As for how this year's Magnolia Awards will be the best of the best, let's wait for the suspense to be revealed.
【Text/Tin Snare Drum】