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Ten Point Character Original
I don't know if you have noticed that in the past two years, many characters have achieved "big hits" through Douyin.
Counting the movie characters that have impressed the audience in the past year, almost every one of them has received an enthusiastic response on Douyin. In "Fengshen Part 1: Chao Song Fengyun", the fox demon Su Da played by Na Ran has taken on a human form and crawled in the snow, which amazed everyone, and has more than 2 million likes on the movie's official Douyin; In "All or Nothing", Wang Chuanjun, who plays the leader of the fraud gang, has a brainwashing slogan, "If you want to succeed, go crazy first, and rush forward desperately", which was imitated by a large number of Douyin netizens; In "Flying Life 2", the tidbits of Jia Bing holding a thermos cup and playing drift exploded on Douyin, which directly triggered a large-scale "archaeology" of Jia Bing himself by netizens.
Obviously, in the era of short videos, Douyin has become an important position for movie promotion. A video of a famous movie scene in just a few tens of seconds can make a character quickly remembered by the audience, and the actors behind the role can also be seen and loved.
On June 14th, the "Douyin Movie Adventure Night" with the theme of "Meet in the Movie" was held in Qiantan, Shanghai. As the first new film recommendation meeting of the Shanghai International Film Festival, the event was star-studded, and a total of 40 film crews, more than 120 filmmakers and 30 Douyin creators were invited to participate.
Among them, Na Ran won the "Powerful Young Actor of the Year" for her outstanding performance in "Fengshen Part 1: Chao Song Fengyun"; Jia Bing won the "Quality Actor of the Year" for his outstanding and stable performance in many movies such as "Flying Life 2" and "Spending Money at the End of the Road" in the past year.
Taking this opportunity, Ten Point Character also chatted with Na Ran and Jia Bing, trying to summarize from their successful experience: How to achieve the common exit of characters and actors in a short video on Douyin?
A short video, let a good movie be seen
As early as June last year, when the official Douyin of "Fengshen Part 1: Chao Song Fengyun" first released a video of Daji's rainy night man dance, actor Na Ran sparked heated discussions among users.
In that one-minute video, Na Ran's Daji was exposed for the first time, wearing a red dress, long hair on the floor, subversive styling and an unfamiliar and exotic face that led to a polarization of comments — some praising the innovation of this version of Daji, while others questioning it.
Recalling the first time she heard the doubts, Na Ran admitted that she was indeed worried about her performance, but she was confident in the movie itself and the director, "I believe that after watching the movie, everyone will like "Fengshen" as much as I do."
Although controversial, this high-profile video is still like a hook, "hooking" many viewers into the cinema. Soon, with the release of the movie and the fermentation of word-of-mouth, Na Ran's performance of the coexistence of innocence and wildness has won a lot of affirmation, "Daji has taken on a human form", "Daji and Queen Jiang bathe", "Daji heals the wounds of the king" and other highlight clips have been widely spread on Douyin, and people not only fell in love with Daji in the movie, but also fell in love with this rookie actor.
Naran's case is not unique. On Douyin, it is not uncommon for "a short video to bring a character". On the official Douyin of the movie "Hot and Hot", Le Ying (played by Jia Ling) lost 100 pounds before and after losing 100 pounds and played pear balls, with nearly 10 million likes; In "All or Nothing", Wang Chuanjun played the leader of the fraud gang not the most, but his role-related videos are the most widely spread on Douyin, and even because the performance is too realistic, he was ridiculed by many netizens "It is recommended to check Wang Chuanjun, it is not like acting"; The famous scene of Chen Guilin (played by Ruan Jingtian) in the auditorium shootout in "Removing the Three Evils in the Week" was turned crazy on Douyin, which directly made this Taiwanese movie the biggest box office dark horse in the first half of this year.
Obviously, the "short, flat and fast" characteristics of Douyin videos have lowered the threshold for the audience to contact the movie, the famous scenes in the film have been infinitely amplified, the characters can quickly get out of the circle, and the actors' highlight performances can also be retained for a long time, leaving the audience with room for repeated recollection.
In addition to the famous scenes in the movie, the communication effect of behind-the-scenes footage on Douyin should not be underestimated. During the release of "Fengshen Part 1: Chao Song Fengyun", the film's official Douyin released several training videos of the proton group, and the diligence, sincerity and ingenuity of the main creative team touched many audiences. In Na Ran's view, this is a great opportunity to promote the film and the actors, "Just watching the movie, you can't really know the story behind the scenes, but by posting these tidbits on Douyin, you can see a lot of interesting things that happened on the set of us, and at the same time, you can get to know us actors better."
Jia Bing felt similarly. In a video with the highest number of likes on the official Douyin of the movie "Flying Life 2", the staff tried to drift with a coach car, and frequently failed, Jia Bing, who was sitting on the side drinking tea, proposed that he want to try it, and the result was a success, which not only stunned the staff on the set, but also stunned netizens, and finally this video had more than 3 million likes, Jia Bing's past experience and representative works were also turned out by netizens to talk about it, whether it is a mix of classic character scenes, or a collection of sketches for the Spring Festival Gala, it is quite popular on Douyin.
"I didn't expect such a small detail in the performance to be seen by Douyin netizens, and it was loved by everyone", Jia Bing sighed, "I really have to thank the development of science and technology, as well as the good ideas of more and more young people, which give us the opportunity to show some interesting content in the performance to the audience."
Netizens create memes and create phenomenal characters
If it is said that the famous scenes and tidbits released by the film producer have laid the foundation for the characters and actors to get out of the circle, then the spontaneous memes and secondary creations from Douyin netizens will add another fire to the popularity of the characters.
After the release of the movie "All or Nothing", in the film, the contrasting picture of Manager Lu played by Wang Chuanjun wiping his neck outside the window and worshipping Buddha again soon set off a national imitation boom on Douyin.
also triggered a craze for imitation, as well as Fei Xiang's "Business Yin Words" in "Fengshen Part 1: Chao Song Fengyun": "What the horse sees is determined by run", "You all say that the white fox is a demon, it is obviously auspicious", "Your father committed a straight"...... Netizens have opened their brains, bursting stalks and fun in an endless stream, and related videos have been played more than 360 million times on Douyin, and the main creative team of the movie has also cleverly caught this wave of traffic, and when interacting with the audience at the roadshow site, they took the initiative to throw stalks and play stalks, so that the popularity of the movie and the popularity of the actors have increased exponentially.
In addition to increasing popularity, the secondary creation of netizens will also bring new inspiration to the actors. Na Ran recalled that during the promotion of the movie last year, she watched a lot of netizens' second creation videos on Douyin, and the deepest impression was the drag challenge of "I know what you want", "I think netizens are too creative and imaginative, and I also have a small try."
In Na Ran's view, the second creation of netizens is a new understanding and interpretation of the role. For example, she was affectionately called "Hakimi" by netizens, and at first she didn't know the meaning of this Internet buzzword, but later slowly learned that "Hakimi" is often used to refer to cute little animals. The interpretation of netizens highlights the innocent side of Daji's character, changing the stereotype of Daji's past fascination and trouble, making him a little fox who is loved by everyone and knows how to repay his gratitude, further narrowing the psychological distance between the character and the audience.
Jia Bing has also seen many videos of Douyin netizens co-producing with the characters he plays. He believes that the short video platform allows every user to become a content producer, "The co-production gameplay on Douyin allows the movie to establish another level of deep link with users, which is a very good bridge to connect our characters, plots and audiences."
Go both ways and create more beauty
The quality of the movie itself is excellent, coupled with the amplification advantage of short video publicity, "Fengshen Part 1: Chao Song Fengyun" finally won 2.6 billion box office, becoming the box office champion of action movies in 2023, Na Ran herself has also become a hot and popular actor, and the first video released on his personal Douyin account in July last year received 530,000 likes and 33,000 comments.
The first work has achieved such good results, and Na Ran's career has also ushered in new opportunities. At the just-concluded "Douyin Movie Adventure Night", Na Ran attended with the crew as the starring role of "Under the Stranger". Na Ran revealed that this fantasy action movie, which will be released in the summer, is adapted from the popular Chinese comic "Under One Man". In the film, her character Xia He is an independent, dedicated, and powerful girl, "although she is a villain, she also has a soft side in her heart."
On her personal Douyin account, Na Ran posted a cross-dressing video of the characters in "Under the Alien", with long pink curly hair and a completely different temperament from Daji, which attracted netizens to exclaim, "This is Xia He in my mind". At the scene of the adventure night, Na Ran also improvised a piece of Xia He's snake fist-shaped Italian boxing, with an elegant black dress and a sassy boxing style, full of contrast, and was praised by netizens as "too cute".
On the night of the adventure, many new films made their debuts, and the major crews did not miss this good opportunity to promote the new films:
Ma Li appeared with her new work "Dumpling Queen", revealing that in order to better interpret the prototype of the film's character - Ms. Zang Jianhe, the founder of Wan Chai Pier, she gained a lot of weight;
Chen Sicheng and Liu Haoran collaborated again on the movie "Decryption", which has been attracting attention since the start of filming, and the Douyin creator "Jing Gongzi", who has more than 19 million fans, narrated the trailer on the spot, unearthing many "clues" about the plot of the movie, triggering a new round of heated discussions;
Xu Zheng's self-directed and starred new film "Retrograde Life" is related to the delivery man, Xu Zheng and the starring Wang Xiao deliberately wore the clothes of the delivery man on stage, Wang Xiao also broke the news that Xu Zheng's appearance in this work is very different from the past, because he "has hair". Jia Bing also starred in "Retrograde Life", and after posting the filming highlights on his personal Douyin account, some netizens found that Jia Bing, Wang Xiao, and Feng Bing gathered in the film, and the second cooperation of the "Hurricane" team instantly detonated the expectations of netizens. It is reported that Douyin will release the "Adventure Plan" in the summer of this year.
Compared with other movie evenings in the past, the overall atmosphere of "Douyin Movie Adventure Night" is more relaxed, cheerful and fun - the invited guests walked not on the red carpet but on the "blue carpet", and the process of commuting to work was recorded by Douyin Movie, and many actors received slow-motion blockbusters shot by Douyin officials.
Throughout the event, the actors also played the hot stalks of Douyin. Hu Xianxu, who served as the host, amused the audience with "business language" many times; After Wang Chuanjun took the stage to accept the award, he thanked the audience and restored the scene of worshipping the Buddha; Jia Bing told a cold joke backstage at the event, "Which of the 26 letters is the heaviest?" "N, because En (N) is as heavy as a mountain"......
The popularity of short videos has brought new ways to play for the promotion of movie characters, which in turn has affected the entire film ecology, and the industry has also realized the help of Douyin for movie promotion. On the night of the adventure, director Zhang Yimou made a speech after winning the "Filmmaker of the Year", saying that he often watches Douyin, "There are a lot of fun things on Douyin, it is very young, and I also hope to make good movies for young audiences to see, and repay everyone with more good works."
From the actor's personal point of view, Na Ran feels that Douyin is a good communication platform, which can allow actors and fans to communicate more closely, and she will share more work and daily life on Douyin in the future, "Let everyone see a more real Na Ran".
Jia Bing said that he began to keep up with the footsteps of young people in the past two years, and often brushed Douyin, "I didn't expect that the video of me riding a bicycle could be watched by tens of millions of people and liked by millions of people, which actually brought me thinking and brought some help to my performance." He believes that the interaction between the film's creators and the audience on Douyin is a two-way street, "We hope to let everyone know about the movie through Douyin, and similarly, we also want to understand the real thoughts of the audience through Douyin, so as to create better works."