Sohu Entertainment Special Article (April Day/Text) Recently, the 16-episode urban suspense sweet drama "He Confesses in Backlight" directed by Ming Yan and starring Cao Youning, Yu Yue, Wu Haoze, Ma Xinmo, Li Qingtian, Tong Jiawen and other leading actors is being broadcast on Sohu Video. The play tells the story of the drama actor Ruan Nianchu fell into the tiger's mouth five years ago because of an accident, in a dangerous situation, she met Li Teng, who was on an undercover mission, and had a good feeling for each other, but considering Ruan Nianchu's safety, Li Teng had to give up this relationship, and did not expect that the two would reunite again after five years, this time facing a lot of crises, the two chose to join hands to solve the story of the villain's conspiracy.
After the broadcast of "He Confessed in the Backlight", with a high-value cast and a high-energy sugary sweet and refreshing storyline, it first gained a 7.2 reputation in Douban, and many viewers directly called "on the head", and there was no shortage of comments such as "sweet and sweet" and "kill me" in the bullet screen. Recently, when the drama was about to end, Sohu Entertainment interviewed Liu Mingli, senior director and chief producer of Sohu's self-made drama production center, and director Ming Yan, unveiling the story behind the creation.
Male hormones plus iron man tenderness into a circle of powder sharp tools Cao Youning successfully interpreted the tough guy role
The web drama "He Confessed in the Backlight" is adapted from the love novel "Half Yin" in jinjiang literature city, and the feelings of the male protagonist Li Teng for Ruan Nianchu for seven years not only touched many readers, touched the main creative team, but also touched the director Ming Yan, "The male protagonist has only this one girl in his heart from beginning to end, and I think this feeling is quite moving." ”
As a producer who has produced many popular sweet pet dramas such as "Why the Boss Wants to Marry Me" series "You Successfully Attracted My Attention", "I Was a Pet in Dali Temple", "Animal Lovers", etc., Liu Mingli is more interested in the special features of the story of "Half Yin", "The novel has both masculine male hormones, very hot and explosive, with a passionate side." On the other hand, although the male protagonist's personality is tough, he is very gentle in his heart, and the iron man is tender, which can impress the audience. This is something special that we have not had in our previous sweet pet dramas. ”
In order to make this story well, on the basis of respecting the original work, out of consideration for many factors such as volume, the creative team first rearranged the identity of the characters in the play, the identity of the male protagonist was changed from a soldier to the boss of the security company, and the female protagonist was originally a singer in the literary troupe and changed to a drama actor. Ming Yan explained the reason for this change: "In addition to the sensitivity of identity, if the heroine is a singer, the copyright of the song is also a problem. Although the change of identity has led to many plot adjustments, the famous scenes that fans of the original work care about have been preserved as much as possible, "some changes have been made in form, but the overall god is still there."
After determining the content of the story, the next step is how to make it filmed, Ming Yan frankly said: "The most important thing about the sweet pet drama is whether the male protagonist is filmed into the imagination of the female audience", he still remembers how much effort was spent to find the actor of Li Teng, "We turned half of the entertainment circle over, almost every producer in this industry knows that there is a group looking for a role called Li Teng", until the appearance of Cao Youning made everyone shine. When the crew found Cao Youning, his hair was short and his skin was tanned. Because of the epidemic, Cao Youning was far away in Taiwan and could not face the interview scene, so he recorded a small part of his audition with a video. It is also this small scene that makes the creators feel very surprised, "he is completely different from what we originally imagined, his appearance, performance style and eyes are very characteristic, which makes people shine." Liu Mingli described Cao Youning as acting but not greasy, both emotional and restrained, his eyes are sharp like wolves when he is fierce, and he is very much like a deer when he is full of love and pure affection, "The image temperament and charm are both, as if Li Teng in the novel came out of the book." ”
Although the appearance of Cao Youning and Li Teng is very suitable, but in real life he is actually a sunny and cute big boy, the roles he has played before are relatively similar to his own personality, playing a role of such a tough guy as Li Teng, whether it is a big challenge for the director or Cao Youning himself. In order to let him find the feeling of Li Teng, the crew deliberately arranged a very intense fight scene for him four or five days after the start-up, this scene was filmed all night, since then, Cao Youning has a strong sense of faith in Li Teng, whether it is the shape and demeanor or the tone of the voice has changed a lot, he finally found the feeling of Li Teng.
Facts have proved that Cao Youning did not live up to everyone's expectations, after the broadcast of this drama, Li Teng, played by Cao Youning, won the unanimous recognition of the audience, with a tough appearance, exquisite facial features, and his iron man tenderness for the heroine, and gained countless "girlfriend fans".
Actors overcome self-challenges to shoot water scenes Intimate scenes The director personally demonstrated
In addition to the suitability of the male protagonist, Ming Yan believes that "He Confessed in the Backlight" to get the recognition of the audience, there is a very important thing is to choose the appropriate shooting method, considering the tone of the story, he chose a more poetic lens language, in order to achieve this requirement, a lot of painstaking efforts were paid in the shooting.
A scene that impressed Ming Yan was that Ruan Nianchu, played by Yu Yue, wanted to go into the sea to commit suicide, and the script was simple to write, but when it came to shooting, he knew how difficult it was, "The waves are too big, the sea is constantly rising, and the camera has to move the camera position every minute of shooting." And the two actresses could barely stand normally in the sea. When filming, the actresses said the first sentence and the second sentence when the distance is about 30 meters, they have been floating in the water, while drinking particularly bitter seawater, while acting, the seawater will spray into the eyes, can not open the eyes, once stopped after the need to reorganize the makeup and hair, time is super long, after the makeup continues to rise. "Although it is hard, in Ming Yan's view, all this is worth it," I especially like to shoot the scene of the sea, because I think the romantic atmosphere is very strong, but it will have to pay the corresponding price, time and painstaking efforts to do it." ”
It is worth mentioning that many of the fights and scenes in the water in this play are completed by the actors themselves, especially for Yu Yue, who is afraid of water, the scene in the water is actually not a small challenge, in addition to the scene in the sea, there is also a shot of jumping into the water seven meters deep, although the crew prepared a stand-in, but in order to present a better sense of picture, Yu Yue still overcame her inner fear and completed the shooting.
Many viewers relished the intimate scenes in "He Confessed in the Backlight". In order to shoot the aesthetic sense of the picture, the director team also put a lot of work, before the actors perform, the directors will study how to kiss, hug, fall or even roll the sheets in advance, and then demonstrate to the actors. For example, the audience's favorite intimate scene is Li Teng kissing Ruan Nianchu with the help of a chair, the script is written only the male and female protagonists kissing together, Ming Yan hopes to give the audience some freshness in this scene, he thought about it for two hours at the shooting scene, tried the table kiss, wall bang, hanger kiss and other ways, and finally had an epiphany, conceived of a chair turn 180 degrees, and then knocked down the girl kissing the performance method. However, this action has relatively high technical requirements, and what surprises him is that Cao Youning tried it once, and the real shooting was over.
Intimate scenes should be good-looking, in addition to the clever shooting methods, the tacit understanding of the actors is also very important. Although before filming "He Confessed in the Backlight", Cao Youning and Yu Yue had a relationship many years ago when they auditioned, but this cooperation was still a bit strange and unbeatable at the beginning. Ming Yan revealed that just two or three days before the start of filming, two people shooting intimate scenes have a great obstacle, "I wore headphones on the spot, heard them chatting next to the monitor, the whole time in an awkward chat, maybe one person said what constellation you are, the other person simply answered, silence for 15 minutes, silent person again a question." ”
In order not to affect the filming, Ming Yan thought of a solution, "That night I called them together to talk about this problem, hoping that they would read the script in front of me and cooperate with the performance to show me." I adjusted it again on the spot. We did a lot of homework at night, and I went through all the intimate scenes in the script, what kind of scenes to do, what to say, I told them my thoughts. They are also quite diligent, and have been using the intermittent intervals of filming to constantly play and try. I said that in each of your plays, you should give me at least three ways to act, let me choose, they really have very serious homework, really good, very diligent actors. ”
Sweet earth is not necessarily a bad evaluation Sweet pet drama assumes the role of dream-making
In addition to the emotional drama, the suspenseful part of "He Confessed in the Backlight" is also very gripping, it is different from the previous idol dramas, not the male protagonist while talking about love while seeking the truth, but the suspense and love content are entangled together. Why Li Teng left Ruan Nianchu five years ago, and why he approached her five years later, all hid suspense. After some consideration, the creative team did not choose a linear narrative approach, but boldly adopted a montage-style performance method of circular progress, placing the content of the memories in the opening or in the film, and the two timelines were interspersed together, so that the audience would not feel that the content of the previous beginning was too boring, and also complemented the structure and intention of the story.
After the broadcast of "His Confession in Backlight", the creators were a little flattered by the warm response of the audience on the one hand, and on the other hand, they also expressed some confusion about some comments. In the interview, Liu Mingli expressed her doubts: "Why would some people say that this drama is sweet and sweet? Where are we? I think we still have a very foreign budget in such a small budget. ”
Ming Yan speculated whether it was because the original novel was written many years ago, and the drama version retained the original flavor of the original novel in the process of adaptation, so it gave everyone a feeling that the lines were very similar to the sweet pet novel ten years ago. As for many viewers complaining about Li Teng's use of jeans with suits some earthy comments, Ming Yan said that he was a bit aggrieved, he said that many of the jeans worn by the male protagonist are the big names of the 2020 catwalk, and the male protagonist is a relatively rough role, there are many fighting scenes, if you wear trousers, it may make people feel unprofessional. However, he also said that the soil is not necessarily a bad evaluation, "perhaps the shape of the soil has also become a reason for the audience to love this role, because it helps the male protagonist to create an image of a rough old man." ”
In recent years, a variety of sweet pet dramas have emerged in an endless stream, and even serious problems of homogenization have emerged, as the director of "He Confessed in the Backlight", Ming Yan has his own set of experiences on how to make a good sweet pet drama. In his opinion, first of all, more than 80% of the audience of sweet pet dramas are women, so it is necessary to customize for women. This requires that the male protagonist can engage in a variety of occupations, but his physical condition and economic ability should be strong enough, to give the female audience a sufficient sense of security, so that the female audience can empathize with him. Secondly, "sweet pet drama is to create dreams", twenty years ago when Qiong Yao drama was popular, the audience followed the protagonist in the play to experience the adventure of love, but now the female audience has a lot of pressure to work during the day, and after returning home, they only want to have a sweet dream, and the sweet pet drama undertakes such a dream-making role.
Liu Mingli, the chief producer, believes that most of the sweet pet dramas have similar routines. Similar to "He Confessed in the Backlight" The male protagonist saved the female protagonist, the two people fell in love, the male protagonist left the female protagonist because of danger, the two people looked back, and finally came together The story is not new, but to look good, the character settings, lines and plots must be re-woven, "In fact, it is to do N+ several elements on the traditional road", "The traditional routine can find some different things that can be shined to bring new life, including the protagonist's personality and the like, There is also a little more different famous scene design in the shooting angle, which is both familiar and fresh, which may be the reason why the audience is on top. ”