In the past year, different types of domestic dramas such as "Three-Body Problem", "The Long Season", "Sauvignon Blanc", "Flowers", "My Altay", "Celebrating More Than Years 2" and other different types of domestic dramas have detonated the screen, injecting new momentum into the industry. In the coming year, where will domestic dramas go?
At the 29th Shanghai TV Festival, many video platforms and film and television companies released new dramas, and there was no shortage of innovative works. At various forums, industry experts have also made judgments on the development trend of domestic dramas, such as the acceleration of platform reform, the return of dramas to movies, and the transformation of long dramas into short dramas, which may affect production for a long time.
There is no doubt that domestic dramas are continuing to develop in the direction of high-quality products, and the future is promising!
新剧集:Netflix同步联播,爆款综艺改编
This year, the main venue, the Shanghai Exhibition Center, held a special "Shanghai Audiovisual" boutique promotion meeting, and the heads of major film and television institutions across the country promoted new dramas. In addition, Tencent Video and Youku also held special promotion activities.
In terms of realistic dramas that reflect the times, "Eight Thousand Miles of Clouds and Moon" directed by Zhang Yongxin, director of "The Age of Awakening", tells the story of a group of little people who experienced nine Mid-Autumn Festivals during the Anti-Japanese War, and is a gift to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. "Baoqingli" tells the story of grassroots workers fighting wits and courage with everyone to complete the renovation project of the old area. "True Heroes" is adapted from real cases, and takes 8 groups of heroic and exemplary characters and collectives in political and legal units such as public security, procuratorate, court, justice, and national security as prototypes, presenting the style of the political and legal system to protect people's safety and peace. In addition, "The Girls' School in the Mountains" based on the deeds of Principal Zhang Guimei, "The Great Sea Road", which tells the story of the dreams of multi-ethnic youth on the border, "Magnolia Blossoms Come Again", which is based on the legendary life of Dong Zhujun, the founder of Shanghai Jin Jiang Hotel, and the anti-corruption drama "Change" will all meet the audience.
In terms of urban dramas, this year's "Flowers" has brought fire to Shanghai's cultural tourism, and many film and television companies have begun to pay attention to Shanghai stories. For example, Xixi Film Industry will create a "Shanghai series", and the first work "Liang Chen Beauty" will restore the scenery and style of Shanghai in the 90s of the 20th century, and the character dialogues will retain the characteristics of Shanghainese, and at the same time combine Shanghai's street food, roadside buildings, firewood, rice, oil, salt and human exchanges in the alleys to create a fireworks atmosphere. Directed by Wang Jun and starring Sun Li and Dong Zijian, "A Very Good Life" focuses on the insurance industry in Shanghai's financial development in the new era, and writes the transformation of a new generation of insurers with a warm story. In addition, there are many dramas that focus on women's "her power", such as "Six Sisters", which interprets Chinese-style family relationships, "Invisible Name", which talks about courage and hope, "My Battle with Marriage", which explores how modern people face marriage from the perspective of marriage, "Single Woman", an urban emotional drama adapted from Yishu's novel of the same name, "Xu I Shine", which focuses on the struggle and love of urban women, and "Unflattering Courage", a talk show-themed female growth topic drama. It is worth mentioning that variety show adaptations will appear, starring Hu Xianxu and adapted from Tencent Video's popular variety show "Heartwarming Offer" lawyer season, the urban workplace competition drama "Immediately Play" will blow a youth workplace storm.
In terms of costume dramas, "Sauvignon Blanc Season 2" starring Yang Zi, Zhang Wanyi, Deng Wei, Tan Jianci and other original cast members will be broadcast on July 8. In addition, Zhang Songwen and Bai Baihe starred in "The Code of the Riverside Map at Qingming Festival", "The Legend of Yangming" directed by Zhang Yongxin and written by Shen Jie, and "Da Feng Da Changren" starring Wang Hedi and Tian Xiwei will all be broadcast within the year. In addition, costume dramas such as "Young White Horse Drunk Spring Breeze", "Yulin Bell", "Mu Xu Ci", "Ten Years of Night Rain in the Rivers and Lakes", "Jiangmen Independence" and other costume dramas have also aroused the audience's expectations.
In terms of suspense dramas, there are many subdivisions, including: Zhang Ruoyun, Ma Sichun, Wang Jingchun starring in the multi-element suspense drama "The Beginning of Man", Wang Baoqiang, Chen Minghao and others starring in the crime suspense drama "Chess", Tencent Video and Netflix for the first time, starring William Chan and Liu Yase The time-traveling suspense drama "Sun and Stars", the social suspense drama "Mermaid" created by the original production team of "Three-Body Problem", and "Twelve Letters" that breaks through the traditional narrative and focuses on the fate and love of teenagers in small towns. and the urban suspense drama "The Endless End" directed by the Information Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate. In addition, "second-generation" suspense dramas such as "Crime Hunting Guide 2" and "Open" cannot be ignored.
After the explosion of "The World", film and television dramas adapted from literary masterpieces once again attracted the attention of the industry. It is reported that Jia Pingwa's "Qin Cavity", Yu Hua's "Wencheng" and Wang Anyi's "Tianxiang" will be filmed. It is worth mentioning that Liu Cixin's adaptation of "The Three-Body Problem", after experiencing the popularity of the domestic drama version, the sequel "Three-Body Problem 2: Dark Forest" and the spin-off drama "Three-Body Problem: The Great History" are about to enter the production cycle. The sci-fi drama series "Sea of Dreams", produced by Liu Cixin, will be broadcast this year.
New trend: Digital actors appear in a live-action series for the first time
A Platform to accelerate reform
The top-level design and strategic layout of major platforms are being adjusted at an accelerated pace to adapt to changes in the market environment.
Youku has accelerated the development of new technologies. Ali Dawen Entertainment digital human Lili participated in the TV series "Under the Stranger", which is also the first time that a domestic digital actor has participated in a live-action series, which has aroused heated discussions among netizens. Xie Ying, vice president of Youku, said that AIGC (generative artificial intelligence) has been introduced into the platform's drama industry: "In the future, if there is a production company willing to cooperate with Youku to customize dramas, we are willing to open up and share the screenwriting software system to shorten the entire creation cycle." For the filming of the series, Xie Ying said: "Youku now has 7 virtual studios in Hengdian and Beijing, and the virtual shooting has entered the batch stage, with 10%-50% of the virtual shooting volume every year. For the digital human, in "Under the Alien", we have basically solved the problem of the confrontation scene between the digital human and the real person to let the audience play. ”
Tencent Video has reinvented the cooperation process. Sun Zhonghuai, vice president of Tencent and CEO of Tencent Online Video, announced that the era of signing a contract is over, and the production company will share the responsibility with the broadcast platform, recommending a partnership of "posterior incentives": "In addition to a certain percentage of the total cooperation amount of a project, there is also a certain percentage of the amount linked to the project's broadcast results. In this way, both the production company and the broadcast platform work together to improve the quality of the work until the project is finished, and the cooperation is mutually binding throughout the entire process, which is a partnership that is both sweet and hotly discussed. Both sides are afraid that the project will not be broadcast well and will be abandoned by the audience, so they can only do their best to fight until the last moment, either hugging and crying together, or opening champagne together to celebrate. ”
B Episodes Feed Back Movies
This year's Magnolia Awards' hit dramas such as "Flowers" and "The Long Season" have great innovations in visual effects and narrative style. In the opinion of experts, this innovation has also led to a new trend in domestic dramas - film texture.
Rao Shuguang, president and researcher of the China Film Critics Society, believes that the innovation of dramas has surpassed that of movies: "Now may be the time when dramas can feed back movies, and many of the concepts and values of dramas, including innovative expressions, and the new tracks created, have strong reference significance for movies." Yin Hong, vice chairman of the China Literature and Art Critics Association and professor at Tsinghua University, said: "Many high-quality dramas are comparable to excellent movies in terms of audiovisual presentation and rhythm promotion. ”
In addition, Yin Hong analyzed that high-quality dramas have realized direct interaction between the platform and creators, and the platform will also produce dramas according to the needs of users: "This close relationship and benign interaction leaves a lot of room for drama innovation." For movies, there is a long channel from the creator to the audience, and due to the complex links and long cycles, many creators will be eager to guess the audience's preferences. Xie Ying cites a producer's quick action of launching two dramas in two years as an example: "The video platform provides great convenience for drama producers, who not only do not have to manage finance, legal affairs, and taxes, but also do not have to worry about pre-financing, script development, post-publicity, project approval, and submission for review. "There's no doubt that this convenience isn't happening with filmmakers.
C Long episodes are dramatized
There are two ways to understand the dramatization of long dramas: one is that the series of episodes is shortened and closer to short dramas; The second is that the number of long episodes remains the same, but the shooting method is closer to short dramas and even micro-short dramas.
12 episodes of "I Am Yu Huanshui", 15 episodes of "The Beginning", 10 episodes of "New Life", 8 episodes of "My Altay", ...... In recent years, there have been dramas with fewer than 20 episodes on the air, in stark contrast to dramas that often had more than 40 episodes a decade ago. Xie Ying revealed: "The big data of many audio-visual platforms shows that the current user completion rate is very low, and more than 80% of users cannot watch a 40-episode drama. "So, now there has to be a change in the volume of dramas. "We were looking for the best volume to open the story, and we called on practitioners to shoot more episodes of less than 40 episodes, or even episodes of 8 to 12 episodes," she said. ”
The fast pace of the narrative of the popular costume drama "Between the Ink Rain Clouds" made many viewers sigh "like watching a short drama". Ma Shishi, the co-director of the film, put forward the concept of "making long dramas with short drama thinking": "Chief producer Yu Zheng told me that the transformation of long dramas into short dramas must be the development trend of domestic dramas in the future. He has a hunch that as the impact of short videos on the audience deepens, it will affect everyone's viewing habits. So, he found me to write and direct "Ink Rain and Clouds" before filming a short drama. Ma Shishi said frankly that the methodology of long dramas and short dramas is to use all means of content to seize the audience: "I want to make the plot more exciting, the dramatic conflict larger, the character portrayal more three-dimensional, the narrative reversal more, the amount of information more dense, and the empathy between the drama and the audience more accurately." ”
Text | Special Shanghai correspondent Gong Weifeng Still
Editor: Li Li