Drama variety linkage drama is a common publicity and after-sales method for film and television dramas, and the leading actors of a film and television drama participate in variety show recording as guests. For the drama party, it can play multiple roles such as drama promotion, creating topics, increasing popularity, and giving back to fans;As far as variety shows are concerned, many fans rush to invite the crew guests to go to a certain variety show, which can also greatly increase the volume and popularity of the variety show. In 2023, drama customization will emerge as another new type of drama variety linkage. iQIYI grandly launched "1 Million Promises" as the first interactive form drama produced by the platform. Any popular drama to be broadcast that exceeds 1 million reservations on iQiyi Station before the broadcast, its leading actor may be invited by the platform to record a drama group variety of the show. At present, the series has launched two group comprehensives, "Seven O'clock Auspicious" and "Ning An Like a Dream", with the highest popularity in the history of the station being 5625 and 8130 respectively. And Mango TV is not far behind, the drama group of "Da Song Boys' Chronicles 2" is "Let's build a team!"."Qizhai" and "Da Song Detective Bureau" also achieved good results.
Compared with the mode of the starring actors of the crew who are invited to participate in popular variety shows such as "Hello, Saturday" and "Ace vs. Ace" to carry out announcement-style publicity, the customized group variety of dramas has multiple advantages such as long cycle, high degree of freedom, and large innovation space. According to the type and content of the drama, the group variety can set up all aspects of the variety show in a targeted manner, so as to realize closer interaction between the drama and the variety show, and show the unique "customized" characteristics of the drama group.
Fan welfare: The prosperity of CP fans
The love between men and women is one of the core selling points of most film and television dramas, and the audience is often unsatisfied with the love scenes of the characters in the play, hoping to see more intimate interaction when the protagonists outside the play are combined for business, and some CP fans also prefer to rise from CP in the play to live CP. Therefore, marketing CP in the event link and post-production has become the traffic password of drama variety shows, and the group variety with a long recording time and a large number of program phases naturally provides a broader stage for CP's off-screen business.
In "1 Million Promises: Ning An Like a Dream", Zhang Linghe, the actor of the male protagonist Xie Wei, made dumplings for Bailu, the actor of the female protagonist Jiang Xuening, and the producer specially edited the plot of Xie Wei cooking for Jiang Xuening in the play, and named this paragraph "Ning An Like a Dream Wei Ning Feeding Small Theater", so that the plot and variety show form a dream linkage. When Wang Xingyue, the actor of the second male Zhang Sha, interacted with Bailu intimately, Zhang Linghe's expression would be added with words such as "indifferent" and "bitter" in the later stage, which fit the plot of Xie Wei in the play who is often jealous. When several leading actors interact intimately in the variety show, the barrage will continue to flash entries such as "Wei Ning Shang Daita", "Zhanning Shang Daita", "Zhining Shang Daita", and the joy of fans knocking CP is beyond words. At the beginning of "The Great Song Detective Bureau", the famous kiss scene of Wang Kuan and Pei Jing in the play was restored, and the protagonists personally went down to knock CP, and Xue Ying's actor Zheng Wei was even more incarnated as a CP fan of "Xin Zhao Buxuan" and "Wang Fujing", and took the lead in publishing famous lines such as "good-looking and love-watching" when the two pairs of CPs interacted.
In order to attract fans to participate in interaction, the customized group variety of dramas often sets up a large number of fan benefits in variety shows. Taking iQIYI's "1 Million Promises" as an example, the audience's wishes will be solicited on Weibo and other platforms, and the parts related to the starring or plot will be designed as wish challenges, and the starring actors will randomly select wish blind boxes during the variety show recording process to complete the audience's wishes. In the "Da Song Detective Bureau" produced by Mango, the producer often distributes the "Tian Hu Girl (Fan Name of "Da Song Boys" Fan Name) to the guests to meet the wishes of fans in the form of tasks.
A large part of the fans' wishes selected by the producers of the group are related to the CP in the play. In order to meet the wishes of the audience, the "Seven O'clock Auspicious" group specially filmed the campus short film of the protagonist group's "Eighth Tribulation", and the "Song Dynasty Boys" group carefully planned the wedding of the protagonist group that could not be presented in the play, and the wedding scene of "Xin Zhao Buxuan" and "Wang Fujing" made fans sigh that they finally got what they wanted. The CP marketing in the group comprehensive can be called a prosperous carnival banquet for CP fans.
The establishment of the persona: consistency and contrast
Being able to show the audience the daily life side of the actor outside of the acting role is one of the reasons why variety shows are popular. However, different from traditional variety shows, when showing the off-screen characteristics of actors, drama group variety shows the characters they play in the play, and creates hot spots and topics through the consistency and contrast between the actors and the characters.
The second phase of the "Ning An Like a Dream" group is the protagonist group to carry out an escape room adventure, one of which is where the protagonist group wants to get clues by deciphering math problems, Zhang Linghe shows his skills in this level, and quickly uses mathematical knowledge to successfully decrypt it. In the barrage, fans shouted that Zhang Linghe deserved to be a student who graduated from Southern Normal University, which was completely consistent with the image of Xie Wei, the emperor who was incomparably resourceful and resourceful in the play, and the audience frantically praised "the emperor is reliable" and "the emperor's brain is easy to use". Zhang Linghe's smart academic bully outside the play overlapped with the character of the emperor in the play, which brought a lot of surprises to the audience, and recognized the adaptability of the actor and the role.
On the other side, Wang Xingyue, the actor of the second male Zhang Sha, focuses on the contrast of personality, the mature and stable Lord Zhang in the play, outside the play, is a "child brother" who is not at the legal age for marriage and is keen to play the role of CP, and many scenes of Wang Xingyue actively serving as the CP fan of the "Zhanning Party" were specially selected in the group comprehensive of "Ning An Like a Dream", which has the characteristics of "child brother". The group comprehensive of "Da Song Youth Chronicles 2" is even more contrasting. The shrewd and capable "Three Essences" (Zhao Jian, Yuan Zhongxin, Wang Kuan) actors Zhou Yutong, Zhang Xincheng, and Wang Youshuo have been repeatedly defeated in the game, while the "Three Fools" (Xue Ying, Wei Yanei, Pei Jing) actors of the silly and cute total ** Road in the play Zheng Wei, Fu Weilun, and Su Xiaotong have won one after another and become the king of the game, and from time to time they will play the "Three Essences" in the play. The inversion of the characters of "Three Fools" and "Three Essences" also made the audience addicted.
The guests in the drama group's comprehensive, with the blessing of the program team's screenwriting design and editing skills, have formed an echoing relationship with the characters in the play, whether it is a continuation of the characters in the play or the main contrast, they all let the audience see their vivid and vivid side, and in the interaction between the variety show and the plot, it has aroused the audience's discussion, which is of great benefit to the publicity of the drama and the fansization of the actors.
Soul of the group: The greatest charm of the acquaintance bureau
The guests in the drama group have a certain emotional foundation after the filming of the early episodes, and the audience hopes to see the unique group soul of the crew in the customized group variety that is different from other crews, and reflects the full tacit understanding of unity and cooperation in the acquaintance bureau.
"The Chronicles of the Song Dynasty" is a group drama that has won the love of many audiences with "the soul of the group", and the sincere friendship of the teenagers "seven fasts in one, life and death will not give up" has touched countless audiences. The deep friendship of the six leading actors was also vividly demonstrated in the group comprehensive - shouting in the rain on the rooftop, singing loudly in the sunset, writing letters and exchanging heartfelt feelings with friends, thinking about other guests everywhere in daily life, and picking up jokes anytime and anywhere, plus the classic lines in the play "You are sick in Qizhai" and "Don't force me to use my sword", etc., so that the audience loves to watch such an acquaintance bureau.
"Seven O'clock Auspicious" and "Ning An Like a Dream" both belong to iQiyi's "1 Million Promises" series and have relatively similar variety show programs, but they also show the characteristic team spirit in the group variety, "Seven O'clock Auspicious" starring group dance "Seven O'clock Auspicious" radio exercises, "Ning An Like a Dream" starring put the whole crew's favorite sport badminton on the event and carried out interesting badminton matches, all of which showed the unique side of the crew to the public.
In addition, the group also likes to design various tacit challenges for the leading actors, such as "Let's Build a Team!".The werewolf killing game in Seven Lents;Set up questions related to the opponent's actors, such as asking about the opponent's debut and fame works. Only by allowing the audience to see the unique "group soul" of a crew and feel the unique charm of the acquaintance bureau that distinguishes it from other variety shows, will more audiences focus on the drama group variety.
In addition to distributing fan benefits, CP combined business, and targeted display of characters and group spirits, the drama group variety can also attract the audience's attention and deepen the audience's understanding of the plot by constantly emphasizing lines and famous scenes. By showing more dimensions of the leading actors' daily lives, inviting the audience to participate in on-site interaction, etc., the psychological distance with the audience is narrowed, so that the drama series and variety shows can achieve mutual benefit and win-win cooperation. And the group comprehensive is broadcast when the episode is interrupted or ended, which can also play a special role in relieving the audience's anxiety of "withdrawal".
On the whole, several drama group comprehensives that have come out have played a certain effect, but there is still room for improvement, and the next group variety production needs to develop in the direction of forming an intertextual and contrasting relationship with the plot and character design more creatively, so as to avoid being reduced to the program of ordinary variety shows, and the producer must be more careful to polish in order to show the unique charm of customized group comprehensives, so that the interaction of drama variety can be more closely combined, and let the drama group variety as a new way of publicity and after-sales gain a firm foothold in the variety show market.