"Ask the Boundless" was launched, and the youth of a generation of great men found their way, which caused many viewers to sigh. Flipping through the roster of main creators, the presence of party history experts is certainly the basic plate of major revolutionary-themed TV dramas, but the appearance of 35-year-old director Wang Wei has undoubtedly brought a new atmosphere to related themes.
Looking back at the drama market in 2023, if veteran directors such as Zhao Baogang, Zheng Xiaolong, and Kang Honglei are still in their prime, and they are a strong foundation for the high-quality development of domestic dramas, then young people are in the team, which is undoubtedly a fresh drive for good dramas to continue to be new and for the audience to stay for domestic dramas. This year's domestic dramas did not leave the audience much time for drama shortages, among them, the cutting-edge directors of the post-80s and post-90s generations frequently scored points.
As the 2023 drama calendar is about to be fully revealed, Wang Wei, Xin Shuang, Li Mo, Li Zhi, Zhang Dalei, Ding Ziguang, Bi Xinye, Wang Zheng, Tianyi, Hong Ling, Zhizhu and other post-80s and post-90s generations collectively stood in front of the audience with the names of cutting-edge directors. The oldest of them is no more than 42 years old, and the younger is not yet 30 years old. Regardless of whether the name is familiar or not, there are popular and word-of-mouth works on the resume, and in 2023 alone, there will be "The Long Season", "Ask the Heart", "Apocalypse", "To a Windy Place", "Moses on the Plains", "Under the Prosperous City", "Ancient Acacia" and so on.
Compared with the past, most of the members of the "Director's Novice Village" were spinning in idol dramas, today's young directors can stand out with their personality and innovation, bring new terms such as slow life dramas and farming dramas to the screen, and can also control key topics and realism. For the entire industry, more and more newcomers are out of the circle overnight with their works, and "heroes don't ask where they come from" is just a new footnote for domestic dramas to usher in a hundred flowers and high-quality development.
Roll creativity, roll audio-visual, roll personality, they participate in the development of new narratives of domestic dramas.
Yin Hong, a professor at Tsinghua University, has said more than once that the attack of cutting-edge directors has brought innovation and creativity to Chinese film and television creation, "They were born in the Internet era, and their learning Xi and opportunities make them hold the key to observing the world and controlling technology." Therefore, when this group of young people enters the film and television industry, they often pay more attention to artistic exploration, expression innovation, and industrial breakthroughs." is not the same as the experience of the predecessors, this group of cutting-edge may not all be from professional classes, musicians, advertising people, up masters, etc. are their slash identities. They came to the film and television industry with a variety of life experiences, and the works they directed have a distinct personal color in the audio-visual style, and the choice of subject matter also shows a strong personality imprint. It can be said that they are involved in creativity, audio-visual, and personality, and almost one person and one style participate in the development of new narratives in domestic dramas as "author-type" directors.
Among them, the representative and legendary ones must have a refreshing seat. Nearly 880,000 people hit a 94 points, as of now, the word-of-mouth ceiling of domestic dramas in 2023 still belongs to "The Long Season". Xin Shuang was born in 1981 and is not very young, but he was born as a law student, played in a band, and opened an advertising company, so his career experience itself is beyond imagination and full of vitality. Instead of taking the traditional road, "The Long Season" did not linger too much on the details of the case and criminal investigation techniques, but instead focused on the meticulous daily life and the grand social background, breaking a new path of "life suspense".
For an author like Xin Shuang, every step of life points to inspiration. The time of the rock band has shaped his ** aesthetic, from "The Hidden Corner" to "The Long Season", the interludes and background music have achieved a rare one in the image expression. The exquisite lens language is the norm, and there are also games such as color associations and symbol hints that are taken to the extreme. The director's homeland, growth, and nostalgia have all been turned into metaphors in history, bearing resonant amber. Zhang Dalei, who is one year younger, also believes that life hides more questions, so "Moses on the Plains" crosses the unsolved case of chasing the murderer into the connotation of life. It's just that Zhang Dalei believes that "memory is actually an emotion filtered by time", regardless of the region - the land in the play can be the Northeast written by Shuangxuetao, or it is not his own hometown Inner Mongolia.
Before the 37-year-old Wang Zheng handed over his self-written and self-directed "Under the Prosperous City", he worked as an advertising person, a self-leading producer, etc., focusing on "brain hole" Qingqi. During the Spring Festival of 2020, he suddenly thought of the deep details of human nature and social life behind the cases in the classical ** and storytelling books, and the idea of writing a story germinated. From the very beginning, Wang Zheng made it clear that the story was different from the Xianxia puppets or emperors and generals that are commonplace in the costume track on the market, and he had to pay attention to the microscopic specific people. The 12 episodes of "Under the Prosperous City" create a miniature landscape of a small city in the south of the Yangtze River in the late Ming Dynasty, where the officials catch fast, the townspeople and rich gentry, the peddlers and pawns, and all kinds of people take turns to appear, and an "amateur director" uses his personal brain hole and reading interest to reorganize a suspense of ancient costumes in the "Jiangnan Garden", which amazes the audience in a low-key manner.
The rhetoric of "a drama brings fire to a city" is not the first to be created this year, but "Going to a Windy Place" broadcast at the beginning of the year has achieved a typical case of film and television drama "Yiye Xing" bringing up local "Baiye Wang" during holidays such as the Spring Festival and May Day. Ding Ziguang, a post-85 director, has filmed popular emotional dramas such as "The Next Stop is Happiness" and "In the Name of Family". However, he believes that "creation is always a process of confrontation with oneself", putting aside past experience and using immersive video style to capture the aesthetic connotation of tranquility. With the broadcast of the play, new categories such as pastoral dramas, slow life dramas, and wind dramas have spread far and wide, finding compatibility between rural revitalization and urban life for domestic dramas, and it has also become a new solution for emotional dramas. While the performance of many S+-level Xianxia dramas is mediocre, the low-cost online drama "Ancient Acacia" at Station B is unexpectedly out of the circle. The main creators of the play are all unknown people in the entertainment industry, and they have won praise for their innovative structure of "reverse dual time and space" and "inverted **", as well as the simple and pure service and ancient style mirror.
With individual interests, styles, and aesthetics, cutting-edge directors may be able to quickly locate their own creative coordinates in the industry with one or two works. And after finding the trend, the trend of innovation, the real aspirants are still looking for the next turn. For example, Xin Shuang, when asked whether life suspense will become a trend, he replied: "Life and memory are just a way to deal with suspense materials." I hope it doesn't turn into a trend, because what the audience wants to see is something newer, a new genre, a new style. ”
To levitate, to entertain, to routines, they also pursue the thickness of expression.
In the ecology of domestic drama creation, the "Internet gene" was once a double-edged sword, and the other side of the popular circle is often connected to entertainment and even suspension. However, as the film and television drama industry as a whole has shifted from a hurricane to a high-quality development stage of "reducing quantity and improving quality", these cutting-edge directors also pursue the thickness of expression. They are good at breathing with their peers and Generation Z, and they also use a realistic creative attitude to levitate, entertain, and routine.
Not long ago, the medical drama "Ask the Heart" was broadcast. The creator is loyal to the creative principles of medical dramas, puts realism and professionalism in the front, and strengthens the position of the "doctor-patient alliance" in the whole drama with the composite roles of several doctors who are also patients within the scope of human nature. For Li Zhi, who just arrived in June this year, he may have never been "confused" in creation. Born in Sichuan and Chongqing, he integrated the nostalgia and world of his life experience into his ** work, and the ** story of the rest of his life after the catastrophe in the short film "Xiujin" touched many people. Since then, there have been many fans in female urban dramas such as "Beijing Women's Illustrated Guide" and "Twenty Not Confused", and his creative strategy of being realistic and not suspended has been implemented behind it.
The urban drama track has long been extremely crowded, and it is not an exaggeration to even describe it as a mixture of fish and dragons, but the 35-year-old Li Mo still broke out of the encirclement. Two years ago, he handed over "I'm Good in Another Country" and "Sanyue Has a New Job", at first glance, the city, occupation, and female elements are the most indispensable genre of "modern idol dramas". In fact, the former focuses on the wandering migrant workers, and the subway commuters in the metropolis touch the hearts of the people in his "understanding" posture day after day, and at the same time restart the tradition of domestic drama "foreign narrative";The latter focuses on the funeral industry, the script is not suspended, the camera is not curious, and he finds a way of dialogue between contemporary young people and the world, with others, and with themselves in the life landscape rarely touched by urban dramas. This year, Li Mo's new work "Hypocalypse" uses the appearance of "pretending" to observe the heart of "not pretending", and it can be seen that urban men and women are related. Netizens commented that the director can have an important position in the "Puppet 101" that everyone jokes, because his lens can always capture the real fireworks in the world and the voices of young people.
In fact, the growth of new directors has rejuvenated the ecology of China's film and television industry, although innovation is a major anchor point for development, it has always been the creed of the high-quality development of domestic dramas by digging deep into the rich mine of life and finding a landing point in thick texts. Take Wang Wei as an example, born in 1988, his previous well-known works are "Chasing the Murderer in the White Night" and "Secret and Great", a suspense with a high score and a spy war with a high score. This time he devoted himself to the theme of major revolutions, Wang Wei's on-set requirements often impressed the chief screenwriter Liang Zhenhua, "A director in his 30s, his high reverence for history is even beyond our imagination, and we have had a discussion on how drama and poetry penetrate into historical situations - in the face of thick history, many self-righteous creations are superficial."
Author: Wang Yan.
Text: Wang Yantu: Stills Editor: Xuan Jing Responsible Editor: Li Ting.
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