**: Sina Entertainment.
This winter must be unforgettable for Lu Hongli.
In mid-November 2023, Lu Hongli was officially appointed as the chief director of the 2024 Henan Spring Festival Gala. This party is scheduled to be broadcast on February 7, 2024, and how to make a high-quality party in less than a hundred days has become the top priority in Lu Hongli's heart.
Now it seems like a miracle, Lu Hongli and her team have handed in an excellent answer. After the broadcast of the Henan Spring Festival Gala, dozens of hot searches were listed in a row, and Henan Satellite TV was worthy of enjoying Taimiao, and the hot search even "exploded" for a time. So far, Lu Hongli has spent a crazy, happy and tiring winter.
On the third day of resumption of work during the Spring Festival holiday, we interviewed Lu Hongli. Her voice is loud and her laughter is hearty, and under her narration, we finally hear the story behind the hit.
We want to make a different Spring Festival Gala! 」
Lu Hongli and her team received the task of the Henan Spring Festival Gala in mid-November 2023, which means that they will have to put together a gala in less than three months. When it comes to this journey, Lu Hongli has repeatedly told me: Time is indeed too tight!
But even if the time is not rich, Lu Hongli and her team still decided to make a different Spring Festival Gala.
This is the most important festival for us Chinese! When I received the task, I was thinking about what kind of Spring Festival Gala to do, first, it had to be different from others; second, it has to have the characteristics of Henan Satellite TV; Third, it must conform to the tone of the festival. Lu Hongli said.
In the end, the Henan Spring Festival Gala adopted the form of pure film and television without a host.
Lu Hongli said"Film and television party" is the characteristics and advantages of Henan Satellite TV,The film and television Spring Festival Gala is more delicate than the traditional stage,The content will be richer,But it does not mean that it is out of the scope of the party,As long as it brings joy and visual experience to everyone,It is a party。
In contrast, the "no host" setting is undoubtedly a huge challenge to traditional evenings. I asked Lu Hongli if she had any hesitation, and she told me that she did, but the hesitation quickly disappeared.
We must not underestimate the audience, what we can think of, the audience must be able to think of, what we can't think of, the audience can still think of. Now the mode of communication has changed, and under the new mode of communication, the host's string words have been repeatedly weakened, so we decided to remove the host and bring some fresh experience to the audience, in fact, as long as the content is done well, the audience can accept it. ”
For the huge change in the form of the party,Henan Satellite TV's decision-making level is very supportive,Innovation and fun are the concepts that Henan Satellite TV adheres to from top to bottom,Everyone knows very well that what they are doing is not just a party,But the feeling that the party brings to the audience、The core of the party to be conveyed。
There was no host in the Henan Spring Festival Gala on the hot search that night.
Under the innovation of the overall form,"Henan Satellite TV aesthetics" has once again become the key word,Lu Hongli said that this is the "visual spectacle" that Henan Satellite TV has been pursuing,Whether it is real scene or CG special effects,The standard is"Extreme aesthetics"。
Lu Hongli told some truths, she said frankly that after the Tang Palace night banquet became popular, the audience's deepest impression of Henan Satellite TV was the special effects, but slowly another voice appeared, and some viewers would feel that the special effects were used too much.
We listened to everyone's opinions, enriched the real scene, and repeatedly grasped that degree when using special effects, without showing off our skills. Netizens are so smart that they can tell whether what you make is dry or showy. Since the audience allows us to grow up and make mistakes, we have to be worthy of the audience, and we have to keep learning and slowly enrich the production methods. Lu Hongli told me.
Li Peng, the visual director in charge of the Henan Spring Festival Gala, led the team boldly and restrained, and made a shocking but not exaggerated, beautiful and meaningful visual effect on the basis of continuing the style of Henan Satellite TV. This is a very important part of the whole party, which reflects the level and aesthetics of Henan Satellite TV.
In the dance program "Phoenix Singing Chaoyang", there is a scene of a phoenix at the water's edge, and the long tail of the phoenix cannot float up, which seems a little rigid, so they used special effects to make the tail move, and the phoenix also became smart and vivid.
Henan Satellite TV is very satisfied with this effect, they are not to let the audience praise how willing to use special effects, but to let the audience feel the naturalness and vividness in the program.
The smart phoenix tail in "The Phoenix Singing the Rising Sun".
Compared with singing and dancing programs, there are not many language programs in this year's Henan Spring Festival Gala, but even so it has been well received by young audiences. Among them, "Nothing to Use the New Year Press Conference" tells the workplace pressure and the pressure of being urged to marry during the New Year by contemporary young people, and the wonderful point of the show is that it does not force a family carnival, which makes many young viewers feel comfortable.
It's useless to call on parents and relatives not to put pressure on young people.
Faced with this evaluation, Lu Hongli chuckled, this kind of feedback was expected by her.
Regarding the phenomenon of young people being urged to marry by their parents and being questioned by relatives during the Chinese New Year, this phenomenon is something we want to express, but how to express it is a problem. We killed a lot of drafts, because everyone formed an inertial thinking, and still talked about it in the way of expression in the previous sketches, and after we read it, we felt that it was so boring, and we didn't want this kind of expression. ”
Lu Hongli and her team did not want to embarrass young audiences, so they repeatedly made it clear that "don't be reasonable" and "don't force reconciliation", believing that conflicts in life cannot be resolved in a ten-minute program.
There is nothing to use in the New Year press conference to combine the workplace and life.
Another highly praised language program is the dialogue between AI and Li Bai, Lu Hongli told me that they emphasized many times during the production process that the rhythm should be relaxed and cute, and that everyone should not watch the party as if they were taking a history lesson, once they start preaching, it will feel too tiring.
A monologue after a conversation between AI and Li Bai.
Creators have to put down their bodies, don't be confined to their own imagination space, now everyone pays attention to different content, and the forms of expression they like are different, if they still use old ideas and ways to create language programs, they will definitely not be able to keep up with the audience's aesthetics, and they will definitely be complained about. ”
I asked the road guide how to evaluate this year's language program from the perspective of the creator, and she said in a high voice: I think I have held on, our content is young, technological, and full of fireworks! (laughs).
In less than 100 days, Lu Hongli and her team have made new attempts from the Spring Festival Gala format to picture presentation to content creation, and the results have proved that their boldness and decisiveness are correct, they hugged the audience, and the audience also gave feedback with warm evaluation.
At 19 o'clock on February 24 (Saturday), Henan Satellite TV's "2024 Lantern Festival Wonderful Tour" will be broadcast.
I won't let the show serve the stars! 」
In the past Henan Satellite TV's various galas, the "star content" was not high, but in this year's Spring Festival Gala, Jackie Chan, Yang Mi, Zhou Shen, Ayunga appeared, as well as traffic idols like Liu Yuxin and Liu Yu. The "star content" has been greatly improved, but Lu Hongli is still confident: we always insist that content is king, and stars should serve the show, not the show serve the star.
Lu Hongli took Yang Mi's program "Dreaming of Elegance" as an example.
The reason is that we saw a girl on the news who often felt inferior because of her figure, and then she wore Hanfu in Luoyang, and was praised by everyone for having a classical beauty charm, and traditional clothes gave her self-confidence, which touched us very much, and we wanted to expand the content on the two points of Hanfu fever and female self-confidence. At the same time, we see that Yang Mi often wears new Chinese clothes, and many girls pay attention to the new Chinese style, and begin to like and understand traditional clothing and traditional culture, which coincides with our original intention, so we invited Yang Mi, it can be said that we both go both ways. The show is in line with our original intention of creation, and also in line with Yang Mi's own tonality, and there is a shot of new Chinese costumes at the end, which is a continuation of her combination with new Chinese style. ”
The whole process of cooperating with Yang Mi was unexpected by Lu Hongli.
Lu Hongli said that Yang Mi's team is very serious, Yang Mi herself will go through the program plan and be very strict, and some questions will be raised in the process, and then her team and the director team will discuss it again, in Lu Hongli's view, this is a benign way of cooperation.
Yang Mi's filming process also made Lu Hongli remember it vividly. At that time, the temperature in the studio reached below zero, and the staff were wrapped in thick down jackets, but Yang Mi only wore single clothes, but despite this, she still tried her best to cooperate with the shooting, Lu Hongli mentioned this paragraph and bluntly admired Yang Mi: "It makes sense for her to succeed, professional and dedicated." ”
This time, Yang Mi had to change a total of five looks, and the change time was very long, and at the same time, it involved the transition, which made the tense time even more tense. The director team has formulated a rigorous work process, and Yang Mi's team has fully cooperated, and the entire shooting process is closely linked and orderly. Speaking of which, Lu Hongli sighed again: Yang Mi's team recognizes the content of the program, and she herself wants to do what she can for the rise of women's power and traditional culture, and we are very happy to cooperate.
Zhou Shen's interpretation of "If You Miss You" in the Henan Spring Festival Gala is an old song, Lu Hongli said that this song was brought up again this year because there is Hakka culture in the song, and the Hakka people look at the Spring Festival very seriously, so this song is very timely in the Spring Festival Gala. In order to make the Hakka emotions in the song stronger, Lu Hongli's team found Hakka experts to refill the lyrics and record them, so that the song has a new interpretation.
Lu Hongli said that Zhou Shen's trip ended very late that day, and it was already midnight when the song was recorded, Lu Hongli was worried that Zhou Shen would be tired, but Zhou Shen did it very well.
It was early in the morning, we were still in a meeting, and suddenly we received a recorded version from Zhou Shen, and we all applauded after listening to it, he learned so well! Some pronunciations of Hakka are very difficult, I didn't expect Zhou Shen to learn so well, he is really talented in language, he is a language genius! ”
The Hakka nursery rhyme part of the song.
On this basis, Lu Hongli's team proposed to Zhou Shen to do costume styling, and said to Zhou Shen: "We will not create gimmicks for the sake of gimmicks, and the costume styling must be in line with the content of the show!" Zhou Shen quickly agreed after seeing that the costume style and content were extremely consistent, and did his best to serve the content of the show.
Referring to Zhou Shen's show, Lu Hongli talked about a small detail. It was December 2023 when it was recorded, and Zhou Shen's itinerary was very full, which made Lu Hongli very anxious for a while, worried that there would not be enough time to present it 100%, but Zhou Shen tried to squeeze out two large chunks of time for this show, filming in Luoyang in early December, and then going to Ganzhou to shoot in late December. "Really, he's very dedicated, squeezing in enough time to give us enough time! Lu Hongli sighed.
Like Zhou Shen, Yang Liping, who was out of the circle at the Henan Spring Festival Gala, was also squeezed in time.
At the beginning of November, Yang Liping's dance drama "Peacock" was performed in Zhengzhou, when Lu Hongli was sitting under the stage, she looked at Yang Liping on the stage, and suddenly thought of the word "dragon and phoenix Chengxiang", and wanted to integrate the creativity of "dragon and phoenix" into the party, so she ran to the backstage to invite Yang Liping. But Yang Liping's dance drama tour will be going on until mid-to-late December, which is too tight for her.
I can understand that she is thinking about being an artist, and all I can do is to keep cheering for her, telling her again and again that it's okay and that we'll be able to do it! In the end, Teacher Yang Liping's program was filmed at the end of January, and the party was broadcast on February 7. ”
Facts have proved that Lu Hongli's insistence on inviting Yang Liping is the right choice, and after the show was broadcast, the popularity of "Fengming Chaoyang" has increased again and again.
As for the addition of second-hand roses, Lu Hongli said that it was because of the down-to-earth humorous temperament of Diplodocus. In order to maximize the temperament of Diplodocus, they planned a small story before the song, and deliberately set the filming location in the Sanmenxia Dikeng Courtyard. Liang Long contributed a lot of laughter baggage in this short film, and even Lu Hongli herself starred in the short film.
Diplodocus starred in a short film.
Lu Hongli made a cameo.
As for the use of traffic idols, Lu Hongli said that she and the team will not be one-size-fits-all, and it depends on whether the traffic idols and content are suitable or not. "Just like when we invited Liu Yu to take a fancy to his sunny and lovely temperament, that show needs a new generation image, this boy is very good, every rehearsal is very serious, and he is still thinking about dance moves after getting off the stage, he is a sunny little boy. We re-choreographed the dance for him, and he liked it so much that he said he wanted to add it to the concert. ”
When it comes to inviting actors, Lu Hongli said that as long as it meets the content of the show, no matter how difficult things are, she and the team will find a way to complete them, but if there are only gimmicks, no matter how famous the stars are, they will decisively pass them, and they must keep the bottom line of "content is king".
Before, Henan Satellite TV's influence was not so great, our funds were limited, and it was not easy to invite stars, but now through Chinese festivals to make an impact, it will naturally be recognized by some stars, but in this process, we must stay sober, not be kidnapped by the heat, and always understand that the content of the program comes first. ”
This is probably the reason why the Henan Spring Festival Gala has stars but does not lose style, Lu Hongli and the star team reached a highly consistent concept in the early stage of creation, what they want is not a **, but to work together to complete a party that can inherit traditional culture.
Lu Hongli said that they and the stars are not exchanging the show for popularity, but exchanging sincerity for sincerity.
I also do the job well without any prefixes! 」
In the dozens of days of preparing for the Henan Spring Festival Gala, staying up all night was a common occurrence for Lu Hongli and her team.
She asked the team to reply to the information in seconds, see the problem as soon as possible, and solve the problem as soon as possible. A small episode is that once Yang Liping sent a message to Lu Hongli in the early morning, Lu Hongli replied in seconds, and later Yang Liping sent a message to Lu Hongli early in the morning, and Lu Hongli still replied in seconds. Later, Yang Liping asked Lu Hongli a question: Lu Dao, when are you going to sleep?
Yang Liping thanked Lu Hongli's team on Weibo.
mentioned that she stayed up late during this time, Lu Hongli passed by with a hearty laugh, she said that she was not particularly worried about the intensity of work, it was nothing more than working day and night, what really made her anxious was whether she could make the expected Spring Festival Gala.
With the last "Wing Chun" easter egg, the party lasts for 120 minutes, which is equivalent to the production volume of a big movie, and there is no host for the whole party, there is no content that can be extended for a long time, it must be dry goods, and the travel time of the stars is very tight......Although I have been cheering for celebrities, I am actually very panicked, and I have to deal with all kinds of problems when I wake up every day, and in the end I joke that I am an old Chinese medicine doctor for consultation, and everyone is lining up to talk about the problems encountered, and I solve them one by one. ”
Do you have a particularly difficult moment? I asked Lu Hongli.
In fact, in high-intensity work, you don't realize that it's difficult, but you just keep solving problems. The only thing I can't see is the countdown card in the office, there is a little girl in our team who makes a countdown card, and changes the countdown number every day, like the countdown of the college entrance examination, I can't see the number, and the whole person will be very anxious. Speaking of this, Lu Hongli let out a hearty laugh again.
Even if there are many complicated things, you can still see Lu Hongli's awe and love for this job.
Lu Hongli, a native of Henan Province who lives on this land, said that traditional culture is almost dissolved in her own blood and bones, and there is no way not to love it. At the same time, she also loves her job, and she believes that the value of this job is to truly contribute to traditional culture.
Speaking of which, Lu Hongli told me a little story. Three years ago, she went to see the dance drama "Only This Green" with Xu Na, one of the chief directors of the Chinese festival series, and the last scene of the dance drama said, "I would like to pay tribute to the creator and inheritor of traditional Chinese culture with this dance drama." Lu Hongli asked Xu Na at the time, are we considered the inheritors of traditional culture? Xu Na said categorically: "Of course!" We want the world to see this ancient and modern China! ”
Oops, my tears came down at that point, and I felt like what I was doing was very meaningful! Speaking of this, Lu Hongli still couldn't hide her excitement.
Lu Hongli is one of the many female directors of Henan Satellite TV, and in her team, the majority are also little girls.
Lu Hongli believes that women are indeed bound by their families when they work, but women can still be very involved and handle their work with absolute care. Sometimes, women are more thoughtful and holistic in their work.
She recounts the episodes from the second-hand rose shoot. On the first day of second-hand rose shooting, they found that the glow sticks in the audience were not bright enough, in fact, this clip was not unusable, but the team still decided to change the brighter light sticks as soon as possible and coordinate all parties to shoot for one more day. Lu Hongli said: "When you see that problem, you will not be able to get over that hurdle in your heart, even if it is a small problem." It's not easy for everyone to stay up all night shooting, the pit yard is very cold, but we all think that we have to pick out the details, and in the end we all stick to it. ”
The audience waving a glow stick in the video.
At the same time, women will have innate aesthetic advantages in their work, just like Yang Liping's "Phoenix Singing Chaoyang", the team agreed that they should not rely entirely on the so-called sense of science and technology piled up by special effects, Yang Liping's performance is the foundation, and the scientific and technological means are just the finishing touches to supplement and enrich the stage.
Lu Hongli said that the female directors she knows and the female workers in her team have an absolute advantage, and Lu Hongli laughed that they "will not give up until they reach their goal".
Lu Hongli led the team to do a lot of Chinese festival series of parties, many times there may only be dozens of days to prepare, and it is never easy to do a party, but she and the team have stumbled. "We often have to do high-intensity work in a short period of time, but also have high-quality output, my team is very resistant, we have already experienced, so even if there is anxiety in doing the party, I am still very confident, I know we can win it! ”
Lu Hongli also highlighted the prefix "female", she said: "I don't think of myself as a woman in the workplace, and I don't deliberately divide my colleagues in the team into women, we are all directors, producers, costume designers, ......I don't want to emphasize the word "female" in front of the director, ability always comes first, this is also a kind of female self-confidence, isn't it, I can do the job well without any prefix! After speaking, Lu Hongli let out a hearty laugh again.
After nearly three months of high-intensity work, Lu Hongli and her team were rewarded by the audience and netizens, Lu Hongli mentioned that Henan Satellite TV is still immersed in joy in the hot search word of enjoying Taimiao, she repeatedly told me that this word is too big, this evaluation is too high, and the audience is too good.
Seeing this word explode in the first hot search, I was at that moment, hey, how to describe that mood, I was excited, and I felt very gratified, our efforts were worth it, but there was also pressure, I was thinking about what to do at the next party hahahahaha! ”
After the end of the 2024 Henan Spring Festival Gala, Lu Hongli and her team did not rest, and on Chinese New Year's Eve, they were still working overtime to make the edited version, while constantly reading the comments of netizens, and the whole team reviewed and reflected together. Lu Hongli said: "Only we know best that we have not done enough, and there are regrets." ”
On the first day of resumption of work after the holiday, Lu Hongli and her team stayed up all night, and it was already 3 o'clock in the morning when they returned home. She is still telling this little thing in a high-pitched voice, she said that she has no time to say goodbye to the 2024 Henan Spring Festival Gala, let alone feel nostalgic, because she and the team have received a new task.
After a crazy, happy and tiring winter, Lu Hongli and her team will usher in an equally crazy spring.