As long as there are children in the family, they will not know anything about "Mi Xiaoquan".
With that round little face and the "lightning" hairstyle on his head, this child who loves both food and play happens to be a representative of the post-10s." Mi Xiaoquan is full of curiosity every day, and her class is like a magical encyclopedia, full of fun and surprises. "Mi Xiaoquan Goes to School" is undoubtedly an unexpected horse in the world of Chinese children's literature. As soon as the book was published, it was nominated for the China Outstanding Publication Award and became a must-read for many children. At present, it has also spawned a variety of forms such as magazines, audio programs, animations and children's dramas, attracting more and more readers, and its IP value is becoming increasingly prominent.
On February 12, the live-produced children's drama "Mi Xiaoquan Goes to School 2" (referred to as Mi Xiaoquan 2) was launched on Tencent**, attracting more than 500,000 viewers to make on-site reservations**. Within half an hour of broadcasting, the popularity of the show broke through the 10,000 people mark and successfully topped the TOP1 of the children's drama list, further proving the huge influence of this top children's IP.
It is deeply impressive that each generation has its top IP, and these stories not only record the various emotional changes of the children of that era, but at some point in the future, they may become the password for the sublimation of emotions between the same kind.
Back then, live-action children's dramas such as "Balala Little Demon Fairy", "Family with Children", "Happy Planet", "Family with Aliens" and "Naughty Bao Ma Xiao Jump" became the collective memories of the post-80s and post-90s. Whenever these familiar ** sounded, the audience would be moved to tears.
However, in the next two decades, China's new generation of children will be exposed to more and more audiovisual content, while the market for live-action TV dramas, which has traditionally been made for children, has gradually been "compressed", which has led to the "generational break" of their top IP.
Now, the rise of "Mi Xiaoquan" not only fills the previous gap, but also provides us with an opportunity to re-examine and rethink the history, current situation and future direction of live-action children's drama
In the past ten years, why have those live-action children's dramas for the whole people gradually disappeared?
Where are the children's "difficulties" in content?
Why is Mi Xiaoquan's series of episodes loved by a new generation of children again?
How should a good children's drama be made?
The joy of children is the joy of family.
The most challenging part of children's content is how to balance children's preferences with parents' approval.
For children, much of the current content about children seems quite "boring", either by forced knowledge or moral preaching. This phenomenon has led to some children's works being perceived as unattractive and infectious. Professor Ishikawa, a professor at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, once frankly pointed out that the current problem in the creation of children's dramas is that it is out of touch with the needs of children: "Many times, creation is to teach children from the perspective of the best, telling them what they should pursue and what they should not pursue, but to deeply understand the true desires of children's hearts." ”
So, what exactly does it look like for kids to enjoy?
First of all, it is humorous and funny, but also full of suspense and rich imagination. At this stage full of innocence and curiosity, children's imagination is like a steaming wild horse, running unfettered into the unknown world. Children are now in the early stages of mental and character development, they are naturally curious about the world and show a higher level of attention to interesting things.
Secondly, the content should maintain an equal perspective with children, think from their point of view, and the shaping of characters and the development of the storyline can resonate and "sense of substitution" for children.
Mi Xiaoquan can stand in the "top stream" position of the children's world, not entirely because of his perfection, but because he and his friends have some small flaws, although they are not perfect, but they are real, which makes the children in front of the screen feel deeply resonant. The story of Mi Xiaoquan is happening all around us. Mi Xiaoquan himself is a cute and naughty guy, while Jiang Xiaoya is bitter but very generous, and Tietou is a simple and humorous person, although the squad leader Li Li gives people a stereotypical impression, he is kind in his heart. These characters with very different personalities and distinct personalities are the true portrayal of Mi Xiaoquan in the process of growing up. These lifelike character traits make young viewers involuntarily intoxicated and grow and progress with the protagonists.
Known as the "Iron Triangle", there are rice circles, iron heads, and ginger teeth.
Of course, children's content should not only be fun and resonant, but also stimulate children's minds, help them better understand society, solve real-world problems, and provide appropriate solutions for real-world scenarios.
Mi Xiaoquan first asks a question in each episode and then explains how to solve it through the content of each episode, which is very suitable for children's learning information needs. Mi Xiaoquan offered to organize a volunteer activity for garbage sorting at a class meeting. For example, when we talk about "helping others," we are not simply "preaching" the benefits of helping others, but rather helping children to realize the importance of helping others properly. In the story of the new episode, Mi Xiaoquan finds himself appointed by the teacher as a class leader. When discussing the topic of "how to become an excellent class cadre", the TV series clearly pointed out that the core of the class cadre is not power, but service, through the two stark contrasts between Mi Xiaoquan's appointment by teachers and the selection of classmates, which provides an opportunity for many children of the same age to refer to and harvest.
In addition to ensuring that the content matches the needs of children, the structure and presentation of the narrative also need to be innovative to ensure that children feel happy and benefit from it.
When we ** Mi Xiaoquan this series, it is easy to be attracted by its rhythm, the average length of the 20-minute episode just satisfies the children's concentration, and the clear narrative of the introduction-conflict-climax-ending makes it easy to indulge in it; In this process, the children were not only attracted by the storyline, but also learned a lot of knowledge through Mi Xiaoquan's adventures. At the beginning and end of the play, the small theater adopts the strategy of "throwing questions and summarizing questions" to further help the children deepen their memories.
A small theater performance before the screening.
For adults, the reason why Mi Xiaoquan is loved by parents is actually very direct: it not only maintains the health of the content, but also meets the parents' expectations for the practicality of the content.
This prompted us to re-examine the creative thinking of the theme of "family carnival". "Family-friendly'It is a simple form of entertainment. However, it is difficult to achieve this in the current Chinese society, because it not only needs to meet the basic psychological demands and aesthetic expectations of the audience, but also takes into account the actual needs of the market. In the pursuit of so-called "family joy", many children's content often oversatisfies the expectations of parents and ignores the needs of children; At the same time, there are also some content that is too narcissistic to "reduce intelligence" and ultimately fails to receive praise at both ends.
We can think calmly and gain an in-depth understanding of what parents really need when accompanying their children in real children's TV series - first of all, we must ensure the bottom line of the content and avoid containing inappropriate elements such as violence and **; Next, I hope that children will learn some useful knowledge and wisdom in dealing with interpersonal relationships from this book. The end result is "family fun", which means that parents can also benefit from it.
In the content of each episode, Mi Xiaoquan has carefully selected the problems that children may encounter in their growth journey as the theme. In each sub-topic, we will design activities related to these specific educational contents, so that children can better participate in them. For example, the theme of the second season covers helpfulness, learning to understand, how to become an excellent class leader, cultivating an inferiority, conceited and confident character, avoiding blindly following trends, avoiding falling into consumer traps, etc., basically covering children's daily learning and life scenes, showing in an entertaining way, children have learned from it, and parents can be more assured.
In addition, the series realistically shows children's behavior patterns and psychological states, and also helps parents to better understand their children's real thinking and behavioral motivations. In the TV series "Mi Xiaoquan", Mi Dad and Mi Mom show us the stories that happen in the growth of children one after another through the lens language. Although Mi Xiaoquan often has embarrassing situations in the play, in fact, he is a microcosm of the children's lives. Through the window of Mi Xiaoquan, parents can get to know their child more truly and comprehensively, and his words, deeds and thoughts are very representative. Mi Dad and Mi Mom explain the child's growth process and inner changes in different ways, so that parents can have a deeper understanding of their children. The solutions provided by Mi Pa and Mi Ma provide parents with a comprehensive set of "references" to properly deal with the various problems faced by their children, and also inspire parents on how to effectively correct and adjust their children's behavior patterns without harming the parent-child relationship.
This also explains why many parents can resonate with different degrees when discussing "rice circles". Mi Xiaoquan is a parent-child class *** It takes "companionship" as the theme, and uses animation, comics and other forms to convey the story of love and growth to parents. In the barrage area and social **, many parents choose **Mi Xiaoquan as their "first choice" - content with their children**, some of which have a deep resonance with them", "suitable for people of all ages, have learned how to communicate effectively with their daughters"...This is enough to prove that Mi Xiaoquan is a new model to show the parent-child relationship.
High-quality logical reasoning, unfolded continuously.
It is indisputable that despite the current competitive content industry, the content market for children is still a huge blue ocean. At this stage, the advantages of live-action children's dramas become more and more prominent. In this context, the market potential of live-action children's dramas is particularly huge. The children's content currently on the market is either for children under the age of 3 or for children between the ages of 3 and 7. If these are further expanded, there will be anime adaptations based on various IPs, but there will be relatively few subdivisions for children over 7 and under 12. These live-action children's shows can blend education and entertainment to capture children's attention with vivid plots and enlightening storylines. During this period, children are in the learning stage of middle school and primary school, their minds are gradually maturing, and their values are gradually forming. Therefore, they need some "transitional content" that contains realistic elements but is not **, and live-action children's dramas just fill this gap.
In fact, overseas has a clear layout on this kind of track, and shows its rich content selection.
In 2011, Netflix debuted a dedicated section for children, and subsequently elevated the layout of children's content to a global level. Their live-action children's dramas are also localized according to the realities of different countries, such as the Australian comedy "Awesome Junior Detective Agency", North America's "Rich Richie", "Cowardly Kitten", "Philharmonic Family" and "Marbury Lifeguard". The success of "Song of Victory" has led to a boom in live-action youth comedy. The live-action youth comedy "Song of Victory" launched by Nickelodeon, which focuses on children's themes, has been widely popular at home and abroad, with IMDB giving a rating of 7, while on domestic Douban, its average score is 85。
However, in my country, in view of the previously mentioned return on investment, difficulties in the creative process, changes in the audience's preferences and other factors, in recent years, real children's high-quality TV series are very rare, and the industry is in urgent need of new talent injection.
This important task ultimately fell to the advancement of the platform. As we all know, compared with anime and ** dramas, the production cost of live-action children's dramas is relatively high, but their benefits are not huge. Because of this unique content and market demand, the promotion of the ** platform has become especially important.
This time, the launch of "Mi Xiaoquan 2" also attracted our attention to the efforts and persistence of Tencent ** behind it in live-action children's dramas and children's content.
According to the TV series that has been released, the popularity of "Mi Xiaoquan Goes to School", which was broadcast during last year's winter vacation, reached nearly 20,000 on Tencent** station, and its popularity ranking in Maoyan comedy TV series is TOP3, and the score on Douban is as high as 85；In this world of TV dramas full of laughter and fantasy, "The Big Monster in the Forbidden City" is like a bright pearl, bringing a unique entertainment experience to the audience. After three seasons, "The Big Monster in the Forbidden City" was nominated for the TV Golden Eagle Award and successfully attracted a loyal group of fans. In the upcoming summer vacation, the audience can't wait for the debut of the new drama. Upcoming works also include the children's sci-fi workplace drama "Alien Visitor to Hostel 42" and "No, I've Become Superman" adapted by Happy Superman animation, which have reached an exciting level in terms of subject matter and quantity.
By reviewing the creative process and achievements of these works, the development direction of Tencent**'s live-action children's drama has become more and more clear:
On the one hand, we adhere to the consistent high-quality logic and move forward steadily. Whether it is children or their parents, they all have a full judgment and aesthetic appreciation of the quality of the content, high-quality content is the mainstream direction of content production, and for children's content, it should be pursued for high quality.
Judging from the live-action children's dramas produced by Tencent**, the IPs selected are all "good stories" with loud voices and rich content. For example, the book "Mi Xiaoquan" has always occupied the leading position in the children's book sales list, it is a popular IP of the post-10s, and the book "The Big Monster in the Forbidden City" has sold more than one million copies. The success of "Mi Xiaoquan" has put Gongfu Xiaoxi Pictures in the spotlight, and their team has done a great job in creating more excellent children's dramas. Our partners are mainly teams with experience in animation production or drama production, among which the production team of the Mi Xiaoquan series is Gongfu Xiaoxi Pictures, which is a member of Chen Guofu's Gongfu system; Linghe culture has attracted much attention for its profound creative strength and unique cultural vision. Behind "Hostel 42 Alien Visitor" is the team of Linghe Culture, who have produced "The Three-Body Problem", "The Royal Gift" and "The Darkling".
This high-quality mindset echoes the platform's "art-driven" core strategy, which centers on a compelling story rather than over-pursuing the ultimate maximum gain, thereby improving the overall artistic quality of the platform. Guided by this philosophy, the platform provides artists with a free space to create, free from excessive interference from commercial interests. This is mainly manifested in respect for artists and creators, as well as providing the necessary support and full patience to serve high-quality content. Under the guidance of this concept of focusing on boutiques, the platform deeply cultivates each work, like a patient gardener carefully caring for each flower. Looking back at the popular content of the past year, they have all gone through years of content optimization and technological advancement, even those live-action children's dramas that are difficult to create and do not have high returns, they are not perfunctory, but adhere to the principle of boutique.
On the other hand, the platform continues to invest in good stories, not only for a quarter, but also for a long-term development strategy. In this mode of "companionship" growth, children can find their own shadow in the episodes, see the problems they encounter in life solved in the story, get inspired and grow. Now, the series of "Mi Xiaoquan Goes to School" has entered its second season, and the "Big Monster in the Forbidden City" series has also launched three seasons. By the time the fourth season was in the run-up stage, it had truly provided children with a "companionship" growth experience.
In fact, Tencent is committed to developing high-quality content for the long term, which is also their core strategy. The development of long-term IP usually requires a large amount of investment, a long lead time, numerous uncertainties, and also faces the challenges of commercialization. However, in recent years, Tencent has been working hard to solve this "hard bone" problem, and now this experience has been applied to various content categories, so that each individual IP has become an IP forest under long-term operation.
"The Great Monster in the Forbidden City" is a series of TV series works.
While child-related content is difficult to produce, if produced properly, it can have a huge impact, creating positive value for audiences, markets, and platforms.
In the past year, a total of 396 new content for children have been launched on multiple platforms, achieving an overall increase in the number of content. In the children's drama market, the success of the "Mi Xiaoquan" series has become a benchmark. As major institutions have increased their investment in children's content, the success of the series "Mi Xiaoquan" not only demonstrates the special value of live-action children's dramas, but also shows the seeds and achievements sown by Tencent in advance in this field.
With high-quality logic and consistent effort, the core principles of content creation will continue to show their value, and the same applies in the field of children's content.