We won't give up because of a possible burnout period, on the contrary, we have to think about each program and how to find an audience.
Author |Sena (Beijing).
Many people don't know that the first Spring Festival Gala in 1983 had an audience on-demand link.
Huang Yihe, the first generation chief director of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, boldly adopted the method of live broadcast and set up four *** for the audience to watch in real time. "Hometown Love", which is highly anticipated but needs to withstand the pressure, finally appeared on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala after the live broadcast was full of five sets.
Liu Yichen, the executive director of the 27th Hunan Spring Festival Gala in 2024, is a post-90s generation, and in his memory, he has never experienced such a strong sense of interaction in the Spring Festival Gala. This also inspired him to plan four major moments in this year's Hunan Spring Festival Gala
For each gala stage, the performers need to complete it together with the 400 audience members below the stage: Zhang Yixing will move the camera in the middle of singing "God of Wealth", and the selected person will say New Year's wishes; The Legend of the Phoenix appeared in an audience of 400 people, with some people square dancing to their songs, and some children taking the stage to make a head-turn.
Ding Jie, the chief director of the post-80s, believes that these four major moments are a big adventure and a big innovation. In the planning stage, some people reported that it was too much like the Spring Festival Gala, and it was less solemn than the Spring Festival Gala. In the evening broadcast on the 3rd, the four major gala moments are still the core skeleton, and on top of this, there are also many traditional singing and dancing projects, such as "China in Singing".
Although they are still young among TV people, Ding Jie and Liu Yichen are already experienced old people on the track of the Spring Festival Gala. Ding Jie and Liu Yichen both belong to Liu Xin's team, producer Liu Xin participated in the Spring Festival Gala for the first time in 2001, and has participated in 13 sessions so far, of which the team has done 9 sessions together.
Liu Xin
They are too familiar with how to cooperate in the Spring Festival Gala project and give full play to their respective strengths. The post-90s generation boldly innovated and put forward their observations; After the 80s, coordination and balance were done to retain the novelty as much as possible, and finally, there were also the post-70s as ballast. They used tacit cooperation and repeated drills to ensure that the live broadcast on Chinese New Year's Eve ran as trouble-free as possible.
In the Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala, Hunan Satellite TV's Spring Festival Gala is the only Spring Festival Gala that is still insisting on live broadcast. In Liu Xin's view, live broadcast is a way to maintain the tension of all participants, and when recording the party, everyone will have an expectation that if it doesn't work this time, it can be recorded again. Live broadcast, let everyone mobilize their energy to the limit, leaving a one-of-a-kind performance.
In the Spring Festival Gala, which is so important and so important to avoid accidents, insists on doing live broadcasts, bringing the participants a faint pride. It's the pride of being here after 27 years of fighting in a game that's so exciting and challenging. Live streaming has trained them, made them who they are, and at the same time has been chasing them and stimulating them to come up with more ways to win the attention of their audience.
1.It's getting harder every year
Let the Hunan Spring Festival Gala strive to be different every year, and when it comes to concrete practice, in Liu Xin's words, it is becoming more and more difficult every year. 」
The internal competition is fierce. The New Year's Eve Concert and the Spring Festival Gala are fixed large-scale gala projects of Hunan Satellite TV and Mango TV every year, and every team that wants to operate these two big projects will participate in internal proposals. Proposals are usually held 3 months before the Spring Festival Gala, and the winning bid will be announced a week later. In 2023, a total of 3 teams will compete for the 27th Spring Festival Gala project.
From the issuance of the tender to the presentation of the proposal, there is only one week. But for teams that want to do the Spring Festival Gala, preparation is a protracted battle. Our preparation work is actually more of the usual accumulation of minds, because our team is the queen team of the Spring Festival Gala, we usually consciously collect some materials that may be useful for the Spring Festival Gala, and this week's time is more to find a breakthrough point in this year's plan, and make innovations on the experience of previous years. Liu Xin told Xinsheng Pro.
The part of the useful material that must be covered is the big news of the year. The achievements of Hunan Province in the past year in terms of politics, economy, science and technology, culture and other aspects are all the content that the Hunan Spring Festival Gala needs to consider. In 2022, Ding Jie, who served as the chief director for the first time, will deal with such a major event: in 2022, the construction of Hunan's four major laboratories and four major scientific and technological infrastructures will take off strongly, the three-tip innovative talent project will be solidly promoted, and the transformation of scientific and technological achievements will be doubled.
But these terms are a little far away from the audience, and it is not very easy for the audience to directly feel its temperature. Ding Jie and his team needed to find the emotional resonance between these events and the public. Later, they found out that this group of scholars is also a fresh person, with their own lifestyles and hobbies, so singer Zhang Yixing led a group of scientific research brothers in the laboratory to perform the scientific version of "Xiangjiang Water".
Zhang Yixing's performance at the 2024 Hunan Spring Festival Gala
And this year, Shenzhou 17 was stationed in Tiangong, among which Tang Hongbo, a native of Hunan, became the first astronaut in China to return to the space station, and walked in space again after two years. During the Chinese New Year, astronauts also need to carry out missions in space, becoming the only wanderers who cannot return to Earth. The 27th Hunan Spring Festival Gala paid attention to this incident and invited Tang Hongbo's family to the scene to share Tang Hongbo's growth story along the way. The audience at the scene also felt the difficulty of looking at their hometown from space.
The young people's attention to traditional culture was also captured by the team. Intangible cultural heritage has become a new traffic to attract young people, Chinese clothing has become a new trend, and a film composed of poems has achieved a high box office. In the view of the director team, the underlying logic of young people's love for traditional culture is cultural self-confidence. The poetry creative show "How can there be poetry if you don't have Xiaoxiang" came from this.
It's a constant challenge to have big news every year, which needs to be carefully screened and polished into a favorite show. The external environment has put forward more and more problems for the Spring Festival Gala.
2001 was Liu Xin's first participation in the Hunan Spring Festival Gala, and at that time, TV was still the most powerful medium, with strong enough energy to gather the whole family in front of the TV. That's a good thing for the makers. At that time, both the audience and the actors were eager to go to the Spring Festival Gala, and it was easy to mobilize resources from all sides. 」
But now, the viewing environment of the TV screen and the party is changing, and the audience has more and more entertainment options.
In Ding Jie's view, allowing the audience to see the people they want to see is one of the biggest competitive advantages of the Hunan Spring Festival Gala. This is not a simple flow-only approach, nor is it something that can be summed up by coffee bits. It requires some accurate insight, the ability to discover the needs that the audience is not aware of, and some special planning to make the Hunan Spring Festival Gala a special stage for the artist's career.
In 2019, Fei Yuqing chose the Hunan Spring Festival Gala as his last Spring Festival Gala stage before sealing the wheat; In 2022, Sun Yue, who has not appeared for many years, will bring a skewer of five classic songs; In 2023, Xu Huaiyu, a civilian diva who has not appeared for many years, will appear on the Hunan Spring Festival Gala and detonate the topic. And this year, the Phoenix Legend, who has appeared on the Hunan Spring Festival Gala many times, has completed the 20th anniversary of their group.
These people may not be the so-called traffic leaders and hot search regulars, but they carry the memory of the times, and as soon as they appear, what they awaken is the youth that has been forgotten by a generation or even several generations. It is not easy to mobilize resources, and what is even more difficult is such a sentimental and unconventional plan.
The puzzle is escalating. In the current market environment, the production budget of the Spring Festival Gala has not increased much, but the audience's requirements for new technologies and chemical service efficiency are increasing. Costs are increasing on all fronts, and many good ideas have to be abandoned for financial reasons. Therefore, how to rationally plan and use the budget of the evening party is a huge challenge for directors. Liu Xin said to Xinsheng Pro.
In order to give the audience visual shock in the current multi-screen era, all kinds of high-tech stages have long been indispensable. As early as 2014, the director team of the Hunan Spring Festival Gala invited the famous singer Li Guyi, with the help of virtual image production technology, to perform "Hometown Love" on the same stage with himself who wore the costume of the 1983 Spring Festival Gala 30 years ago. On this year's stage, Zhang Dongliang and Zhifu staged a live screen show, taking the audience through different cultural and tourism attractions in Hunan in singing.
Another difficulty is that the language programs that are very popular among the masses and are always hotly discussed.
The 27th Hunan Spring Festival Gala, a total of 2 language programs, "New Year's Partner" and "Full-time Children". Both works have a long creative cycle, and "Full-time Children" has gone through more than two months and five versions of polishing. Liu Xin also said frankly that language programs are what the team wants to break through every year, but it is difficult to break through.
The current online environment is relatively harsh, and some small opinions are easy to be fermented by netizens, causing everyone to become more and more conservative when creating language programs. Certain topics are more likely to ferment, which makes creators increasingly constrained. Liu Xin said to Xinsheng Pro, The audience's laughter is getting higher and higher, and if there is no laughter in 30 seconds, the audience will change the channel. 」
The number of language programs, we want to keep two and three every year, but generally two. Ding Jie said helplessly.
2.Listen to young people
In order to innovate, to continue to attract young audiences, and to draw their attention back from the excessive abundance of entertainment products, it is necessary to constantly explore the preferences and concerns of young people.
In the Hunan Spring Festival Gala team, young people have already taken on the heavy responsibility of content creation. The 2022 science and technology version of "Xiangjiang Water" is responsible for a group of young directors composed of post-90s, post-95s and even post-00s.
A large-scale project such as the party not only needs a battle-hardened ballast-like existence like director Liu Xin, but also needs young people to give back to the team with their enthusiasm for entertainment consumption and content aesthetics as a burning power. And such a major project also requires people in the team to be driven by enthusiasm.
Every time Liu Xin's team makes a proposal, it depends on who in the team has an idea for the project. Within our team, we respect the director's personal wishes, and whoever has the will will take the lead in planning and proposing. The one who took the lead in planning the proposal this year is Liu Yichen, the executive director of the post-90s. His proposal also won the first place in the fault line among the dual-platform judges.
When I first made the plan, my predecessors were not involved. Liu Yichen said, This year is actually a plan made by a few of our children, I am the biggest, and the future will be 95 years and 98 years. This proposal is very bold. It does not focus on celebrities, does not focus on theme expression, but purely relies on interaction to win.
The interaction with the audience has always been important to the Hunan Spring Festival Gala. As early as 2011, the theme of the Hunan Spring Festival Gala was "The Whole Family Goes Together", and the team sent out invitations to audiences across the country to solicit interesting stories and happy moments with their families, and the participating audiences had the opportunity to come to the scene. In the 2015 Spring Festival Gala, the audience can participate in the Spring Festival Gala with the stars through Mango TV, vote for their favorite cute baby, male guests, female guests, etc., and the star with the highest vote will appear on the multi-camera live broadcast page to accompany the audience to watch the Spring Festival Gala.
But like this year, it is still an unprecedented setting to take the four major party moments as the bones of the entire party. For example, when Zhang Yixing sang "The God of Wealth Arrives", the camera on the scene began to sweep the audience and scan the audience until people can say their New Year's wishes; The Phoenix Legend stage will vacate an atmospheric space to lead the audience to square dance together.
Although it impressed the judges of the two platforms, the team still received a lot of feedback in the follow-up.
There are comments that the Spring Festival Gala is a bit like a late night. After all, in the past, the Spring Festival Gala had to undertake some thematic expressions, and the overall atmosphere should be more solemn and serious, while the New Year's Eve Gala would have a gorgeous lineup of guests and some younger expressions.
And in today's officially broadcast party, the skeleton of the four major party moments is still there, and there is also a lot of content carrying the flavor of the New Year.
Ding Jie
Ding Jie introduced to Xinsheng Pro that the nearly 5-minute stage of "China in Singing" contains seven golden songs with the word "China" that have appeared in major Spring Festival Galas in the past. In the subsequent re-creation process, the team added elements of traditional Chinese instrumental music, such as bel canto with bamboo flute, and ethnic with pipa and the like, enriching its singing part.
In the process of watching the 27th Spring Festival Gala, Xinsheng Pro has a clearer understanding of Liu Yichen's summary of the three age groups of the team, The post-70s are at the helm, the post-80s are the boat supporters, and the post-90s are the sailors. In the 2024 Hunan Spring Festival Gala, Liu Yichen led the team to set the innovative skeleton of the four major party moments, Ding Jie filled in more detailed content, and Liu Xin participated in the whole process, balancing the relationship between thematic expression and youthful content with his rich experience.
Together, they made this exciting live evening neither deviate from the track of innovation nor lose more fun by being too safe.
3.Ennui? Still need to connect
In the process of discussing the content, the team of this year's Spring Festival Gala believes that the most different mood of this year is that it is a year of reconnection of all mankind.
2024 Hunan Spring Festival Gala program "Echoes of the Silk Road".
What Ding Jie felt from this year's news was an imagination of the future and an expression full of hope. There is such a bloody activity as the village ba, and when I was in Gansu, I could feel the power used in all directions. The mixed cut of the short film "Life Under the Stars" also conveys this emotion: although there will always be a fall, only yourself is the one who makes life better. To run, to collide, to change, to be presumptuous, to create countless wonderful versions of themselves in a limited time!
After the mixed cut of the short film, it was followed by "Lighting the Bonfire at the End of the Milky Way" sung by Hua Chenyu, which took on the mood of the entire short film. The team hopes that this connection arrangement will give the audience the feeling that they will continue to rush forward, and there will still be a hopeful wilderness ahead. Only by leaving the heart off the surface can we find the motivation to spiral and climb. 」
This kind of vitality and vitality, Liu Yichen had a very obvious feeling when he went to shoot outside. I went to shoot a short film "Go to Hunan to be a Taste Place" to promote the four cities and counties of Changsha, Hengyang City, Shaoyang City and Yongzhou City.
And this time I went to shoot outside, in order to present the best effect on this stage, the cultural and tourism characteristics of my location can be presented, and all localities have mobilized the best resources within their capabilities. For example, in order to better present the Liuzi family banquet in Liuzi Temple, Yongzhou transferred 100 people to restore it. In order to make the shooting effect better, Xinning County dispatched a lot of bamboo rafts to come.
Everyone wants to seize this opportunity to make their hometown out of the circle, and they all want to take out the best things for the audience to see. Liu Yichen concluded.
On the stage of the 27th Spring Festival Gala, Changsha's Xiangjiang New Area Propaganda Minister, Deputy Mayor of Hengyang City, County Mayor of Xinning County, Shaoyang City, and the person in charge of cultural tourism in Yongzhou City also received a warm response from the audience. Liu Yichen was thinking when he was preparing for the four major gala moments of this year's Spring Festival Gala, and now everyone is more willing to see ordinary people appear on the stage of the party. The artist is very important, he can drain the stream, but after the drain in, you have to go down, it must be in line with the overall social mood, and now many fresh amateurs can also do this. 」
Over the years, the Hunan Spring Festival Gala has been happy to provide a stage for fresh amateurs, so that their emotions can connect with a wider audience.
The first Spring Festival Gala that Liu Xin participated in was the 2001 Happy Trip to the South and the North. That year, Ma Hao, the chief director, went to visit the northwest border outpost with his colleagues, and filmed a story about the outpost soldiers who didn't go home for eight years and expressed to the camera that they missed their mothers. This is the first time that an emotional short film from the perspective of ordinary people has appeared in a Chinese TV show, and since then, such stories have appeared in the Hunan Spring Festival Gala almost every year.
In the 2006 Hunan Spring Festival Gala, Supergirl was the absolute protagonist, but in addition to the contestants of "Super Girl", there were also civilian Supergirls represented by Wen Huazhi. In 2005, Wen Huazhi took the tour group to take a bus and was suddenly in a car accident, shouting "I am a tour guide, save the passengers first". When she walked onto the stage in a wheelchair, the audience erupted in applause.
Some viewers wrote to the crew later, These two types of supergirls are very remarkable, one is constantly working hard to become a star for her dreams; The other is a supergirl who loves her job and dedicates herself silently in an ordinary post to sublimate her life. 」
Stars are just the obvious needs of the audience, and what is the ** demand hidden deep underneath is a question that every director team has to think about and investigate. They need to see what people are concerned about at the moment, what their emotions are, and what they will be emotional. Again, the people have to speak.
Over the years, the controversy over whether the Spring Festival Gala should be eliminated by the times has been ongoing. For traditional programs such as the gala, many viewers seem to have fallen into burnout. But for the people in Liu Xin's team, the more the audience is burned, the more they have to work hard to do a good job in the content.
Liu Yichen (left) and Liu Xin (right).
We won't give up because of a possible burnout period, on the contrary, we have to think about each program and how to find an audience. Ding Jie said to Xinsheng Pro.
Ding Jie told Xinsheng Pro that the Hunan Spring Festival Gala has always designed the program first, and then looked for matching artists or amateurs according to the program. For example, this year's "How Can There Be Poetry Without Xiaoxiang" that Luo Yunxi participated in, that is, they first set the form of the poetry creative show, and thought of Luo Yunxi, who is quite out of the circle with the image of costume dramas.
Giving up This matter has appeared in the controversy of the audience, but it has never appeared in the dictionary of the Hunan Spring Festival Gala team.
We attach great importance to ratings, and when creating each program, we will repeatedly consider whether the audience likes to watch it or not, and study how to design it to make the audience love it. As long as the idea is good, we will not give up easily because of the difficulty of creating the show, the lack of cooperation of the actors, and the lack of funds. Liu Xin told Xinsheng Pro.
In order to present the best effect, some programs have undergone dozens of overthrows, and they are still being revised before the live broadcast. This is the characteristic of Hunan Radio and Television people's domineering and brutal characteristic. Liu Xin said.