Interview with Wang Qiong, the screenwriter of ＂Light＂： Creating a ＂cool drama＂ in the workplace of the Republic of China in the name of CP and cool feeling.

Two days after the first broadcast of "Light", the hero Cheng Yizhi completed the handyman work in a street shop in the first half of the third episode. After entering a local big bank in Shanghai, he went from an apprentice to a senior clerk, running broker, an assistant to a shopkeeper. The topic and plot of # Cheng Yizhi’s promotion at the speed of light # brought a refreshing experience to netizens and audiences, which was different from the heavy and slow drama of the previous non-idol dramas.

Just looking at the title of the play, we may not understand that it is an entrepreneurial drama in the workplace in the era with the financial background of the Republic of China. The participation of young actors such as Steven Zhang, Cai Wenjing and Liang Jie has directly made youthful features from the visual perception, which is obviously a challenge in theme.

"When people mention the Republic of China, they will think of spy wars, anti-Japanese, revolution, or love idol dramas. I want to try another kind of imagination."

Screenwriter Wang Qiong is a mature screenwriter who has studied and accumulated a lot of dramas in the Republic of China. The spy war drama "Getting Away" written by her three years ago was interpreted by Chen Kun and Wan Qian and broadcast on the star. This time, in addition to the torrent of the times,She wants to make an expression from the perspective of people’s livelihood a hundred years ago.As a film company that has been observing the C-end market for a long time, the producer Lianrui Film Co., Ltd. also noticed that the combination of workplace and drama was a market vacancy, so it agreed with this practice and decided to take risks together.

Now that the closing ceremony is just around the corner, it can be summarized that the broadcast results from the opening ceremony have been ranked in the Top5 of Detawen TV drama boom day list, and it has topped the cat’s eye heat day list for many times, with the highest number of consecutive days. All these prove that looking at the film and television drama market in September, "Light", as the first drama of the network, has indeed successfully captured the attention of various audience groups.

In the name of CP and cool feeling,

Crossing the threshold of workplace drama in the Republic of China

　　　

For screenwriter Wang Qiong, whether it’s "Get Away" three years ago or "Light" now, these TV dramas that label her as a screenwriter of the Republic of China originated from her graduate work, a story about a female college student learning to cook halfway in the Republic of China. For the sake of "female cook", she read many books about the life and production of the Republic of China. After being soaked in rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea, the Republic of China was no longer an era with only war memories, and that era also had people’s livelihood.

"In the Republic of China, all countries set up banks in Shanghai, including local banks in Shanghai, and the elite of the world banks gathered in one place, with good academic qualifications and strong family background everywhere. If a young man of humble origin appeared at this time, how would he enter the world? What kind of story will there be? "

The beginning of imagination, in essence, is always a little counterattack, but the fate is different in different times and industries.

"I started writing an outline in 2017, and it took just 36 months to finalize the boot. It really changed countless drafts."The last sentence can be regarded as the routine "spit" of every screenwriter.

Wang Qiong, do you remember about.The script has been revised three times.First of all, there are fewer pre-characters in the film. Although it has not been presented, the character foundation has been laid.

The focus of the second revision is on the behavior motivation of Cheng Yizhi. The chaotic walker in the dark and the light chaser in troubled times have different highlights and arc lights, but Wang Qiong and the producer finally chose the latter. In fact, the story is about the choice and persistence of the little people in the uncertain era background, until the end, idealism will win, and the theme is heavy, but the technique is "light".

As for how to be "light"? It is the third major script change, which focuses on strengthening the emotional line. After all, there will be a career drama with a threshold in urban drama, which will sound even more boring in the background of the Republic of China. Emotional logic is the easiest way to drive the audience’s emotions, so all the supporting roles except the hero and heroine are endowed with emotional trends by the writers. In this way, each character can be vivid in front of the audience as quickly as possible, and then this does not exist in the current era and occupation. Pull in the distance with the audience.

In the idea of Lianrui film producers, it is tantamount to an "anti-routine" approach to strengthen the emotional line for Cheng Yizhi and Wu Lizi, a career couple who can be called "double A". If the past domestic dramas were vomited to fall in love in the cloak of workplace, then "Light" is to "cheat" the audience into watching Cheng Yizhi and his entrepreneurial group of the Republic of China fight for their ideals together.

“Taking CP is a good way for young viewers.Give them a key and let them follow the characters to see what will happen after them. "

After that, they are all very realistic stories, which Wang Qiong saw in many materials of the Republic of China and career reports of banks of the Republic of China, the thinking and manners of some China bankers, their yearning for China’s financial industry, and even their yearning for China’s future.

She will think that it is very interesting to look through old materials. The more objective and unemotional the materials seem, the more exciting things hidden under boring data can be found, and then thousands of words are gathered into one line, "What is the role of capital? It is necessary to support people of insight and help them pursue their ideals. "

Cheng Yizhi’s idealism led him to choose to follow the light. This is his way, and it is also the heavy feeling of "Light", which can be better carried by the volume of mainstream long dramas in 2017. Therefore, Steven Zhang can understand that this is a script without water drama and all dry goods.

Only when it was turned on three years later, in order to meet the audience market of the current fragmented viewing habits, the producer communicated with the screenwriter and reconstructed the structure of the whole drama, which was not the same as that of the traditional long drama, so that every behavior and turn of Cheng Yizhi was accompanied by the deconstruction and re-establishment of the relationship between the characters, which improved the sense of speed of upgrading different copies, more like trying the rhythm of short video in long video.

After all,The CP that the audience has been addicted to and the sense of coolness that they have experienced are also the grounding measures for the creative team to lower the threshold of the Republic of China workplace drama.The smell of wine is also afraid of the deep alley, and the solid content has to be seen by someone.

The driving force of the characters,

Differences and commonness of group images

　　　

It was only the day before the official closing that the "Light" with a score of 6.5 was opened in Douban, and the evaluation given by most netizens was "low". For the urban workplace drama, which is only about 7.5 points at present, the threshold for the financial industry to superimpose the background of the Republic of China is indeed not just an obstacle that CP He Shuang can drive the leap.

However, just as Wang Qiong insisted on "something to express", the producer also insisted on "innovation to try", so it is imperative to hit it off.The producer can see that Wang Qiong is very good at portraying characters. Even if there are more than ten important characters, everyone can be vivid, especially the female characters who are often absent from the legendary dramas of the Republic of China, which is just in line with the producer."A good play must be driven by characters."It is also possible to achieve common expression through the cooperation between production and drama.

"Cheng Yizhi is a person with strong self-awareness. He is not trapped and has strong self-drive." It was Wang Qiong who laid the foundation for the soul figure in this drama, which was different from most passive figures who were forced to struggle because of the chaotic situation in the Republic of China in the past. He is extremely intelligent on the outside, and he is a mature teenager, but he feels extremely inferior on the inside because of his humble background, so that he remoulds himself by constantly helping others, which is most obvious in his protective personality when he treats Xu Shu.

This is also Steven Zhang’s biggest question when he received the script: Does Cheng Yizhi bring his own strategy to solve the problem?

The producer explained the self-driving force of the characters by the behavior of "young people chasing the light". "Unlike the middle-aged people who think about it before, even if they don’t know what they will encounter in the road ahead, they will still set out first, and the soldiers on the road will block the water and cover it up."

Inferiority is gradually revealed in the later period, which also shows that the first half of the story is more refreshing than the second half because of Cheng Yizhi’s active behavior. How to make up for the sense of crisis after the protagonist’s opponent grows stronger in the second half? Mainly the heroine Wu Lizi,The personality of the group characters buried in the first half also broke out after 20 episodes, including the new characters appearing in the second half.

As Cheng Yizhi’s official position, Wu Lizi’s character’s growth curve is completely opposite. As soon as she appeared, the big lady was killed by her father and blindly sought revenge. Cai Wenjing felt that this role had fallen from a height, and like Cheng Yizhi, he returned to the light with self-drive. Even though the actress herself realized that the first half of the characters’ trough would definitely cause controversy among the audience, she still wanted to challenge such ups and downs.

In the play, in Wang Qiong’s script setting, Wu Lizi, who first suppressed and then promoted, and Cheng Yizhi, who first promoted and then suppressed, perfectly matched each other, and could become each other’s strongest backing during each other’s confusion; Off-stage, the producer was equally delighted to confirm their chemical reactions in the initial communication with the two actors.

The roles of men and women with emotional relationships need to be cross-matched, while the setting of female roles uses different professional backgrounds to shape independent roles with common personalities.

In addition to Wu Lizi, Liao Lan, the daughter of a warlord who dared to love and hate all her life, resolutely made a groundbreaking move at that time after learning that Huang Ruhong did not really love herself, and rallied to start a new business; The seemingly weak little bell, with excellent craftsmanship and professionalism in the field of clothing, borrowed money to start a business and founded a well-known tailor shop in Shanghai; Aileen, a woman from a noble family, has a broad vision and extraordinary courage. She is not bound by the secular world and is bent on studying abroad and moving towards higher heights.

"All women who are positively shaped, I hope that they are people with strong self-awareness and strong opinions who will not go with the flow. They will only present different styles in the face of different tests brought by life because of their different ages."Of course, there were many talented women in the Republic of China, but more of them included Wang Qiong’s expectations for independent women.

Perhaps every character is so full and vivid that even the producers say with a smile, "If they can start over, they should all have a Happy Ending. Now even I can’t accept it and regret it."

The film company to C attacked the drama market.

　　　

If there is a chance to do it again, in the era of the Republic of China with its own tragic atmosphere, the producer also wants to add more romantic imagination to everyone with lofty ideals. After all, Light is a story with more romantic expressions on the basis of realism.

This is after Lianrui’s creative team judged the C-end market.The tone of the youthful world outlook that I hope to build.Even if Cheng Yizhi had an age span from 17 to 35 in the whole play, he didn’t make an aging makeup for him, but revealed the differences of each age stage through the language rhythm, eye movements and body language of the actors.

In the words that the producer explained this practice to Steven Zhang, "Cheng Yizhi’s story does not grow in white hair wrinkles, but in the minds and behaviors of the characters, this is a little romantic expression. At the age of 35, he is also full of youth."

Of course, romanticism is not limited to makeup. As a group of "post-wave" young people a hundred years ago, the characters are full of light and vitality, which is the best way to overcome the original heaviness of the story and let the audience see hope. soThe whole play uses a partial brightness in tone.It aims to convey the inner state of the characters and break the depression of the times.

However, it is true that this drama finally attracted more young people to watch the drama than originally planned, but the average audience of nearly 33 years old still proves that it is still an "old-age" wide-crowd drama. Going north to Hangzhou is its audience’s help, and the threshold of the financial industry has prevented it from "sinking".

"If we do a play now, we will start to consider what kind of audience we want to show from the initial planning issues such as the outline and the structure of the play."

During the four years from script creation to broadcasting, Internet film and television promoted the audience’s aesthetic change for two generations. Nowadays, both screenwriter Wang Qiong and Lianrui Pictures think it is time.Starting with vertical dramas or short dramas, we should use more intense and exquisite stories to match the audience’s more divided and fragmented viewing habits.

"We want to see the needs and choices of the audience."Lianrui Film, which entered the TV drama market from the film market three years ago, did not directly transform the film team, but chose to recruit many partners who had experience and achievements in the TV drama field to jointly explore new markets.

So how do you observe the C-end market? Lianrui Film, which started four projects this year, practices competition instead of training. The Internet encourages innovation after all. As long as the creative team has enough enthusiasm or the project theme can hit the market gap, it can start to hatch and start at any time when it is mature.

The innovation of "Light" may have some regrets, and the screenwriter Wang Qiong and the creative team of Lianrui Film also unanimously expressed their feelings."The drama of the Republic of China is difficult to do"But the feedback from it should also give them more new inspiration.