In 2021, guided by policies, the domestic TV drama market has entered a new stage of development that seeks to stabilize and improve quality, and the competition for high-quality content has become increasingly fierce. Under the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, the needs of Chinese audiences for TV dramas are no longer simply a way to gather families, but hope to have more masterpieces to help them rebuild their vibrant spiritual home.
The cold winter of film and television has not faded away, but the future has come. How to solve the problem? Only by keeping the content, can the stone be used for profit.
A tribute to a century of masterpieces of the main melody drama frequently appeared
2021 is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. Both the big screen and the small screen surrounding the centennial celebration are full of sincerity and enthusiasm. The literary and artistic works of different themes come to the same destination by different routes, gather strength, and rely on their excellent performance to make the main theme works shine and sound in the popular culture that has long been engulfed by pan-entertainment. Compared with “Changjin Lake” in the main melody movie, “Awakening Age”, “Mountain and Sea Love”, “Ideal Illuminates China” and “Merchants” and other major melody TV dramas have continued their efforts and achieved their achievements with a proud posture. The year of “Boom”. A large number of young audiences collectively voiced on the Internet: The original theme works can also be very beautiful! This slightly naive expression expresses another possibility in the main theme market of Chinese TV dramas in a concise and concise manner.
In retrospect, it is probably not difficult for us to recall that the last time the main melody work was vocalized was in the first decade of the new century. Military-themed TV dramas represented by “Passionate Years”, “Bright Sword”, “Soldiers Assault”, “My Captain, My Regiment” etc. have gathered together for a long time and become the endorsements of “Red Classics”. Compared to the time when it was still necessary to enter the mass culture market through the “type character + legend” model, the main theme of the century was more simple and sincere, and the focused characters and events no longer have Legendary colors like “Li Yunlong” or “Xu Sanduo”, but spiritual pursuits and expressions that are closer to the true nature of human beings.
Among these works, the first is “Awakening Age” directed by Zhang Yongxin. Its win-win in the word of mouth and the market is definitely a comprehensive victory for major historical TV dramas in recent years. It is hard to imagine that such a “weakly dramatic” work in itself can win ideological and admirational colors in the Internet era where double-speed broadcasting prevails, and in turn triggers a phenomenon-level hot debate about the “new Chinese youth in the new century”. Compared with the quantifiable “viewing rate”, the biggest achievement of the main melody work is to enter the hot discussion center of the public field of view. The successful construction of TV drama as a basic text has aroused audiences of all ages to question “China’s Road Choices from 1915 to 1921” and to give spiritual praise to a group of “gentlemen” of the era. Obviously, “The Age of Awakening”, which was prepared for nearly four years of filming, has completed the important task of the torrent of the times to literature and art. With its sophisticated production standards and poetic lens language worthy of careful recollection, the power of the piano and the sound shows the Chinese TV drama industry. And the advancement of aesthetic expression on the occasion of a century, this is probably the first case of a domestic TV series that positively demonstrated the early spread of Marxism in China and the establishment of the Communist Party of China. Regardless of the above dimensions, “The Awakening Age” will definitely shine in the history of Chinese TV drama development.
“Ideal Illuminates China” and “Merchants” are all in the form of unit dramas, which artistically reproduce and reproduce the shining figures and important historical events in different historical periods in the course of a hundred years, and show them as much as possible in the limited space. “The extraordinary life of ordinary people” to help the great journey. The layout of the unit drama with the length set, on the one hand, puts requirements on the narrative itself, on the other hand, it also reduces the fatigue of the audience following the drama, and provides beneficial experience for the future genre innovation of the main melody TV series.
Another winner of the main theme, “Mountain and Sea Love”, focuses the lens on an important historical node of the century-long journey: poverty alleviation. This theme drama with the first generation of immigrants in Xihaigu as the main story reproduces the immigration history of the people of Xihaigu in Ningxia, represented by “Yongquan Village”, who moved to Yongning County, a suburb of Yinchuan, to establish an economic development zone in the 1990s , Outlines and restores the process of Minning Town from scratch. This drama uses dialects skillfully, with outline brushstrokes, down-to-earth characterization, and a passionate observation of the spiritual changes of the early generations of immigrants. It has captured a large number of TV series fans and will stand out from more than 50 TV dramas with the main theme in 2021, and is firmly in the Douban TV series year. Ranked second in the score list.
Compared with other types, the main melody works steadily rank first in quantity, and the overall quality has reached a record high, thanks to the joint efforts of multiple resources and policy preference. Compared with the movie screen, the main melody TV series realized for the first time in 2021 the all-star lineup, the powerful actors and the new flow star to join forces, and the main melody work ushered in a new change. But at the same time, an indisputable fact has surfaced: The Chinese TV drama market has never lacked the main theme audience. In the future, how can the main theme works continue to exert force and maintain the market share of this part of the genre creation? People will wait and see.
Low-quality idol dramas cannot be saved under a limited set order
Due to the impact of restricted episodes, compared with 2020, the number of TV dramas and webcasts recorded in 2021 has dropped sharply. The six major production companies and the four major video platforms play a decisive role in the number and quality of TV dramas throughout the year. The winter of 2021 will continue in the film and television industry. The year is particularly obvious. The full implementation of the restriction order, on the one hand, puts more stringent requirements on the creation of “content is king”. In the long run, it has positive significance for the steady improvement and sound development of the quality of domestic TV dramas. It is market-oriented and responsible for the audience. Favorable policies. But on the other hand, it will also limit IP innovation and type diversification to a certain extent. To be cautious, most filmmakers choose to renew IPs that have already been successful, or continue to output duplicate types with severe homogeneity.
Take, for example, the costume idol dramas that traverse the online drama platform all the year round. In 2021, the thunder will still be loud and the rain will be small. Count down more than ten ancient costume idol dramas, such as “Flowers, Good Moon and Round”, “Wind Up and Neon Clothes”, “Song of the King”, “Jade House Spring”, “Li Ge Xing”, “Jianan Biography”, “Eternal Dust” and “Mrs. Huzhu”, etc. After you sing, I am on stage again. Although many of them are led by traffic artists, and many are also the top investment of the platform, it still cannot reverse its defeat. The plot and character settings are illogical and full of loopholes. There is no sense of contradiction even if the main characters are swapped between many episodes. If we do not examine it as an independent work, but take the turbulence and ups and downs of the film and television industry in recent years as the background, it may be understood that the existence of these ancient puppets, whose meaning cannot be determined, seems to be more to satisfy fans. Peeking through the screens of the idols who are sought after, they only need to appear perfectly in a certain time and space as the objects to be viewed, which is the best consolation for their fans. For the producers, more investment and effort only needs to bet on individual stars. As for the creation itself, there is no need to bother-TV shows are just an extended alternative live broadcast channel. The online platform, which has long been dominated by low-quality idol dramas, has broken away from the essence of the online drama itself, and has become a narrow perspective that is reserved for specific groups of people.
Welcome to the Winter Olympics ice and snow new bottled sweet pet old wine
Compared with the main melody drama series on the occasion of a century, the Winter Olympics TV series is also a topic that has to be talked about in 2021. As far as artistic level is concerned, the works such as “Rock Sugar Stewed Sydney”, “Girl in Armor”, “Love in Powder Snow”, “Flying with the Wind” and other works that have been completed so far have indeed completed the delivery of the visual beauty of ice and snow sports to the audience. The basic goal, but due to the long-standing shortcomings of sports themes in the creation of domestic TV series, there are no representative Winter Olympics themes with stories, characters, and highlights. Most of the works still use the Winter Olympics as the banner and the ice and snow scenes as the backboard, and they continue to perform sweet pet idol dramas. I don’t know if the works that will be broadcast during the Winter Olympics can be a dark horse and set a model for future sports TV dramas.
Realistic themes are well-received and have enough stamina
Following 30 years ago, the first phenomenon-level work of domestic TV dramas, “Desire”, it is not difficult to find that realism has always been the main position of domestic dramas, because it has the closest connection with contemporary audiences and directly reflects our era. Life can resonate most with the audience, but it also needs to stand the test of the audience the most. In the past year, from the perspective of realist works that have been broadcast, the distribution of genres has become more diverse. The momentum of following the trend in previous years has been significantly weakened. The overall quality is good, but the problems of unevenness and anticlimax still exist.
In recent years, the theme of “She” has been popular among producers on small screens. On the one hand, with the development and progress of society, female expressions have become more abundant; on the other hand, female audiences are also the main audience group for long-term service of TV dramas. It is a historical inevitability to speak for “her” and it is also dictated by the market economy. “Golden Years”, “Northern Ruins”, “I’m Good in a Foreign Country”, and “Love Is Delicious” are released together in four dramas, or they are adapted from well-known novels with innate audiences, or star directors gather. There are different tactics and styles of play, but not all have the last laugh.
The audience left the audience angrily in the face of “Golden Years” and “Northern Ruins”, which were inherently well-qualified. The former is due to misunderstandings of novels and misinterpretation of women’s friendship, while the latter is due to misunderstandings that are severely divorced from real life. Compared with its strong cast lineup, these two works are likely to be the biggest regrets on TV screens in 2021.
“I’m Good in Another Country” once again focuses the lens on the “Northern Drifting Women”. In contrast to the strong inspirational way women in similar content are invincible and always able to meet the bad, the drama “I” faces four very different personalities. The women of the North Drifters in different situations calmly presented their life dilemmas and transitions in the posture of a documentary. Many clips and details in the play can find corresponding prototypes in the real North Drifters, allowing the audience to see, Understand the psychological exposure and growth trajectory of the four women in the play. “Love is Delicious” uses a relaxed style to depict three imperfect adult female statues. Both the characters and the plot setting are natural. It seems to be a trivial daily life, but it builds everyone’s imperfect but never Stop pursuing a better life. What’s more commendable is that we can see the efforts made by the creators in the direction of feminine light comedies—just as we never lack humor in our lives, but it is always difficult for us to tell our lives in a humorous way.
“Sweeping Black Storm” and “Breakthrough” inherited the creative ideas of 2017 “In the Name of the People”, based on the major social events that have been focused in recent years in cracking down on crime and anti-corruption. The lineup of the two works is good. The drama “Sweep” has better completed the reprocessing of life to art in restoring major and important cases; however, “Breakout” has temporarily replaced the main actors, which led to the appearance of the final broadcast version. It is a pity that a large number of sudden jumps in the plot, unsynchronized sound and picture, etc. have greatly dampened the audience’s expectations for the show.
The “small series” represented by “Little Willingness” and “Xiaomin’s Family” follow the consistent family warmth, which is about the timeless livelihood topics of ordinary people’s homes, marriage and love, education, etc., and it is not too much to exaggerate the suffering of life. Never lose the human light. However, with the continuous output of similar IPs in recent years, and the long-term performance lineup has not been out of the circle, except for the leading roles, most of them are the same group of people and the same type of characters, which inevitably makes people feel aesthetic fatigue, and the freshness is not as good as before. “Children of the Qiao Family” stands out in many dramas, and the yellowing memory of the age makes the work good temperament. The disadvantage is that when entering the second half of the process, the creator deliberately created a lot of “strong narratives”. This is particularly evident in the protagonist Qiao Simei. The sense of pile-up is full, and the suffering of densely organized life is greatly reduced. Reliability.
In the tide of the development of Chinese TV dramas, realistic TV dramas have inevitably ushered in a new stage of their own. With the normalization of epidemic prevention and control in the past two years, social economy and life have been affected to varying degrees. The living environment we live in is undergoing unprecedented changes, and these are undoubtedly hotbeds for the production of good works.
The craze is fading into the spy war drama to explore new expressions
The era of popular spy war dramas represented by “Hidden”, “Before Dawn”, “Kite”, “Scheming”, and “Cliff” has faded away. Although the spy war drama has never been absent in the past two years, it has always been difficult to return to its former glory. Taking 2021 as an example, there are only two spy war dramas that have left a deep impression on people, namely “The Rebel” and “The Forerunner”.
Unlike the traditional prescription of spy war dramas that continue to strengthen the plot and high-density narratives of “The Forerunner”, which uses brain-burning plots to create tension and excitement to capture the audience, “The Rebel” and the “Secret and Great” ending in 2020 are similar. In the realization of the spy war drama, “The Rebel” is more inclined to pay attention to the person itself-all plot switches are accompanied by the protagonist Lin Nansheng’s tempering of different beliefs at different stages. The literary and inner drama are far greater than the martial arts. . Leaving aside the background of complex revolutionary struggles, more shows the historical choices made by the aspiring and patriotic youths in the torrent of the times-it is the choices made by thousands of former youths that have led to our path today. Compared with the clear and determined heroes in the early domestic spy war dramas, who were able to help the world and march forward courageously, what we saw in “The Rebel” is a person who is in a precarious world, will be confused, and want to find the truth. Young people, his pursuit is his growth. From this perspective, although such spy war dramas cannot bring excitement, their humanistic consciousness as a literary and artistic work is more obvious and strong. The repeated appearance of Tchaikovsky’s “June Boat Song” in the film adds a layer of tactful and low-returning precariousness to the work, thus deepening the theme.
Goose Goes Wuhen workplace drama has not risen
The highly anticipated workplace drama “Positive Youth” in the beginning of 2021 has fallen out of standard. The workplace drama that required professional ability, professionalism, and workplace attitude has become a farce for a group of urban women. This is not a case of a domestic workplace drama encountering Waterloo, but a congenital deficiency of this type of creation-either a black workplace bullying, or a love story of an overbearing president, or an ugly duckling in the workplace mutation without any effort. White Swan. The workplace has become a specific physical place just to set off the protagonist, and it has nothing to do with the existence of value that constitutes the territory of social life represented by a certain profession. In the “Ideal City” broadcast since then, although carefully trying to show the career advancement of a professional cost engineer in all directions, the heroine Su Xiao once again trapped in place as a symbolic existence. Stop growing.
Article source: Beijing Daily
Author: Dayu | Responsible Editor: Wang Jiangli