Original Title: The Theatre of the Mist Straight Down: Suspense about the Suspense Drama
“Looking forward to the’Mist Theater’ for a whole year, two such dramas have been put together for me?”
“The first season has a reputation, and the second season can afford a big name. The first big name comes on the court, directly extinguishing the sparks in the bud and rushing to the street to no one.”
“If the actors don’t want to get caught in the rain, don’t arrange the background of the rainy day. The sound of the rain screams, but the two actors are completely dry.”
“Infant lines, inexplicable transitions, untimely noisy soundtracks, no sense of suspense…”
Since “The Octagonal Pavilion Mysterious Fog” wasted, the second drama “Fatal Wish” launched by “Mist Theater” this year was again hit by Waterloo, and the Douban score has been as low as 4.1 points.
The great success of “Mist Theater” last year made the media exclaimed that “the first year of the short drama is coming”, and even accidentally caused the Internet stalker to “go mountain climbing”. The two dramas produced by the mist this year add up, and the Douban score is still small. Less than 10 points (“Octagonal Pavilion Mystery Fog” score is 5.7 points), which is horrible.
Could it be that the “Mist Theater” will also enter the curse of “a shock that makes people terrified, looking back at the Prime Minister to see that it has turned to ashes”? What is it that has shaped this boring game of “Flame-Plunging” again and again? The heat of the mist only lasts for one year, and the time is too short, right?
From the traditional downward spiral to the free fall of the “Mist Theater”, what happened?
“Mist Theater” has become “Confusion Theater”
Suspense drama is not a separate drama genre, and no professional book has ever mentioned such a classification. Suspense is a story-telling technique. It can be used in genre dramas as well as serious dramas. As long as it is a good story, there is a suspenseful side. What should Nara do after she leaves? Why did Anna Karenina commit suicide? It’s all suspense, but everyone understands differently how to highlight the suspense.
The suspense master Hitchcock once had a wonderful statement:
Three people were playing cards, a bomb was placed under the table, and the bomb suddenly exploded. If you tell this fact, there is no suspense. If you tell the audience in advance that there is a bomb under the table and the three playing cards don’t know it, then the audience will always worry about how the bomb will explode, so suspense will arise.
This statement is summarized as “bomb theory”.
The essence of “bomb theory” is that it has two times-“party time” and “bystander time”. The parties do not know what will happen, but the bystanders foresee the outcome. This dislocation has awakened the biological instincts of human beings-we don’t know what tomorrow will be, but rationality keeps reminding us that tomorrow is “inevitable”.
Humans are the only animals that can tell stories. Because of stories, we can maintain a certain personality while forming a super-large society. The primitive people living in the jungle and the white-collar workers running around in the grid will be moved by the same story. When they listen, communication is achieved, and humans become the beneficiaries of evolution.
However, story thinking has its shortcomings. What it provides is a broken puzzle.
When narrating, we all unconsciously bring us into the context of “subject + predicate + object”, but does the world really have “subject” and “object”? Who is the natural initiative and who is the natural receiver? When we say “A is B”, what is this “yes”? Does it really exist?
The story tempts mankind with “occurrence-development-climax-ending”, implying that everything has its own order. Being immersed in it, people gradually ignore the non-ordered and possibly broader part of the world. But if human beings can really control tomorrow, it may be very terrible-everyone who buys stocks will make a fortune, every success has nothing to do with the individual, and every dream becomes self-confidence.
The story is more interesting than reality, and more false than reality. Between the story and the world, there is a lie that can never be realized, so the suspense becomes an indispensable patch. This is why, suspense itself cannot constitute a story type, it can only be attached to other types of stories. This “suspense +” feature expands the freedom of creation, but it is a poison to the business that “cannot be copied, there is no value”.
Making a suspense drama is a long game of betting. No one knows when to bet right and when to bet wrong.
“The Hidden Corner” and “The Silent Truth” are really good, but they can’t provide a routine. You can go in repeatedly and make money every time. Following the suspense route, word-of-mouth will collapse sooner or later, and the “Mist Theater” just collapsed a little earlier.
“Defamiliarization” costs far more than expected
The original sin of a suspense drama is that it requires three parties to participate in the creation, namely the director, the film, and the audience.
Suspense drama needs to establish a summoning structure. There are no more than four ways of formation: the audience knows the danger, the people in the play do not; the people in the play know the danger, the audience does not; the people in the play and the audience do not know the danger; the people and the audience in the play All know the danger, but don’t know how to eliminate it.
It can be seen that without the participation of the audience, the suspense drama loses its roots. The so-called suspense drama means that the creator must outperform the audience every time. In the information age, few people can become the eternal winner in this long and difficult game. Of course, market needs and censorship have also participated in the game.
Under the pressure of several parties, the greatest common divisor has become “defamiliarization”-tell a story that is unfamiliar enough, and when people can’t quickly give an evaluation, first take advantage of the benefits.
In fact, “Mist Theater” can hardly be said to be a complete success in 2020, but “The Hidden Corner” (with Douban score of 8.8) and “The Silent Truth” (with Douban score of 9.1) are particularly popular, and the other three are very popular. The reputation is not good, and behind the high ratings, the platform is still heavily in debt.
The core of “The Hidden Corner” and “The Silent Truth” is “defamiliarization”. The former is “suspense + ethics”, which subverts people’s cognition of the inner world of teenagers; the latter is “suspense + detective”, which reveals the darkness of human nature.
Suspense needs “defamiliarization”, but “defamiliarization” is not all suspense. Emphasizing “defamiliarization” is a deliberate misunderstanding, the purpose is to be short and quick.
The advantage of “defamiliarization” is that it opens up a whole new world, so as to avoid the metaphysical questioning of how to set up the suspense, whether the rationality can withstand scrutiny, and whether the small suspense and the big one are coordinated.
However, “defamiliarization” is destined to be a scarce product at the moment, and the Internet has constituted a mechanism for collective rejection of “stubborn play”. Under the squeeze of short videos such as Douyin, what else can be considered unfamiliar? The fact is that the cost of “defamiliarization” today is far higher than imagined.
The world is highly clear, and there is no longer a need for a few film and television creators to provide new “unfamiliar”. The dividends harvested by “defamiliarization” will sooner or later be compensated by “strangers.” As a result, the “Mist Theater” finally came out with a big move-replacing “unfamiliar” with “violation”.
It’s hard to imagine that so many big names have gathered, and they haven’t seen the sense of violation of the sky beyond the sky in Nianmei’s performance in “Octagonal Pavilion Mystery Fog.” “…Any writing textbook will clearly tell readers that art needs plot, not details. How to eat, how to walk, how to chat, without screening and processing, is this really what professionals do?
As for “Fatal Wish”, the rural steampunk setting, bad guys try to present a low IQ conspiracy. Almost all the protagonists pull their hips and deliberately messy shots…actors, directors, producers, censors, so many In the link, no one laughed out loud on the spot? Using “mobile APP + human nature evil” to subvert a city, is this really the imagination of adults?
The scary thing is not to “make money”, but to lose a sense of balance, and choose a suicidal plan in order to get out of the way.
Eating short-term meals, it is inevitable to eat short-term people
The “Mist Theater” rises at an alarming speed, and then declines at an alarming speed. This tossing of crests and troughs reflects the deviation of positioning: whether it is to create or to produce.
The framework of “Mist Theater” is creative. Buying IP, regardless of cost, time, and repeated scrutiny… It is basically the same as the traditional film and television production model. Issues, re-propaganda, and celebrities…
No one can come up with a system solution between these two poles, so everything depends on specific operations, and through subtle consultations and conflicts, whichever side is strong can temporarily dominate. Therefore, what is really convincing is no longer the need for creation or production, but a competition of past successful experience, industry rules, review skills, and popularity.
This ambiguity poses two problems:
One is to reduce efficiency. Under various accidents, the output of “Mist Theater” is not high. Without scale, one can only bet on single products. It becomes individual advances and independently completes the long chain of “input-production-promotion-profit”. Any problem in one link may cause losses to the overall situation.
Second, it is easy to fall into the “small circle illusion.” That is, everyone in the circle saw the problem, but due to various reasons, no one was able to solve it. As a result, the big problem became a small problem, and the small problem became no problem. This has nothing to do with the quality and abilities of the participants. Almost all elite teams have been controlled by the “small circle illusion”, and the “Mist Theater” is absolutely impossible to maintain a sober judgment.
The reality is that in the game of weak rules, creators have to understand a little bit of business, and business people have to understand a little bit of art. Both sides think that they have become experts in the two worlds, but they have ignored them. They are not experiencing it. In the process of “trial and error”, if someone else pays the bill, it will never be possible for a layman to feel like a true expert.
This is a lesson worth remembering: Almost all major mistakes are due to the layman’s operation by the insider, because they are only considered as insiders in name.
Artwork depends on creation, and commerce depends on production. This is common sense. I believe the operators of the “Mist Theater” also understand it, but how to make it is a big problem.
The standard production process should be to do market research first, get enough data, and determine the production method and sales method of the product through analysis. But the reality is, how many movies and TV series will do this? A more common way is to judge the author’s popularity and immediately buy the IP. When adapting it, it is found that it is difficult to get started, so it is put on the shelf. A few years later, when the market is still looking forward to it, it will be magically modified. Was born.
Almost every platform is talking about “driving the market”, and few people are talking about “adapting to the market.” “Pulling” is effective quickly and can hype up personal popularity. If a case is done right, it will become a celebrity in the circle. As for the countless cases of failed games, the platform can only pay the bill.
In fact, the conflict between creation and production is very easy to coordinate. What is really difficult to coordinate is the conflict between long-term production and short-term production. When the wolf grows up, he can’t eat grass, so he is used to short-term production, so he only wants to spend money on publicity, and he doesn’t want to use research and research. Seeing Douban, “Octagonal Pavilion Mystery Fog” actually received countless five-stars, and some people praised “Deadly Wish” for its sci-fi sense, which is really helpless.
Eating short-term meals, it is inevitable that you will also eat short-term. From this point of view, the “Mist Theater” is not injustice.
The suspense drama will always exist without winter
The rapid fall of the “Mist Theater” is worrying: will the winter of the suspense drama come soon?
The suspense drama was popular from 2008 to 2009, but it was the criminal investigation drama that was popular at that time, and the suspense was only an appendix. Since there is no real suspense drama, only “Suspense +”, then, what really determines the future of the suspense drama is what to add, not how suspenseful it is.
We tend to think that adding something is self-evident, but when the meaning no longer shines, the self-evident will also fade.
The mobile Internet is bringing people into the post-truth era, in which the biggest panic disappears on public issues. Everything is becoming less important, and capital is squeezing serious topics to the edge through the overproduction of daily topics (such as food, clothing, beauty, fitness, etc.). Facts have proved that it is easier and more powerful to transform the stage than to transform the mind. When the stage itself shines, it is metaphysically shabby.
Today, how to return to real issues and discover real issues, instead of being encumbered by fashion, has become an integral part of it and is a test for creators.
Only by maintaining concentration can we take root. Regrettably, this kind of determination also requires a foundation, requires cultural precipitation and the blessing of education, and requires the continuous efforts of individuals. And “Octagonal Pavilion Mystery Fog” reveals disturbing information: even for the better creators, deep in their thinking, they still have an unconditional acceptance of reality. When they talk about reality, they don’t have any critical perspective, except Outside of personality, there is no reflection. This is far from the main line of the development of human civilization. In a sense, it is more like a paranoia formed in the context of an unhealthy childhood and disability, rarely out of reason, more out of defense.
Without continuous inner cultivation, there will never be a spiritual basis, only habits, intuitions, and delusions can be used as the basis. As a result, they are not as advanced as everything they want to surpass and reject. Incorporating fashion is an improvement for them. I hope they will add weight to the “Suspense+”, which is not possible for the time being.
Don’t worry about the demise of the suspense drama. As long as we tell, the suspense will exist, as long as humans are still “story animals”, the suspense will exist, as long as we still desire more communication, the suspense will exist.
The essence of the real suspense drama is the niche, so it has been in winter, and the suspense drama that the market needs is a kind of high-level intellectual game that exists for brain-burning, and it has to wait for a group of creators with higher IQ to appear In order to change the situation.
So, wait for the shuffle.
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