Interview with Chief Producer The Untamed： Young audiences are more rational about the aesthetics of the drama.

Text: Catch and entertain Qin Ming.

It must be admitted that this year’s summer files are no longer crowded after the key domestic films and big IP dramas have been withdrawn. This has brought about a major change in the competitive situation: the works that are lucky enough to "open" are placed under the more focused onlookers, and the quality of the works needs to be weighed more than ever before.

The Untamed, an antique drama jointly produced by Penguin Film and Xinpai Media, was launched on Tencent video on June 27th, which is regarded as the first batch of drama players in this background. Since the establishment of the project, we have been watching from all sides, casting, shooting, booking and broadcasting, all of which are based on the public’s focus on the C position. It should be said that the "audience assessment" faced by The Untamed is more stringent.

"Our pressure is really great." As of today, members of the platform have been able to watch 14 episodes first. Originally, the arrangement of two episodes was updated every Thursday and Friday. Because of the rising popularity of the Internet, they announced the addition four days after the series started, and changed to update two episodes every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and watch six episodes a week. As the chief producer and chief screenwriter of the play, Yang Xia admitted that she still had a heart when she was interviewed by Capture Entertainment (ID: ibuyuji) yesterday. "Even now, we dare not relax."

As a member, most of them are young people born in 1990s. The Untamed is the most grand costume project operated by Xinpai Media. In Yang Xia’s words, although it is a bit tacky, for them, pressure is indeed motivation.

Before the official launch, the preparatory work took two and a half years, and it took two whole years to polish the script. Just the script diversity outline, three versions were written … Recalling the production experience of this drama, Yang Xia believes that she is a newcomer to the industry, but she firmly believes that following reasonable creative logic and respecting the audience’s viewing psychology is the basis for doing a good job. "As far as the current entertainment ecology is concerned, only high-quality film and television dramas can stand up. The current situation is that these are like taking the road of culture." As we all know, antique dramas often face problems such as suspended plot, empty content, and world outlook divorced from reality. Therefore, in Yang Xia’s view, in addition to serving the culture, it is necessary to achieve the standard of "face value", and how to comprehensively understand China’s traditional culture in production is the core element of doing a good job in The Untamed.

Only the diversity outline has been grinded for 5 months.

Stories and characters should arouse the audience’s empathy to the greatest extent.

Although it has only been broadcast for a week, The Untamed has shown a small "explosion" trend. Up to today, the reading volume of the topic # Chen Qingling # in Weibo has reached 1.67 billion, and the discussion has exceeded 3.35 million. According to the "LOSS Hot List" created by LOSS Film and Television Research Group and Ayman China Entertainment Index, although it was only launched last Thursday, The Untamed was far ahead in the discussion list of dramas in the fifth week of June, with the discussion volume nearly four times more than the second place.

The popularity is soaring, first of all, thanks to the scarcity of drama themes. In the environment where many costume dramas focus on romance, The Untamed focuses on shaping the chivalrous heart through the story foundation of ancient style connotation and not following the usual love routine, showing the qualities of the younger generation who are not afraid of difficulties and Do not forget your initiative mind, accompanied by China’s traditional aesthetics "elegance", and appreciates the essence of traditional culture in the ancient story of young chivalrous men sticking to their arrogance.

The Untamed tells the story of Wei Wuxian, the son of Yunmeng Jiangshi’s old friend, and Ichinomiya Hikaru Lanshi, the son of Gusu Lanshi’s old friend, meeting again, helping the weak, exploring the truth in previous years and protecting the peace and happiness of the people.

In the sharing of Yang Xia, the chief producer, several sets of data left a deep impression on the entertainment story: it took two and a half years to prepare, and the script was grinded for two years. If this level of effort is not an isolated case in the current TV drama industry, then in order to preserve the essence of the story and the charm of the characters as much as possible, the screenwriter team spent as much as four or five months on the idea of diversity outline. "This time doesn’t include the process of writing the specific content. It only takes so long to understand the sequence of the story. We have made three versions of the diversity outline." Yang Xia said.

The opening of the series is a big scene in which five great families besieged Wei Wuxian, the ancestor of Yiling, burying the suspense that Wei Wuxian led to the tragic death of my sister and led Jiang Cheng to summon several big families for revenge. Immediately, the timeline jumped to sixteen years later, Wei Wuxian was saved by Mo Xuanyu’s sacrifice spell, and then reunited with old friends including Ichinomiya Hikaru Lan Forgot Machine and Yunmeng Jiang Cheng, thereby inserting Wei Wuxian into the "how can I tell, through all these clouds?" home of Lan’s family in Gusu with his elder sister and Jiang Cheng 16 years ago, and getting to know the young past of Lan Forgot Machine and others. There are feelings, grievances and ups and downs. In the 12 episodes that have been broadcast in The Untamed, the story adopts flashback and mixed narrative methods, and all kinds of clues want to be said, which makes people look back and explore the mystery. What the audience is seeing now is the trend of diversity content in this edition, and the determination process actually makes the screenwriter team including Yang Xia entangled.

"We also have two versions of the alternative, one is in the chronological order of the story development, and the other is to completely follow the narrative track of the original. The final version is a balanced consideration of enriching the story level as much as possible and increasing the content stickiness on the basis of not compromising the core of the original story. " Yang Xia believes that whether it is Wei Wuxian, the two main characters, or Lan Forgot the Machine, or the five branch characters, such as Zhongjiang Tired of Leaving, Jiang Cheng, Wen Ning, Wenqing, Jin Guangyao, Nie Huaisang, etc., the characters are distinct in color, and their roles are exploding one after another, which can fully mobilize the audience’s empathy for characters experience.

"Take Wei Wuxian and Lan Forgetting Machine for example, their characters are set in a world of difference. One chatters like a sparrow, and the other speaks no more than a dozen words, but their concept of helping the weak, fearless belief, and unreserved trust in each other’s childlike heart. This sincere emotion is an emotional center that can cause strong empathy for many people."

It takes half a year to build a world outlook of serving Buddhism and Taoism

Industrial production should integrate the essence of traditional culture and thought.

At the moment when the whole entertainment ecology promotes the concept of "quality first", the sophistication and meticulousness of the service road have increasingly become the standard of film and television drama production, while the ancient drama bearing the historical and cultural heritage has stricter and more specific requirements for the service road. However, Yang Xia believes that, for the audience with higher and higher "quality inspection standards", the service culture should not only reflect the "superficial" Excellence, but also include the ideological depth of China traditional culture.

"It took us six months to establish the world outlook framework and art concept setting under the traditional culture, and the visual atmosphere and charm of these links should maintain a holistic logic." Seeing the skin at first sight and seeing the bones again is the effect that Yang Xia seems to show after industrial production integrates the beauty of national style and the connotation of traditional culture.

For example, the "how can I tell, through all these clouds?" where the Lan family in Gusu is located embodies a dignified and upright style, with the colors of cyan and blue being cooler and the wood being darker. Besides embroidering cirrus patterns with family regional characteristics, the clothing is wrapped in layers at the collar and cuffs, which shows the rigidity and preciseness of the Lan family style. Turning to Yunmeng Jiangshi, it fits the geographical features of Shui Ze Plain, the land of Yunmeng. "Yunmeng is now in Jianghan Plain, Hubei Province, which gives people the feeling of being open and open, so the color of’ Lotus Dock’ is mainly warm, the wood is also light, and the building curve is wide, supplemented by gauze curtains to create a sense of transparency. The dress uses narrow sleeves and neat design to convey the free and easy ranger style of the characters."

Similarly, when doing art design for Jin’s family in Lanling, Wen’s family in Qishan and Nie’s family in Qinghe, the first thing the crew did was to "find the cultural point". Yang Xia said, "We are not a historical drama, so we don’t want to restore the utensils, costumes and buildings of a certain dynasty in an all-round way, but to extract the best essence of China’s traditional culture through more artistic things.".

Because Qinghe is adjacent to Qishan, Nie’s family is often harassed.

Therefore, the Immortal Fairy House is surrounded by high walls.

It seems that you can’t see the door from a distance.

On the premise of pursuing the combination of industrial aesthetics and national culture, The Untamed adopted the concept of "cultural spirit first" to immerse himself in all aspects of visual presentation. It can be seen that many details in the play serve to present the expression of ancient elegance. For example, Wei Wuxian and others listened to the teacher in how can I tell, through all these clouds?, and when describing the characteristics of the Lan family in Gusu, they mentioned that "Lan’s worship of religion, the opening of the righteousness, the Ming version, the debate, the extreme words, and the diligence are the four precepts for the philosophers", and the ancient books, porcelain, pen and ink used by them are all in line with the family elegance; The characteristic of Yunmeng Jiang’s family is that he was born as a ranger, advocating Shu Lang’s open and aboveboard, natural and unrestrained, and in the "Lotus Dock", no matter his personality or style, he highlighted "free and easy" to the extreme.

"From the beginning of the story to the visual landing of the service road, what we always emphasize in the creative process is to let the audience feel the heritage of Chinese culture in the works for thousands of years." To Yang Xia’s relief, The Untamed was praised by the official media, including People’s Daily, at the broadcast stage, which was the basis for the whole team to carry forward the existing creative ideas and continue to explore.

Sean Xiao and YiBo are the first choices.

Letting young actors grow up is an important driving force for the development of domestic dramas.

# Sean Xiao’s waist # # YiBo, why is it so funny # # Warmly playing the flute and controlling the corpse # # Wei Wuxian sleeps on the roof of Lanzhan # … The Untamed, who is searching for the list of tu, helps a group of young actors to walk into the spotlight of the performance stage from inside to outside. As a patient work that took two and a half years to prepare and four months to shoot, The Untamed will invest a lot of money only from the perspective of time cost, regardless of the visible texture of the finished product. For a new film and television army like Xinpai Media, when choosing actors, it didn’t go for more eye-catching traffic or first-line coffee.

"We believe that the fit between actors and roles should be placed in the front of measurement." Judging from the results, Yang Xia, who was born in the new army, undoubtedly has insight into the market and users. In the face of market changes in which the "flow+IP" formula has repeatedly failed, the development of ancient drama needs to return to the content and quality.

To some extent, Yang Xia, born in the 1990s, is also a member of a new generation of mainstream audience. She knows that young audiences are growing up, and she is more rational about the aesthetics of film and television works: "From the script, presentation style to casting, we have never left the logic of respecting the creation itself. This year’s audience has a stronger feeling about the actor’s acting skills and the quality of the drama. They may like an idol, but it doesn’t mean that they must like the drama played by the other party. "

Because of this, Yang Xia thinks that both Sean Xiao and YiBo are the candidates that the crew "liked" at the first sight in the trial stage.

"The first time I saw YiBo himself, I felt that he had that kind of cold temperament, which is very similar to the blue forgetting machine." As for Sean Xiao, what impressed Yang Xia most was his thorough understanding and analysis of Wei Wuxian’s whole character. "Sean Xiao thoroughly understood this role, especially when he dealt with the major change of Wei Wuxian’s experience of falling into a mass grave, he didn’t have the routine performance of a certain character after blackening as we have seen before, and Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have that kind of bitter resentment on his body. When he reunited with Lan Forgot and Jiang Cheng for the first time after the mass grave, he felt relaxed and had inner agitation in it." Yang Xia was not surprised by the audience’s high satisfaction with Wei Wuxian.

However, at this stage, there are some inconsistencies in the harvest evaluation, and Yang Xia is somewhat "aggrieved" for YiBo. "The role of Ichinomiya Hikaru itself is very difficult to interpret. There are not netizens who have made statistics specifically. In the first eight episodes, the Blue Forgetting Machine only said a total of 1,001 words, and the expression of lines was missing, which was a huge test for the actors’ eyes, micro-expressions and details." Yang Xia readily accepted the different voices released by the audience, but at the same time, she also said that when choosing to start a new performance lineup, there will inevitably be experience problems. "To give young actors more opportunities and patience to grow up, everyone will look back and forget the opportunities better and better. I dare say that there will be a reversal of’ real fragrance’." Yang Xia said with a smile.