From ＂Boys with Stories＂ to ＂Pupils in Film and Television Plays＂, Director Chen Chang’s ＂Reversing Life＂ ｜ Interview
Author: fried hawthorn with sugar
Reprinted source: a little drama reading (ID: yidianjd)
What will the director look like if he can shoot an online drama like "Reverse Life" that makes people laugh from beginning to end?
Before the interview, a little drama read countless times to imagine this problem. Especially when I saw his resume from a dancer to a drama actor, and transformed into a drama director, a TV column director and a film and television drama director, my heart was actually a little uneasy. In previous media reports, he is a "male classmate with stories" and a representative of "obviously relying on face but relying on talent to eat".
Chen Chang is really busy, and this kind of "busy" can also be understood as a bumper harvest.Reverse Life will end tonight.Previously, the dual-platform webcast volume of the drama has exceeded 700 million, and the Tik Tok broadcast volume is 660 million, ranking among the little dark horses; A female emotional drama directed by him"Their Counterattack" was also officially announced in May and will be launched soon.. He himself is busy at the shooting scene of Love.This is another urban emotional drama created by Ning Meng Film.
The interview was conducted in the evening after the filming, and then he had to join a new round of meetings. The most obvious feeling is that, unlike "I like you" and "Reverse Life", which give people a sense of laughter, there are quite a few brain holes. Director Chen Chang is more rational and true, and he believes in the natural precipitation in his exploration and experience.
After entering the film and television industry for nearly ten years, he bluntly said that he was only a "primary school student." He devoted himself to exploring the fusion proposition of romanticism and realism, and permeated all his works with emotion; He admits that happiness is regarded as one of his film and television styles, but he also says that he doesn’t deliberately choose scripts with happiness elements. It’s just that the experience of nearly 20 years has made happiness something engraved into his bone marrow and blood, which will be loaded naturally when filming.
But life in reverse is slightly different for him.Here’s a new attempt that he "hasn’t done before and may not do in the future".And with "Reverse Life", we will also enter the "reverse life" belonging to director Chen Chang.
Reverse life: in the constant movement,
Cultivation of "Young Directors"
"Dance doesn’t seem to be a particularly long road";
"I took several plays and found that the actors at that time were very passive";
Drama is bitter and the pay is not much, but you need to support your family.
Chen Chang summed up his several leaps in just three sentences, from dancing to actors to drama actors. At a very young age, his thinking is very realistic and mature. From the public information, it was in 2004 that he became a director of TV programs, which was about 27 years old.
Drama, TV programs and film and television dramas constitute his work experience for nearly twenty years. The first two have alternated for ten years, and now he has also stayed in the field of film and television dramas for ten years.
Chen Chang became attached to the film and television drama, mainly thanks to the guidance of well-known producer Jiang Yiting. In 2017, the two collaborated on the realistic theme "Accompanying Mom", which attracted a high degree of market attention. In his memory, when he first entered the film and television drama market, he actually didn’t adapt: compared with drama, the shooting volume of TV drama is larger, and its time cost also requires the director to respond quickly. At that time, the pressure will be greater.
It was not until "Newly Married Apartment" in 2015 that everything got a little better. The theme of sitcom made him gradually find the feeling of filming TV dramas, and he also began to integrate his experience on the stage of drama and apply it to the filming of TV dramas.For example, he will pay more attention to the actor’s lines and the tension in the actor’s performance.
Another exampleHe likes to use drama actors more and more in TV plays.Take Reverse Life as an example. Wu Yaheng, the actor of Li Qinghua, the director of my injustice, and Liang Chao, the actor who envies countless people, are all actors who have cooperated with him many times and have rich experience in stage performances.
Zhongzhong Yu, the director, is another person he mentioned, and Chen Chang called him a "close friend" and a "teacher". "Teach me a lot of shooting skills and methods, is Zhongzhong Yu.I am committed to being an idol drama director with a sense of life. I want to make some film and television dramas that combine romanticism with realism, and romanticism is derived from such a person. ". The two also co-directed many film and television dramas, such as The Master of Composition.
Constantly accumulating and groping, the time is 2020.Chen Chang handed over his masterpiece: I like you.Although the film version of Zhuyu was in the first place, once the play was launched, it quickly triggered a real fragrance effect and quickly swept the network. Last year’s "Good Words and Freehand brushwork" also achieved remarkable results.
Continuously handing over high-quality masterpieces, Chen Chang is also known and loved by more young Internet audiences. And his past experience was also called by the media."Male students with stories"However, in Chen Chang’s view, this frequent change is not to change the track, but to complement each other."Every changing stage is ultimately integrated".
Just as the study of dancing and drama can be brought into play in the direction of TV columns, the drama experience is also becoming an important nutrient in the process of directing his film and television dramas. "Reverse Life" is the "atypical answer sheet".
Reversing the new idea: starting with the actor,
Breakthroughs standing on the "leveling line"
Chen Chang is always calm and has no taboo.
When talking about "I like you" in 2020, he once bluntly said, "Not losing movies is my most basic requirement for myself"; In 2022, "Reverse Life" was broadcast. In view of the film-and-television discussion of body exchange, Chen Chang also bluntly said: In the past, film and television dramas were just the "leveling line". We can’t go below the leveling line, but we should go up.
"This (body exchange) is not the theme of a rotten street. Until today, I also think that this play has a certain freshness."Chen Chang stressed. How to make "Reverse Life" new?
Chen Chang put the most critical point on the control of actors’ performances.There are often body exchanges in film and television dramas, but how to grasp the unique sense of freshness belonging to the campus of this drama and make the whole drama "fresh and interesting first, then sweet and warm", sweet but not greasy, needs to be achieved through the performance of actors.
He always has his own insistence on the choice of actors, such as Lin Yushen’s overwhelming opinion in "I like you" and "Reverse Life". From the beginning, he was determined to choose "raw face".He set four criteria: first, it is consistent with the role of the script; Second, the actor’s image is clean and pure; Third, have enthusiasm for the role; Fourth, actors should not have too heavy personal labels.
During the audition, Chen Chang took a fancy to Ma Sichao (played by Qiao Nan) at a glance. "He is clean and pure, with light in his eyes and enthusiasm for the role. He has the feeling of being a boy’s grandfather and the shyness of a girl. " The image of Zhou’s long hair on the first side is also amazing to Chen Chang, which is quite different from the previous temperament of "vigorously charming", and her speech is indeed somewhat boyish.
In this way, the two most important actors are sure. In order to help them find the role of Mu Xiang in the play as soon as possible and feel different from Qiao Nanshi, Chen Chang spent a lot of time: for example, let them perform "proofing" for each other, and at the same time interview some male and female staff on the cast to find performance inspiration.
Chen Chang doesn’t think that there must be an important node to witness the actor’s "enlightenment", which should be a gradual process.And when he saw "Qiao Nan" still played by Zhou put his hand on the taekwondo players and jumped up to say hello to "Mu Xiang" played by Ma Sichao, he felt that everything was right at that moment.
The group image of "no instrumental villain" is an important reason why many viewers think this drama is eye-catching.An interesting point,Different from the "unfamiliar face" of the leading role, there are a large number of mature actors familiar to the audience in the supporting role, which also balances the market awareness of the cast to some extent.
Speaking of group image-building, in Chen Chang’s view, the protagonist should undertake the narrative function. In contrast, the script space of the supporting role is limited, but the performance space is relatively large. "They don’t have to bear too many logical lines, but there are often some places where inspiration breaks out," he explained.
In the play, Li Qinghua, the director of injustice, and Qiao Yuanshan, the "super brother" Qiao Rui, who have a traditional sense of China’s father’s sight, have deepened the audience’s memory because of the contrast of the character setting itself, the plump characters and their own sense of joy. In particular, "Li Qinghua" and Chen Chang collided with each other on the spot, resulting in a hilarious scene of "the sad monument is so cold".
From the leading role to the supporting role, it constitutes a "new character".
Reverse life: the comedy buff is full,
Why is it an "atypical answer sheet"?
The second key to making a new idea is Chen Chang’s integration with bone and blood:Happy feeling. The typical comedy situation of body exchange also gave him more room to play.
For many years, Chen Chang has always insisted on injecting certain joyful elements into film and television dramas, making them the nourishment of content and synthesizing some "hostility". Even in his view,This joy is not limited to any subject.This is also reflected in his previous dramas such as "I like you".
The filling of joyful elements in film and television dramas is compared by him to a process of constantly "filling holes", which is to put new soil into the space left by scriptwriters.It’s just that "Reverse Life" has a little more space, almost 50%.The joining of the new generation of actors is also a "plus item" to strengthen the drama’s happiness: they have more time to ensure the shooting and rehearsal of the crew, because "comedy needs rehearsal."
"You have to do your homework the day before shooting, take your books, adapt to the whole scene during shooting, and rehearse those lines with the actors, including the establishment of baggage, and so on. Because the rhythm of comedy is a little stronger than that of ordinary drama, and then it is a little bit dead.Comedy looks casual, but it is a very certain art.",Chen Chang explained.
Sometimes, Chen Chang will also demonstrate on the spot.He needs actors to follow their own rhythm in the formation of baggage, but at the same time, they should also find the characteristics of actors themselves to blend in and form some chemical reactions together.As for how much joy each actor can finally give, he is "tolerant": teaching by hand, and then editing, can be adjusted.
In fact, it is not interesting to disassemble the creative process of the sense of joy itself, because for Chen Chang, this keen sense of joy is more due to his work experience and the usual accumulation, and will naturally be brought out when needed.
The experience of the drama stage made it easier for him to open his imagination; At the same time, he will continue to draw nutrients from film and television dramas and internalize them into his own things. But in his opinion,Everything can be expressed with joy, but it should also be based on life and emotion, and cannot be suspended.
Just like the scene of Qiao Nan’s "glow under his arm" in "Reverse Life", it must be ironic, but in Chen Chang’s mouth, maybe the creator only saw the glass reflection at first. However, this relatively "grandiose" lens language skillfully magnifies the joyful elements of TV dramas. This is actually the image style customized by Chen Chang for the play.
And so on, there are scenes in which two protagonists talk to their hearts, dialogues of characters under the curtain, etc., all of which highlight the actor’s self-expression through concrete or spare space. These in themselves are in line with the fantasy theme of body exchange, "it has never happened before, and it may not happen in the future."
Although Chen Chang is too busy to catch up with "Reverse Life" episode by episode, he is also actively accepting feedback from the market. For those bugs that were only realized after watching the barrage, he accepted it frankly:To some extent, that is the "necessary price" for comedy exaggeration.
The "atypical" in "Reverse Life" is his insistence on actor selection, and also his buff in joy and fantasy; However, this drama is a typical "Chen Chang’s Works", which absorbs a lot of nutrients from the past drama experience, and the discussion of emotions also runs through: the core of comedy fantasy is the theme of mutual redemption and common growth, and at the same time it is permeated with the discussion of practical issues such as family of origin and personal values.
"Pupils" Chen Chang:
Experience will refine nutrients, and I want to shoot brotherhood.
Chen Chang’s next work, Their Counterattack, is a typical female emotional drama, but also a completely different style from Reversing Life.He bluntly said that the most attractive thing about this drama is the sense of independence in every woman.
Although Chen Chang doesn’t feel that his works are diverse, butHe is really trying all kinds of subjects.. Compared with most people, he is not willing to emphasize the so-called "self-style" too early. He believes in natural precipitation and that time experience will naturally extract nutrients.
Just as the experience of drama and TV programs will become his nutrition now, so will the film and television drama shooting itself."Just like shooting an idol drama at the beginning is to’ have beautiful lights, beautiful atmosphere and beautiful characters’, you will gradually find that you need to be grounded, and you should start from the perspective of life and tap the interest from life."For example, Chen Chang said that this is what he will continue to integrate and bless in the future.
In his view, the development of style is not a day or two of sudden enlightenment, but a step-by-step formation of their own shooting habits and creative habits, and then summarized.This is a process of constant maturity, and he believes that even if he returns to drama or TV programs again, he will also have new experience in film and television drama production to learn from.
At present, he just wants to go down the road of TV series. He wants to try a theme that focuses on brotherhood like Genesis, and also wants to try a realistic theme with black humor like I am Yu Huanshui. Walking slowly step by step, he will eventually reach the peak he wants. And we are looking forward to more high-quality works and meeting the audience as soon as possible.