I’m really fed up with smelly and long domestic dramas.
Original: Wang Zhongxin Weekly
How long has it been since you watched a TV series at normal speed? /"Sweet honey is heavy as frost"
No more than 40 episodes, can not save the "water injection TV series."
I don’t know when domestic dramas became popular.
The end of the summer, in addition to the "school month", there are dramas chased in the summer vacation.
A Cui, a junior girl who is both a "rice circle girl" and a "drama master", this summer, in addition to her internship, she also chased three TV dramas that were highly discussed on the Internet.
She calculated that the three dramas add up to more than 150 episodes, which is longer than the two Empresses in the Palace’s combined.
If you carefully count the number of domestic dramas in recent years, you will find that it seems that you haven’t seen a short and pithy domestic drama for a long time, whether it is a big explosion or a silent broadcast.
There are also 42 episodes of "Dear, Dear", which has become a new slogan. /Figure "Dear, Dear"
I don’t know when domestic dramas became popular.
Giant system is not necessarily "high quality", but it is really long enough! It is not uncommon to take off in 50 or 60 episodes, even the length of 70 or 80 episodes. This huge number alone makes people lose the courage to follow the drama.
Biography of the Harem Zhen Huan, 76 episodes; Story of Yanxi Palace, 70 episodes; Sweet honey is as heavy as frost, 63 episodes; Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace has reached an astonishing 87 episodes …
Not long ago, the topic "# The General Administration plans to stipulate that the drama series should not exceed 40 episodes #" detonated the network. According to the report, the State Administration of Radio and Television is studying the policy of limiting the number of TV dramas and soliciting opinions from the industry. It is proposed to stipulate the upper limit of the number of episodes, and the upper limit is 40 episodes.
Can 40 episodes really prevent water flooding? /Caixin. com
Limiting the maximum number of episodes to 40 episodes can save domestic dramas that are flooded with water, but at least it can save domestic drama audiences who are forced to chase long dramas every day.
Contemporary human pursuit of drama daily life
Catch up with 100 episodes in one breath
Little friends who have chased domestic dramas know a "hidden rule", and now domestic dramas have a "fixed number of episodes".
There are no seventy or eighty episodes of costume drama, but forty or fifty episodes are the basic discs of modern drama. When did these series get longer and longer?
According to the "Recording of National TV Drama Production" published by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the average number of episodes of domestic TV dramas has gradually increased since 2012, and in December 2015, it exceeded 40 episodes for the first time (40.95 episodes). From 2016 to 2018, the average number of episodes exceeded 40 frequently.
There are 74 episodes recorded and filmed in July 2019 alone. /SARFT website
Domestic dramas generally exceed 40 episodes, mainly after 2015.
The latest "Notice of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television on the Filing and Publicity of National TV Series Shooting and Production in July 2019" updated the figures: In July 2019, there were 74 plays and 3,030 episodes of national TV series shooting and production.
74, 3030 episodes! A little calculation, the result is really amazing: the average number of episodes is 40.95, which has exceeded the envisaged upper limit of 40 episodes.
As the saying goes, "You have Zhang Liangji and I have a wall ladder". The "big production" of 70 or 80 episodes can’t slow down the speed of people’s drama pursuit, and thus a variety of new black technologies and skill guides for drama pursuit have been born.
One of the most familiar interface operations for drama girls.
It is only the first step for a qualified domestic drama audience to get used to using major video websites instead of TV sets. Xiaochao, a girl in the rice circle, summed up her three-step pursuit of drama-
The first step is to skip the beginning and end of the film; Step 2, start double-speed playback; The third step is to select only the selected single clip version you want to see.
Such an operation is as fierce as a tiger. Usually, a 45-minute episode can be finished in 15-20 minutes. Three steps down, chasing dozens of episodes of so easy in one day.
It is no exaggeration to say that double-speed playback has become the standard for young people to watch dramas nowadays. But when to play at double speed, when to watch at double speed, or even when to skip directly, there are many skills behind it.
If you can’t watch the TV series, just watch the barrage.
Ruyu, who claims to be a tenth-class fan of domestic dramas, often teaches others her "three axes necessary for double speed": memories, empty mirrors and slow motion, inner monologues or meaningless dialogues. As long as you encounter the above content, you can choose double-speed playback or even skip it directly without hesitation.
There are two kinds of memories, one is "Previously on Life", so skip it directly. The other is "flashback", such as the memories of the protagonist at the critical moment. Originally speaking, flashback can help the audience understand the plot, but most of the time, it is used by post-editing to piece together the plot, so it can also be skipped.
Not to mention an empty mirror. Lots of natural scenes, empty scenes without characters and slow-motion scenes without dialogue-unless you want to enjoy the background soundtrack at the moment, you’d better skip it.
I’m here to see people, not beautiful scenery. /"to the sky kingdom"
The last one is a bit difficult to judge, and it depends on personal preference. For example, in the TV series "Heroes of Sui and Tang Dynasties 5", such a typical meaningless dialogue, I believe it is difficult for someone to bear to watch it-
"How many associates are there here?"
"Here is a person."
"Eleven people?"
"Not eleven people, but one person."
"Twenty-one people? Say! Where are they hiding? "
"You heard wrong, actually alone."
"Seventy-one people, you think I’m stupid, such a small place!"
"Fool, you heard wrong again. Here is a person."
"ninety-one people!" "250, it’s one person."
"251 people, you really think I’m stupid!"
Excuse me, are you dizzy?
If it’s still too long, you can watch pictures and follow dramas in Weibo, Douban and WeChat official account, or open bilibili and choose xx minutes to watch the xx series.
The audience really saw a fire. /"Heroes of Sui and Tang Dynasties 5"
Why has the double-speed pursuit of drama become the daily pursuit of drama for contemporary young people? That’s because there is no triple or quadruple broadcast.
The latest news is: Now, all major video platforms have launched triple speed playback, triple speed! Is this speed rushing out of Asia and walking in the forefront of the world?
I just don’t know if you look at it this way. Are you watching movies or just watching a movie?
What are you doing so fast? It’s not a race against time. /"Lola Run"
Waist or continue life, see the real chapter by quality.
Film and television, a world-wide art, is of course deeply loved by people all over the world. After all, "couch potatoes" became popular in the United States as early as the 1960s.
How do foreigners chase dramas?
People who have seen American TV shows are familiar with the word "season". American TV shows are usually divided into seasons, and the number of episodes per season usually does not exceed 24.
The memories of countless people’s youth will always stay in the 12th season. /Figure "The Big Bang Theory" screenshot
The broadcast of American TV series is indeed characterized by "seasons". The dramas broadcast in autumn usually run from September to May of the following year, and the first half of each season is usually 10-13 episodes. After three months of broadcast, it will usher in the winter break (Hiatus).
During the winter break, TV executives can get ratings survey data and audience feedback, and they will use these indicators to evaluate the value of the new drama, whether to renew it or cut it? Speak entirely on the data that has been broadcast.
English dramas are even tougher. Although it is also a season, the number of episodes per season is about 3-9. Sherlock and Black Mirror, which are familiar to the audience in China, have only three episodes each season-obviously, unlike the long masterpieces of domestic dramas, overseas dramas pursue simplicity and liveliness.
Let’s look at Japan and South Korea next door.
After a lapse of seven years, the phenomenal drama Naoki Banze will finally usher in its second season next year. /"Naoki Nakazawa"
Japanese dramas, which are famous for their brevity, usually have 11-12 episodes. Even the most popular TV series will usually only launch an SP (Fanpian) with a length of about 50 minutes as a follow-up, and there are few sequels, "Never bow to the length". Korean dramas are slightly longer than Japanese dramas, and the total number of episodes of a single drama is usually around 20 episodes.
As we all know, Korean dramas had a period called "foot-binding cloth". For example, many childhood memories of the post-80s and post-90s "Dae Jang Geum" were as long as 54 episodes, and the duration of each episode was actually one hour.
In terms of broadcast mode and the length of episodes, there is no absolute difference between good and bad, not to mention that applying the production mode of overseas dramas to China will definitely have a good broadcast effect.
The longest-lived American TV series "Our Days" even has more than 10,000 episodes, and it is still not over. /"Our Days"
The most important and only responsibility of a TV series is to tell the story well.
In order to control the quality, overseas dramas are usually broadcast while shooting. Whether there is a next season or even an episode depends on the quality. It may be halved at any time, and it can also be a long-lived drama.
The classic American drama Lie to Me also stopped for three seasons because of quality problems. "Don’t Lie to me" solved the case through the eye-catching micro-expression polygraph method, and its novel setting attracted people’s attention at home and abroad, which once set a brilliant record in psychological drama. Up to now, there are many traces of paying tribute to it in film and television works at home and abroad.
However, after entering the third season, the ratings of "Don’t Lie to me" continued to be low, and received comments such as "lost freshness". In the end, it was mercilessly cut down by the TV station on the grounds of "audience aesthetic fatigue"-you know, Fox TV, which belongs to this series, is a character who is so determined that he can not hesitate to cut his back even the "entry-level drama" Prison Break.
The most classic "mind-reading detective" /"Don’t lie to me"
It can be seen that the quality of the series is not directly related to the length, and the length is only the most basic indicator.
In the final analysis, a 40-episode "water-injected TV series", even if compressed into 20 episodes, should be filled with water.
Some plays have too many episodes.
Some plays are 400 episodes.
If it is true, a good drama is not afraid of length, and 80 episodes of "Legend of Wulin" are not too tired to watch every day.
The top ten domestic dramas in Douban are many excellent works with more than 40 episodes of word-of-mouth and length. 46 episodes of Ming Dynasty 1566, 59 episodes of Towards the Republic and 80 episodes of Legend of Wulin are among the top five masterpieces.
I even want to watch 800 episodes. /"Wulin Biography"
The problem of "water injection TV series" is not "length", but "water"
However, why is it "water injection", which has become an unavoidable disease of the times in domestic dramas?
The root of this problem lies in that "episode" is not only the time node of TV drama creation, but also the basic unit of cost accounting and trading exchange: the more episodes a TV drama with a fixed cost can finally be edited, the more the cost is diluted, and the higher the income of the producer will naturally be.
This has also led to an endless stream of ways of "water injection" in film and television dramas.
From the simplest and rudest adding useless dialogues and useless scenes, repeating flashbacks, to adding supporting characters and over-rendering subplots, injecting water from the source of the script, and then inserting frequent oral advertisements, using clips to forcibly lengthen the duration, the water injection of film and television dramas has penetrated into all levels of editing, content creation and income return.
Previously, it took up a third of the length. /"Do you know if it should be green, fat and thin?"
In 2017, "Ode to Joy 2", although the ratings were good, was vomited by many viewers. Some viewers counted down and found that the producers stuffed as many as 51 brands in the play! Others spit out: the drama constantly pieced together the number of episodes with unnecessary plots such as music, characters’ memories and quarrels, and the whole drama was expanded to 55 episodes.
Ode to Joy 2 is not a case. Sun Li’s "The Full Moon Blossoms That Year" showed 50 episodes in the shooting and the previous press release, but it was 74 episodes in the final broadcast, which was a full "note" of 24 episodes.
For film and television dramas, the increase or decrease of the number of episodes may change the narrative way of the whole drama. If the drama is so bad, the masterpiece can’t escape the suspicion of water injection.
As an anti-corruption drama, the phenomenal work "in the name of people" triggered a ratings frenzy. However, the screenwriter admitted that for the sake of commercial benefits, the content of the original 40 episodes was finally "watered" by 15 episodes and written into 55 episodes.
A really good drama even dares to take a "waist cut" to shame itself. /"Kua Times"
The length of a long drama is to make it more handsome and atmospheric, not to facilitate "water injection". Hong Kong TV series, which is good at shooting long dramas, is a good example. Taking TVB as an example, it has produced 107 episodes of Genesis, 65 episodes of Men in Heaven and Earth, and 62 episodes of Passion in Heaven and Earth. Although the length of these plays is long, they all achieve high plot density, large amount of information and exciting.
2017 is the 50th anniversary of the establishment of TVB, and the drama "Kuadai" was the heavyweight drama of that year. At the press conference of Kua Times, starring Bobby Au—Yeung mentioned that the first boast of the play was that it was 50 episodes long.
The "length" of the drama series is not the original sin. Fans, no one wants to catch up with a long series full of water at double or triple speed. What they really want is to catch up with any good drama worth thinking easily without any double speed-it’s really not a big problem if it doesn’t grow long.
Author | Wang Zhongzhong
The new weekly was originally produced, and it is forbidden to reprint without permission.
Read the original text