The appearance of the TV series "I’m Fine in a Foreign Country" (hereinafter referred to as "Foreign Country") made many people unexpected.
This female group-like urban drama, which has no IP foundation, no flow of actors and only 12 episodes,Once broadcast, it triggered a wide discussion.
More than 70,000 Douban users gave it a high score of 8.3, which is a rare score in the same type of domestic drama.
"Truth", "plunge into the heart" and "not floating" are the words that appear most frequently in the comments. The young audience cried and laughed with the protagonist, and many people said, "Did you spy on my life, screenwriter?"
This week, we andLi Mo, the director and Bi Shuang, the screenwriter of "Another Country"Talked.
We have combed the creative process of "Another Country" again, trying to find the answer:
At the moment when domestic urban dramas are generally criticized as "suspended", how to make a work that reflects reality and touches people’s hearts?
Bi Shuang remembers that the idea of writing a story about drifting north and discussing the work, feelings and growth of a group of foreigners working hard in Beijing began in June last year.
Guo Shuang is from Liaoning.Another screenwriter, Sun Qijun.He is from Jilin.
At that time, the Dalian epidemic broke out and travel was limited. Sun Qizan stayed in his hometown in Northeast China for more than 40 days. The two talked about the changes in their hometown on WeChat, and talked about working in Beijing for more than ten years, and found that both life and mood have changed a lot.
“Very emotional, out of personal feelings, I think this thing is worth writing."Bi Shuang said.
Screenwriter Guo Shuang
"Hometown" tells the story of four small town girls in Northeast China who come to Beijing to work hard with their dreams.
At the beginning, Hu Jingjing, played by Jin Jing, jumped off the overpass. Since then, around"Looking for the cause of Hu Jingjing’s suicide"Clues, Qiao Xichen, Ji Nanjia and Xu Yan’s life began one after another.
As a group drama, each character needs to represent a different group of people drifting in the North.
Qiao Xichen played by Zhou Yutong., a marketing specialist of a coffee company, entered the company as an intern without graduating from college, and became a senior employee from a newcomer with a monthly salary of 3,000. At this time, he is facing a turning point in his career.
Yan Shuang believes that Qiao Xichen represents a class of young people who have just graduated for four or five years and whose career is still on the rise. "I work very hard and seriously, and I am full of hope for life. Even if there are various problems in reality that hold her back, I will face life directly."
Ji Nanjia played by Ren Suxi, is the eldest sister of four people. She runs a banquet planning company, which seems to have a successful career, but her life is the same-36-year-old, single, urged by her parents every day, and diagnosed with cervical cancer a few years ago.
Bi Shuang was born in the 1980s. She laughed and said that she and Sun Qijun were both older single young women. Ji Nanjia integrated the shadows of many of their friends, especially the scenes in which Nan Jia was urged to get married. "Almost every line happened."
Xu Yan played by Qian Sun, is Qiao Xichen and Hu Jingjing’s best friend. She works as a customer service in a home appliance company and has a local boyfriend in Beijing who loves beauty and brand-name bags.
This is a somewhat controversial figure. Some viewers criticized Xu Yan for being vain, exquisite and poor, but Bi Shuang liked Xu Yan very much. "Her desire for material things is real, as are her feelings for her mother, best friend and boyfriend.. She may be a bit willful and not sensible, but her later growth can also make the audience think. "
Hu Jingjing, who earned enough tears from the audience after the broadcast, actually didn’t have such a heavy pen and ink at first.
Guo Shuang said frankly that in the original idea, Jingjing’s death was a wrench, which led to the story of three other girls, but what kind of person Hu Jingjing was still vague.
Unexpectedly, when deducing Hu Jingjing’s prehistory, in order to rationalize her death and complete her life experience, the more she writes, the more emotional she becomes. Matt’s planning team also contributed valuable ideas for this role, and the platform also suggested using a powerful hook to hook the audience’s curiosity, so we enriched Hu Jingjing’s story line and turned her into one of the protagonists.
Director Li Mo saw the outline in November. He likes this story very much, because he thinks it is very similar to his own life, and the values conveyed by the script are also consistent with his values.
Li Mo, a native of Qingdao, came to Beijing at the age of 11, and later finished his undergraduate and postgraduate studies in the director department of Beijing Film Academy.
Although he has lived in Beijing for 22 years, he is still a drifter in the eyes of his father. "The older generation always thinks that you should have a stable job, staffing, five insurances and one gold, and it is best to evaluate a professional title, but this is not the life I want."
Director Li Mo
He is deeply touched by most of the plots in the script. He has experienced the illness of his friends, the unhappiness of sharing a house, and the unemployment of asking someone to borrow money.
However, Li Mo felt that there were still many tender parts in the city that he could not give up."I have my life, my friends and my job here, and I can feel free here.".
After the play, Guo Shuang’s most impressive comment is"The screenwriter has been on duty at first sight.". She laughed, "I especially want to reply to her, you are right."
Yan Shuang graduated from Jilin University, majoring in communication. After graduation, she worked as an editor and reporter for TV series channels on portal websites for 7 years, and began to be a full-time screenwriter in 2014.
The long subway commute and the undercurrent in the workplace are all familiar daily life.
In the play, Yi ‘an, where Qiao Xichen works, is a coffee company. This is a strange industry for Bi Shuang. Before writing, she found many people who actually worked in the marketing department of the coffee company, and learned how they held meetings, introduced a new product and handled the relationship with competing products.
Many viewers like Qiao Xichen’s outspoken and cut the gordian knot in the workplace, calling her"anti-melodramatic talent".
Yan Shuang feels that this is because the role conforms to the most basic values and common sense of normal people: "You say that she is anti-melodramatic, but in fact her anti-melodramatic place is also normal in reality. You are so tired at work every day, where can you always be polite to others?"
Being close to reality is the first principle of Guo Shuang and Sun Qizan when they conceive the plot.Many classic scenes in the play are based on the real life of the creative team.
For example, Nan Jia criticized her little nephew for not fiddling with her cosmetics, and the plot of being cheated by her little nephew came from the personal experience of Bi Shuang’s friend.
At that time, the whole family was having a New Year’s Eve dinner and chatting. The child of my friend’s cousin suddenly said, "My mother said that when my aunt died, you didn’t have any children anyway, and all your money was mine."
Also, Qiao Xichen worked overtime late at night and received a phone call from her mother, who transferred money to her for a taxi. This is the story of Matt’s planning colleague.
"At that time, her mother also said, Beijing is very cold, do you want to buy you a trench coat? Actually, do you think she can’t afford a windbreaker? But when I suddenly heard my mother’s words, I might feel busy for one second, so annoying, and the whole person cried the next second. "
In addition to the realistic logic of the script,Whether a play with a strong sense of life is good or not depends largely on the performance of the actors..
Bi Shuang later watched the film and found that the actor’s second creation really added a lot to the plot.
For example, Qiao Xichen showed his girlfriends an artifact of living alone-a curtain with a man’s silhouette printed on it. In the original script, there was only one line, but Zhou Yutong changed it to "Wang Zichao, come out and meet everyone" and "Chaoer, go home". Bi Shuang laughed, because Wang Zichao is the production designer of the cast.
Talking about the natural and tacit interaction between the four girls, Li Mo said with a smile that he is a pure straight man and can’t teach girls how to play girlfriends, but only make them really girlfriends.
After the casting was decided, Li Mo always invited the girls to dinner and let them stay together to drink and chat. We are all temperamental people, and we get to know each other quickly. Later, on the set, the girls stick together every day. Zhou Yutong hasn’t been able to play until now, so she has to send a message to Jin Jing on WeChat if she has anything to do, because "I will cry when I think of Hu Jingjing".
Zhou Yutong is an actor that Li Mo has always wanted to cooperate with. He felt that Zhou Yutong’s temperament was similar to Qiao Xichen’s, stubborn, dashing, grounded and professional."Once you get into the role, you can devote yourself wholeheartedly.".
Li Mo remembers that in the second episode, Zhou Yutong had a drunken monologue on the rooftop. Usually, a scene can show a main information point, and then a flip is enough.
In this play, Zhou Yutong has to express at least five information points, and there is no strong logical connection between them, so it needs to be driven by emotions, which is very difficult to perform.
Before shooting, Li Mo asked Zhou Yutong to drink a little wine to find her state, and helped her to smooth out the previous story. He told Zhou Yutong, what to say first, what to say later, is ok, as long as you follow your emotions.
Five or six shots were taken from the beginning to the end of the scene. Zhou Yutong’s completion is very high, Li Mo sat behind the monitor and got wet eyes, and Bai Yufan, the opposite actor, couldn’t help but shed tears-this is not in the script. Li Mo kept this shot because she thought that "the tears of macho men are also quite touching".
After filming the drunken scene, Zhou Yutong offered to let Qiao Xichen have a collapse and lie down on the overpass. At the end of the second episode, the picture is frozen. An overpass, Zhou Yutong lying on the ground, the machine is not far away, and passers-by are in a hurry.
Li Mo thinks this scene is too appropriate:"Pedestrians in Beijing really don’t mind their own business. The two passers-by you saw in the last panoramic shot are true passers-by. Nobody cares who the girl is and why she is lying on the ground. This city has a warm side and a cold side. "
If Zhou Yutong’s performance is stable, Bai Yufan, who plays Jane but complicated, gives Li Mo a big surprise.
Bai Yufan’s out-of-circle role is a treasure in Minning Town, simple and honest, with a strong sense of youth. Li Mo was worried about Bai Yufan’s sense of age at first. After all, the simple and complicated age in the play was set at around 30, while Bai Yufan was in 1995.
But in the end, Li Mo was quite satisfied with the result. Bai Yufan performed the feeling of "living in life" that he wanted: "Jane Yifan is a director, not a president, and to put it bluntly, she is also an ordinary person. Xiaobai is very natural, relaxed and savvy. " The netizens’ love for Mr. Jane’s "Don’t dye" cp also confirmed his praise.
Bi Shuang believes that Bai Yufan has a rare warm temperament, and sometimes he feels that he is not angry and arrogant: "Many times, Jane is just a walking chicken soup, but when he pours chicken soup, you will always believe him because he is sincere and not greasy. I think this is quite difficult."
"Another Land" is not a strong story.
Compared with landmark events, there are more "idle pens" that seem to have little effect on the main plot:
The three girlfriends discussed the weekend arrangement, and Xu Yan said that they wanted to date. Qiao Xichen and Ji Nanjia said that they should make up their sleep on Saturday, so the three men really split up and went back to their homes.
Qiao Xichen posted a message about finding a house in a circle of friends. After seeing it, Dad called. From Jingjing’s birthday party, they talked about Beijing’s group renting house, and finally talked about having jiaozi for dinner. It was all trivial household words.
Bi Shuang remembers that producer Li Zhi often said,"Idle pen is not idle".
There are not so many big waves in real life. Compared with strong events, she thinks that the accumulation of small emotions is the ultimate driving force to push the characters forward.
And even if it is a few big scenes, the founders are more restrained.
Qiao Xichen took several versions of the scene in which three people claimed Jingjing’s body. There are many scenes in which the actors are emotional and crying. Outside the camera, Zhou Yutong, Ren Suxi and Qian Sun still hugged each other and couldn’t stop crying.
But Li Mo finally chose a calmer version. Some viewers therefore questioned why Xu Yan was not sad. Li Mo explained to the actor, "I deleted the scene where Sun Qian cried badly."
From his personal feelings, he thinks that Xu Yan is more realistic than crying when his friend suddenly dies. "My sister is a relative, and crying is ok, but if she is a friend, especially Xu Yan’s personality, she may not cry for a while, and it will take some time to digest."
Including the filming of Jingjing’s funeral, the actor who played Jingjing’s mother held the urn and performed the whole process of crying. Li Mo said that it was a very moving performance, but he gave it up.
He thinks it’s important to leave blank space.Emotions should be left to the audience to vent. Only when the role is more restrained will the audience feel more sad when they empathize..
In the overall plot setting,The principle of restraint is more obvious..
After Jingjing’s death, their lives soon returned to the right track. Qiao Xichen went back to Beijing to continue her work. Ji Nanjia held a video conference with her colleagues at home, and Xu Yan also discussed the gift for the third anniversary of her love with her boyfriend.
This is an anti-routine in previous film and television dramas. Usually, when a tragedy happens, the protagonists will cry and be immersed in sadness and memories for a long time.
But Bi Shuang believes that this is not in line with reality."Everyone is vulnerable sometimes, but I don’t think it’s possible for you to say that she misses this person all the time.".
She remembered that one day in January this year, the script would be open until two or three in the morning. When she got home, she received a phone call and learned that a particularly good friend in junior high school had passed away. She was particularly uncomfortable at that time, but she could only feel uncomfortable for three hours, because hundreds of people in the crew were still waiting for her manuscript. If she didn’t hand in the manuscript, the crew would have no filming.
Bi Shuang felt that Jingjing’s death was more like a thorn buried in the bottom of my heart for the other three people. It was the loneliness that Qiao Xichen was wronged in her work, but no one complained. It was the loneliness that Ji Nanjia recovered from cancer but no one shared the joy. It was also Xu Yan’s imagination that four people traveled together, only to find that.You can only regret for a while..
Renting a house was cheated, middle-aged people suffered from cancer, and the company dismissed them unreasonably … The realistic background of "Hometown" doomed that it would not be a cool drama that was relaxed and joyful.
But as the plot unfolds, the audience can always feel it in the details.The warmth that the master tried to convey.：
When a thief entered Qiao Xichen’s house, it was a strange neighbor who called the police for her.
When moving, the wheel of Qiao Xichen’s suitcase was broken, and the moving master helped her repair it conveniently.
Hu Jingjing settled the account for her grandmother, who couldn’t pay by mobile phone. Grandma said she would pay her back everything and give her homemade snacks.
The difficulties encountered by the characters are real, and the dilemmas are real, but Bi Shuang hopes to sum them up with goodwill, so that the pain points of He Shuang can complement each other. "The role can’t be bitter forever, and it can’t be sweet forever. If she is particularly sad in the previous paragraph, there must be someone or something behind her to warm her up and tell her that you can."
The setting of emotional line is also based on this.
Qiao Xichen met her boss, Jane, at the peak of her life. Bi Shuang believes that their love stems from a kind of appreciate each other. "Jane is complicated to see Qiao Xichen’s efforts, just like seeing herself at the beginning. Qiao Xichen also understands that Jane is complicated to have today’s achievements, which is well-deserved."
The sister-in-law relationship between Ji Nanjia and Ouyang is more like a candy given to the role by the screenwriter. Bi Shuang admits that this is a small probability event in reality, but she hopes that at least in the drama, she can give a girl like Nan Jia a little sweetness. "Let her not be disappointed with life, and let us not be disappointed with life."
At the end of the interview, Bi Shuang and I talked about these ten years of drifting in the North-when I first came, I was in financial distress, and my good friend took her in; Later, renting a house was pitted by an intermediary, and I moved four times between two buildings in one year, but my friends lived not far away and could make an appointment at any time; At the age of 30, I want to change careers and feel that I have nothing, but at every important node, there are always nobles to help me.
She believes that life is still beautiful,"Difficulties are temporary, and the road of life is very long. Don’t deny yourself because of temporary difficulties and bumps. The sky will never fall, really.".
Li Mo feels the same way. Although he began to study directing as an undergraduate, he didn’t have the opportunity to be an independent director until ten years after graduation. Li Mo was glad that he had held on. "Because I didn’t give up, I can do it one day, which is what I want to tell you through this play."
Not only Bi Shuang and Li Mo, but almost all the creative team of "Hometown" drifted north. As the head company of film promotion and entertainment marketing,Dying to Survive’s "Four Springs" and other explosions have the name of Matt culture behind them..
"Hometown" is the first show of Matt’s culture in the field of drama production. Many plots in the play condense the real experiences of team members. They integrate the bits and pieces of their life in the North into the script: laughter and tears, confusion and thinking, hesitation and choice.
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Bi Shuang told me that the title of the play has been taken in many versions, elegant and cool, but it finally fell into the simple sentence-"I am fine in a foreign country."
The creators hope that both the people in the play and the outsiders can reach a settlement with their own hearts and their environment.
After all, the end point of "I am fine in another country" is that this peace of mind is my hometown.
For the national drama of conscience,