From receiving the task of creating "The Wonderful Night of the Dragon Boat Festival" until the broadcast on June 12th at 4:30 pm, Henan Satellite TV director Chen Jia worked hard for more than 20 days, and his heart was also suspended for more than 20 days.
For this 41-minute Dragon Boat Festival, which consisted of 7 programs, Chen Jia led the team to go to many locations to shoot, and set many firsts: the first one to be created in a combination of "Web Syndicate + Web Drama" mode. The evening party, the first show to put an underwater dance performance on the screen, the first attempt to "translate" an actor in the water with a fishing line...
The final filming of the underwater Luoshen performer He Haohao was completed 4 days before the broadcast.
"Every day is the same as fighting. I really don't know what to do." Chen Jia said.
Chen Jia felt relieved after seeing "no audience scolded" after the broadcast.
She went home without watching the show, fell asleep without eating dinner.
After waking up hungry at 4 in the morning, I found out that the show was out of the circle.
According to the official statistics of Henan Satellite TV, since its broadcast, Weibo related topics of "Dragon Boat Festival Night" have been read 3.5 billion, and it has been searched 19 times within 48 hours, and the number of videos played has exceeded 100 million.
After the show was broadcast, people kept telling He Haohao, the dancer of "Luo Shen Shui Fu", "You are on fire".
But in He Haohao's view, it is "Luo Shen Shui Fu" that is the fire, and it is the traditional culture behind it.
The following is a dialogue between a reporter from the Beijing News and He Haohao and Chen Jia, the creators of "Fu of Luoshen Water":
"Underwater Luoshen" He Haohao: It is Chinese culture that goes out of the circle
The Beijing News: When I saw the photo you posted on Weibo, one of the eyes was bloodshot, and everyone was worried.
How are you feeling now?
He Haohao: In fact, red eyes are a normal reaction. If you have the experience of water in your eyes in a bath, you also know that it will be uncomfortable. I just spend a longer time in the water.
But in fact, as a professional, I have become more accustomed to this intensity, so you can rest assured that my eyes are now good.
Beijing News: Regarding the rehearsal process of the show and the show, do you have anything you want to share with you?
He Haohao: The preparations for this time are very intense.
I only received the notice on May 23, confirming that I would participate in the show.
Unlike many group performances, "Luo Shen Water Fu" requires me to jump from start to finish alone, and this will be the first time that underwater dance has been shown on a star program. I did bear a certain amount of psychological pressure. .
I went to dance overnight on May 24.
After dancing, the choreographer felt that the overall effect of the dance might not be very shocking, so I bought a ticket again, and went back and forth to Shanghai that day, specifically to find a dance teacher for training.
The first revised dance referenced "Beauty Walk" and collided with another show in the party, so it could only be overthrown and re-arranged. By this time, it was May 30.
The final version is that I flew to Shanghai on May 31st, took a makeup photo on June 1st, took a day to practice dance on June 2nd, and started shooting on June 3rd. It was not completely finished until the 8th.
Beijing News: "Luo Shen Shui Fu" dance is 1 minute and 54 seconds long. Do you really hold your breath for 1 minute and 54 seconds and go over it again?
He Haohao: When shooting, there is a sub-shot script, which can be shot separately, but when shooting each shot, I have to sink to the bottom first, and then the assistant of photography will help me lay out the yarn for my clothes, and then the director will start shooting.
So maybe it’s just a 10-second shot, we’ve already spent 40 to 50 seconds.
It’s important to have clean underwater movements, because I’m a “god” and I can’t be hesitant, so my movements will not be muddy, but whenever there is a bit of lag, or where the expression is not in place, I have to retake it. If you are lucky, at least two. If you are unlucky and the yarn is very tangled, we need to take 5 to 6 shots.
During the shooting, we had at least more than 200 times of going up and down. The actual shooting time was about 30 hours. On average, I spent 5 or 6 hours underwater every day. At that time, the water temperature had actually increased to 30 degrees Celsius. But in the previous interview, Director Chen still said that I was "extraordinarily pitiful and shivering."
The Beijing News: How can you ensure that your actions are clean and in place at one time?
He Haohao: We can only rely on continuous training.
I started swimming at the age of 6 and learned synchronized swimming at the age of 8. I started diving in 2013 and have completed hundreds of underwater dance works.
There is no shortcut to anything, just practice makes perfect.
I vomited all the water I drank. It is estimated that there will be a swimming pool, and my lung capacity is also suppressed.
The Beijing News: How do you feel when you see your work being named and praised and being forwarded by Hua Chunying?
He Haohao: I saw the "groundhog screaming" the moment I saw it because I was so happy, and then the tears flowed down in the next second, and I felt like being "turned over" by the idol.
Maybe many people don’t know what it’s like to dance underwater. Too few people are doing it. Everyone around me said, “Why are you doing this?” and “No one in this world is doing this. Do this", but in fact there is.
For so many years, I don’t want to give up and have no other choice. I can only persist. However, no one can understand the pain and difficulties of persisting. So at the moment when I was recognized by my idol, I Feeling, "Oh my God, life has reached its peak."
And I think Hua Chunying recognizes more than just this work.
What she promotes is the Chinese culture that we represent behind our backs.
Beijing News: After the show went out of the circle, did you realize that you are very popular?
He Haohao: Many people say that I am hot, but apart from some interview invitations, I don't think my life has changed much.
For example, I’m bare-faced, don’t wear a mask, and I’m standing on the road. Passersby won’t recognize me. I’m still an ordinary "mermaid" coach, and my life still revolves around my job. .
But I am very happy that everyone likes and agrees with this show.
I think it is this work that is actually popular, it is our Chinese culture, not me.
"Luo Shen Shui Fu": Feitian's "goddess" is realized by fishing line
Beijing News: The name of this dance is "Luo Shen Shui Fu", but its shooting angle, including He Haohao's dress, is more like the "flying sky" scene in Dunhuang murals.
How did you think of combining the two together?
Chen Jia: Because the party was a scene of worship at the dock at the beginning, I decided to make a show about water.
I have done a lot of water shows before. This time I just want an underwater show, and it can't be performed before. If it is innovative and unique in the country, this will determine the style of the dance show.
In our traditional culture, the God of Luo is actually the God of Water. Qu Yuan, the most familiar figure related to the Dragon Boat Festival, ended up throwing himself into the river. There are a lot of descriptions of Luoshen in his articles.
In my earliest design proposal, the protagonist of this dance was not Luo Shen, but Qu Yuan.
At the beginning, I wanted He Haohao to dress up as Qu Yuan, but after collecting various materials, I found that the image of Luoshen who was still a woman was more suitable for this show.
In Qu Yuan's "Heavenly Questions" and other materials about Luoshen, her clothes are much more gorgeous and complicated than they are now, but they can't be photographed underwater, they will tie everyone up, and they can't show underwater dancing. That kind of graceful body.
We thought of another relatively fluid image-"Flying". We combined the image of "Flying" and Luoshen to create costumes for actors, so that we can complete underwater dances.
Beijing News: Just now I heard He Haohao say that this time the filming was actually very stressful, and the dance version has also been revised several times?
Chen Jia: Yes.
This show should be an image of an underwater god, it is very abstract and beautiful.
The first version of the modification is too grounded. The second version uses the actions of "Lie Ren Xing", but firstly it conflicts with the following programs, and the other is that most of the actions of "Lie Ren Xing" are small. The broken movement is the kind of lazy, more facial expressions, not the kind of self-confident woman I want, the performance of a powerful "god" just entering the water in a big way.
Therefore, this concept was not finalized until we had an overnight meeting on May 28 until 3 o'clock in the morning.
Beijing News: Are there any headaches during the filming of "Luo Shen Shui Fu"?
Chen Jia: One is how to make this pool look borderless.
We wrapped the bottom and surroundings of the pool with blue cloth to ensure that the entire background was clean.
If "Luo Shenshui Fu" is linked to the previous plot, I will create an environment.
The earliest design idea was to lay a layer of sand under the pool. I think this might be more magical.
But when we were communicating with the dancers, the actors said no, their feet would be scratched, and Sands didn’t know how many times it would take to clean it without impurities. I had to give up this plan.
On June 4th, it has been shooting for two days, and I think that is not what I want.
Our art teacher paid his own money and ran to Hengdian by plane to see if he could find something to show underwater, such as broken walls, bead curtains, etc., but I still felt that the fireworks were too fierce.
Later, I also decided on "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" after discussing with the visual director. If it is placed underwater, it may be different from what we saw above, because it has the kind of discoloration of blue and sparkling. The sparkling feeling, coupled with the golden particles in it, will expand the underwater scene indefinitely, which is very magical.
Beijing News: During the shooting, was there any action that impressed you?
Chen Jia: I want to show the feeling of elegance. For example, walking horizontally under water. I told our camera team. But because the dancer can go into the water because he has a weight on his body, it is impossible to walk horizontally, but I'm very overbearing. I said that I must have a movement like panning in order to show the feeling of God.
Both the actors and the cameramen tried very seriously and created a first-of-its-kind method in the country: using fishing lines to make such movements.
He Haohao: The fishing line has better toughness, it is not so easy to break, and it is thinner, and the effect is good in the later stage, but one is definitely not enough, so we use 5 fishing lines stacked on the waist and dragged away.
But if you drag and walk underwater, people will rotate involuntarily, so I have to use one hand to fix and pull the fishing line, but because the fishing line is very thin and tough, it will be very tight, so You will see that there are many small wounds on my arm, which are actually marked by fishing lines.
Beijing News: The final dance work is 1 minute and 54 seconds. How many minutes are there to shoot the material?
Chen Jia: On the third day, the last material was about 30G when we copied it, and it took three or four hours to upload it to the network disk.
It's just the material of my day, and I took a total of three shots of such a day.
Behind the Henan Dragon Boat Festival: "Afraid that the audience will not like it" is the motivation
Beijing News: There is a demonstration of programs like "Tang Palace Night Banquet". As the director of this evening party, what kind of pressure do you feel during the production of the entire evening party?
Chen Jia: The most stressful thing is how to complete the project in the shortest time.
After May 1st, the leader approached me to discuss the Dragon Boat Festival. There was only 20 days.
At the same time, the gala projects that have continued this year are very large. The dance of the Spring Festival Gala "Tang Palace Banquet" is out of the circle, and the Lantern Festival and Qingming Gala are also connected in the form of "animation IP".
The previous party was done by other director teams. When it was handed over to me, if I used this kind of IP animation image to string the show, it would just be a copy.
I have been working as a director for 20 years, and my requirement of myself is to be worthy of myself. Whenever I make a program, I don’t copy others, nor copy what I’ve done before.
Therefore, we decisively proposed to use the model of "web comprehensive + web drama" to create our current seven programs by telling stories and acting by real people.
In the past, we were just doing shows, and after we finished the show, we thought about connecting, but now that I have a plot, then all the programs can't be creative at first, and must follow my plot.
But the pressure has increased again. No one has done this before. I have no idea about the innovation of such a program style. I am afraid that the audience will not like it or accept it, and I am afraid of being scolded by the audience.
So the pressure is here.
The Beijing News: How did you feel after seeing that the show was well received by the audience?
Chen Jia: The first day of the party was June 12, and the webcast started at 4:30 pm.
I probably watched it on the client of the TV station, and when everyone said yes, no one scolded me, I was very happy, and I told my team directly, brothers and sisters, my sister can't stand it anymore.
I went home before reading it, fell asleep without eating, and woke up hungry after 4 o'clock in the morning.
After waking up, I took a look at my mobile phone and suddenly found that several commonly used software (messages) came out overwhelmingly. The leader also told me to hurry up and register for Weibo, and I would like to thank everyone.
I am really an internet amateur. My first reaction is to wake up my family and ask how to download Weibo.
Beijing News: In fact, not only "Luo Shen Shui Fu" in this evening party, other programs, such as "Lan Ling King Into the Battle", also became a hit.
How did you come up with such an idea to adapt a piece of history from the Tang Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty in China into a story and extend it to the creation of the entire show?
Chen Jia: We have a total of four Tang Xiaomei who strung up the plot. One of them is Tang Xiaocai. Her character is the daughter of a Tang Dynasty messenger Leguan.
In the Tang Dynasty, Tang Xuanzong Li Longji played the pipa very well, and the pipa was also a popular instrument at that time. We decided on this performance instrumental music.
"Lanling King Entering the Battlefield" was also popular in the Tang Dynasty, and was banned during the Xuanzong Dynasty, and it was slowly lost.
In 1986, the cultural relics of our country retrieved this song through Japanese experts and brought it back to China.
We want to show how our fathers in Japan miss their daughters, their country, and even their traditional culture.
Regarding this paragraph, we actually want to tell everyone that our country’s culture has spread throughout Asia, and we also want to talk about the concept of cultural output.
We also want to tell everyone in the world that the Dragon Boat Festival belongs to our country and the culture of Dragon Boat Festival is exported from our country. We have national and cultural self-confidence.
Beijing News: If you were asked to rate this party, how many points would you rate?
Chen Jia: 95 points.
Beijing News: Next, what kind of surprises will Henan launch?
Chen Jia: One of our theme ideas this year is the 2021 Chinese cultural tradition festival series. The Dragon Boat Festival will be the fourth, followed by the Qixi Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and Double Ninth Festival, and finally the 2022 Spring Festival Gala.
There will be many such good-looking traditional Chinese cultural programs to meet with you in the future.
Beijing News reporter Li Yuning Yang Donghao