Telling warm and emotional family stories
Following the Lunar New Year movies, the rise of Lunar New Year comedies has added a delicious dish to the Chinese audience's Lunar New Year feast.
At the beginning of 2021, "Hot Holidays" has created a precedent for domestic New Year comedies, providing audiences with the first choice for family fun during the Spring Festival holiday.
In the Chinese New Year of 2022, "Hot Holidays 2" relays the joyful energy of New Year's comedy.
The success of the series marked the gradual formation of domestic New Year comedies, and also made the online New Year stalls more colorful.
Family fun and New Year's taste, creating a golden period for the Lunar New Year
In 1997, the success of the Lunar New Year film "Party A and Party B" aroused people's attention to the Lunar New Year film market, and the concept of "Lunar New Year file" was quietly formed.
In recent years, the Lunar New Year stalls formed based on the market environment and cultural background have gradually matured and developed into the golden period with the most market effect in the film and television industry.
Why are Lunar New Year stalls so popular?
According to Liu Liming, an associate researcher at the School of Communication and Design of Sun Yat-sen University, the emergence of the Lunar New Year stalls stems from the Chinese people's festive awareness and traditional feelings that cannot be separated.
During the Spring Festival, family reunion is the main theme, people's activities are often family-based, and family-friendly film and television, which is suitable for all ages and the whole family, has naturally become the best choice for audiences.
During the Spring Festival this year, the Lunar New Year stalls continued to laugh.
It is reported that only one online audio-visual platform has released more than 200 "New Year's goods" film lists, and many platforms have also launched a Spring Festival special area suitable for family groups to watch.
Many Spring Festival New Year movies such as "Reunion Dinner", "I'm Not a Bacchus", and "Li Mao Playing as a Prince" have met the diverse needs of watching movies during the Spring Festival.
Movies have always been the protagonists of Lunar New Year movies. In addition to Lunar New Year movies, watching the Spring Festival Gala and revisiting old dramas are also the entertainment methods that many people choose.
However, Chinese New Year dramas are still a fresh viewing experience for Chinese audiences.
In 2021, the launch of the first Chinese New Year comedy "Hot Holidays" will make the audience's eyes shine.
Compared with Lunar New Year movies, its content and laughs are richer, and the story is more relaxed and pleasant. Compared with ordinary dramas, its genre is more obvious, and the Lunar New Year elements are more distinct.
What is the Chinese New Year drama like?
Yao Xiaofeng, the planning initiator and director of the "Hot Holidays" series, admitted frankly that there is no precedent for this type of Chinese New Year drama in the past, and we can only continue to try and explore.
Based on the existing experience, he believes: "The New Year's drama must be a comedy, and it must have a sense of joy. It must be like a Spring Festival Gala, integrating various elements of joy, not only the main plot, but also the Comedy lines, even singing and dancing."
From Lunar New Year movies to Lunar New Year dramas, Family Fun and Lunar New Year together pave a strong background for Lunar New Year stalls.
With the warmth and laughter that overflows the screen, they satisfy the audience's entertainment "just need" to relax and decompress during the Spring Festival holiday, and add a joyful atmosphere to the festive and lively festival.
With the rise of online New Year's Eve files, "Chinese New Year on the Cloud" is more interesting
Under the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, traditional Chinese New Year films and television have accelerated their extension online, and online New Year files are gradually emerging.
In 2021, under the guidance of the Online Audio-Visual Program Management Department of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the Online Film Working Committee of the China Film Association, together with Tencent Video, iQiyi, and Youku, jointly launched the first online movie Spring Festival. According to statistics, the three major platforms participated in the first online movie There are as many as 43 works in the Spring Festival file.
This year's online film Spring Festival is also no less, with more diverse themes.
At the same time, some Chinese New Year films released in theaters, such as "Li Mao as the Prince", also adopted the mode of seamless connection to the Internet during the zero window period, making the Internet New Year files more prosperous.
Under the new business form of "film and television + Internet" industrial integration, online New Year's Eve stalls are taking advantage of the east wind, which is in line with the public's new lifestyle of "Celebrating the New Year on the Cloud".
Under such an industry trend, the two New Year's comedies "Hot Holidays" attach great importance to broadcasting on online platforms.
The online Lunar New Year drama is more convenient and the content creation is more flexible, which broadens the richness of film and television works, and allows the audience to have more choices.
The urban comedies and costume comedies represented by 2021's "The Son-in-law", "Holiday Warming" and this year's "Washer Rivers and Lakes" and "Holiday Warming 2" have become the most popular combination among netizens, allowing everyone to enjoy the Spring Festival holiday. You can feel happy and relieve stress without leaving home.
Watching online Chinese New Year dramas gradually gave many viewers a new sense of ritual.
Huang Dianlin, an associate professor at the Communication University of China, said: "As the terminal devices for online video become more abundant and convenient, people's experience of watching movies and dramas online continues to improve. Especially after the popularization of large smart screens, online video has also become more and more popular. It can connect users of multiple age groups and become a family bond for families to reunite for multiple generations during the Spring Festival. With the development of the Internet for the New Year, the consumption value of Internet TV in the family scene will be further revealed.”
Keeping up with the hot spots and watching the reality
The success of the "Hot Holidays" series has accumulated a fixed audience for the New Year's comedy. Next, how to make the New Year's comedy continue to meet the needs of the audience and innovate high-quality content has become an arduous task for the creators.
Just like the "囧" series and "Tang Detective" series in the movie, as well as the "Country Love" series and "Love Apartment" series in TV dramas, all of them cultivate a fixed audience and achieve healthy development through the continuous production of brand content. Realize the accumulation of value.
New Year's comedy also needs to create a drama brand that meets market demand, form a content matrix of stable production, and continuously enhance audience attraction and market appeal.
He Tianping, a postdoctoral fellow at Renmin University of China, believes: "Whether it's a New Year's comedy or other genres, the most important thing for film and television works is to work hard on the story, and the content is the foundation. While highlighting the atmosphere of the Spring Festival, keep up with social hotspots, Looking at reality and adhering to the mainstream value orientation is the key to maintaining vitality and retaining audiences for New Year's comedy." "Holiday Warming 2" itself is a realistic work, which captures drone racing, network anchors, winter Popular elements such as the Olympic Games echo the themes and hotspots of the times such as the National Winter Olympics, innovation and entrepreneurship.
There are real descriptions of ordinary people's living conditions and emotional world, as well as observations of real social topics, as well as careful descriptions and outlines of family, friendship, and love.
These highlights make Lunar New Year comedy with a solid core of realism and vigorous vitality behind the witty humor, full of rich fireworks and human feelings.
As a brand-new type of film and television, New Year's comedy is gradually getting rid of the stereotype of assembly line and utilitarianism, further excavating realistic themes and cultural resources, and moving towards high-quality creation.
Under the new pattern of the industry, the New Year's comedy represented by "Hot Holidays 2", which is not only popular on the platform, but also meets the needs of popular culture, may usher in a new growth trend. It will continue to write new Chinese New Year folk customs that combine tradition and the present. A New Year's family carnival with warmth, emotion and stories.
(Reporter Niu Mengdi, correspondent Yang Yaoru of this newspaper)