Recently, the State Administration of Radio and Television announced the review results of the 2022 TV drama guidance and support special fund project.

Among them, "going deep into life and taking root in the people" is an important criterion for judging, "Splendid Mountains and Rivers", "I Am a Criminal Police", "County Party Committee Compound", "The Big Examination", "The Girls' School in the Mountain", "Our Ten Years", "The Back Wave" and other 7 All works were selected into the inclined project of "going deep into life and taking root in the people".

Among the projects that have been broadcast, "The Big Exam" has been called "the closest to life" TV series by netizens because it reflects realistic topics such as online classes and college entrance examination delays, which has aroused heated discussions.

"Splendid Mountains and Rivers" is "rooted in the soil" from the plot to the characters. Through true stories, the audience can understand why the country wants to help the poor and how great the cause of poverty alleviation is.

There is also "Our Decade", which has also received praise from all walks of life for its pyrotechnic realistic texture.

These works have achieved a double harvest of ratings and word-of-mouth, eloquently proving that there are thousands of methods for literary and artistic creation, and the most fundamental, critical, and reliable method is to go deep into life and take root in the people.

Dive into life, broadly understand people's joys, sorrows, sorrows, and internalize what they see and hear in the creation of works, which has become a proposition of the times before the creators.

But how to penetrate deeply can extend the tentacles of creation to the texture of life and society, know what it means, know its meaning, know what it is and why it is, we still need to continue to explore.

　　When it comes to "going deep into life and taking root in the people", the first thing we think of is that the creators go out of the study and the studio, and go to the vast land of the motherland, to understand life, understand society, and experience life in a way of listening, seeing, and feeling. state.

"Forming with things", first of all, the "things" must be understood in the heart in order to "fulfill the state of things", which requires the creator to go deep into the reflected life and enter the heart of the characters in order to fully understand In this situation, the protagonist's inner feelings are transformed from the perspective of onlookers to the perspective of personal experience, and the texture of life is vividly and meticulously presented to the audience.

For example, "Police Honor", which was evaluated by the police audience as "watching a drama like working overtime", worked hard at the beginning of the script creation. The screenwriter visited five police stations and a criminal police team in Jinan for "immersive interviews" and interviewed dozens of people. A front-line policeman, followed them on night shifts, handled police situations, observed their handling of various civil disputes, and captured the unknown ups and downs of the public security officers and police officers.

　　Understanding life requires not only perceptual knowledge, but also rational thinking and guidance.

Therefore, sometimes it is necessary for the main creator to have in-depth interactions with relevant experts, industry insiders, and character prototypes, and even directly intervene in creative practice and the development of shooting locations.

For example, during the creation process of the medical drama "Deep in My Mind", top medical experts from all over the country were invited as consultants to check the plot layer by layer with "painting-style creation", without missing a single detail, and to ensure the professional knowledge involved as much as possible. and the authenticity and scientific nature of the case.

During the filming period of "Bottom Line", judges and other professionals were invited to stay in the group to cooperate with the filming, and the content, scenes, costumes, and props details of the play were strictly checked, including reviewing and guiding written materials related to courts and laws in the script, and the art of court scenes. Props, court uniforms, the direction of the case in the plot, etc.

The main creative team of the "Heart's Direction" unit in "Our Ten Years" has integrated into the rural construction of Jiande, Zhejiang, not only looking for characters and stories from the fields, but also cooperating with the local government to plan the "Daoxiang Festival". Realized the linkage inside and outside the play.

　　In the creation of realistic themes, it is not enough to rely solely on the accumulation of purposeful experience. If you want to write with a sense of spirit, you need to read thousands of books and travel thousands of miles. Only through artistic accumulation and long-term cultural accumulation can you create works that come from reality. , without sticking to reality, making the audience familiar and unfamiliar aesthetic imagery.

Screenwriter Long Pingping often uses the literary classic "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" as a reference when practicing the concept of "big things are true and small things are not limited" when creating historical themes.

"The historical context from Dong Zhuo's chaos to the Three Kingdoms and then to the unification of the Three Kingdoms is historically true, but in the narrative of the specific historical process, fictional content such as Taoyuan's three knots, Lu Bu's opera Diaochan, and thousands of miles of riding alone are added. It helps readers understand the historical events and characters. Specifically, when it comes to the history of "Awakening Age", I insisted that the context of "South Chen, North Li, and founding the party together" remained unchanged. Against the backdrop of the real era in which countless people froze to death and starved to death in the twelfth lunar month, Chen Duxiu designed a plot in which Chen Duxiu saw the dire situation of the people on the road from Beijing to Shanghai, which inspired a sense of responsibility and mission.” Faced with complicated materials, the creator combined history and The truth is dialectically unified in the flesh-and-blood characters and plot events, stimulating the audience to observe and think together with the protagonists, seeing the essence through the appearance, so that the historical inevitability of the development of party history can be clearly seen in the play, and it is in line with the current spirit of the times. Echoes.

This kind of creative skill can only be possessed by long-term reading, thinking, learning and feeling.

　　All in all, to create a masterpiece of film and television with practical significance, the creator must not only have the determination to go deep into life, the ability to discover life, but also have the courage to explore life and the experience of digging out life. In order to observe and experience life in depth, it is necessary to deeply perceive and understand life through multiple forms in order to create works that are vivid and divine.

(Author: Wang Jing, associate researcher at the School of Drama, Film and Television, Communication University of China)

　　(Source: Guangming Daily, December 21, 2022, page 15)