Zheng Shuang is not in the Jianghu, but the Jianghu has never stopped the legend of Zheng Shuang. Shuang Dad Shuang Mom, Shuang Zi's "barefoot" ex-husband, "wearing shoes" ex-boyfriend, and "beef noodle" ex-boyfriend, it seems that everyone got a "cool" moment. Even Zhang Guoli, who can't fight with eight poles, has to come out and feel distressed that it is very hard for him to stay up all night filming, and naturally he is scolded on the hot search.
From behind Zheng Shuang's series of operations, it seems that there is a huge "industry chain" that cannot be unbundled with her, so as to achieve her goal of making money without bottom line.
What makes people sad is that when Zheng Shuang was making a bad movie with a 160 million sky-high salary, there was an ingenious work that has yet to be paid back. . Why is
"Age of Awakening" so "unsatisfactory"? Let's start from thirty years ago.
In 1991, the 41-year-old Zhang Yimou had already filmed "High Red Lanterns", from camera to famous director, and stood on the Oscar stage. Zhang, a 19-year-old Shandong boy, was in the cinema and saw Lao Mouzi's work as the male protagonist - "Old Well", and his heart was full of mixed feelings.
Walking out of the cinema, Xiao Zhang seems to have found his life direction from Lao Zhang, and set up a grand ambition: I want to film and be a director, and show the stories that I want to show and are worth showing.
This young man is Zhang Yongxin, the director of "Age of Awakening". Although his family is not optimistic about his aspirations, it does not prevent him from running all the way to the dark.
In this way, Zhang Yongxin, a young man from a small town in Shandong, with the self-cultivation of a true literary and artistic youth, ran all the way into the directing department of Chinese opera.
There was a famous saying in those days: "Mountain shadows are here, and film and television are waiting." After graduation, Zhang Yongxin also threw himself into the embrace of "Shanying".
In the following ten years, he has been working as a deputy in various crews, so he has a link with his "master" and partner Kong Sheng.
From "A Drop of Sunshine" in 1998 to "Windmill" in 2011, two names appear at the same time in the director list of more than ten works: Kong Sheng + Zhang Yongxin.
During this period, Noon Sunshine founded by Kong Sheng has long been a representative of the quality of Chinese dramas, and Zhang Yongxin, who followed Kong Sheng's "start" all the way, has gone through the crew process for more than ten years before he really directed his first drama. The work "Love at the mouth of the Yellow River".
As the old saying goes: a good meal is never too late. "The Age of Awakening" has become a high-quality drama, not only because Zhang Yongxin is Kong Sheng's "apprentice", but because he calmly and earnestly spent 6 years "simmering" a bowl of really fragrant and delicious rice.
filming "Age of Awakening", how serious is Zhang Yongxin? "compared" to you really hard to imagine.
In 2015, Zhang Yongxin got the script of "Age of Awakening", and he was very uneasy. As a senior director and deputy director of famous directors, Zhang Yongxin understands very well that with such a huge subject, the most feared thing is to tell the story "flat" and empty.
How can this story be told both inspiring and sincere; Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, Lu Xun, Cai Yuanpei, Hu Shi, these gentlemen beloved by the Chinese people, are both atmospheric and down-to-earth? This is obviously a huge problem.
Although all kinds of problems are in front of us, and we have not fully figured it out, in Zhang Yongxin's heart, there is a six-character motto: speak human words and do human affairs.
Talking about people starts from the script, and doing personnel checks from the casting.
When casting roles, Zhang Yongxin fundamentally put an end to the "super imitation show", insisting that the resemblance is greater than the appearance, not only to restore the style of the original characters, but also to convey the unique temperament of that era. . In
, Zhang Tong, who played Li Dazhao in the play, had already acted in many hit dramas such as "Bright Sword", "Chinese Guards", "Iron Pear Blossom" and so on. A post-80s actor who won the Feitian Award for Outstanding Actor.
But received a call from the "Awakening" crew and learned that he wanted to play Li Dazhao, Zhang Tong refused in his heart. He was "awed" and "uneasy", worried that he would not be able to stand up if he could not act well, and that he would ruin the classic and sorry for the hero Li Dazhao.
But on second thought, it is the actor's mission to shape every role well, and "hard bones" always have to be gnawed, so he took over the role.
In order to perform well, Zhang Tong not only read the script but also read through the history, and also read the "Communist Manifesto" and "Das Kapital".
Zhang Tong, who finally entered the venue singing "Uneasy", found the feeling that Li Dazhao played by him is not only a book businessman, but also a passionate young man.
Picky audiences praised one after another: "It's so good, I can't see the shadow of the previous role at all, a natural actor." 1921" and "The Founding of the Army", Yu Hewei, who played Chen Duxiu's "professional household of Chen Duxiu" twice. But maybe it was because he acted too much, Yu Hewei was a little scared, Zhang Yongxin was stunned that he had asked him several times before and didn't move.
But when Yu Hewei saw the script of "Age of Awakening", everything "reversed". He was moved by the strong fireworks, and took the initiative to find Zhang Yongxin and said: "It is too stressful to play Chen Duxiu three times, but if you can agree I have some 'hard conditions', I'll go!"
The so-called "harsh conditions" are nothing but: he may "talk about the script" anytime, anywhere. During the creation process, they each read the biographies of Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, and often saw them with emotion. The high-burning clip in the
drama "South Chen and Bei Li, meet to form a party." It is also the result of Yu Hewei's discussion with the director.
Yu Hewei said at that time: "No matter which paragraph, I can express my sadness in various ways, but in this scene, I couldn't help crying and crying." In
, Chen Duxiu's cry in the play caused countless audiences to cry, and both emotions and thoughts resonated. Chen Duxiu, played by Yu Hewei, is both artistic and real, tolerant and arrogant, stalwart and deep.
Cao Lei, the actor of Lu Xun, although he has cooperated with Zhang Yongxin in "The Great Adviser Sima Yi" before, he was still a little confused when he first took on this very important role. Zhang Yongxin encouraged him not to be limited by Mr. Lu Xun's video materials, but to open his heart and become one with God.
Zhang Dao can be said to wake up the "Mongolian" people in one sentence. Cao Lei began to zoom in each photo like a primary school student, and carefully speculate on the details of the charm hidden behind the appearance of the characters.
"Diary of a Madman" is the most intense of all the dramas about Lu Xun, and it is also the most "boiled" scene during filming.The whole group turned on at 5 pm and didn't finish work until the early morning of the next day, but in the end it was only 4 minutes in the play.
The scene of "Pushing the Pen and Meditation" is only 0.1 pages in the script. The most difficult thing is not only the shortness, but the whole plot without a single line, which is all completed by narration. Mr. Lu Xun's grief, disappointment, and resistance at that time were all presented by Cao Lei through his eyes and body movements.
In order to get closer to the essence of the characters, Cao Lei's sitting posture, the curvature of his waist, and even the height of the pen tip from the rice paper were carefully designed with the crew.
Mr. Lu Xun's "struggle", the contradiction between despair and hope under the darkness and depression, also shocked the audience's hearts through the "scheming" of all the staff, "step by step".
And this spirit of continuous experience and accumulation of characters can be called the "bottom line" of the entire crew of "Awakening". The actor Hou Jingjian, who plays the young Mao Zedong, has already played the "Chairman" three times, but when he received the invitation from Director Zhang, he just said: "If you have any requirements for me, just say it, I will not ask any conditions."
Hou Jingjian was filming , as small as a moment of doubt, as large as the display of ideals and aspirations, and scrutinize everywhere. The first appearance of Mao Zedong in the play is the picture of running in the opposite direction in the rain.
In order to capture that kind of freehand and realistic feeling, Hou Jingjian ran back and forth no less than 20 times in his rain-drenched robes on a short 170-meter street, and took 10 hours of shooting.
was also "abused" by Zhang Yongxin and Da Yu, as well as Zhang Wanyi, played by Chen Yannian. Zhang Wanyi, a post-0 actor, is considered a young man in the crew, playing the eldest son of Chen Duxiu, who eventually went to the execution ground for the revolution.
The scene of Chen Yannian going to the execution ground in the play started in April 2019. Hengdian at that time coincided with continuous rain. Although it was April in the world, it was as cold as winter, and most of the crew were still wrapped in thick cotton jackets.
On the execution ground, Chen Yannian had to wear thin clothes and heavy handcuffs and shackles, and walked barefoot in the cold rain again and again until a satisfactory result was obtained. During the process of
, Zhang Wanyi had two fevers. When she found that the situation was not good, she took the cold medicine against , and she would never delay the progress due to illness. There was also the final tear-jerking moment of "flowers blooming in blood".
"Abusive" actor Zhang Yongxin is an expert, and he is recognized as a "crazy devil" in detail. Zhang Yongxin's requirements for the details of every shot in "Age of Awakening" not only learned the essence of Kong Sheng, but also added his own beliefs. "Crazy".
The moustache on Li Dazhao's face was pasted on Zhang Tong's face after going through layers of "audience selection" from dozens of beards of various shapes.
is not only Li Dazhao's iconic beard, but the jujube trees described by Lu Xun were specially shipped from Shandong, and the grape trellis in Chen Duxiu's yard was pulled from Hebei.
In the rainy Hengdian, trying to create a scene of blowing sand in the capital always fails to achieve the actual effect. For this reason, the crew "cleaned the sand" from Hebei and brought a large amount of dry soil, just to be close to the atmosphere of blowing sand in Beijing.
Zhang Yongxin is obsessed with details, ranging from small stubble to high-rise buildings. The "Red Building" scene in the play was built according to the original site of the Red Building of Peking University with a panoramic scale of 1:1.2.
The reason why the original version is to be re-engraved is because the "Red Building" is a famous historical monument of Peking University. It is obviously unrealistic to complete the shooting in it, and it also does not respect history.
But for such an important scene, if only "green cloth" is used to "deal", it can only be another kind of blasphemy, so for the "detail obsessive-compulsive disorder" in my heart, Zhang Yongxin gave the One word: take it!
Although Zhang Yongxin had the intention to recreate a red building, he had no choice but to have a problem with funding, and coupled with the limitation of the shooting cycle, the ambition to restore the five-story red building could only be defeated in the face of reality. In the end,
can only build one layer, and then use special effects to "fight against five" to show the panoramic view of the red building. But even so, the actual investment of "Awakening Age" still exceeded the budget by one third.
In addition to building the red building, more than 340 large and small scenes have been set up in the play, from Qianmen Street, Arrow Shan Hutong, Han Wen Gong Temple, Chinese and Western Hotel, Changxindian Factory and shanty towns.
Because the red building was built in Hengdian, in order to fit the temperament of Beijing Hutong bricks and tiles, the whole team re-tiled the bricks manually to present the texture of age and history.
In order to present a rough and rutted journey in Arrow Shaft Hutong, the production team first covered all the scenes with muck, loess, and gravel, and then let the staff pull the carriage back and forth for 3 days. Barely pressing out the uneven rut that the director wanted.
Although the Red Building could not be reproduced perfectly, Zhang Yongxin refused to let go of the details in the Red Building. He sent art staff to the Red Building again and again to "learn the scriptures", measure the size, and take photos. Finally, the props bookcase created by the crew was placed in front of the real bookcase. So fine that you can't tell the difference, enough to pass the fake to the real.
has been in preparation for six years and three years of filming, and the word of mouth is very good, which has ignited the enthusiasm of countless young people. However, works such as "Awakening Age" have not returned to the original.
This was not made by director Zhang Yongxin himself, but was "stabbed" by other industry peers who couldn't see it. In this era that is good at creating topics and fighting heat, some people will think that this is the "Awakening" crew that is selling traffic and seeking attention?
But if you know all the sacrifices behind "Awakening", you will not doubt the authenticity of this revelation.
"Age of Awakening" started filming in 2018. It took a year to make the prints in the play, and experts from Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts were specially invited to check. There are more than 10,000 sets of costumes for the big and small characters in the play, and all the magazines and newspapers have historical records. It cost more than 2 million to produce the newspapers and other materials.
When "Age of Awakening" had to "choose one out of five" in the red building due to financial problems, artists with no acting skills or beliefs were earning 2.08 million a day's sky-high salary, "not bad money".
What should the literary and artistic works of this era express? What spiritual meaning is conveyed? Perhaps just like what "Awakening Age" conveyed to us, always sincere and always enthusiastic,
"Awakening Age" premiered on February 1, 2021. The main line of historical dramas allows historical figures to step out of history textbooks, showing the magnificent and varied life of the awakening era.
Historical dramas, especially revolutionary historical dramas, in people's inherent concept, it seems that they are not filmed for ordinary people by nature, but "Awakening Age" uses its "full awakening" to give a different answer.
We can see great people running and telling stories for the country and the nation, and we can also see Chen Duxiu, who talks eloquently, being "joke" by his two sons with frogs.
We can see the independence and courage of the "retrograde" when Mao Zedong appeared on the stage, and we can also see the real world of people selling children and eating bread in foreign cars.
The Age of Awakening is not only the awakening of the spirit, but also the awakening of the human being, the awakening of the mind and the awakening of the human world.. As Yu Hewei said:
"We thought that "The Age of Awakening" had a threshold for viewing, but in fact, young people watched it with relish, and they took the initiative to check historical knowledge points. Artists must have aesthetic guidance and self-confidence, and do not underestimate the judgment of young audiences. "
A real good show, it has no threshold and will not be arrogant. It does not preach but will cause the audience to consciously understand and think. It can make the youth of the past and the youth of today, in this condensed and moving history, be Shocked and moved.
Not everyone can become a great person, but still have a minimum sense of morality and bottom line, and creations may not be classic enough, but they must also be worthy of conscience and have a minimum of belief.
In the internet age, people play more jokes than they tell the truth, and they can risk everything for profit. But even if we are joking, we like to persuade others: be a person!
What kind of person do you think of as a person?
Perhaps as "Awakening Age" tells us: "No matter what we are, we must be an upright person." Don't let this standard that should be the bottom line really become the "ceiling" of the times.
-END-
[Text | Wang Xiaobang]
[Editor | Yufei Year]
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