On October 18, the first round of the educational TV series " Big Test " ended. This drama is based on the college entrance examination in 2020. It is based on reality and combines elements such as education, youth, family relationships, epidemics, floods, etc., and is ultimately positioned as a realistic drama with a warm background and romanticism and colors.
On October 25, the symposium on the creation of the TV series "The Big Test" was held at State Administration of Radio and Television .
"Big Test" poster
describes the small family, reflecting the story themes that everyone
Regarding the story themes that "Big Test" is focused on. Shen Jijun, deputy director of the Film and Television Documentary Center of China Central Radio and Television Station, believes that many film and television works have paid attention to the college entrance examination, and the uniqueness of "Big Test" lies in that it places the college entrance examination against the special background of the epidemic, describes the small family, reflecting the everyone, allowing the audience to see the warm background of the entire society under the sudden outbreak and floods.
"The Great Test" Creation Symposium
Director Shen Yan believes that the uniqueness of "The Great Test" is also that among many main themes, it is about not only the college entrance examination, but also a big test experienced by the entire society and the country under layers of difficulties: "Our real protagonists are not only the roles of teachers, students, and parents, but the spirit of the Chinese and Chinese. Real life is often rough and has burrs, but if we grind all these burrs, the work will lose its true texture."
Shen Yan's creative concept was practiced in "The Great Test", and was reflected in the play to boldly present some existing problems in the college entrance examination system. Shen Yan believes that the more controversial the place is, the more rational it should be made. "In addition, for example, Chinese people attach importance to education and are willing to endure sacrifices for their families. This is a very valuable fine tradition. However, typical Chinese parents often make children feel not love but pressure because they are not good at expressing and communicating. Only by not avoiding these problems and truly expressing people's joys, anger, sorrow, and happiness is to find the living water of creation."
"The Big Test" stills
"The Big Test" chief screenwriter Nie Chengshuai said that after the broadcast of "The Big Test" has received praise and encouragement from many audiences, but there are also some different voices. "A small number of viewers questioned the plot and authenticity of the storyline and characters in the play, such as why students in the two schools in the play do not wear school uniforms; why the safety of their fathers is transported Insurance personnel have to get off in Nanjing, not Hefei; why the principals in the play are so serious and responsible to the students, but they have never met such educators. Anyone who has read the script of "The Great Test" knows that our script can be accurately compared with the date and time of each scene after several arguments from multiple departments, which is highly consistent with the development of various current events in 2020. The play builds a base station for a poor student, eats and lives with students, and the plots and characters such as raising the national flag live broadcast are all adapted from real events. "
Stills from "The Great Test"
plays the role of Zhou Bowen's mother in the play Yan Bingyan , and shares with everyone his feelings about "The Great Test" from the perspective of the actor. "I carefully discussed the details in the script with Wang Xiao, the director and the screenwriter, and talked clearly about the causal relationship between the previous and next. I believe that actors can be more pretentious in their early creations, and later presentation can infect the audience more."
Rong Zishan said that the conflict between Wu Jiajun's personal dream and mother's expectations is actually a big test of the mother-son relationship, and the same is true for her mother. She had to communicate with adolescent children for the first time, which was also a big test for her. Rong Zishan said, "I started acting at the age of 8 and a half, and I am 16 years old this year. I often feel pressured, but when I see this role, I am very interested. Wu Jiajun's experience of bravely pursuing his dreams touched me."
creation and shooting process went through "big tests" again and again
"big tests" and filming process also went through "big tests" again and again.
"The Big Test" director Wang Xiaohui introduced that he encountered the epidemic as soon as the filming was started. The crew stopped filming several times, including temporary replacement of actors in the middle. However, with the insistence of the main creative team, the filming took 64 days and the post-production took 81 days.
Director Shen Yan introduced the filming process in detail: In early 2022, the main creator of the crew went to Shexian for on-site investigation. The local education director and leaders provided great help in the preparations, and also arranged for the crew to meet with many local teachers, students, and parents of students and other local story prototypes. "The script is becoming more and more plump and mature in this process. When it was launched in April, the epidemic in China was serious, and several actors in the play were not in place. We were caught off guard. Fortunately, we quickly arranged an emergency plan to ensure that the shooting could be carried out as planned."
"Big Test" Stills
In the story of "Big Test", the teachers and students had just overcome the epidemic and encountered a flood before the exam, which also raised challenges to the crew. Shen Yan said that it took a lot of trouble to shoot the flood scene. "We calculated that if all CG special effects were used, the workload would be very large and the time would be very long, and it might not be able to catch up with the broadcast cycle, and the effect would be greatly reduced than the real scene. Therefore, we adopted a plan that combined real scene and special effects, dug a huge pool to set the scene in it, and the director team and actors After struggling in the pool for about ten days, I finally completed this part of the filming. Looking back now, just like a child facing the college entrance examination, the crew also made way through mountains and bridged across water, overcoming various emergencies along the way, and handed the audience the answer to the "Big Test". "
Aesthetic Innovation of Youth Elements
Expert Speech session, Vice Chairman of the Chinese Literary and Art Critics Association and Professor of Tsinghua University Yin Hong said that in recent years, we have learned from some excellent foreign TV series creation experience, such as strong drama, strong crisis, strong closedness, and strong typification. These have also had an impact on our creation and have also brought positive promotion to the creation of some of our popular works. "But it may be more about the consumption needs of specific audiences, and it is difficult to become a truly excellent masterpiece or masterpiece in art. I think this work deeply reflects the background of realism, allowing everyone to restore it to his life scenes, family scenes and era scenes. With this restoration, the characters are vivid and lively, completing the basic state of realist creation."
Professor Lu Rong from the School of Drama and Film and Television of Communication University of China believes that the first thing to do about the topics like "The Great Test" should be handled well is the transformation and symbiotic relationship between integrity and individuality. Not only should we write about the ego, but we should also write about the appearance of sentient beings thoroughly, so that private emotions, public care, rationality, sensibility, private space and public space can be presented in images and stories. The whole play passed a big test and examined not only the individual family and its growth, but also the functional illiteracy of Jiajun's mother, the miserable conference in the QQ group, and the coming-of-age ceremony of Wenwen's mother. Secondly, for the description of major people's livelihood issues that affect social nerves, character creation needs to show its diversity and depth, and grow leading from it. Including the deliberate camera language in the play, the relay of motorcycles in the heavy rain, the chorus of flashlights at the placement points, the graduating class watching the rising sun, the theme songs are all sublimated passages.
"Big Test" Stills
Peking University TV Research Center Deputy Director Lu Fan paid attention to the aesthetic innovation of youth elements in "Big Test": "The fireworks in the play are pure, the child's face has a particularly pure and beautiful look, the streets and alleys are warm, and the overall tone is bright. "Big Test" is very calm and objective when facing major events, with a sense of intimacy and warm attitude."
iQiyi introduced that in order to show the youthful style and fighting power of young Chinese students to the world, "Big Test" has been released to more than a dozen overseas TV stations and new media platforms, including Hong Kong and Taiwan channels in Hong Kong, Phoenix TV , TVB, and Macau's ATV, and mainstream TV channels in many African countries and Singapore, Cambodia and other countries and regions. Currently, "Big Test" is recommended to mainstream media in Thailand, Russia and other places.
