Domestic drama ＂Going to Sea＂ grasps the emotional commonality.
In 2015, Empresses in the Palace, directed by Zheng Xiaolong, became the first TV series in China to be copyrighted by Netflix. This incident made domestic film and television creators begin to seek "going out to sea". In recent years, online dramas such as White Night Chasing the Murder, River God, TV series nirvana in fire, and My Parting have gained a good amount of on-demand on foreign video websites. The Longest Day In Chang’an, which is popular in China this year, also landed on Viki, Amazon and Youtube in the form of "pay-per-view". On October 21st, The Untamed, who has been burning for a summer, appeared on the homepage of Netflix’s official website.
On October 31, at the Sichuan TV Festival being held in Chengdu, a forum on "going out to sea" of domestic film and television dramas — — China Film and Television Overseas Communication Forum focuses on the overseas communication of China film and television, and discusses the opportunities and challenges for China film and television to go to sea.
The "Overseas Journey" of Domestic Drama Led by Masterpieces
In fact, the road of "going out to sea" for domestic dramas began in the 1980s. Yang Jie, the director of the 86th edition of The Journey to the West, brought the seventh episode of "Collecting Pigs and Eight Rings" from The Journey to the West to Japan when he participated in the Tokyo TV Festival. Subsequently, this TV series has been exported to Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, Ghana, Tanzania, Nepal and other countries, becoming the first TV series exported to the world in China.
During the same period, the TV series exported overseas also included Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which was exported to Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and other neighboring countries. Considering the cultural differences, the overseas version of the play has been re-edited, reducing the original 84 episodes to 19 episodes, and adding cultural commentary at the beginning and end of the film.
By the 1990s, with the IP of Jin Yong’s and Qiong Yao’s novels in China, costume dramas such as Princess Huanzhu and Condor Heroes went overseas. In 2015, "Why Shengxiao Mo" was broadcast as the first domestic idol drama to appear in the mainstream Korean media MBC. In 2018, "Little Separation" was broadcast on the Asian film and television channel in Mongolia, reaching the top of the ratings list at the same time; The explosion "Story of Yanxi Palace" was broadcast simultaneously on Zing TV, the largest video website in Vietnam, and the broadcast progress exceeded that in China.
Grasping the emotional commonality "should be one country, one policy"
"Grasp the commonness of all mankind and be driven by emotion." At yesterday’s forum, Hu Zhengrong, editor-in-chief of China Education Television, particularly emphasized emotion when talking about "China’s film and television works going out". Hu Zhengrong recalled that when The Beautiful Times of My Daughter-in-law was broadcasted in Tanzania, he interviewed in Africa. When the local people saw the girls in China, they said "Doudou" (the heroine’s name in The Beautiful Times of My Daughter-in-law), which showed the popularity of this work in Tanzania.
What surprised him most, however, was the awareness that the drama brought to Tanzanian audience about China. "They said that after watching this drama, they realized that there was also a contradiction between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in China." Hu Zhengrong said frankly that China’s external communication is more about being tall, and this drama has made the local people understand the ups and downs of Chinese and the contradictions between people, which are precisely the commonness of human beings. Only by grasping the commonness of all mankind and grasping emotions can we communicate and communicate better.
Hu Zhengrong also pointed out that the number of film and television works "going out to sea" is large enough, but some works still lack accurate positioning in international communication. Many countries still have the impression of China, such as costume drama, delicious food, Tai Ji Chuan and Peking Opera. "China has many rich cultural mines, but how to present the world significance of the contemporary value of China culture? It is a challenge to convey the contemporary value of China culture and the significance of world dialogue. " In his view, it should be "one country, one policy". For example, different countries such as the United States, Tanzania, Kenya and Britain have different concepts, and audiences like different dramas.
Localization, localization story to strengthen overseas cooperation
In recent years, hit dramas such as Ode to Joy, Wenzhou Family and nirvana in fire produced by Shandong Film and Television Production Co., Ltd. have been broadcast abroad. Talking about Shanying’s experience of "going out to sea", Wu Xuesong, general manager of Shanying, emphasized "localization, localization". He cited "Wenzhou Family" in 2012 as an example, which was broadcast in Korea, France, Kazakhstan, Japan and other countries.
Wu Xuesong recalled that the screenwriter of The Wenzhou Family was the famous screenwriter Gao Mantang, who emphasized "to show the real China characters". At the time of creation, because of his unfamiliarity with the south and business, Gao Mantang read more than 1 meter of reference materials, and then went to Wenzhou and Europe to interview and collect stories of Wenzhou people. Finally, Gao Mantang decided that this drama should not be a commercial war film, but should be a story of a nobody in the era and show China after the reform and opening up.
Wu Xuesong said that in addition to improving the quality of production in recent years, Shanying has another important means to exchange and cooperate with foreign film and television institutions, such as co-shooting, exhibiting, and investing in the acquisition of well-known overseas independent film and television companies. "We shoot film and television cultural products with China elements and use film and television dramas to convey China culture."
Domestic variety shows have changed from simply selling copyrights to exporting programs.
As the representative of the platform, Zhang Lina, the editor-in-chief of Alibaba Entertainment Youku, believes that many works produced by Youku in recent years have successfully gone to sea, such as The Longest Day In Chang’an, the pursuit of murder in a white night, and the reason is to convey truth, goodness and beauty, which is the common spiritual connotation of global culture.
Zhang Lina said that domestic film and television producers are learning American TV dramas and English TV dramas, and they also envy the industrialization of offline film and television in China. And The Longest Day In Chang’an made an exploration, and the hit of this drama led to the tourism fever in Xi ‘an. For foreign audiences, through the broadcast of the drama series, they also learned what Datang is and what the spirit of Datang is.
Zhang Lina also specifically mentioned the importance of data. On the one hand, Youku has been cooperating with large foreign new media platforms in recent years to find the preferences of local young people from the data. On the other hand, domestic film and television dramas, including variety shows, no longer simply sell copyrights, but gradually export copyrights. For example, the program mode of "This is Dunk" produced by Youku was successfully exported to the United States, the country of basketball.