NetFlight’s defeat in the first battle of the Chinese-speaking region
Editor’s note: This article comes from WeChat public account “New drama Observation” (ID: xinjuguancha) by Suda
In 2017, HBO launched the first Chinese-language self-made drama “Psychic Girl” in Taiwan, which was well received. In the same year, Netflix followed up with a series of Chinese-made self-produced dramas.
This year, the first “Sin Dreamer” that is expected is finally on the line. As the leading “Sin Dreamer”, the mission of the body is self-evident. Before going online, Netflix slammed heavily on promotion in Taiwan, but the result was that after two days on the line, negative evaluations came.
The sinner’s reputation at home and abroad has been on the streets, and Netflix has not been successful in the Chinese language market. No one would have thought that this TV series with an international luxury production team and invited to Taiwan’s popular frontline actors would have messed up.
Interestingly, Netflix’s current international director Erika North is the project producer for the “Psychic Girl” case at HBO Asia two years ago. “Sin Dreamer” is the first Chinese drama that Erika North made after Netflix, and brought the team of “Psychic Girl” – Singapore production company IFA (In Focus Asia), and “Flash” series Executive producer Jaime Paglia and others.
Erika North, International Director of Netflix
It seems that Netflix seems to have taken a step back and is very stable. He wants to copy the success of HBO “Psychic Girl” and “failed.”
Where is the problem?
When Chen Yingrong was interviewed by Taiwanese media before going online, she did not evade the differences and contradictions between her and Netflix. Judging from the audience feedback of “Sin Dreamer”, the clip did have a big problem, especially the first episode, which made the audience understand the story and caused difficulties.
Netflix and the author’s “Clip Wars”
“All conflicts occurred in the first episode.” Chen Yingrong said in the Taiwanese media “The News Lens” that Netflix stepped on her bottom line.
Director Chen Yingrong
As we all know, Netflix started in Silicon Valley has strong data analysis capabilities. At the beginning, Netflix was strongly involved and disagreed with the “chaotic” editing style that Chen Yingrong now presents, and the contradiction broke out.
According to Chen Yingrong’s recollections, after watching the first episode of “The Dreamer”, Netflix marked 40 suggestions for modification, and found someone to cut 5 image versions for her reference. The subtext of doing this is “Let Chen Yingrong scholars recut.”
The biggest conflict between the two sides is that Netflix wants to change the order of the game in the post-production editing stage in order to let the audience understand the story more quickly, and break the 8-set structure and come back again. However, Chen Yingrong could not accept the big moving structure. She thought that the current editing was cut according to the direction of scriptwriting at that time, and there was no problem.
In general, Netflix is a complete unit of 15 minutes. Netflix asked for a standard episode. The first 15 minutes of the first episode should be large enough to attract the audience; every 15 minutes, there must be a hook to let the audience expect what to see next; The tension of each episode must also rise again, guiding the audience to the next time with suspense.
In generalIn one sentence, “Hook! Hook! Hook everything!”, the basic element of Netflix’s communication with the audience is Hook.
Specifically, Netflix’s revised opinion is to adjust the “field order” of the series. They want to mention the front in the big game, so that the audience will be easier to understand. At the beginning of the first episode of “Naked Surveillance” and “Naked Surveillance”, a state of AV director Murakami’s peak period was presented.
These are the typical American dramas presenting the sequence of stories. After the big scenes are presented, tell the audience about the causes and consequences of the story, and let the audience slowly get better. The “Sin Dreamer” is a comedy, presenting a chaotic prison dream. When people look at the fog, they pick up the ballroom scene and introduce the main characters one by one. In terms of attractiveness, it is indeed lower than the US drama.
But Chen Yingrong did not give in. He said bluntly, “Don’t be a fool in the audience.” She thinks that the rhythm and the story are closely linked, not only suspense, but also moderately blank, giving the audience a little imagination.
The situation of the two sides stalemate, Chen Yingrong wrote a “breakup letter” ready to be completely noisy with Netflix. Erika North, the international original director of Netflix mentioned in the opening, urgently flew to Taiwan and Chen Yingrong to talk for 6 hours. In the end, the Netflix side compromised and no longer insisted on the big move structure. Chen Yingrong also agreed to adjust the subtle parts such as the soundtrack according to Netflix’s opinions.
Netflix’s compromise is a helpless move. At that time, I had already reached the cut-off point of the knot, and rushed to the Netflix on the date of the line. There was no way to retreat.
In fact, the case of “Sin Dreamer” did not go smoothly at first, and experienced a change of director. Originally Netflix was the new Malaysian director Ke Wenli to direct the first Chinese, and Ke Wenli was nominated for the 2015 Oscar Real Film short film with the short film “Free People”. But then Ke Wenli at the beginning of last year, becauseExit for personal reasons. However, from the perspective of Ke Wenli’s schedule, he has to shoot the online drama “Chinatown Detective Case” and the movie “Manual Killing” at the same time. It seems that he must make a choice.
It was in this situation that Chen Yingrong took over the project and rewrote the script. Time forced Netflix to make a step-by-step compromise. Chen Weiru (a Singaporean company IFA), who recalled the production of the film and was also a producer of “Psychic Girl”, said in an interview that Taiwan has long been a director-only state. Very much need to produce.
However, this time, it’s still not the “author’s director”.
What is the right way to connect with the international community?
As the foreign platforms such as Netflix and HBO enter Taiwan, the ecology of Chinese dramas is actually being changed. And the creators of the international Taiwan have said that “money” is no longer the predicament of Taiwanese drama. The 8th episode of HBO’s new drama “Hunting Dream Agent” starring Xu Ruoxuan is as high as 130 million Taiwan dollars.
How can Chinese-language dramas with international funds be properly aligned with the international community in order to avoid the expensive luxury dramas such as “Sin Dreamer”?
Reviewing the production experience of “Psychic Girl”, I believe Erika North and IFA producer Chen Weiru, if there is another choice, will insist on his original principles in “Sinner”.
IFA (In Focus Asia) producer Chen Weiru
Chen Weiru once revealed in an interview with Taiwanese media “Entertainment Critical” that the production of “Psychic Girl” is roughly the implementation of the American TV series. Taiwanese director Chen Hezhen and producer Liu Yuxi are very sympathetic to their ideas. .
The two founders of IFA are the BBC’s war correspondents. The Singapore company has always been a documentary filmmaker and has long-term cooperation with international platforms such as BBC and HBO. Therefore, when HBO was to be the first Chinese drama, IFA, which is proficient in both Chinese and English, and experienced in cooperation with international platforms, became the best “bridge” between HBO and Taiwanese creators. The “Psychic Girl” finally formed. The cooperation between Taiwan Public Television, IFA and HBO.
Tuning is the most important part of the American drama. That is, it is necessary to know the shooting style, including the hue, the far and near mirror, etc. before the start of shooting, and the lens of each design must be passed to HBO. I believe that at the beginning, the tonality of “Sin Dreamer” is no problem. It can be seen that the filming style of the director is closer to international standards.
But the problem is in the editing process. Generally speaking, the problem with the old Taiwanese drama is that in the editing, the most like to use the cross-gradient, the rhythm will be slower, and the plot is less compact. The editing work of “Psychic Girl” was completely done in Singapore, because HBO wants to ensure that the final style is HBO. Therefore, we can see that the clips of “Psychic Girl” are more beautiful, and the technique is more neat and the rhythm is faster.
Director Chen Hezhen and the producers tried a variety of versions and finally took a balance. The editing of “Psychic Girl” is roughly a way of editing American dramas. At the beginning, it shows the state of the “Xiang Gu” practice in the temple, and then slowly begins the story. However, in the part of the family’s warmth, it still follows the slow-paced processing of the desktop, retaining the human touch of Taiwan.
Chen Weiru believes that the Chinese drama production environment lacks a producer like a American drama. From a global perspective, he assists the director and produces better works instead of an executive producer. Chinese drama directors rarely tolerate the fact that there are producers who interfere with creation, but in fact, in American dramas, this is a very normal behavior. Producing is actually the longest and most in-depth role in preparation. The production is not to negate the director. The filming duties are to check the whole direction of the drama, and the management process also manages the story, so they will definitely put forward some opinions. The director should not be an attitude of “only me alone.”
It seems that the first shot in the Chinese market, Netflix is dumb. However, the leading HBO has also encountered a new problem – the “difficult to produce” in the Chinese sequel.