How was Burning Wild made to fill the gaps in domestic musical films？

Author | Wang Banxian Remains

"If I don’t shoot again, I may lose my passion."

After the year of "knowing the destiny", director Zhang Yibai, who is nearly 60 years old, calmlyOn Entertainment Capital (ID:yulezibenlun)Tell me why I insist on making the musical "The Sky of Burning Wild Boys" (hereinafter referred to as "Burning Wild").

As we all know, musicals are difficult to shoot, especially in China. Looking back at the rapid development of China film market for so many years, the large-scale sci-fi films have stood up, and the original Guo Man has also stood up, but the musical films have never been there.

Among the musical films shown in China, the highest box office is Beauty and the Beast by Disney Starlight Glimmer, which is only 590 million yuan. Only one of the top five films at the box office was directed by China. In 2013, Love on the Roof, directed and performed by Jay Chou, earned 119 million yuan at the box office. After Jay Chou’s setbacks, almost no one dared to try this type again. Until the appearance of Burning Wild today.

Undeniably, its appearance has indeed filled the gap of musical films in China film market, and it may also become a pioneer to lead musical films to stand up in China film market.

For director Zhang Yibai, it is his own dream to make musical films. This dream has been planted since the first day he entered the industry and started filming MV. This time, he jumped up with his own blood and passion, regardless of income and calculation.

"If I don’t shoot, I won’t have passion."

"A martial arts film and a musical film are the dreams of many directors." Zhang Yibai said.

After three years of preparation, the dream of Burning Wild finally came true.Zhang Yibai insisted on directly stating "Youth Song and Dance Movie" on the poster, which was unabashed and undisguised, like a gamble. Zhang Yibai himself admitted: "I don’t know whether to win or lose this film. I can count other movies, but this one can’t count. "

In fact, when Zhang Yibai first bought the original novel The Sky of Crazy Dog Boys, the story was about running. The story of a group of young people running together for a girl’s dream sounds youthful and passionate, but it’s a little too simple for Zhang Yibai. "Everyone can imagine what it will be like."

"Humans don’t climb from the ground, to walk upright, to run, and then eager to fly? I just wonder if I can jump. " Looking back on his creative career, Zhang Yibai thinks that he has run enough since "Carry Love to the End", and now it’s time to jump. "Maybe I will fall, maybe I will cross out, but if I don’t jump, I will run forever."

So, Zhang Yibai turned this story into a dance.

Only in the process of preparing this project, Zhang Yibai and screenwriter Li Zelin talked about Chongqing No.29 Middle School and found that they were both alumni of this school. So I quickly decided to use Chongqing 29 as the background, and incorporated some stories of them who went to middle school in the 1980s, and made a play, which is "The Sky of Wind Dog Teenagers" (hereinafter referred to as "Wind Dog").

In the end, Wind Dog uses the name of the novel, and Burning Wild uses the characters in the novel. From the wind dog to the wild burning, from running to dancing, from the post-1990 s to the post-2000 s, a novel gave birth to two completely different stories.

In Burning Wild, the story turns into a group of young people who have accomplished nothing. In order to help a girl called "salted fish" realize her dream, everyone begins to learn to dance. This is something they have never tried and cannot do, but they did it without considering the consequences.

"What is beyond our power has its own dramatic factors." Zhang Yibai took a fancy to this. Because now the whole shooting process of Burning Wild is also an attempt that Zhang Yibai seems unable to do.

As we all know, musicals are not easy to shoot. "Musical film is an extremely contradictory type. On the one hand, it doesn’t have such a big market, on the other hand, it is a type that needs considerable investment." In fact, Zhang Yibai knew the risks long ago. Actor training, special effects technology, costume modeling, music and dance are not simple, let alone cheap.

But in Zhang Yibai’s mind, it must be done. Not only from his dream for many years, but also from the consideration of the development of China film market. Because no one will do it, China films will never know where the market boundary of musical films is and how much the audience accepts them.

"With the development of China society and the acceptance of song and dance culture by young people in China, the market for song and dance films may not be as bad as we thought." Zhang Yibai still has some confidence in his more open and inclusive attitude. For example, young people like many variety shows in the form of songs and dances very much.

"Maybe in five, ten or twenty years, musicals will become a very important type of China film market." Zhang Yibai didn’t want to regret it at that time. He could only tell his younger generation on crutches or in a wheelchair that he was born at a bad time. So he wants to shoot, and he wants to shoot when he wants to shoot most.

But the distance between dream and reality is far away. What way does Burning Wild have to go from an idea to a film?

What are the key elements of a musical?

Bright colors, fresh faces, inspirational stories …

Although they are different types of film and television works, Burning Wild and Dog in the Wind have the same youthful temperament of Grade 2. This continuity comes from the creative team, directed by Zhang Yibai and Han Yan, and the lineup of Li Zelin’s screenwriter has been completely preserved from Dog in the Wind to Burning Wild.

However, this time, Zhang Yibai devoted more efforts to Burning Wild, which is different from the practice of mainly controlling heavy scenes in Wind Dog. "Burning Wild was basically shot by both of us on the spot, and I will have many creative and film temperament ideas. Director Han spent a lot of energy in the communication, preparation and later stage of the crew."

A team of trust and tacit understanding has been established, which enables Zhang Yibai to concentrate on thinking: How can he make a musical?

Song and dance are naturally the most important elements. After Zhang Yadong, a well-known producer, was appointed as the music director to compose music for the film, Zhang Yibai continued to search for suitable choreographers all over the world. This process was not easy, unlike the professional musicians in the film and television field, there were no dancers specializing in choreographing film and television works in China.

As luck would have it, Zhang Yibai met his dream "dance" on the Japanese street.

"In the sunset, a group of female high school students are dancing in the playground of the campus. When I saw this Japanese promotional film of" The King of Circus "on the TV set of the record store, I felt that this was the dance form of the youth musical I wanted, and akane was the choreographer I wanted."

On the day of meeting akane, Zhang Yibai took the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka. A group of people reached a consensus in the underground bar and decided to do it together. For Zhang Yibai, "At this time, our musical really started."

However, should the protagonist of a musical choose a dancer or an actor?

The answer given in Burning Wild is: the heroine Xiao Huang is a dancer with 0 acting experience, while the hero Lao Gou is an actor with 0 dancing experience. The supporting roles in the film are completely based on the characters in the original Burning Wild.

In Zhang Yibai’s mind, Peng Yuchang is an old dog, and this role belongs to him, while the heroine Xiao Huang has gone through a long casting, because according to the plot setting, Xiao Huang must have dancing skills and be very lively in image and character.

"At that time, during the epidemic, I chatted with Xu Enyi across the screen, and we felt that she was very much like Ryoko Hirosue in those days, energetic and lovely." Zhang Yibai shared a detail with Xiaoye. "During the video, we wanted her to stand up and look at the whole body, so she got off the bus. There was a railing next to the car, and Xu Enyi jumped over the railing with a light jump. At that time, I gave several glances to each other with Director Han, thinking that she was Xiao Huang of Burning Wild."

However, when a new actor with zero experience was launched, Zhang Yibai was also drumming, and Peng Yuchang was not so relieved. When Xu Enyi filmed on the first day, Peng Yuchang also came to the scene to watch, but after watching it, he stopped worrying.

"I actually didn’t realize until noon that day that this was the first time that this little girl appeared, walked and said lines in her life, but I didn’t feel that she was a complete newcomer when I filmed it. I can only say that she was born to play this play."

Including Xu Enyi, these different actors have different dance levels. In order to meet the shooting of musical films, they must be trained in groups in advance, and the process of practicing dance is actually a process of cultivating feelings among actors.

"The teacher who trained them to dance is actually very strict, telling them to leave if they can’t dance well, so the actors have established a deep feeling and helped each other to cheer." For youth films, the intimate relationship and physical reaction between young actors can be directly perceived by the audience through the lens.

The story of youth can’t be separated from campus, and Burning Wild is a youth film. In the process of filming, the creative team traveled to hundreds of schools in Hainan, and finally felt that Huaxing Middle School, the alma mater of screenwriter Li Zelin, was the most suitable.

"In fact, the school didn’t want to receive us at all, but we tried our best to be rejected again and again, and tried again and again. Finally, they welcomed us in." The final campus scene presented by the film is very fresh in visual effect.

Here, the creative team, music and dance, actors and scenes are all available. Burning Wild, as a musical film, officially started shooting, and Zhang Yibai encountered many unexpected and unexpected difficulties.

How difficult is "Burning Wild" groped from 0?

"No one has done this, and we have no reference. Everything before shooting is an idea, and every step after shooting is to touch the stone."

This sentence by Zhang Yibai can sum up the difficulty of Burning Wild as a musical: no one knows how to shoot it correctly.

First of all, in the integration of plot and song and dance, if we refer to the practice of Broadway musicals or Indian musicals, song and dance need to participate in the film narrative, and the starring actors will use song and dance to talk and interact in the process of plot advancement. In the whole film Burning Wild, only the parts of "Rainbow Dance" and "Weed Dance" are added to the narrative.

"This balance is actually elusive. It is definitely difficult to copy the experience of others. We are exploring how to integrate the emotions and stories of young people in China with songs and dances. Burning Wild only has this song and dance narrative fragment, and we dare not exaggerate it. I hope to see the audience’s acceptance from this step."

Therefore, most of the songs and dances of Burning Wild bear the function of emotional contagion. For example, when the heroine Xiao Huang misses her mother, the film shows Xiao Huang’s inner loneliness with a solo dance in the moonlight. The cooperation of music and dance can amplify the emotional appeal and make the audience resonate with the characters. At the end, a group of young people danced together on the offshore platform, showing the burning and blood of youth.

These emotional clips have been polished over and over again. Zhang Yibai revealed to Xiaoye that both music and dance are constantly being overthrown and modified, especially the dance can only be taught remotely because the choreographer akane can’t come to China, and the dancers designated by the choreographer train the actors in China.

However, unlike what the outside world thinks, musicals need actors to dance very well. On the contrary, Zhang Yibai wants them to "jump a little rough".

"This is a youth film, and it is set that those who can’t dance will complete a’ miracle’ story together, so I sometimes feel wrong when I see dancers dancing too well, so during the filming process, I will continue to let those very professional dancers dance more clumsily and have more youthful flavor and strength."

Because singing and dancing serve the plot, not to show off their skills.

It is precisely because of this creative vigilance that Zhang Yibai also gave up the shooting techniques in many dance variety shows. "We actually designed a shot with a’ whew’ that turned particularly dazzling, but later I felt that I didn’t want it, because this story is about the dance and growth of a group of people, and personal dazzling skills are contrary to what the film is about."

In the process of film editing, Zhang Yibai gave up many dazzling shots without hesitation, but other song and dance clips made him hesitate and difficult to decide.

"Because past experience can’t help you, it’s impossible to accurately judge whether there are more songs and dances or fewer songs and dances, and you can’t ask the audience every time you cut them," Zhang Yibai said. There was a song and dance that was repeatedly taken down and put on, and it was tangled back and forth countless times. "Before I cut the film, I watched it on a small computer screen. Later, when I watched it on the projection, the weed dance in the classroom directly shocked me and decided to put it on."

The final piece of song and dance accounted for one-third of the film’s duration. However, some regrets were only realized after the production was completed, because Burning Wild tells the story of a group of young people, so the solo in the film is only the one under Xiao Huangyue. In the interview, Zhang Yibai felt that there should be another solo, and the story and mood of the film will be more complete and full.

But all regrets and attempts will be reserved for the next experience, and the creative team will not hesitate to share these experiences. Zhang Yibai told Xiaoyu: "Our founders are now sharing creative stories on Zhihu."

Perhaps, as Zhang Yibai said, he is 70 years old and 80 years old after 20 years, and domestic musical films have become a mature category. At that time, Burning Wild, as the forerunner of the category, left valuable experience for the film industry in song and dance creation, shooting and post-production.

As a pioneer in the industry, Zhang Yibai will always recall his own "burning wild youth" this time.

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