What's the difference between Dragon TV's the legendary swordsman and other variety shows?

The contestants of the legendary swordsman are all grassroots. It can be said that they are really joking about their own lives and integrating their happiness or sadness into the performance! The legendary swordsman excavates and transmits the positive energy in their lives through their performances!

Comedy programs can be described as the new favorite of TV variety shows in recent years, and they are everywhere in David. Today, Entertainment magazine analyzes the reasons for the prosperity of comedy programs, summarizes the main modes of comedy programs at present, and predicts and analyzes the defects and future development trends of comedy programs.

With the help of policies, comedy shows have ushered in the "second spring"

China's special comedy variety can be traced back to the "Quyuan Miscellaneous Altar" broadcast by CCTV in 1990s. For a long time, this type of program failed to become the mainstream variety of provincial satellite TV because of the aging audience.

However, in recent years, policy changes have promoted the development and prosperity of comedy programs. With the continuous strengthening of the "entertainment ban", especially since the SARFT began to restrict the broadcasting of foreign programs and singing programs in 20 13, David has regarded comedy programs as the safest direction to fill the space and compete for ratings.

In 20 14, China TV variety show officially opened the "first year of comedy". In the past, comedy programs outside the mainstream variety show a spurt of growth. According to incomplete statistics, in the first half of that year, more than 30 comedy programs appeared in major TV stations in China. CCTV's king of comedy, Hunan Satellite TV's Just to Make You Laugh, Jiangsu Satellite TV's China Laughing Star and Zhejiang Satellite TV's China king of comedy came into being in this melee.

However, the prosperity of comedy programs in China did not last long.

For a long time, the comedy programs that appeared together after half a year were almost wiped out in the fierce battle for ratings. Many of the remaining programs have not escaped the fate of lack of innovation, declining word-of-mouth ratings and short life cycle, and finally stopped broadcasting. Coupled with the rise of variety shows such as "Where is Dad?" , "Running Man" and "Extreme Challenge", the comedy reality show fell into a low point of development and once again became a "marginal role".

However, after 20 16, the variety pattern changed. The subsequent restrictions on children, entertainment and Korea have turned many TV variety shows to online platforms. At the same time, the old trump card variety show also showed a development fatigue, and met the bottleneck of ratings and topic volume.

The huge space left by the TV variety market has created opportunities for the development of comedy programs. So the comedy program ushered in the "second spring". Oriental TV's "Happy Comedian" and "the legendary swordsman" have sprung up suddenly, and their word-of-mouth ratings have been double bumper; Zhejiang Satellite TV's "Comedy Story" reached the top of the same period; Beijing Satellite TV also gained a share in the variety market with "King of Cross-border Comedy". The popularity of comedy shows makes many variety shows join the comedy field, and at the same time, it also stimulates the topic and attention of comedy shows.

Among the four modes, the "Laughing Forest" overlord is fiercely competitive.

After three years of development and waves, the current comedy program market is far less crowded than before, but it is still blooming everywhere. Compared with the past, the production threshold of a single comedy program has been raised, the products are more sophisticated, and it has a stable audience and attention, and its competitiveness in viewing is also relatively strong. At present, the development of comedy variety has reached a mature stage, and four modes have been formed: professional comedian, comedy draft, cross-border performance and the combination of stars and elements.

The "professional comedian" mode means that all the guests participating in the program are practitioners in the comedy industry. In this mode, the comedy quality of the program can be guaranteed to the greatest extent. Its representative is "Happy Comedian" produced by Oriental TV. The first season of the program was broadcast on April 25th, 20 15, and the most representative comedy stars from all walks of life in China were invited to join us. First-class comedy team, excellent and dedicated comedians, discussion of different schools on the same stage, exchange and communication of comedy culture across the Taiwan Strait and three places, and the program connotation of promoting comedy spirit have all been recognized by the audience and become the biggest variety "dark horse" in the TV drama market that year. But similar to its advantages, the disadvantages of such programs are also obvious. The single source of participants will lead to the solidification of comedy style, lack of innovation, lack of sense of variety and aging audience to some extent. Therefore, after the second season, the quality of "Happy Comedian" began to show a downward trend. The interaction between the guests in the program is blunt and uncooperative, and the disadvantages of comedy, such as boredom, forced sensationalism and low-level jokes, are becoming more and more prominent. This led to a decline in program ratings in the third quarter.

"Comedy draft" mode means that the program adopts the form of draft, and the judges select non-professional comedians. Because the participants are mainly amateurs, the comedies performed are more grounded than "professional comedians", and some programs adopt the tutor mode, highlighting the tutor design and enhancing the variety sense of the programs. The representatives of this kind of programs mainly include the legendary swordsman by Oriental TV, I am a comedian by Hubei TV and China Comedy Star by Zhejiang TV.

The legendary swordsman has invested the most in these projects. Not only did the main creative team go to the UK to incubate ideas, but also invited the executive producer of X-Facter to personally give on-site guidance. The three guests of the program, Xiaogang Feng, Degang Guo and Song Dandan, are also big coffee in the industry. The careful preparation and investment in the early stage also broke the audience's inherent impression of comedy programs as "low cost" and "petty", and moved closer to other large-scale production and luxury packaging variety shows. However, comedy talent show is not a singing talent show with a wide participation and a long history. Not only is the audience's acceptance limited, but it is also difficult to participate in the audition of the players. As Zhu Hui, director of the legendary swordsman, said: "Comedians are hard to find, which takes time, manpower and cost." In addition, most of the instructors of the program are traditional comedians, and they pay insufficient attention to the whole society. Their own "personal design" and "topicality" are far less than the traditional singing talent show.

In addition to the above two modes, "cross-border performance" is also a common way in comedy programs. It takes advantage of the audience's curiosity about the star's "abnormal state" and achieves novel effects through the transformation of traditional identity, so that the audience can see the different side of the star. Due to the expansion of the star range, this kind of programs have a stronger sense of variety than the first two models, which can create topics and bring attention. The main representatives of this kind of programs are Cross-border king of comedy by Beijing Satellite TV and Comedy Story and Happy Drama Department by Zhejiang Satellite TV.

Cross-border king of comedy was broadcast on September 3, 20 16. Compared with The King of Cross-border Songs, which was previously released by Beijing Satellite TV and gained a good reputation, this program has a wider range of guest industries and fields, including film and television actors, singers, sports world champions, speakers, celebrities in the business and cultural fields. Excessive cross-border, although it brings many topics, ignores the star's own comedy performance ability, and many participating guests do not have the qualifications in the cross-border field, making the performance a pure guest appearance and ticket-playing, the appreciation of the program declines, and the sense of embarrassment rises.

Compared with Beijing Satellite TV, Zhejiang Satellite TV's comedy stories are better in cross-border processing. The program deliberately reduces the difficulty of cross-border and forms a guest lineup in the form of "movie stars+professional comedians". Because movie stars have their own performance skills, the quality of their works is guaranteed. This year, Zhejiang Satellite TV launched the Happy Drama Music Department, which is also a small "cross-border" comedy mode for movie stars. At the same time, the program also adopted impromptu performances similar to CCTV's "Xile Street" and "Thank God you are here", which comprehensively tested the improvisation ability, acting skills, wisdom and sense of humor of the actors. Performers need to think as fast as lightning and be logical. It gives the program more surprises and uncontrollable. In addition, the program also abandoned the post-production mode of the same type of comedy reality show in the past. In editing, variety and entertainment are more prominent. It not only uses a large number of participants' facial expressions, but also breaks the convention of editing the same type of programs in chronological order, adopts some playback clips and interspersed with interviews with actors after the program.

In the guest comment session, the handling of the Happy Drama Music Department is more in line with the aesthetic trend of modern variety. It doesn't have an independent special comment link, but only shows the scene of the judges watching the performance in the form of a sub-lens in the lower right corner of the guest performance screen, and synchronizes the evaluation with the performance. This enhances the real-time feedback of comments and the interaction between guests and judges, and also avoids the independent and lengthy evaluation fragments slowing down the whole program rhythm. In the end, after the first broadcast on July 8th, Happy Drama Music Department got good market feedback, which not only gained a lot of favorable comments, but also reached the audience rating of 1.247 in 52 cities.

Although so far, the performance of this program is excellent. However, it does not solve the consistent shortcomings of the "cross-border performance" mode reality show. Personal differences in movie stars' abilities and strangeness to comedy performances make different participants have different control over performances. In addition, the "high threshold" of impromptu performance further deepens this difference, which leads to uneven quality of each program.

The above three models occupy the mainstream in the current comedy variety market. However, Dragon TV, the leader of this year's "comedy variety show", has introduced another new model into the audience's field of vision. This model is "the combination of stars and elements". The legendary comedian and the amateur comedian were invited to compete on the same stage, and the audience, as public review, voted to decide whether the comedian would stay or not.

Although the "combination of stars and elements" takes into account the requirements of attracting investment and taking the mass line, its unreasonable competition system weakens the visibility of the program. Little-known amateurs compete with comedy stars with a large number of fans on the same stage. The setting of audience rating will obviously cause the audience's prejudice against the stars, which will make it more difficult for amateurs to advance. Not only that, the weekly broadcast time of the program also caused the lack of creative cycle, leading to poor quality and embarrassment of comedy works. This can be seen from the nickname given to it by netizens and the legend of the voice of embarrassment.

There are many homogeneous programs, and the creation time is tight, so there are hidden concerns about the development of comedy programs.

The People's Daily once commented on "Happy Comedian": "Laughter is just needed".

There is no denying that comedy shows have a huge market for modern audiences under pressure. In addition, most comedy programs can be completed only by shooting in the shed, with low threshold, low technical difficulty, low investment, easy to combine with the "mass line" and cultural heritage, and almost unaffected by the "entertainment restriction order", which also makes comedy programs become David's new favorite at present and has a high market share.

However, the low threshold of the program has also caused confusion in the comedy reality show market. Not only the first-class satellite TV is engaged, but also the second-and third-line satellite TV has entered this type, and various programs have appeared together and are shoddy. At the same time, the rush of a large number of programs has also brought a very high homogenization rate. Although David has always used words such as "the combination of stars and elements" and "the main draft" to flaunt the uniqueness of his program. But abandoning these forms, the core of every comedy program is very similar. Or performing short plays or improvisations, there is no difference in content, and even the changes of participating guests between programs are not great. Jia Ling has participated in many programs such as Happy Comedian, Happy Drama Club, Comedy Story, Happy Street, Spring in Comedy Class, etc. Degang Guo, Yun-peng Yue and other comedians often appear in various TV comedy reality shows. The high similarity rate makes the discrimination of each program very small. The audience can't tell Running Man from Extreme Pickiness, but it's hard to tell Cross-border king of comedy from Comedy Club. The lack of unity makes comedy programs only meaningful in ratings, and it is almost impossible to become a "phenomenal" product. In addition, this has also caused the audience's aesthetic fatigue, which has led to the problem that almost every comedy program is facing a sharp decline in word of mouth and a short life cycle.

Secondly, comedy, as a kind of stage play creation, is very incompatible with the operation mode of variety show.

Unlike TV programs, plays are staged face to face with the audience. A drama needs to consider how to convey the subtle emotions of the actors directly to the audience behind. How to unfold narrative in limited time and space? And the story will be performed through the presence of a real person, and the audience will applaud and respect it, which actually constitutes a kind of worship. This is also an important condition for the emergence of artistic aura that Benjamin thought in "Works of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction".

However, TV-oriented comedy programs dispelled this aura. The editing methods of variety shows, such as editing, close-up, playback and flower-shaped characters, have completely deteriorated the charm of comedy art. However, the distance between the audience and the actors has increased, which also makes the comedy feel less on the spot and less interactive. When actors and actresses ignite the emotions of the audience through interaction and slapping, it brings about a decline in the perception of TV viewers. This is why the excessive interaction of "Happy Comedian" will be criticized by the audience, and it is really difficult to balance the sense of stage and variety. Impromptu comedy is more difficult to retain its essence in the era of variety. Can we still consider the awkward silence and unexpected laughter as improvisation after post-editing?

Shortening the creative cycle and increasing the creative intensity are also important topics faced by comedy after it becomes a variety show. When comedies on the stage are put on the screen and become weekly programs, comedians must create many different new works in a limited time, so the quality of comedies will decline and the punchline will be insufficient. At the same time, too many variety shows increase the intensity of the works, which leads to the same jokes. The outdated "stalks" are adopted many times, and the audience's impression is getting worse and worse, but the sense of boredom is on the rise.

Third, comedy reality shows have extremely high personal requirements for participants. Guests' performance mistakes often lead to the failure of the whole program, which will also lead to uneven program quality, and it is difficult to keep the jokes of each episode stably.

Fourthly, compared with other programs, domestic comedies are still too attractive to young audiences. Comedy stars lack topics, and their works have no profound meaning and thinking except making people laugh. The TV station's forced "sensational" in comedy aroused the audience's disgust. These are the common problems of most comedy programs, and they have also planted seeds for their short life cycle.

In the final analysis, all the problems existing in comedy programs stem from the fact that these programs are too rigid in the traditional stage performance form of sketch and crosstalk, which leads to the lack of internal innovation, incomplete adaptation to the market, and frequent disadvantages of plot simplification and repetition between programs. For the producers influenced by the traditional thinking of Quyi, it is impossible to change it overnight. This has laid a hidden worry for the development of comedy programs.

However, at present, the overall level of the TV variety market in China is very low, and many variety shows have retreated to the network platform. The once ace variety shows such as Running Man and The Good Voice are aging and their appeal is declining. The newly-opened TV variety show has low topicality and attention. At present, it is difficult to attract investment. In a strictly controlled environment, there is indeed room for smart and money-saving comedy programs. Although the bubble behind its prosperity is huge, the probability of this bubble bursting in a short period of time is very low, and it may even get bigger and bigger. However, we can also notice that the ratings of "Happy Comedian", "the legendary swordsman" and "Cross-border king of comedy" have all shown a downward trend recently, and the distance between the audience and the overall boredom is narrowing little by little. If comedy programs are still not innovative, it seems only a matter of time before they are completely eliminated like 20 14.