Yao Jun: Creating for young audiences and deeply cultivating "comic drama transformation" and "drama + comic"

Yao Jun said,"Every hit product is brand new." In order to maintain this freedom of innovation, male children never set limits on the choice of themes of their works. Today, this innovative spirit has also been extended to the strategic layout of the entire company.

Original title: Interview| Pharmaceutical Jun, founder of Xiongzi: Intervening in creation from the source for young audiences, every hit product in the future will be brand new.

In the eyes of the Pharmaceutical Jun, the three words "Xiongzi" mean "young hero full of childhood interest", and the corresponding English name is "Hero Kiddo", which means heroic child. What is the world of children like? It is colorful and full of imagination. What is the image of a hero? It is full of curiosity and adventurous spirit about the whole world. And this name is exactly like the Pharmaceutical Army's positioning of Xionghai Media: to target young people and do more innovative things.

During the interview, Yao Jun mentioned many times that "every hit product is brand new." In order to maintain this freedom of innovation, male children never set limits on the choice of themes of their works. Today, this innovative spirit has also been extended to the strategic layout of the entire company. It is understood that the current male children are committed to the continuous attempt to transform "comics into dramas" and "drama + comics". They hope to intervene in comics creation from the source in the long term while deeply cultivating comics content, so as to improve the conversion rate between comics content and film and television drama content., serving as a bridge to open up the audience of comics and film and television dramas.

Yao Jun said,"In the next two to three years, Xiongzi hopes to be the first in the industry in the field of film and television related to comics."

"Zhenhun Street" has 2.6 billion hits. Yao Jun, founder of Xiongzi: Every hit is brand new

. In fact, before founding Xiongzi, Yao Jun had been producing online dramas at Youku for 7 years. His rich experience in Internet companies makes him extremely sensitive in judging the market. Works such as "Hip-Hop Quartet" and "Unexpectedly" that were previously produced have become hits during the same period. Today, the first comic-modified drama "Zhensoul Street" produced by Xiongzi Media has successfully concluded with 2.6 billion clicks and an average of 2040 bullet screens per minute. It has not only become a strong traffic carrier in the second half of the summer, but also proved that it has indeed unlocked a new way to open the wall of comic-modified drama. Although such achievements seem difficult to the outside world, Yao Jun behaved very calmly.

"I will not be satisfied or dissatisfied with any project in terms of clicks," he said. For him, every project is not the end, but just the process. Compared with clicks, Yao Jun values the reputation of the work more and the problems exposed behind it. Today,"Zhensoul Street" has a Douban score of 6.7, and its reputation among original fans and online drama fans is "polarized". Yao Jun conducted a profound analysis of this phenomenon.

First of all, in terms of subject matter,"Zhenshen Street" is adapted from a combat-style cool article. It is a 'mix and match' work with a mixture of modern and ancient costume elements. "Perhaps it is because the concepts and expressions are too 'new' and beyond the aesthetic experience and viewing experience of some people, so it will naturally take some time to accept and adapt." Secondly,"Zhensoul Street" abandons blindly pleasing original fans in the creative tone and takes a middle line, which means choosing the latter between "exclusive enjoyment of original fans" and "universal use for all people".

However, this does not mean that "Soul Suppression Street" runs counter to the original work. On the contrary, it is precisely in order to convey the spiritual core of the original work as accurately as possible during the process of moving the comics to the screen that the creative team enriched some plots based on the creative habits of the film and television works. and characters. According to Yao Jun,"Comics are a work that lasts for a week. They emphasize the sense of picture expression and lack the continuity and transition necessary for film and television dramas. But for a series, these are just the core parts, otherwise it will become a running book."

Based on this, the male child did a lot of research and preparation work before the project started."We analyzed the reasons why" Zhensoul Street "is popular, and also had in-depth exchanges with many original comic fans. In their view, the warm protection, the temperament of China and the second, the relationship of partnership, and the unswerving commitment in fighting against evil forces... are all the core of their likes."It is precisely because of this that the male children, in the process of adapting, have refined and enlarged the points that these audiences like.

"Scenes, fights, and special effects are all difficult to restore, but the most difficult thing to solve is the problem of sense of substitution." In Yao Jun's view, one of the highlights of "Zhenshen Street" is its unique and unrestrained world view. Therefore, how to establish the connection between the two worlds, and how to let the audience enter the situation and solve the sense of substitution have become the first difficulties that the creative team must face. To this end, the team of "Quen-Soul Street" conducted a lot of research and testing before filming. Finally, after the series was launched, many viewers expressed in their comments that they were amazed at the creation of the "Quen-Soul Street" world, and the scene was full of imagination and sense of substitution. Whether it is from the final work presentation or the audience's reaction, it shows that the boy has indeed solved this problem.

"Comic drama" and "drama + comic", male children should intervene from the source creation?

Male children will also intervene from the source of comic story creation, and together with a number of comic companies, long-term incubation is more suitable for film and television IP.

When talking about the opportunity of deep-ploughing comic film and television, Yao Jun admitted that it was indeed because of "Soul Street." "The company's 'youth'+'innovation' tone was indeed determined at the beginning of its establishment, and we found that there were some works in the comic world that matched our demands, and we were very lucky to encounter the project of 'Soul Street.' After "Zhensoul Street", we are even more determined to work more in this direction in the future."

After the end of "Zhensoul Street", more animation platforms and leading comic CP companies also approached Xiongzi Media because of the outstanding report card of "Zhensoul Street", hoping to have more in-depth cooperation with it. At present, Tencent Pictures has carried out in-depth real-life cooperation with Xiongzi Media on Tencent Animation's girl comic monthly ticket and reward ranking champion "Lingzhi", and funny four-stage popular champion "Little Green and Little Blue". The leading comic CP companies such as Animation Hall, Xian Man, and September Photosynthetic will also cooperate in depth with male children to jointly screen potential comic IP.

In terms of the source of involvement in comic story creation, male children can be said to be the "only one" in the industry. "Comic companies have many powerful painters and good paintings, but they will face the problem of how to meet the requirements of real-life dramas while taking into account the original fans. Although some comics on the market are well drawn, they still face problems that are difficult to achieve in various aspects such as production and story lines during the adaptation process."

"The entry of male children is to create stories together with comic writers from the root cause. Improve the success rate of mutual transformation of comics and film and television dramas from the root cause." Yao Jun believes,"As a film and television production company, we will work with comic companies to create good comics in the future and develop film and television dramas at the same time. It is also possible to adapt the mature drama projects owned by Xiongzi into comics. This is a two-way collision."

Take "Zhensoul Street" as an example. Before the real-life adaptation, the number of online clicks was less than 1.3 billion, but more than a year later, it soared to more than 3 billion. This is a complementary effect. Facts have proved that real-life dramas have a huge impact on the traffic of comics. If a virtuous cycle can be formed between each other, the results of individual projects will be superimposed. What a male child needs to do is to serve as a bridge to connect different audiences of comics and real-life dramas.

Yao Jun told reporters that if you want to intervene in the creation of comic stories from the source, you must plan it well from the content to the rhythm from the beginning.

"In the early stage, we must determine the rhythm of comic updates and story line advancement, including the context and direction of the entire story." Yao Jun said with a smile,"In fact, compiling an online drama is equivalent to the size of a chapter novel. The premise is that everyone must make it clear that this is a long-term matter, refine and determine the length required for a chapter of the comic, and then it is the rhythm of the series, but it can basically be determined that the creation and launch of the comic will be relatively advanced."

"Also because of the intervention from the source, we can preset a lot of content that is convenient for future film and television. Among these points, we can know through feedback from comics that what the audience likes and what they don't like can be directly selected later. Unlike the simple refinement and packaging of comic dramas in the general sense, the favorite parts are amplified and strengthened in film and television dramas, and the parts you don't like are weakened."

During the interview, when asked if he had the ambition to build his own "Marvel Universe", Yao Jun said that he still hopes that Xiongzi Media will have the ability to continuously produce high-quality content."What I should consider now is to make every work a good work, so that every character can become a viable character, first do everything vertically solidly, and then consider the possibility of horizontal integration."

While Xiongji Media focuses on deeply cultivating the fields of "comic-modified drama" and "drama + comic-comedy", it also continues to make efforts in the field of originality. Yao Jun said that after "Soul Suppression Street" was launched, Xiongji Media put in filming the original suspense gangster comedy "The Heir Project" will also be launched in Sohu in November; another original travel idol drama "My King" aimed at female audiences is also under filming recently.

Editor: Mary