Exclusive interview | How did those famous scenes in "Legend of the Tibetan Sea" come about? Listen to director Cao Yiwen's talk
Author: Reporter Cheng Yu
06-10 05:56
Read 620,000+
Recently, the ancient costume legendary drama "Legend of the Tibetan Sea", directed by Zheng Xiaolong and Cao Yiwen, and starring Xiao Zhan, officially ended on CCTV-8. Many famous scenes in the drama were talked about by netizens, and there were many creative secondary creations.
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Xiao Zhan as Tibetan Sea
Before interviewing director Cao Yiwen, he had just completely walked out of the sound mixing and special effects work of the drama in the later stage. Before he had time to review it, he began to accept interviews from various media in a "round-the-clock" style. He described himself as "a bit confused".
Talking about Zang Hai, the revenge hero who got involved in the game, Cao Yiwen hopes that "Zang Hai can always grasp himself, keep his sincerity, and finally jump out of revenge and get a new life." Speaking of the cooperation with Xiao Zhan, Cao Yiwen said, "I felt his concentration and his dedication to this role. I think he really loves Zang Hai."
What interesting things happened to this team of perfectionists during the filming process? How did some famous scenes and highlights in the play come from nothing? What are the carefully designed little tricks in the design of the lens and the use of music?
The reporter of The Paper interviewed Cao Yiwen, the director of "The Legend of Zang Hai", and listened to him talk about the story behind this hit drama.
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Cao Yiwen, director of "The Legend of Zang Hai"
[Dialogue]
Xiao Zhan really loves Zang Hai
The Paper: Why do you want to shoot the theme of "The Legend of Zang Hai"?
Cao Yiwen: First, after I got the script, I was particularly interested in the content of the first few episodes, because it integrates elements such as feng shui and geomancy into the theme of revenge, which is an interesting thing for me.
Second, it reveals a kind of concern for Chinese traditional culture and folk culture, which is relatively mysterious.
At the same time, the main line of revenge has very strong plot tension and unexpected reversals, which is very attractive to me. So at that time we had expectations for this project and hoped to film it.
The Paper: Talk about the growth line of the character Zang Hai?
Cao Yiwen: We hope that Zang Hai is not a single identity of avenger. The focus we want to show, in addition to revenge itself, is also personal growth. Because he is actually an individual who is caught up in the torrent of the times. We also hope that he will always try to grasp himself, maintain himself, and finally jump out of revenge and get a new life.
In the first two episodes, we used a very solid plot to tell the whole process of the extermination of the Kuai family, and the process of learning after he made the choice to avenge his family. I think that the premise of revenge is to make everyone understand why this revenge must be taken. I hope that the audience can empathize with Zang Hai and clearly feel the emotions of the characters in the play.
As time goes by, many places in the play jump out of the simple revenge line and give birth to an expression that we are very interested in: the oppression and destruction of the lower class people under the feudal system. We hope that Zang Hai can enter the capital as a lower person to take revenge, so that we can see many innocent people like him from his perspective, how they suffer from the power oppression from the upper class, and the unfair treatment of fate. This is what we hope this play can bring to the audience. Some thoughts.
It is precisely because of this that Zang Hai can personally experience that the enemies he faces are not only his personal enemies, but also the power and status behind them. The evil thoughts and desires under the feudal system are what he really needs to deal with and fight.
We want to let Zang Hai gradually turn from an avenger to a guardian who seeks vitality for the common people and the common people through his revenge. This is also the arc of his character in the whole play.
The Paper: Can you tell me about your experience working with Xiao Zhan?
Cao Yiwen: After we confirmed the cooperation, I first learned about some of his past works, including his personal image and performance style.
In terms of appearance and temperament, we think he is very suitable for the role of Zang Hai. Because Zang Hai is very multifaceted, he will express his true feelings and smile very contagiously; he will also inadvertently show his sadness or his heavy heart. In the process of understanding Xiao Zhan, we found that he is indeed very suitable for the character of Zang Hai in all aspects.
Furthermore, after really contacting him, we also felt his concentration and his dedication to this role. I think he really loves Zang Hai. He has done a lot of preparation for this role and has been working hard to figure out the inner heart of this character, hoping to interpret this character with richer layers. During the filming, we discussed the growth of this character and its complexity and multifaceted interpretation methods every day.
Because the transformation from script to picture is a secondary creation process, we will not be limited to the content foundation provided by the script. For example, when making a script, we generally do not do too much psychological portrayal or description. This kind of thing depends on the actor's own experience, plus the collision between me and the actor to enrich the character, in order to achieve the final presentation effect.
All the emotions and calculations of this character in the end are completed through his performance. Whether it is the emotions he reveals, or the emotions he hides or leaves blank, the character of Cang Hai is finally fully portrayed.
For example, after Cang Hai learned that his benefactor was the third enemy, he returned home and had a chat scene with Master Gao Ming. That scene was likely to turn into a confrontation between master and apprentice, because he already knew the truth, and his heart could be said to be mixed. He had the anger and unwillingness that his master had been deceiving him all the time, but at the same time he understood that ten years of emotions could not all be fake. So he had a strong desire-no matter what the result was, he hoped that the master could confess to him at this moment, and there would be no secrets between them, and they could really open their hearts.
Because on this road of revenge, there are actually few people he can really trust, or entrust his life and his heart to, and Master Gao Ming is one of them. Gao Ming has been with him all the way, just like his father. So at this moment, his eyes express a desire. At that time, Zang Hai hid all his emotions, but the desire revealed in his eyes achieved a balance in performance, and he grasped the degree very accurately, which gave us a surprise.
The Paper: He had a crying scene in the study later, which was also very touching.
Cao Yiwen: Yes, I think Zang Hai still needs to show some emotions at that moment, but his crying scene at that time should be different from his previous heart-wrenching crying scene or very sad crying. Zang Hai has experienced so many things at this time, and he can already face these accidents and sorrows calmly. But the blow to him by his master is really great, so this will be a natural sadness, and he cried very restrainedly in that scene.
Cang Hai can be very sad about the inner touch brought by the betrayal of his master, he can show great grief, but he can also face it with an indifferent attitude - he may have seen through everything, he doesn't know what true love in this world he can believe in. However, I think neither of these two is the true feeling of Cang Hai at that time.
Xiao Zhan also talked to me before filming that scene. That scene is Cang Hai walking all the way home after knowing the truth. We also talked about what he was thinking on the way home, and what he experienced in his heart when he walked all the way back? So in the end, I think he has thought about everything and figured it out, so he decided to face the master. His final decision was: I hope to be able to open my heart to the master, I hope the master can tell him everything honestly, and he is ready to forgive the master.
This is a relationship that he can't let go of, so when he finished talking to the master, the master said you go into the room and sleep for a while, he replied "OK", and his voice began to hoarse at this time. At that time, his emotions were so painful that he could not suppress it. That’s why he released his emotions in the study. The two scenes were shot separately, so I cut them together, and the audience will feel that it is very natural.
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Screenshot of “The Legend of Cang Hai”
The Paper: What are your three favorite scenes in this drama?
Cao Yiwen: This is really difficult to arrange, and they all took a lot of effort to shoot. Many viewers will say that there are famous scenes of this or that kind. First of all, my feelings are the same as those of the audience. When I was reading the script, I liked these scenes very much, whether it was the seventh or eighth episode, the scene where Cang Hai came out of the Broken Dragon Stone and confronted the officials; and the scenes where he successfully provoked the relationship between Cao Jingxian and Pingjin Hou; including the emotional scenes later, when he saw the human skins of his parents, etc.
If I have to say what I like very much, it is the scene where Cang Hai and Master Gao Ming return to Kuai’s house. I cut many versions of that scene. The scene where he returns to Kuai’s house was the scene that I and the screenwriter discussed and decided to add when we were polishing the script to the later stage.
That was a very important scene. In terms of words, it is a very brief process: Zang Hai returned home and recalled the good old days. Now everything has become a ruin and there is no way to go back to the past. I thought of using time travel to express this scene. Zang Hai will never forget the fire 10 years ago and the tragedy of his family being wiped out. This place is a hurdle that he will never be able to cross in his heart. It is very difficult for him to return to Kuai's house. We can imagine whether Zang Hai has ever thought about going home to visit on the first day after returning to Beijing? I think he must have thought about it, but he didn't dare to go back because he knew it would take too much courage.
So in the end we used a time travel editing technique, from the color processing, to finally return to the original appearance, and then jump into the flashback. In that scene, we also made a lot of attempts from the perspective of editing and music, just to amplify the emotions of Zang Hai's return to Kuai's house, which seems to be a simple scene.
When shooting the scene where Zang Hai finally saw himself under the floor tiles, Xiao Zhan talked to me and we hoped to show the concept of redemption. He actually wanted to get over the 10-year-old barrier and hope to let it go, but his obsession and responsibility for revenge, and the pain of being tortured by this hatred in his heart, made him constantly recall his struggle when he was burned by the fire, and he had no way to save himself in this situation. Zang Hai at that time was distressing. At that time, we considered using some lines that had appeared before, whether it was the words of his father, mother, sister, and those masters, and stringing them together in a reverberation way. This was also a projection of Zang Hai's heart, and then combined with Xiao Zhan's performance, I was still satisfied with the final result.
The Paper: The superposition of emotions in that section was indeed quite touching.
Cao Yiwen: Yes, I think the filming gave me a lot of imagination and a lot of emotions. Here, I would also like to mention Xiao Zhan's pursuit of experience as an actor. Before filming this scene, he specifically told me, "Director, I want to see the scenes we have already filmed in Kuai's house when we were young, the scenes of the little slave and his parents." In fact, we also filmed some scenes in Kuai's house, but because of the rhythm, we removed them or put them in the flashback later.
At that time, I thought that his idea was very good. He wanted to see what his childhood self was like with his parents, not to feel it by reading the script, but to watch the real performance, pictures, and sounds, and feel the atmosphere in a very three-dimensional way. Then I showed it to him on my mobile phone. After watching it, he said, I want to cry. I said, let's start when you are ready.
On the set of the dream scene, he was more acting without props and acting in his imagination. I told him that you are sitting on the steps now, and opposite you is your mother smiling at you on the weaving wheel. You look at her, and then she slowly disappears from your fantasy. He gave us the desire in our eyes, the pain of not wanting to lose but not being able to get it. When all the good things were destroyed, it turned into a completely sad expression, and then tears fell. This scene was also completed through his emotional performance.
At the same time, his performance can also inspire me to play a supporting role in the sound and picture later, amplifying the emotions of the whole scene. Finally, after he heard all the sounds from the floor tiles, the last sentence was the words of the young slave - if I can't get revenge, I might as well die. Later, when dubbing, I also asked him to dub the same sentence. This sentence is not the line that appeared before the adult Zang Hai. But I think this is a dialogue between the grown-up Zang Hai and the young slave, a dialogue across time and space, and the unity of his belief in revenge. We added seven drums there, which felt a bit like a death knell. With his action of getting up, turning his head and raising his eyes, I hope to make the ending of this scene more ritualistic.
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Zang Hai looks back at his childhood self
The Paper: You just mentioned the dialogue across time and space. At the end of the play, there is also a similar scene at the city gate that echoes the beginning and the end.
Cao Yiwen: What we have always wanted to show is the character's sense of destiny and the complexity of human nature, and we hope that the audience can feel it in the finished film.
This way of presentation still conforms to the so-called cause and effect cycle, and the whole destiny returns to the beginning in the end. Everyone follows Zang Hai's perspective into the capital, and after experiencing so many things, and then returns to the beginning of Zang Hai's revenge in the capital, you will find that everything has changed, but it seems that nothing has changed, and a new cycle has occurred. But from Zang Hai's personal perspective, he has jumped out of the cycle, truly gained a new life, and maintained the truth in his heart. This is what we want to express most - Zang Hai's real victory is that he finally got rid of his obsession with revenge.
The Paper: There is a scene where Zang Hai walks alone in the snow after the showdown with Pingjin Hou. I heard that it was also added on the spot?
Cao Yiwen: This scene itself is in the script, but it snowed because of the good weather. The description of the atmosphere and his character's state in the script is relatively open, leaving us room for our own play. It happened that Hengdian had a heavy snowfall one day, so we arranged a day of location shooting. I said that we could ignore other scenes, but for this scene, as long as time permits, I hope it can be shot in the snow.
Because snow, like rain, has many layers of meaning that can be interpreted. For example, snow can be compared to redress of grievances, that is, revenge, it can echo each other. At the same time, it is also a manifestation of the heavy air. When the snowflakes fell on Zang Hai's shoulders, it was like a heavy burden, echoing the complexity of his heart at that time.
Although he had just revealed his identity to his enemy, he had his own strategies and calculations, but at that moment, he was finally able to let his enemy die clearly and finally vent his anger for his family.
But at the same time, what Pingjinhou said to him, seeing your current state, should your father cry or laugh? This made Zanghai's emotions at that moment extremely complicated.
This plot is placed in the entire story line, and it is indeed not a staged ending, but we hope that Zanghai can get an emotional release at this moment, so the atmosphere must be sufficient. But we have to be restrained in the performance and the arrangement of music. For example, when Zanghai bent down, our camera was still far away. I could also zoom in and take a close-up of him crying at that time to show how painful his facial expression was. But I think Zanghai was too miserable at that time, so I didn't want the audience to get close to him. I hoped that no one would get close to him, and everyone would just look at him from a distance.
In terms of music, our choice in that scene was not a real sense of victory. If I put on the theme song "It's Me" (sung by Sun Nan), the emotion would be a bit too high, which may not be the style I want to pursue. Later, I discussed with the music director Mr. Hu Xiaoou and decided to play a more sad music here, using instruments with a strong sense of loneliness to present the delicate complexity in his heart.
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Stills from "The Legend of the Hidden Sea"
Both the characters in the play and the game within the game
The Paper: Speaking of music, Cao Gonggong's drumming and the Kunqu opera part are also a presentation of Chinese traditional culture. How did you come up with this approach?
Cao Yiwen: At that time, I was first surprised by the choice of actors, because I found that Mr. Xing Minshan had a Kunqu opera background, and he had performed opera in a suspense drama before. When we first started to do the character biography and character design of each character, we hoped that in addition to showing his actions and his main line in the plot, we could also enrich this character from his life, so as to create an organic combination with his character image and his character background. For Cao Gonggong, we still hope that he has his own personal preferences besides doing bad things, so it is natural to add opera elements.
On the first day we met with Mr. Xing Minshan, we talked about this with him and found that he also came with this idea, so we hit it off. Then we started to pick out all the scenes of Cao Jingxian to see which ones are suitable for adding Kunqu elements to enhance the atmosphere of that scene and even give it some different temperament.
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Eunuch Cao playing drums
Speaking of "Long Sword and Big Bow", the singing segment of "Washing Silk: Hunting", we looked at the effects of episodes 27 and 28 as a whole. The script describes this episode and a half as the longest night in Dayong. Many things happened on this night: Cao Jingxian's process of fueling the flames, his careful planning, let Pingjinhou step into his own trap; Pingjinhou's dying struggle; and Zanghai's initial layout, wanting to ensure that the result is as he wished; and Zhuang Zhixing also played an unexpected and irreplaceable role in this game. All of these need to be strung together by editing, and at the same time there must be a piece of music to string all the things together and reflect the theme of harmony and unity.
I suggested to Mr. Xing Minshan that Kunqu Opera might be more suitable here. In fact, I had thought of another Kunqu Opera at that time, and there was a tiger in the lyrics. Isn't this the Marquis of Pingjin? But he said there was a better one - he played "The Hunting" to me. After listening to it, I felt that it was magnificent, and its drum beats and the performance of its instruments were perfectly combined with the sound of the iron horses in our episode. So I immediately decided to use this Kunqu Opera, and finally matched the picture and music together during the editing.
Later, this Kunqu Opera was mainly used in the prison break, when Zhuang Zhixing was led out of the mansion, and he and Lu Yan chased each other until the Marquis of Pingjin forced the palace to the place in front of the palace. It not only serves as a battlefield soundtrack, but also allows the singing and drums of this opera to shuttle between the battles of iron horses. For me, the feeling after the first completion was quite dreamy, but the murderous intent was very strong, and I was very satisfied with the result. From the perspective of audio-visual elements, it makes everyone feel very passionate and tense. It forms a kind of fateful tug and confrontation between the layout of Canghai, Cao Jingxian's viciousness and instigation, and Zhuang Luyin's dying struggle.
The Paper: You just mentioned that the tiger represents Pingjinhou. In the play, there is a shadow play expression, using tigers, centipedes and eagles to represent the three enemies of Canghai. How was this section conceived at the time?
Cao Yiwen: I have been thinking about how to create some more spectacular elements for everyone.
Art director Liu Chengyi and I started to explore the design style with the Pillow Tower as the first scene. One of the big elements is shadow play. We want to enlarge its size while maintaining its traditional performance form and its shape, presenting a scene of ancient people watching a giant screen. This is done on the basis of productivity and manpower at the time. At the same time, shadow play itself is a very distinctive element of Chinese traditional culture, because it is the art of light and shadow, and it is matched with the interpretation of real people's music and singing.
We think that this element has some dreamy feeling in the system of "Legend of the Canghai", just like everyone is controlled like the characters in the shadow play, some are under the light, and some are in the shadow, which fits well with our story style. The concept presentation of our first version of the poster is also in this style - Canghai enters the game with his body, and he is also a link in the shadow play. He is not only a person in the play, but also a game within the game, so there must be many confusing things.
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Poster of "Legend of the Canghai"
Speaking of this scene, it was originally decided that there would be many wood carvings in front of Canghai; later I said that the image of the animal might be more metaphorical and freehand, and it would be very intuitive for the audience. For example, the tiger has its domineering, its ferociousness, and its cautiousness. In order to ambush its prey, it has the mentality of patiently waiting. At that time, we benchmarked each character one by one. When we styling the character of Pingjinhou, we made the feeling of thorns sticking out at his temples. On the one hand, this is in line with his identity as a military general, and on the other hand, I think this is really a strengthening of the image of the tiger.
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Huang Jue as Pingjin Hou
Then Cao Gonggong is a rather sinister guy, and his moves are all quite poisonous. In the end, we decided to use a centipede, which is similar to the word "gong" in Chinese. Later, when many netizens used the "gong" in centipede to attack Cao Gonggong in the bullet screen, they completely combined this image with the character.
As for the third person, we thought of him as a hidden creature at that time. We kept talking to the screenwriter, such as bats and octopuses. It may have many tentacles and hide in the dark. Later, we chose creatures that the ancients could associate with, so we used an eagle.
After choosing these three animals, we initially thought about making this part more inner world, and then flying a little more. We also considered shooting with a green screen, but because of some objective factors in the reality of shooting, we had to shoot it in a way that combined with the real scene. When scouting the location, we saw the screen in the study of the Tibetan Mansion, so we decided to use the screen as a projection, and use the windows in the courtyard outside as the screen, and use this shadow method to present it with reference to the style of shadow play. I think the final result is OK, and it can be regarded as inspiring some creativity and imagination within limited conditions.
It is also OK to make "Legend of the Canghai" into a comedy
The Paper: Have you seen the secondary creations made by netizens for "Legend of the Canghai"?
Cao Yiwen: Yes. The actors sent them to me, and the staff also sent them to me, and then I went online to watch them. Netizens are very attentive. For example, they used shadow puppetry to help us string together the plot, which is just a scene. Some people also helped us make a three-dimensional book. I feel very moved. Everyone is doing secondary creations very attentively. I also saw a funny video made by AI. Cao Gonggong and others sang karaoke, and the villains and the protagonists all listened together, and danced when they disagreed. There was another particularly funny one, that is, Canghai took out a machine gun and directly killed all the enemies. At the end of the play, he said, "Sir, times have changed." It was very creative.
We provided everyone with a main line, and then everyone diverged, which made me feel quite unexpected and pleasantly surprised. This is a reflection of the attention, so I would like to thank everyone, this is a manifestation of love for our drama.
The Paper: During the filming of "Legend of the Canghai", did you have any regrets?
Cao Yiwen: Of course there were. We actually had some regrets, which are common in any film and television work. If we say which scene could have been filmed better afterwards, it feels a bit like hindsight. Many things are some inspirations that suddenly burst out when you are filming, and some things are the result of the staff and actors working together on the scene.
I believe that if we are given more time and more conditions, we will definitely do better. To give a simple example, we have a lot of story content, and we can still diverge and derive more content. Because this script really provides a foundation for divergence. There are many character lines in it that can be expanded and written. But based on objective factors in reality, we can only do the existing volume, and there is no more space for these characters or these branches. We can only see if there is an opportunity in the future.
Now everyone is also saying that "Legend of the Canghai" may have a second season. From the perspective of our creators, the first thing I have to ensure is that this complete story of revenge and growth is told to the end, and not to imagine the future before the story is finished. Only when the first step is done well, there will be other possibilities in the future.
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Directors Zheng Xiaolong (right) and Cao Yiwen at the shooting site
The Paper: There is a lot of demand online for the combination of "Zheng Xiaolong + Cao Yiwen + Xiao Zhan" to work together again. If there is a chance to work together again, what type of subject matter would you like to try?
Cao Yiwen: As long as the three of us like it, it's fine. It depends on the project. As long as the project has a good story, what we want to express, and what we are interested in, whether it is a modern subject or a costume subject, we are not opposed to it.
Of course, I am also very interested in suspense themes, but in the end it depends on whether there is a good story to carry these ideas.
