TVB Inside and Out - Chapter 1
Translated by: TVB Square
Note: This artile took me forever to translate, please do not repost without permision. The content of the article is criticizing TVB in someway, if you felt offended, don't take it too seriously. All I did was translating...
Picking Out TVB's Bones, Taking Away TVB's Masks, Looking at TVB's Generations, the Previous and Current Life
Mr. Lu Xun once said, the road is made because of many people's footsteps. TVB said, the air rating exists because of many people are watching TV. "War and Beauty", was suppose to be a tragic masterpiece, but today, the power and the popularity of the series fires up the connection between Hong Kong and Mainland. The "fire" lasted two years, which made us wonder the power of TVB series.
This is not the first time we realized that power. Years before, there was "The Bund", "Looking Back in Anger", "The Feud of the Two Brothers", "Remembrance", "The Greed of Men", "The Instinct".... It feels like we are growing up with TVB's television series. Even today, here in Mainland, there are millions of television series, but TVB's "War and Beauty" peaks the high air rating during prime time television schedule. Today, let us picking out TVB's bones, taking away TVB's masks, and look at TVB's blood and soul, predict TVB's future and goal, analyze TVB's life and action. Maybe this is a benefit for those of us who loves to watch TV and produce TV series.
Chapter One
"Super Star Theory" - TVB's Blood Never Dries
Adam Cheung, Chow Yun Fat, Liza Wong, Dodo Cheung, Angie Chiu, Barbara Yung, Michelle Yim, Gallen Lo.... Under the flag of TVB, there are shinning stars everywhere, the concept of TVB Super Stars is TVB's brand image, it's a guarantee for TVB, which makes the company success throughout the generations, it's TVB's blood, it's a money tree.
The concubines in "War and Beauty", from the moment they step into the palace, they contributed their life to the Forbidden City. The flame and shame, the rich and poor, all of these are to prove the destiny of each concubines. They are the chess pieces. No matter win or loose, they still stay inside the big walls of the Forbidden City, waiting for their destiny to come. The sunshine outside of the Forbidden City can never shines the destiny inside...
Inside TVB, there is a very strict rule to use the stars, TVB looks up to the Hollywood system, TVB uses lots of resources to make its own "Star Factory". The celebrities must see the company as a center, and follow its rules. TVB's "lab manager" and trainers are very strict: if you love the company as a whole, willing to learn and contribute, you will success! If you think about other company outside of TVB, and not willing to become a teammate, you will be "frozen"! This type of system sounds very good, but it's only for TVB's Benefits. To make the situation worse, sometimes, there are celebrities who told the press that there is no time to sleep while filming series, under a situation like this, how can you judge a celebrity's performances? TVB's theory, the way they promote and demote stars, makes the biggest scandal of all.
First Learning Case: Andy Lau's career
Thinking back to Andy Lau many years ago, he was one of the "Five Tigers" of TVB, Andy was famous, young and attractive, but he was not willing to continue to contract with TVB. As a result, TVB "freeze" Andy Lau immediately.
Records of Rewards and Punishment: warning, frozen, Let Go.
Reasons: After the training classes, Andy's performances were awesome, that's how he got the leading roles in "Return of the Condor Heroes", "Duke of Mount Deer", all the biggest series of TVB. Afterwards, Andy changed his attitude. When TVB asks him to sign a five year contract, he refused, and wanted to change to two years contract. Andy also accepts jobs outside of TVB at the same time, which made the managers unhappy. All the sudden, the TVB managers began to freeze him, as a result, Andy didn't have one filming in half of a year, but in the other half of the year, TVB gives him one series after another. However, Andy's great attitude made him even more success after leaving TVB. Andy becomes the king of movie and music industries. At the end, the TVB managers are willing to "forgive" Andy's "mistakes", and willing to work with him again in many music concerts, award shows and movies.
Second Learning Case: Michelle Yip vs. Myolie Wu.
These are the new generation of TVB. Michelle is very pretty, TVB always thought she can become the next Jessica Hsuan. Myolie is Miss Hong Kong when she was 19. However, Myolie wasn't famous back then. Two of them were teammates, who are working with each other. Later, Michelle becomes little more famous, that changes everything.
Reason: In the series, "Eternal Happiness", Michelle plays a very smart, and beautiful character, who builds great chemistry with Raymond Lam. Myolie, in the other hand, is a third factor, who is overshadowed by Michelle. Years later, in the series, "Lost in the Chamber of Love", the situation changes completely. Michelle didn't have enough screen time. This time, Myolie becomes the main character, who plays a very kind and smart girl. Even though Myolie was playing a maid, but her real destiny is superior, who also paired up with Ron Ng. The new generation of the fair tale broke the traditional thinking and social issues. The relationship between Michelle and Myolie became worse. At the end, Myolie becomes the winner, and Michelle left TVB. Why?
Manager's Thoughts: Michelle, you are a very smart student, who is beautiful inside and out. You also treat the rumors well, and didn't care much about the "boyfriends" around you. However, your weakness is that your thinks too much, not willing to be stable. At the end, you accept jobs outside of TVB, you even learn things in Mainland. That's not what a teammate should do. Myolie, you are a very sweet student, a teacher's pet, you work hard, and contributes harder. The managers think you have lots of potentials, from now on, no matter what the air ratings are, you will have lots of screening time. We will give you different times of characters. You will pair up with Liza Wong, you will continue to make good grades for us.
Records of Rewards and Punishment: Michelle - Let Go; Myolie - Promote
Third Learning Case: The Worries of Lawrenence Ng
Lawrenence works for TVB for a long time, from minor roles to villains to supporting cast to leading role, after filming "Healing Hands", he became popular, and later on, plays the main character in "Heavenly Sword Dragon Sabre". However, Lawrenence does not fit into the style of that character, mainly because of his age and look. That's not the worst, the TVB managers even decide to let Lawrenence play a 14-16 years old boy! That was just stupid.
In "War and Beauty", if you can name the concubines, that means those stars are famous. This is a strategy. Everyone tries their best to win the screen time, win the audiences' heart. Just like Sheren's aggressiveness, Maggie's discrete attitude, Gigi's strategy, Charmaine's astute view. All of them have their own ways of living, and the Palace is like a training camp for each one of them. In the camp, there are troubles, there are trainers. There are new generations who keep coming.
TVB is a cradle for the celebrities, TVB has the training methods that make the talents grow, TVB has the power to turn everyone into a shining star.
The Training Base of Celebrities
After TVB was born, they developed the training classes, called the Actors' Training Class. This is the cradle of the stars. About 80% of stars were graduated from here. Chow Yun Fat, Tony Leung, Steven Chow, Andy Lau, etc. They are the graduates of the training classes, who created the golden years of TVB.
However, these two years, the stars of TVB weakened the power, there is a saying, "no new stars", which was a big problem in TVB. The big stars from the 90s, such as Louis Koo, Gallen Lo, Jessica Hsuan, Kenix Kwok, Flora Chan, etc. Some left, some film lesser and lesser series, some didn't have much screen time. The managers of TVB rushes to develop new stars. However, the process is not that easy. During these years, the new generation was developed, such as Raymond Lam, Tavia Yeung, who graduated from the 13th trainning class. Kenneth Kwok, Ron Ng and Michelle Yip graduated from the 14th class. In the 18th class, there was Chris Lai and Nancy Wu.
The Shining Methods
The power between Gallen Lo and Louis Koo was so great, but yet, they both left TVB. It was hard to discover the trend to continue this great power. At the same time, TVB can only uses Roger Kwok, and made him the first brother after the success of "Square Pegs". This tells you how TVB promotes its stars, and they have many methods to shine the stars:
Method 1: "Old Stars Mix with the New Stars"
This is when the super famous celebrities film a series with the new stars, for example, in "White Flame", Charmaine Sheh shined Sammul Chan. In "Split Seconds", Alex Fong powered up Kevin Cheung. This type of strategy works really well to let the audiences notice the upcoming new stars.
Method 2: "Keep Watching My Series Until You Are Tired"
To make the new stars more popular, and make the audiences remember them. TVB will make series using the new stars, one after another. For example, for Bosco Wong, he filmed one series after another because of the success after "Triumph in the Skies". At the beginning, it was a great strategy, his series "Master of Wong Fei Hong", "War of In Laws" and "Under the Canopy of Love" all got great attention. However, what about after that? Can the trend continue? Or, did the HK audiences already bored?
Method 3: "The Long Term Green Leaf Finally Becomes A Different Flower"
There are many stars who always play the supporting casts, however, now, they are becoming the leading stars. For example, Joe Ma, who paired up with Flora Chan in "Triumph in the Skies", also paired up with Jessica Hsuan in "Lady Fan". Joe's power increased, which ensured his future position in TVB, as one of the leading actors.
The Stars Are Shining
In "Under the Canopy of Love", Bosco Wong once said, "You think I am Andy Lau or Louis Koo? Too many people like me." This is a very interesting line, which has a great meaning behind it. Today's TVB new stars are still growing, how is their future? Let's look at Raymond Lam and Ron Ng.
Raymond Lam: The TVB managers noticed him because of his look, which looks like Louis Koo. Plus, TVB was trying to fix the lack of new stars problem, so the managers decided to let Raymond participate in number of great series, such as "A Step Into the Past." After that, Raymond soon becomes one of the leading stars, years after year, he becomes the leader of the new generation. This year, Raymond's series "Le Femme Desperado" was a great hit, where he paired up with Melissa Ng. However, in "A Step Into the Past", Raymond was accused of "copying" Louis Koo's emotions, which was also shown in "Survivor's Law". The good thing is that, Raymond was willing to learn more about how to express his emotions, and finally became a unique individual.
Ron Ng: At the beginning, he was only a dancer, who was introduced to TVB after Louis Koo's recommendation. After that, Ron becomes popular, no matter if it's his look, his face or his eyes, Ron's character in "Twin of Brothers" became a classic. Soon after, Ron filmed many series, such as "Lost in the Chamber of Love", "The Academy", "Revolving Doors of Vengeance", in all the series, Ron plays the important character. Within the recent days, one of TVB's manager introduced Ron to the public as, "he is my son!" That totally shocks the media, and proves how much TVB loves Ron. Ron can take this chance to get to the next level sooner or later.
In "War and Beauty", the stars are often showing their skils. One of them has the 20 years experiences, her power was amazing. Within 20 years, Sheren Tong changed dramatically, from the evil role in "Heavenly Sword Dragon Sabre" to today's Ru Concubine in "War and Beauty", Sheren didn't seem to age much. From Sheren's eyes, you seem to know everything.
One minute on the stage is ten years of learning behind the stage. The actors and actress are learning very hard, and working very hard to achieve their goals on stage. TVB has many these types of actors and actress, who are showing their skills on screen. So, we discovered the three attitude of TVB.
Attitude 1: From Real Life, To Real Life
The background of TVB series is base on the real life of Hong Kong audiences There is no much need to add something extra. The main source of the audiences is the housewives and the young individuals. Therefore, the actors and actress need to come from real life and act the real lives of individuals. This is the only way to attract audiences.
Jessica Hsuan is the first sister of TVB, in "Detective Investigation Files 4", her character becomes everyone's favorite. She plays a smart and sentimental Psychological doctor. Her attitude and skills shine the entire series. This type of character is TVB's favorite. The outside is pretty; the inside is smart and kind.
Attitude 2: The Comedian
There is another type of acting, which is completely different, and not very realistic in everyday life. For example, Dayo Wong's comedy skills, brings lots of laughter on screen. His series, "To Catch the Uncatchable" was a great success, the way Dayo acted as a smart police changed the views of all audiences.
Attitude 3: Forever Classic Character
When TVB thinks you did an awesome job when you played a classic character, TVB will began to develop the same type of classic character for you to act. From all the classic characters, Lau Dan is the famous one. If you don't remember, he played the same character 4 times in 2 different series, 2 different versions. (He played the character Hung Chat Gung in "Legend of Condor Heroes" - 83 and 94 versions; "Return of Condor Heroes" - 83 and 96 versions). All these made the audiences remember him clearly. Other than this, Lau Dan was also known as the famous "Green Leaf", who contributes behind the leading characters, but acts the same types of characters.
If you are playing a Grandma, you will always be the Grandma, if you are playing the third factor, you will always be the third factor. If you are a villain who murders everyone, you will always be the bad guy. These are the special people who don't make many mistakes to make the TVB managers mad. They are the ones always finish their tasks, but continue to hide behind. However, without them, there is no TVB group as a whole...
Stay tuned for chapter two - the deadly disease in TVB
posted by yingying @ 1:10 PM
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