The TV series "Three-Body Problem" recently ended, and the hit rate and word-of-mouth are good. For a sci-fi TV series that is extremely difficult to create and produce, all this is hard-won. According to producer Bai Yicong, on the first day of broadcasting, he called director Yang Lei, and the two men were weeping on the phone, "Things are indeed very difficult, and it has been going on for seven years."

TV series "The Three-Body Problem" finale poster

From the contact with this project in 2016 to the broadcast in 2023, seven years, a TV series, is a very rare creative cycle in the industry. Bai Yicong vividly remembered the hardships. "I've been doing it for so long, it sounds touching, but it's actually a waste of time for everyone involved in this project."

The script was worked on for 4 years in the early stage, and a total of more than 20 adaptation plans were made. The real shooting stage took 126 days to shoot, and traveled to Zhoushan, Hengdian, Beijing, Heihe, Tianjin, Hebei, Hangzhou and other places, involving about 200 scenes, large and small, except for the interior scenes of the Red Bank base and the combat center. The other exterior scenes were all shot in real scenes, and even went to the Particle Collision Center and the National Nanoscience Center. The three-body game has done a lot of demonstrations before shooting. In order to make the audience feel closer to the game world described in the book, I finally chose to use scanning motion capture. This is the first time that motion capture technology has been used on a large scale in a domestic drama. Use, this is a challenge at the technical level, and it is also a very bold attempt.

"Doing the three-body problem means that we are 'opening up wasteland' in the field of science fiction. 'Opening up wasteland' means that past experience cannot help us."

Red Coast Base

"The Lord is Satisfied"

"This project was finalized with Tencent almost in 2016." Bai Yicong recalled, "I don't know what the platform's specific expectations for this project are. For a long time, Tencent did not give us the producer. They still hope to make good content. I can only speculate that for a big platform like Tencent and the IP of "Three-Body", they may hope to make a face-to-face To the whole world, it is a sci-fi work that is not shameful. So in terms of commercial return and broadcast volume, they are more tolerant to me."

The Three-Body Problem

At the same time, Liu Cixin, the original author, gave unconditional support to this work. "Ms. Liu is a very peaceful person. He didn't impose any restrictions on us. When he came to the shooting site, he said: You try your best to shoot. Anyway, my creation is over. Now it is your creation, and I will not interfere with yours. Creation. I think this is a great creator with a lot of tolerance and respect for other creators, thank you very much.”

The support and tolerance of all parties have given the entire creative production team confidence, but the problem to be faced is still "passing the pass". The first is the adaptation of the script. As a sci-fi work with a certain threshold, "Three-Body" is difficult to satisfy fans of the original work and ordinary audiences at the same time. "If Taiyuan is directed, it will definitely be difficult and tiring for many ordinary audiences to enter this story. But only considering ordinary audiences, it is very likely that fans of the original work will think: What are you, you have degraded the original work. This is a It is a difficult choice, but in the end we decided to focus on the fans of the original book, which will sacrifice the viewing experience of some ordinary audiences. This is inevitable. But we think this is the best choice, because the book "Three-Body Problem" is especially When shooting for the first time, the original work must be used as the benchmark.”

In terms of shooting, the first part of "Three-Body Problem" spans two eras, and there are a large number of important plots in the Three-Body Problem game, which makes it more difficult to shoot. Bai Yicong revealed that in the early days, he considered using three directors to shoot "Three-Body Problem": one director was filming the period in 2007, because this part of the plot was more like a suspense drama; The young director; Hong'an Base wanted to find an experienced old director to shoot. "But then we felt that the conversion and editing of three time and space, divided into three directors, might have too much difference in technology and aesthetics, so we gave up this idea. At the same time, we also need a director who fits our positioning of realism, So we finally chose director Yang Lei, who has a high degree of completion."

Wang Ziwen as young Ye Wenjie

Chen Jin as Elder Ye Wenjie

In terms of actors, it has gone through a long screening process. The lifelike characters in "The Three-Body Problem" must also be the focus of many fans of the original work. Today's TV series are already the best presentation after the crew carefully assembled them. Wang Ziwen and Chen Jin who played "Ye Wenjie" and Yu Hewei who played "Shi Qiang" were recognized by most of the audience. Bai Yicong mentioned that the character "Shi Qiang" has a prototype and is a friend of Liu Cixin, "so we were also worried that Mr. Liu would agree with our portrayal of this character in the play. Later, Mr. Liu said that he was very I recognized Yu Hewei's performance, and that day I sent a special message to Lao Yu saying: The Lord is very satisfied." Bai Yicong said with a smile.

Yu Hewei as Shi Qiang

The special effects of "dead knock"

As a science fiction work, one of the biggest difficulties in the production of "Three-Body Problem" is the special effects. The special effects of the play were all completed by a domestic team. The special effects production took more than two years, and finally presented a CG production time of more than 200 minutes, 650 pure CG shots, a total of more than 2,000 shots, and more than 290 CG characters, including 11 Large-scale scenes and a super-large production with a final rendering frame rate of 97,900 tons have condensed the hard work and dedication of more than 300 digital artists.

Bai Yicong has been in the industry for many years, and he has a good understanding of the history of special effects production for domestic film and television dramas. "Domestic TV dramas that focus on special effects have only just developed in the past ten years. The first TV series in my impression is "Fantasy City", and I found a good special effects team from abroad." Bai Yicong recalled, ""During the filming of "Fantasy City" I went there many times to learn how other people do special effects."

Stills of "Three-Body Problem"

But after "Fantasy City", domestic drama productions gradually began to pay attention to special effects. "Our special effects technology is developing. Just talking about special effects, the technical level of the domestic team is actually not bad." Bai Yicong said. But the problem is that the special effects of a specific type of work require a lot of experience accumulation of the same type of works. The more special effects assets the special effects company accumulates and the higher the asset reuse rate, the lower the production cost. "For science fiction, we really accumulate Too little."

In Bai Yicong's view, it is not a good choice to turn to foreign teams with rich experience in science fiction works. "To be honest, we don't have the money to find a foreign team to help us, so we can only slowly explore by ourselves. And even if you find a better international team, you will find a problem. Even if he agrees to cooperate with you, he The team that comes in, it's not going to be their very good team."

"So why we can only 'die' in the end, this is something that can't be helped."

Stills of "Three-Body Problem"

cautious optimism

He believes that what supports Bai Yicong, and even the entire creative team, is "feeling". Since many years ago, Bai Yicong has spoken in many public occasions, emphasizing that he hopes to make more science fiction works in China. "On the one hand, it can expand the breadth of the subject matter. On the other hand, science fiction works can best improve the industrial level."

Bai Yicong personally prefers the genre of science fiction. For the novel "Three-Body Problem", he thinks it is "the best science fiction work in China at present, bar none". "I have the opportunity to do it, I am so happy." According to him, the core management of the entire Linghe culture is also a creator, so there is no resistance within the company to do this project. At the same time, for the company, Bai Yicong also hopes that Linghe can become a leading company in China at the level of industrial processes, "Of course there is such an ambition, but if you want to talk about making money, you can't make money in this matter." , it’s fine if you don’t lose.”

"If it is a capital-based company, it must consider cost, cycle, and rate of return. Once you measure it, it is impossible to make money from this thing, and many companies will forget it. But our company is not a capital-based company, and there is no gambling Agreement, there is no performance pressure, as long as the company does not collapse, everyone will continue to work, and they can do things."

"For the future of Chinese science fiction film and television, I am cautiously optimistic and cautiously pessimistic."

Stills of "Three-Body Problem"

Optimism lies in the fact that during this period of time, many viewers have given enough positive feedback to "The Three-Body Problem", but Bai Yicong believes that the industry must clearly recognize the gap (with foreign countries), "Our current technical level is too challenging. .We have the determination and courage to challenge, we do not have a complete industrial system."

He believes that everyone needs to have a correct understanding of the genre of science fiction. "Don't rush to kill this genre just because a work is not good. A work is suddenly good, and then suddenly raise this genre to a very high level. When a work comes out, everyone says that the door of Chinese science fiction has opened, and then When the other work came out, everyone shouted that this work closed the door of Chinese science fiction. I think this is wrong, I think it is a big problem if others dare not try it in the end.”

Bai Yicong revealed that the creation and production process of "The Three-Body Problem" has brought rapid growth to the team, "Like Cai Jia, the producer of our project, now I can say with confidence that she must be a domestic sci-fi drama now. One of the best producers in the collection.” He said, “But this experience cannot be passed on, and it cannot form a methodology that can be directly inherited by other teams, because our industry process is actually mediocre. an industry-wide problem."

"Before we industrialize, we must first have standardization. Before standardization, we must have process. Without these, how can we expect it to develop rapidly?" Without a scientific and modern management system, Bai Yicong believes that this is China Where the film and television industry lags behind. "Strictly speaking, many basic workers in our industry do not have such a high level of education. The industry is still highly mobile. You can understand that this industry is very similar to a construction site. A contractor leads a bunch of people. When a project is finished, everyone disperses.”

"The gap between us and Hollywood is too big, but many of our viewers and netizens don't see the gap, they just think you are so hard, you are so awesome that you have done this. This is a kind of self-paralysis." Bai Yicong said, "I told my team, don't be complacent if others think that we have done a great job. We have to know very clearly that we are not doing well now, so that you can move forward. So everyone praises us on the Internet. Sci-fi confidence, I can only be cautiously optimistic."

Stills of "Three-Body Problem"

Bai Yicong believes that whether Chinese science fiction can have a higher international influence basically depends on whether our country can have a higher international influence, so that it is possible to achieve a strong export of culture and values. To allow domestic creators to earn better income from science fiction, at least live with dignity, only in this case can more good works appear and a cluster effect can be formed.

"We are energetic enough now, maybe we will have a little more money and a little bit better technology, but the creation and production of sci-fi film and television is still a very painful and long road."