＂reborn＂ me as a group performance in Hengdian

The first institution in the industry that requires students majoring in film and television performance to reach the undergraduate level of general culture is Shanghai Theatre Academy. It is said that this will increase the chances of admission for performance candidates with better cultural achievements.

However, the number of candidates who take the school examination in such colleges as Shangxi, Zhongxi, Beiying and Zhongchuan is uncertain every year. As a top institution in the industry, the number of students enrolled remains at around 200 all the year round. However, there are 80,000-100,000 candidates who apply for film and television performance majors nationwide every year.

The direct reason for the low admission rate is that the employment situation is not optimistic enough, and there is no need to reserve tens of thousands of professional performance talents in the industry all the year round, resulting in few public undergraduate colleges offering film and television performances, and only 50 nationwide, which is one of the reasons why there are many private colleges offering film and television performances.

According to the official statistics in 2024, from 2020, the number of candidates applying for acting majors in China will increase by about 13.7% every year, and the admission ratio is 194: 1, which is lower than the admission rate of 985 universities.

However, even if they are admitted to the above institutions, according to industry standards, they can only show that they are students of the school, not actors.

It takes a process from students to "actors". Even in a professional college’s "2024 Graduate Employment Quality Report", it is pointed out that the overall employment rate of graduates in this college is 91.29%. For people in the industry who are already familiar with the statistical logic, this statistical standard of "employment" is a long story-

Because the profession of actor is very special.

Usually, an actor can be regarded as "employment" after signing a brokerage company, but signing a brokerage company does not mean that the actor can "start work". According to the industry practice, a professional actor can only be considered as a normal employment if he spends at least half a year in the play on average. But for the film and television industry, the actor’s "cold winter" began as early as 2020, or even earlier.

A few years ago, a CCTV survey showed that the probability of performance graduates crossing the bank about three years after graduation was 70%. Many actors have changed careers. It’s difficult to film. Ordinary college students have to compete with their predecessors, contemporaries, younger generations and colleagues who are active in first-tier cities when they are in school. Some of them are still "wild ways". They are not from a college background, but their popularity is excellent. They have an early debut and a wide range of ways, and they have more competitive advantages than students and newcomers.

This makes an actor’s road to success more bumpy and tortuous.

Author | Buch

Edit | Xiaobai

Typesetting die

01

Platform display, vertical social interaction

Beijing Piao Home Hotel used to be a well-known "group hotel" in the industry. Almost every day, brokers from all walks of life bring actors into the crew room to deliver materials. Of course, "individual" actors will also come with resumes to try their luck.

After 2016, Gone with the Wind Home gradually became deserted. It was the year when the online drama blew out. On the one hand, the actors who went to the big crew disdained to chat with the small crew and the small director here. On the other hand, the brokerage company began to cooperate with the industry’s head film and television platform to provide them with high-quality actor resources directly. This has also caused many crews to shift their positions and move away from Gone with the Wind Home.

After 2020, the traditional mode of "recruiting people in stores" was completely replaced by "vertical recruitment". At that time, the actors who were still running the group with information were either really unsupervised or just "experiencing life". Most actors who are still "employed" either wait for the arrangement of the brokerage company or simply show their talents through social platforms.

The company encourages actors to interact with netizens on social media, which is a new form of product promotion.

An industry insider said:

"The most direct reason for this is to save money-in principle, the company is only responsible for the promotion of actors in the play, but there is no guarantee that every actor can be taken care of. Since 2021, due to the limited conditions, many professional actors have no drama to shoot, while maintaining a sense of existence. The interactive display of social platforms and some commercial activities unrelated to acting can not only ensure the’ factual existence’ of actors, but also guarantee the basic life of actors to a certain extent. "

The author notes that actors will also choose social platforms according to their own circumstances. For example, a book or a sound is the first choice for most young actors, especially young actresses. Usually, in their profiles, graduation colleges and masterpieces will be indicated. If there are no masterpieces, only graduation colleges will be left, and most of the published contents are mainly makeup, filming tidbits and daily life sharing.

Most young actors will choose to station in a certain theater and a certain place to express their views on performances and roles, as well as popular film and television dramas. They learn from the successful ways of some predecessors to achieve "vertical socialization". While showing their talents to netizens, they are also actively promoting themselves to people in the industry.

Compared with the traditional promotion of artists, young actors prefer to choose personalized, "de-broker" image promotion, which is flexible and the most important thing is to find more development and survival channels during the empty window period.

Such as carrying goods and advertising.

Being born in a regular class, having a good image and being an actor, these aura endows them with frequent online interaction, high attention from fans and business opportunities. The business opportunities obtained by using social media adversely affect the planning of actors by brokerage companies. At the same time, with the help of a lot of media and transparent information exchange, these young people who can still regard "acting as an actor" as an ideal can see more possibilities for future development.

Although in 2024, the profession of actors and "filming" still cannot be equated.

02

Identity gap, fierce competition

In March, 2024, the "College Students’ Group Performance" in Hengdian Film and Television City received a hot search.

Through mobile video, college students enjoy sharing their interesting photos online.

These students, who have nothing to do with "actors" and are heading for "fun", don’t realize that they have become "competitors" of another group of peers.

It is large, cheap, topical and has its own communication attributes.

Many crews even specially signed many college students to become "special actors"-

The person in charge of the local actors’ guild said that "the daily salary of group performances is 100 yuan, and after becoming a special actor, the daily salary is 3-10 times." As of the first half of this year, the cumulative registered number of "drifting actors" reached 130,000, and nearly 2,000 new actors were registered, a year-on-year increase of 65%. Interestingly, the main purpose of the newly registered actors this year is to "increase their performance experience" regardless of whether they are trained or not.

In Hengdian, a resident actor (regardless of grade) has at least four performance groups. If he feels that the role is suitable, he will directly contact the person in charge of the group, and most of the groups are college students. It doesn’t matter what role he plays. Film and television dramas, mini-plays, lines are the best, and no lines can be shown. Compared with actors, college students are more obedient and will not "talk about conditions" with the crew, which makes many young actors who go to Hengdian with resumes feel a sense of crisis.

"Too young and inexperienced, not many people know, and the big crew can’t get in. In the small crew, I am no different from other college students or even ordinary group performances, and I broke my head in order to fight for the role with one or two lines. This feeling is too tired, but if I sign a brokerage company, I have to endure the helplessness of being a’ resource list’. I feel that I have learned so much performance knowledge in the past, but I can’t compare with the amateur in the end. The trouble is that I haven’t found a new track now, and every known’ track’ is crowded with people … "

An individual actor said that after graduation, he went directly to Hengdian as a "drifting" for two years, and there is still one year left from the "three-year contract" surveyed by CCTV:

"In the past, when an actor could use the information difference to package himself tall, now the mobile phone records the exposure at any time. Everyone knows what filming is about, and the actor has lost the mystery before. This identity gap is too strong compared with the high spirits when I was admitted to the performance department. I need to constantly do psychological construction for myself, cheer for myself, and convince myself that I can always be the protagonist. "

In this case, many young actors, like their predecessors, form a "small circle", share resources and introduce each other, regardless of advertisements, film and television dramas or other opportunities.

In addition, some actors who realized the importance of "circle" in their student days began to make friends in their sophomore and junior years, looking for opportunities to film in groups through the relationship between teachers, classmates and outside school. Until this year’s graduation season, many students at school have completed their identity transformation:

Some students with "foresight" signed a contract with a reliable company to become their artists and gained attention through their previous performance. Some of them are determined to spend two years on their own to see if they can meet people in the circle and find good plays and roles.

There are still some people who have unconsciously put down the obsession of "I am an actor".

03

It’s hard to hold on to the Tao’s heart, and you can reflect on your life.

What can break an actor’s heart most?

No one knows it outside the play, and no one takes it seriously in the play.

"If an actor has not made any progress after five years of graduation, or to put it bluntly,’ not red’, then I really suggest that you can seriously consider changing your career. After all, not everyone can be a PAPI sauce, and not everyone can become famous by short videos. More is to bear the pressure of the outside world, especially the family, and the comparison between classmates and peers. " A "former actor" who has been engaged in actor recruitment behind the scenes said.

There are not a few students who choose like him. Students with relatively well-off families can still support for a year or two, rely on family support to spend the days of filming, and simply go home to do business if they can’t help it.

"Learning to perform for a few years, if you are not an actor, the biggest advantage is that your appearance, body shape and acting skills can really add points to yourself." He said, "Some students with good looks became anchors, and some students I know went to work in advertising companies and insurance companies, or went to public relations companies to take charge of external communication activities. In short, they can apply what they have learned."

According to him, the dream of being an actor has never been easily realized.

In the early years, the problem of "actor saturation" has already appeared in the industry. Nowadays, it is nothing new for all kinds of amateur online celebrity, pop singers and folk artists to "cross-border" acting. What’s more, high-quality film and television drama resources have always been "more wolves than meat", and the struggle for roles has caused too much right and wrong, and the outside world is also controversial, so the occupation itself is disenchanted .. It is really not as bad as college students who go into battle lightly in summer.

Although the mini-short plays that have sprung up in recent years can temporarily relieve the pressure of some young actors, as a newcomer, the salary they get at one time may be considerable for ordinary people, but at the same time, they also have to face "Where is the next play?" At a loss.

Resources, contacts, planning, positioning, these ordinary people face the workplace confusion, young actors also have to face. Just in the forward, many people walked and disappeared:

"Director, I don’t think the posture I just fell down is entangled enough. Please allow me to do it again. I will come up with a 100% state and strive to be deep but not deep, plain and not mediocre, and play this dead body well."

In the movie king of comedy, Stephen Chow vividly showed the joys and sorrows of "actually, I am an actor" with the role of "dead walk-on"-

Eating lunch boxes by the trash can, shooting for more than ten hours in a row, wearing fur coats in summer, wearing vests in winter, and being scolded on the set … When the outside world is still lamenting that "actors are not easy" and even calling them "film and television migrant workers", I don’t know that most newly graduated "actors" don’t even have this opportunity.

"Those actors who are popular or famous are called’ big coffee’ and’ red coffee’, and those of us who have no hope of filming can also be called’ paste coffee’-they are all burnt." A corporate planner who once determined to become a film emperor said with a smile.

Looking back on the moment he left the school, he realized that the road of "actor" was too difficult. Being a 108-line actor was enough to show that "Tao Xin" was always there.

This year, he occasionally exchanged life experiences with some younger brothers and sisters. No one knows how young people who are still "children" in his eyes are positioned.

These actors who still insist on trying to show themselves on various social platforms may really realize their ideals one day, or they may disappear from the public one day.

As for the requirement of "performance students’ cultural achievements", they may become an "actor" to adapt to the industry and gain a foothold in society in the future, but no one can judge how much the probability of "opportunity" can be increased.