Yan Jian’gang We Cannot Let the Art Suffer from Passive Smoking

Yan Jian\'gang is talking about his opinions on Chinese TV Series.

Daily News: Mr. Yan, you always keep a low profile, and seldom make any public appearance in recent years. Why did you accept the invitation this time?

Yan Jian’gang: I did that because of my feelings and respect. I’m closely connected with the Magnolia Award and I appreciate it so much. The Magnolia Award is the symbol of fairness, justice, and openness. In addition, I hold the Magnolia Award in great esteem. She’s full of fresh vitality.

Daily News: What’s your style as a judge? How are you going to lead other judges and coordinate their opinions?

Yan Jian’gang: I don’t think I have to deliberately shape a particular style as a judge. All I need to do is to listen to my conscience. Besides, I’m so satisfied with the composition of the jury panel. These members, not only within the industry but on market performance, all win universal praise. I believe when we’re judging, we all will make our decisions strictly according to the requirements of the art and our conscience of our own accord. We will make decisions worthy of our honor. As for how our performance is at last, we have to wait to see the evaluation about that until the television festival is over.

Daily News: You once said that, the “main melody” TV series can also have good audience rating. We saw many excellence TV series with serious themes emerge last year, like All Quiet in Peking. What inspiration can you get from the success of these series for the development of other series?

Yan Jian’gang: In fact, how to take reform is a very important issue we face about the development of TV series. How should we make expression in a modern way? Why do those well-experienced directors discover that their works with aesthetic values and feelings absent of audience rating in this age all in a sudden? I think such a phenomenon gives us a good warming: facing this age of rapid development, we must refresh our brains, improve our attitude upon creation, and produce high-standard works corresponding with the demands of the age.

Daily News: The TV market is swarming with hot money, everybody is talking about IP; in fact, some consider that the IP mania will rejuvenate TV series, while others think that the IP mania reflects the lack of originality in the creation of TV series, so what’s your opinion about this?

Yan Jian’gang: If it’s projected to the culture industry, especially the field of art, I often describe it as a “period of insanity” caused by a carnival of capital. The most immediate reason for such “insanity” is the pursuit of profits, which fully deviates from another property of culture, artistic expression. Big Data, Small Data, or any arrangement or combination of English letters is, to me, a kind of industrial tool or expression tool.
However, I always believe in a particular Big Data: All people are pursuing the true, the good and the beautiful. Never forget that in our industry we cannot let the art suffer from passive smoking due to capital-caused insanity. For a practitioner in this trade, the basic mission, I believe, is to defend this threshold. As a practitioner, you should work hard in a thoroughgoing manner to transform your efforts into concrete outcomes instead of paying attention to such tendencies. In fact, those who really make TV series are rarely swept forward by such tendencies. We are all making TV series seriously in a down-to-earth way.

Daily News: Today’s TV series market is in chaos, with more and more series made in a way pursuing profit maximization at the cost of reduced quality. Do you think this will prevent our TV series from developing normally?

Yan Jian’gang: I prefer to see such TV series as variants of some TV variety shows. So based on this judgment, there’s nothing to comment about them because the evaluation would be from a different dimension. Surely such things have their own value and meaning, empathy, for instance, people can feel unburdened, or just take them as topics of conversion, only that they should not be covered in the evaluation system for TV series.

Daily News: Cheating in audience rating of TV series has been a standing dish, which, for many people, is owed to “the extremely evil audience rating”; however, we must admit that audience rating has been the most visualized and authoritative standard to evaluate TV series. So what’s your opining about this?

Yan Jian’gang: It is still an important reference for us even though the existing data are not necessarily one hundred percent convincing. Even producers or film and TV companies who cheat may have chosen to do so under certain pressure. It is actually not an isolated matter, but a problem for the whole industrial chain of us, and any of us may be a member on this “evil chain”. What we need are common awakening, improvement of the entire industrial environment, support from the legal system, clear standards of good and evil and sober consciousness of standard.