1?The first diagnosis
One of the keys to making a medical drama is whether the script is rigorous and well-written. It's like a patient's first visit to the hospital, where the first diagnosis is done correctly so that there are no delays in treating the condition (a smooth start to the filming process) and treatment can be given quickly (in the right direction).
Writing a script can sometimes take hours to polish a single sentence
"Medical drama scriptwriting is extremely demanding on screenwriters, who need to understand the entire process of a department and write every detail of every surgical maneuver."
"Difficulty in scripting" is first and foremost the first big hill that producers face. That's why there are many directors who want to make medical dramas, but few who actually dare to take them on.
A large part of the reason Zheng Xiaolong is once again helming the medical drama "Emergency Medicine Doctor" after a three-year hiatus is because this time around, the author of the original "Human Lives Are at Stake," is none other than Dot Dot Dot Dot, the author of the first medical drama "Never Give Up," which he directed. "Dot graduated from the medical faculty of the Second Military Medical University in Shanghai and then entered the hospital for many years of clinical and administrative work, so she knows the medical system very well, so first of all I think the professionalism must be particularly strong." Zheng revealed to reporters.
Writing a good medical script first requires that the screenwriter's medical knowledge must be excellent. Zhu Zhu, who has written a number of medical dramas such as "The Distance to Love," "Growing Up" and "Surgical Storm," graduated from Peking University's Faculty of Medicine and studied clinical epidemiology in the U.S. Zhang Zuomin, the scriptwriter of "Obstetrician," who is a non-medical professional, has also spent two years as a worker in the operating room of a local tertiary care hospital, and has seen countless surgeries.
Zhang Zuomin said that scriptwriting for medical dramas places extremely high demands on screenwriters, who need to understand the entire operating process of a department and write about the details of every surgical maneuver. When he was writing the novel "Obstetrician," Zhang Zuomin bought almost all the obstetrics books on display in Xidan Book Building, including surgical sciences, examination records, and analysis of difficult cases; and he printed out more than a million words of online materials. Zhang Zuomin focused on these materials for a year, but when he wrote, he would polish his pen for hours to write a sentence in a diagnosis or surgery.
"At that time, I got to know a lot of obstetricians, and every time I wrote a chapter, I would send it to my friends in the obstetrics department to read it, and they made a lot of revisions." The more than thirty cases in the novel "Obstetrician" are all derived from real cases in medical monographs, "including what medicines to use, what dosage, and the 'jargon' used by the doctor in the dialogue, such as 'removing the uterus' is called 'taking the uterus,' and calling 'painless labor' 'on painless,' all of which I had to understand."
The second thing about writing a good script is to always be aware of the latest medical advances.
"Obstetrician", a novel and screenplay that Zhang Zuomin worked on for five years, "If you say that you can write a medical drama just because you've worked in a hospital or studied medicine, this is completely wrong. For example, in the past, hand washing in the operating room was done with a brush on the nail slits and fingers, but last month I went to the operating room of a tertiary hospital, and the way they washed their hands had turned into antiseptic gel. So we still need to visit in hospitals, and we also need to understand real medical cases in order to keep up with the times and not make ridiculous professional mistakes." Zhang Zuomin confessed.
2?Consultation
Whether it's the choice of filming locations, or the configuration of props and actors, medical industry dramas possess a special set of laws with a very high coefficient of difficulty. It's like a consultation between different departments, where all departments must cooperate and do their best to come up with the best diagnostic plan.
Special rules apply to filming locations, props, and actors
If an actor's skill is enough to make a good movie, that rule may not apply to medical dramas.
A?Shooting scenes
Hospital shooting is limited
There are two types of shooting scenes in medical dramas, one is shooting in a real hospital, and the other is partially shooting in the hospital, with most of the rest of the scenes done in a studio.
"Surgical Wind" chose Peking University International Hospital on the outskirts of Beijing for filming. The hospital is far away from the city center, and the surrounding residential population is not dense. Recently, when a reporter came to the hospital at 10:00 in the morning, he found that, unlike in the drama, the number of people coming to the hospital was not high. In the thoracic surgery department, which is involved in the drama, there were only three or four patients lined up in the waiting area; and the emergency room was not noisy because of the small number of people. Such an environment is undoubtedly more suitable for drama filming.
According to Han Zhiyi, a medical consultant for the drama and deputy chief physician of the Department of Thoracic Surgery at Peking University International Hospital (PUHIH), Surgical Storm was filmed at PUHIH for nearly three months, and "the hospital arranged an operating room for the crew to film in order not to disturb the patients' rest." Li Xue, the director of "Surgical Storm", said that in order not to interfere with the normal order of the hospital, the crew filmed in the operating room for nine out of ten days, the operating room door could not be opened, "All the shots related to the operating room door and corridors I have to memorize, and finished filming in less than eight hours. The number of people entering the operating room is strictly limited to 18, not even one more person. So the nurses you see in the operating room, except for one who is a tag-along actor, are all little girls from our costume and makeup team, and those surgical assistants and anesthesiologists are also my executive and assistant directors."
It is because it is difficult to set up scenes in hospitals, in the shooting of "Emergency Medicine Doctor", director Zheng Xiaolong, on the other hand, chose a small part of the content in the hospital to set up scenes, and additionally built a one-to-one emergency room. But some scenes, such as the rescue room, operating room can not be built, "because we simply can not get that kind of surgical instruments, such as shadowless lamp. But fortunately the hospital is still very supportive of us, the operating room is empty we grabbed in to shoot, after we shoot people have to re-all the sterilization."
B?Props
Even the shadowless lamps need to be specially adjusted
In addition to filming scenes, medical dramas also have extremely high requirements for props. Zheng Xiaolong said that all the props in "Emergency Medicine Doctor" are real professional instruments. Some of them are unused in the hospital, while others are purchased by the crew, "The operating table and forceps are all real instruments. If we don't use these instruments anymore in the future, we might give them away to other hospitals."
The instruments for "Surgical Storm," on the other hand, were provided by the hospital, and nurses would follow the script and help the crew debug the instruments. But Han Zhiyi said that the medical drama's instruments are very difficult to debug, because medical instruments are based on the actual testing of the patient indicators to show the wave, the hospital is unlikely to allow the crew to film during the patient's emergency, "so in the absence of a patient, tuning up an atrial fibrillation, Erlian rate is really difficult. We have done our best, post-do special effects, try to do a real restore the disease."
In addition to the difficulties of debugging, medical props sometimes clash with filming props, such as the specific placement angle of the shadowless lamp in the operating room, which creates a reflective effect with the filming camera lights. Han Zhiyi revealed, "Surgery" shooting chose to pursue the artistic effect, so adjusted the angle of the shadowless lamp to ensure that the shooting of light, so the drama presented with the real operating room has a certain gap; and "Emergency Medicine Doctor" chose to specially placed in the operating room shadowless lamp on the camera light, "we still hope that the shadowless lamp is a professional angle, but strive to shoot out of the feeling is still what the operating room looks like after lighting." Zheng said.
C?Actors
First time touching the placenta scared me
If it is true that an actor can act well if he or she is a good actor, this law may not apply to the filming of medical dramas. In addition to their professionalism, medical dramas require actors to go to hospitals to experience life before filming begins, and they need to know obscure medical vocabulary backwards and forwards.
It is reported that before the filming of "Obstetrician" started, the actors went to the obstetrics department of a large hospital for 2-3 days to experience life. Zhang Zuomin said, experience life can't learn medical knowledge at all, so the actors mainly went to the hospital to feel the atmosphere, "There is a scene in the drama is to check the placenta, they went to the hospital and touched the placenta for the first time. They were scared to death at that time, and I heard that some of the actors fainted because there was blood all over it." Zheng also revealed that before the filming of "Emergency Medicine Doctor," he would not ask the actors to memorize their lines right away, but more importantly, to go for a deeper understanding after feeling the doctor's working condition in the hospital.
3?Treatment
In addition to setting up hospitals and equipping them with professional medical equipment, inviting professional doctors as medical consultants is also a necessary part of filming a medical drama to ensure professionalism. Their role in filming is like that of a doctor treating a patient, pointing out and treating the "lesions".
"The director is directing the play, but the consultant is 'directing' the director"
"During the filming of 'Obstetrician,' I asked the medical consultant, 'How much money is the crew paying you? ' and he said there was no money, they were all sent by the hospital and had to work night shifts at night, so they could only come to see them during the day."
"Two months before the shooting of 'Surgical Wind and Cloud', Noon Sunshine found me first." Han Zhiyi told reporters that he took on the role of medical consultant for "Surgical Wind and Cloud" this time, and was mainly responsible for the surgery scene part of "Surgical Wind and Cloud". "I will read the script first. For example, what equipment is needed for the scene, we'll coordinate; where the operating room is a sterile area, we'll divide it in advance; how the lights are set up, the placement of surgical instruments, and even garbage cans, all need to be demonstrated by us." Han Zhiyi said, in order to ensure the authenticity of each close-up, he also played for the drama "hand replacement" work, "some of the close-up inside the knot, knife, traction, the actor can not immediately learn, so the hand close-ups are we to do."
Not coincidentally, "Emergency Medicine Doctor" in the preparations for filming before, Zheng Xiaolong also invited the emergency department of the Concord Hospital attending physician, MD as a medical consultant, "the Concord Hospital sent a team of professional doctors and nurses throughout the group, and even in some places they were directly involved in the shooting." Zheng Xiaolong laughed that when shooting a medical drama, "we directors are directing the drama, but the consultants are 'directing' us directors."
But Zhang Zuomin, the scriptwriter for "Obstetrician," also revealed that the "medical consultants" mentioned in many medical dramas are also watered down. Real doctors are so busy that a full three-month residency is almost impossible. "During the shooting of 'Obstetrician', I also asked the medical consultant, 'How much does the crew pay you', and he said there was no money, they were sent by the hospital, and they had to work night shifts, so they could only come and visit during the day." Therefore, compared to the medical consultant, "The Obstetrician" chose to invite nurses to participate in the shooting as actors and actresses. For the operating room part of "Obstetricians," almost every instrument nurse was a real nurse who worked on the operating table as they usually do during filming, acting as a group actor while overseeing and ensuring the professionalism of the shoot.
4?Post-operative observation
Patients need to be observed after surgery, and medical dramas need to be summarized for both feedback and problems.
No one will believe your story if you're not professional
"If you're not professional, the audience doesn't believe in your professionalism, and they don't believe in the story of your characters, and in itself such a drama will have problems."
According to incomplete statistics, there are at least 15 medical dramas filmed in China, and at least three medical dramas aired in 2017 alone. Medical topics always seem to stand in the industry drama wind. But even so, when can we make a professional such as the U.S. drama "Grey's Anatomy" drama, seems to be still unanswered questions. Microblogging "Ding Xiangyuan" has surveyed 2012 doctors. Although 94% of them have watched medical dramas, 85.8% of them have found mistakes when watching medical dramas. It seems that even though medical dramas control every aspect, it is difficult to be professional, which makes many creators shy away from medical dramas.
1?Unclear positioning
Zhang Zuomin said many people can't shoot medical dramas well, or their positioning of the drama is unclear. In his opinion, the industry can be divided into two kinds of medical dramas and doctor dramas. Doctors' dramas, in which the main character's profession is a doctor and the shooting scene is a hospital, reflect the doctor's personal destiny. Medical dramas are TV dramas that focus on medical events. According to Zhang Zuomin, the biggest criticism of current domestic medical dramas is that they overly reflect personal grudges and feuds, rather than showing human care through real cases, which is problematic in terms of the structure of screenwriting, "That's why after the truth of these dramas is ascertained and the revenge is avenged, the story ends, but Grey's Anatomy has been acting for quite a number of years."
2?Can't keep up with demand
Li Xue, on the other hand, has revealed in interviews that he believes that the aesthetic level of the current domestic audience is also improving rapidly, but the entire domestic TV drama industry is not industrialized enough, and medical dramas are not up to standard in terms of technology and production capacity. "Like 'Black Alert' built the scene, our screenwriter Zhu Zhu looked at it and said it's really what a real American hospital looks like. But I can't afford to build it, I can only use real scenes, this is the reality, all the film and television peers know it by heart, this is not something that can be filmed just because you want to."
3?Props are not in place
Zhang Zuomin said, want to do no professional criticism of the medical drama, on the production team every link is extremely demanding. For example, when "Obstetrician" was filmed, the lines that should have been spoken by the anesthesiologist became the lines of the main actor, the chief surgeon, which was a temporary change by the director or the actor; Zhang Zuomin also asked to delete a lot of footage of the life monitor because when the patient's blood pressure should have been abnormal, the numbers on the monitor showed normal. "Some sources show that American dramas invest up to 5 million dollars per episode, but the most expensive we can get now is at 2 or 3 million yuan."
There are also some creators who are optimistic about the future of medical dramas. Zheng Xiaolong said he doesn't worry about being corrected by viewers when he shoots medical dramas. "The same disease is handled differently by different doctors, and as long as it's within the realm of professional correctness, we don't care too much about this kind of error correction. When you shoot a medical drama, professionalism must be strictly achieved. If you're not professional, the audience doesn't believe in your professionalism, and they don't believe in your character's story, and in itself such a drama will be problematic."