As the name suggests, ecological dramas are TV dramas and online dramas that focus on environmental protection and ecological governance and embody the ideological theme of ecological civilization construction.

In recent years, the creation and filming of such dramas have increased day by day, and some high-quality and influential works have also appeared, such as "Flowers Bloom in the Mountain" (2021), "High Mountains Clear Canals" (2022), "Love in the Green Mountains" Plays such as "Between Green Waters" (2023), "River Rises" (2024), and "Above the Rivers" (2024) have all received critical acclaim.

These works express the current situation and problems of environmental protection and ecological governance in urban and rural areas of China from different angles and aspects. They highlight the importance and necessity of environmental protection, popularize ecological governance knowledge and relevant legal regulations, and promote the construction of ecological civilization. It has played a certain positive role in all aspects; at the same time, it has also accumulated some useful experience in the genre construction and creative development of ecological dramas.

Obviously, if the creation of eco-drama is to win the love and welcome of more audiences and have a greater impact, it must continuously improve its artistic quality and aesthetic character and produce more excellent works. In this regard, the author has the following aesthetic thoughts.

Stills from "Blooming Flowers in the Mountain"

1. Face reality and expose problems

The creation of ecological dramas must first face social reality, boldly expose various existing problems in environmental protection and ecological governance, and truly reflect the spirit of rigorous realism. It should be noted that although we have made significant achievements in the construction of ecological civilization in recent years, there are still various problems in real life that ignore environmental protection and damage ecological governance; therefore, through the creation of ecological dramas It should be the responsibility of film and television workers to expose these issues to arouse the alert and concern of relevant government departments and the general public, and to further take various measures to strengthen environmental protection and ecological governance. In this regard, the above-mentioned plays have provided some useful experiences.

For example, during the plot development of "River Rises", a series of snack streets, garbage mountains, wetland hotel development, phosphate ore processing plants, underground sewage pipes, landfills, etc. are revealed that are detrimental to environmental protection and ecological governance. The problems of The interests and safety of the masses are at heart; on the other hand, some unscrupulous companies do not hesitate to use illegal means to destroy the ecological environment in order to obtain greater economic benefits.

"River Rises" Poster

"Above the River" uses the Environmental Affairs Division of the court to investigate cases of illegal sewage discharge from chemical plants, illegal fishing cases during fishing bans, indoor decoration pollution and cancer cases, illegal trading of nationally protected animals, waste acid deforestation cases, illegal sand mining cases, The trials and verdicts of various cases involving environmental protection and ecological governance, such as illegal dumping and landfill cases, not only allow the audience to have a better understanding of the various phenomena and problems that undermine environmental protection and ecological governance in real life, but also their harm. I have a deeper understanding of sex, and I also know the relevant legal provisions, which enhances my awareness of the rule of law.

"Above the River" poster

Similarly, "Huakaishan Township" revealed the urban demolition company's behavior of dumping all kinds of garbage at will to pollute the environment in the Rose Valley of Miyue Mountain, and "Love among Green Waters and Green Mountains" exposed the opening of mines and electricity generation by Wei Baoku, the richest man in the village. The serious pollution caused by the magnesium factory to the ecological environment of Qingshanyu Village also shows that rural economic development cannot be at the expense of the ecological environment, but must always adhere to the implementation of the ecological civilization construction of "lucid waters and lush mountains are valuable assets" Thought, closely integrate economic development and ecological environment protection.

Poster of "Blooming Flowers in the Mountain Country"

Of course, in addition to exposing various problems, the creation of ecological dramas must also praise those advanced figures in real life who have devoted their efforts and made contributions to the management of the ecological environment with perseverance, and let their touching deeds serve as More people know it.

For example, "High Mountain Clear Channel", adapted from the reportage "Mountain God", is based on the advanced deeds of Huang Dafa, an outstanding Communist Party member known as the "Foolish Old Man of Modern Times". Since the late 1950s, he led the villagers for 36 years , with the help of simple tools such as steel drills and hammers, a "Life Canal" with a main canal of 7,200 meters long, a branch canal of 2,200 meters long, and spanning three villages was excavated on the cliff, ending the long-term water shortage in Caowang Dam. History has changed the living environment of local villagers, and through continuous efforts, the "roots of poverty" in the village have been eradicated, allowing everyone to live a happy life.

"High Mountains Clearing Canals" Poster

Obviously, in order to achieve harmonious coexistence between man and nature, on the one hand, we must effectively protect the natural ecological environment, and on the other hand, we must also transform those natural environments that are not suitable for human survival and turn them into beautiful and ecologically livable villages. "High Mountains Clear Canals" vividly interprets and describes typical examples in real life in a documentary aesthetic style, making it highly artistically convincing and appealing.

Since realism is an organic fusion of "truth" and "true feelings", in the plot narrative that expresses various "truths" of social life, it is necessary to depict the true feelings of the characters in the play and reveal the rich and complex inner world of the characters; at the same time, , the creator must also organically integrate his own feelings of love and hate into it and show correct aesthetic evaluation, so that the play can truly affect people. Only in this way can the work highlight the artistic charm of realism.

2. Strengthen contradictions and create new people

Although the plot content of ecological dramas originates from real life, when turning life materials into plot content, it still needs better artistic refinement and artistic processing, focusing on strengthening conflicts, shaping new people's images and other artistic means to make the drama more enjoyable. The work has stronger dramatic tension and artistic charm so that it can better attract and impress the audience; at the same time, it also makes the play have a deeper ideological and cultural connotation. For this reason, it is an effective artistic technique to use genre crossover to organically integrate the type of eco-drama with other types of dramas.

For example, "River Rises" combines ecological drama with detective drama. The play begins with a murder case: the body of Wang Wu, the deputy mayor in charge of environmental protection work in Qijiang City, was found by the river, and the Municipal Public Security Bureau began Investigation revealed through surveillance that he jumped into the river and died by himself. After a round of investigation, it was found that Wang Wu had neither accepted bribes nor had any style problems. So why did he commit suicide? Especially when the central ecological and environmental protection inspection team stationed in Qijiang City and asked the municipal party committee and municipal government to rectify some existing problems, what prompted Wang Wu to commit suicide? This suspense-breaking plot line runs throughout the play, and the truth is not revealed until the end of the play.

At the same time, Wang Wu's university classmate Zheng Hanjiang, vice president of Qijiang University and dean of the School of Environment, was appointed as the deputy mayor in charge of environmental protection work by the provincial leaders. He was "bookish and scolded Fang Qiu". He vigorously renovated the snack street, moved away the garbage mountain, and used his professional knowledge to cooperate with the central inspection team to carry out in-depth environmental protection and ecological management work. Not only did he achieve remarkable results, but he also had a positive impact on various "" The government launched a crackdown on "lazy government" behavior and found out that some grassroots leaders had taken bribes.

These two plot lines go hand in hand and intertwine with each other, which not only enriches the plot content and enhances the appeal of the play; at the same time, it also successfully creates the image of Zheng Hanjiang, a unique and individual newcomer in the environmental protection front and cadre team. The conflict and character comparison better demonstrated his ideals, pursuits and feelings, leaving a deep impression on the audience.

Stills of "River Rises"

For another example, "Above the River" focuses on integrating the types of ecological dramas and legal dramas, using legal thinking from the perspective of the rule of law: in the process of promoting environmental judicial reform in the Lingjiang Provincial Court, Luo Yuan, Geng Nian and Lin Hai Three judges, Lan, formed a new three-in-one environmental protection tribunal of "administrative, civil, and criminal". With the help of environmental engineering expert Professor Xia Weidong, they passed a wide variety of highly professional environmental pollution cases. trial and sentencing, and try to innovate the concept of judicial trial. In the end, the owners of chemical plants who do not hesitate to pollute rivers and destroy the ecological environment in exchange for economic benefits, the evil forces who wantonly pursue profits and do all kinds of evil, and the deputy mayor who shields polluting companies and accepts corruption and bribes, etc. Bring him to justice.

The play integrates legal principles, emotions and principles, effectively promotes the popularization of environmental science and law, and allows the audience to feel the people's court's firm determination and practical actions to implement "lucid waters and lush mountains are valuable assets". At the same time, the play also well portrayed the images of three judges with different personalities in the narrative process, truly demonstrated their dedication, responsibility and professionalism, and demonstrated the People's Court's role in environmental protection and ecological governance. Give full play to the new atmosphere of leading role. The play has obvious new ideas in terms of expression of ideological themes, plot narration and character portrayal.

Stills from "Above the River"

As for dramas such as "Blooming Flowers in the Mountains" and "Love in the Green Mountains and Green Waters", they integrate ecological dramas with poverty alleviation dramas on rural poverty alleviation, focusing on how grassroots cadres organize themselves in the process of rural revitalization and poverty alleviation. To lead the masses, unite people's hearts and overcome various difficulties, we must not only strive to develop the economy, but also protect the mountains and green waters, and effectively create an ecological, livable and beautiful countryside.

Whether it is Bai Lang who was sent from the central government to Miyueshan Village in Chuchuan County as the first secretary in "Flowers in the Mountain", or Qin Xueliang, a special soldier who was injured and retired from the army and returned to his hometown Qingshanyu to serve as the village party secretary in "Love in the Green Mountains and Green Waters" , they are not only the guides for the villagers to get rid of poverty and become rich, but also the leaders in protecting a good ecological environment and committing to green development. The two plays better shaped the artistic images of these two grassroots party cadres in various conflicts and conflicts, leaving a deep impression on the audience.

Stills from "Blooming Flowers in the Mountain"

For example, in the first episode of "Blooming Flowers in the Mountain", various suspense are set up and conflicts are intensified——

In order to understand the real situation in the village, Bai Lang pretended to be a tourist and entered the village incognito. He met Jiang Wenhua, the security director who occupied the only high ground with mobile phone signal in the village and privately charged villagers and tourists, and Jiang Wenhua, the security director who was determined to persuade him to come out. The village woman who made money to repair Mi Yue’s grandma’s temple;

In the evening, he not only met Jiang Wenhua, who peeped at the mute girl taking a bath, but also heard from the old man who cooked the herbal medicine "Baidu Soup" that the villagers had diarrhea in autumn and winter;

At the same time, on this day, some villagers, led by veteran Liu Qinling, went to the county to block the demolition company in front of the demolition company, protesting against their random dumping of various garbage into the Rose Valley of Miyue Mountain to pollute the environment, while the village director Jiang Jianguo While accepting monetary bribes from the manager of the demolition company in his car, he gave the manager bad ideas;

Liang, the former leader of the Miyue Mountain Village work team, died of a heart attack. Among the things he left behind was a notebook that recorded various accounts. Everyone is looking for this notebook...

Various phenomena and contradictions indicate that Bai Lang's future work will be full of resistance and challenges, which also arouses the audience's desire to continue watching the drama, wanting to see how Bai Lang can resolve various contradictions and effectively manage them in the future. Haoshan Village leads everyone on the road to wealth.

The famous filmmaker Xia Yan once said: "The first copy of a movie is the most important" because "the quality of the first copy of a film has a great relationship. It can affect the quality of the entire film and give the audience the first impression. , this impression is also very important.” The same is true for the creation of TV series and online series. The first episode of "Blooming Flowers in the Mountain" provides some useful experiences in this regard.

3. Expand themes and construct types

The subject matter field of ecological drama creation should be very broad, because all walks of life involve environmental protection and ecological governance issues to varying degrees. To this end, the creation of ecological dramas should continuously expand the subject area, strive to pursue new ideas in plot content, narrative angles, character creation, etc., and avoid similarities and repetitions.

For example, although the titles of the two works "River Rising" and "River Rising" are very similar, their artistic perspectives, plot content and characters are very different. The former mainly shows the various problems existing in environmental protection and ecological governance of government departments and relevant leaders; while the latter describes how to deal with various cases that damage the ecological environment in accordance with the law and regulations from the perspective of law enforcement departments and law enforcers. This allows the audience to have different experiences watching the drama and gain different lessons from it.

Stills of "River Rises"

As far as the current status of ecological drama creation is concerned, compared with other types of dramas, whether it is rural-themed ecological dramas, industrial themes, urban themes, or other ecological dramas, the number of works is relatively small, so in these subject areas There is still a lot of room for expansion. Since the construction of ecological civilization must be integrated into all aspects and the entire process of economic construction, cultural construction, and social construction, as well as into the process of industrialization, informatization, urbanization, and agricultural modernization, in this process there will be There are many vivid materials available for the creation and filming of ecological dramas. Therefore, creators must be good at discovering and refining creative materials from real life, strive to tell various wonderful stories about green China, and continuously promote the prosperity of the creation and filming of ecological dramas.

At the same time, ecological dramas should also focus on pursuing diversification in terms of creative methods, genres and styles, and strive to avoid monotony and uniformity. It is important for creators to use realist creative methods to reproduce the "truth" of social life through the typification of artistic images, but it does not have to be limited to one figure; they can also use modernist creative methods to criticize through artistic exaggeration, symbolism, absurdity and other techniques. Various problems that arise in the management of the ecological environment in reality can arouse people's vigilance and attention, and obtain different aesthetic feelings from them. Obviously, only by forming an artistic situation in which a hundred flowers bloom in the pursuit of diversified aesthetics can the creation of ecological dramas be further developed and improved.

Stills from "Above the River"

In addition, as a new type of drama, ecological drama needs to continuously construct genre styles in the practice of artistic creation and gradually improve various genre elements, so that it can be known and loved by the broad audience like other genre dramas. At present, in the process of promoting the development of new productive forces, good natural ecological resources must be included in the scope of productivity. It should be noted that protecting the ecological environment is protecting productivity, and improving the ecological environment is developing productivity; therefore, strengthening the construction of ecological civilization is a Very important event. It can be expected that with the further development of the construction of Beautiful China, the creation and filming of ecological dramas will increasingly flourish and develop, showing a new aesthetic style.

(The author of this article, Zhou Bin, is the director of the Film Art Research Center of Fudan University, a professor of the Chinese Department, and a doctoral supervisor.)