Small Beijing-based production house Daft & Real always tries to stay true to its core values. Their name and strong reel is a reflection of this. Being based in the capital, away from the country’s commercial industry filmmaking epicenter of Shanghai, the small team carved out an impressive path without much marketing effort. The quality of Daft & Real’s work is what caught SHP+’s attention, and it’s not surprising once you get to know the story of people behind it. So, we sat down with the production company’s EP, Bi Ran to find out all about it.
作为一家位于北京的小型制片公司，德融（Daft & Real）做到了不忘初心，一直在努力地守护着自己的核心价值。而他们的名字与高质量的作品集也反映了这一点。虽然定位首都，远离中国的经济中心与商业广告中心上海，这支小团队却在市场营销有限的条件下，打出了一片自己的天地。他们质量上乘的作品，也让SHP+眼前一亮。不过，在知晓了作品背后的故事后，你就会明白优秀的作品的诞生绝非偶然。此次SHP+有幸采访到了这家制片公司的监制毕然，让我们一起来一窥他们的成功秘诀吧。
Daft & Real’s DNA is woven of stories and vision from its two partners – director Li Hailong, and EP Bi Ran. Li Hailong established the company in 2013, when his career reached a critical point. Working freelance at the time, he felt that the creative needs of a director clashed with “business at any cost” interests of the production houses he worked for. Daft & Real Production emerged out of his pursuit of creativity. A year later, Bi Ran joined him. “It seems everybody in this industry harbor a dream to one day become a director. “When I entered the industry, there was no shortage of talented directors. A professional producer, on the other hand, is a different story”, Bi Ran shares.
德融的DNA由两位合作伙伴的故事和愿景交织而成：导演李海龙和监制毕然。李海龙于2013年创办了这家公司，创立德融前他是一名自由导演，当时他的职业生涯达到了一个转折点。他觉得导演的创作需求有时候会与制片公司“生意最大”的理念发生冲突。为了能主导创作，德融应运而生。一年后，毕然也加入了。“似乎这个行业的每个人都梦想着有一天能成为导演。在我刚入行时，不乏有才华的导演，但另一方面，这个行业非常缺少优秀的监制。”毕然分享到。
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Bi Ran learned the ropes of production in a studio, at Motion Logix, where in the early 2000s he met his mentor— director Zhang Xianfeng. An advantage of learning from and working alongside a director for a long time allowed Bi Ran to distinguish himself early on. Unlike producers who approach things mainly from a business perspective, he’s always been more inclined to put the director’s point of view and creative result as the priority.
毕然是在Motion Logix工作室开始进入制片行业的，在21世纪初，他在那里遇到了自己的导师导演张险峰导演，和导演长期的配合让他学会站在创作的角度思考问题。他不像那些以商业角度作为唯一标准来处理事情的制作人，他更倾向于把导演的观点和创作成果放在首位。
The majority of the work of Daft & Real is shot by the founder Li Hailong, but as their work load has expanded so is their need to sometimes bring on other talent. The result of this diversified approach has not produced a mismatched compilation of work, but instead has built a reel that feels very relevant and on current trend. As the company’s 2014 commercial “Inside Tattoo” for Intel proves- Daft & Real work generally stays contemporary and timeless.
德融的早期大部分作品是由创始人李海龙拍摄的，随着作品的积累，口碑的增加，他们也有幸能和越来越多行业中的优秀导演合作。这种多样化的操作并没有让他们的作品集显得杂乱无章，反而正是得益于此，他们的作品集显得和适宜又时髦，非常符合当下的趋势。该公司2014年为英特尔制作的广告大片《纹身篇》就是最好的证明，德融的作品常常是当代与经典并存。
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It’s hard to pinpoint a specific genre or style for the production house, as they shift gears effortlessly. Known for exploring emotional storytelling as seen in their McDonald’s, Kuaishou, or Yearcon spots, they also have produced some spots that highlight Chinese traditional culture elements in DELL or Douyin campaigns. And of course, they have created trendy worlds for smartphone and e-commerce giants like Huawei, VIVO, and Tmall. Their reputation of producing good work proceeds them. The word of mouth has brought them directly to clients, not to mention recommendations by celebrities they’ve worked with before.
德融的作品风格多变，在不同的题材中转换灵活且游刃有余，我们很难给他们的风格下一个定义。他们在麦当劳、快手和意尔康的广告中以感人的故事为大家熟知，在为戴尔和抖音创作的广告中又突出了中国传统文化的元素。当然，他们也为华为、VIVO和天猫等智能手机和电子商务巨头打造过时尚酷炫的大片。作品优良的好名声也为他们创造了好机会。绝佳的口碑不仅直接带来了客户资源，也赢得了艺人的青睐。
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When we ask about differences between Beijing and Shanghai in terms of commercial filmmaking, Bi Ran notes there are of course variances. “When I just started in the industry, the best advertising directors were big names movie directors, all based in Beijing. With the clients, the agencies and the development of the local production system, Shanghai gradually became the center for commercial filmmaking. Countless commercial industry professionals emerged in this city”, Bi Ran says. Beijing, naturally, remains the heart of the country’s filmmaking world. But in the past few years, the advertising market in the capital continues to shrink. From an operational perspective— it doesn’t matter that much, as Daft & Real can shoot anywhere. However, as the company gets nearly half of their projects from Shanghai based agencies, expanding the office geography is a logical next step. This year, Daft & Real is preparing to establish its Shanghai Office.
当我们问及对于商业广告制作来说，北京和上海有什么异同时，毕然告诉我们这两个城市当然是不一样的：“在我刚入行的时候，最好的广告导演都是知名电影导演，他们大部分都在北京。但随着商业土壤的发展，客户和代理的变化以及制作公司体系的进化，上海逐渐变成了商业广告摄制的中心。有更多专业的商业广告导演和制片公司在这里诞生”毕然说到。自然，北京仍然是中国的电影摄制中心。但在过去的几年间，这里的广告市场在逐步缩小。从运营的角度来看，这其实也没什么影响，德融在哪里都可以拍摄。不过，目前该公司有近一半的项目都来自于上海的代理机构，设立分部，扩张版图，从逻辑上来说是最合理的下一步策略。于是在今年，德融也开始了上海分公司的准备工作。
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Whichever direction the production house will go in the future, here’s hoping that they’ll remain, by Bi Ran’s description, “professional craftsmen, who help clients enhance the value of creativity”. After all, it’s in their name. As Bi Ran explained: “We wanted a name with character. In everything we do, we stay realistic and transparent. We’d rather promise the client we can do 70-80% while trying our best to get 100%, instead of promising them the moon and underperforming in the end. Creative stuff can’t be copied or mass produced. We also treat every project as unique, it should be treated thoughtfully, and polished thoughtfully. Maybe, from the outside it looks stupid and foolish. But these two words, Daft and Real reflect our identity”.
但无论这家制作公司未来走向如何，我们都希望，像毕然告诉我们的那样，他们都是用“自己的专业和匠人态度帮客户提升创意的价值”。毕竟，这是刻在他们名字里的信念。正如毕然解释的那样:“ 在我们做的每一件事上，我们都希望保持务实和透明。比起夸下海口，我们更希望用70-80%的承诺，去做100%的努力。创作的东西很难复制和量产，我们认为每个项目都是独特的，必须用心对待，细心打磨。也许，外人看来，这样很傻。但这两个词，愚蠢（Daft）和真实（Real）却是最能代表我们本心的。”
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