Student-made TV drama cleaned up for broadcast

• Source: Global Times
• [22:05 July 21 2009]
• Comments

The production team of Story of Roomates, a student-made TV drama. Photo courtesy of Li Hongchou

By Lin Meilian

Made by college students for college students, one of China’s most watched online dramas is set to air on TV in late July, with its “inappropriate” true-to-life content politely edited out.

The show, originally entitled Living Together, revolves around a group of nine college students who live off-campus together. It was produced by 15 students at Hebei Institute of Communication last year.

Its first season episodes have been circulating online since October 2008, dubbed a Chinese version of the US sitcom Friends by fans.

The first season, originally consisting of 15 10-minute episodes, was “condensed” into four longer episodes in anticipation of its July 26 airdate on Chongqing Television during prime time.

However, that was only after the TV station slashed content deemed inappropriate, such as gambling, smoking, skipping classes, cheating, coeds living together and flagrant use of the Putonghua equivalent of the “F-word.”

Season 2, which includes an impressive 40 episodes, will air by the end of July.

“I understand television stations are responsible for what they broadcast. So we tried our best to edit it while preserving its overall feel and effect,” said Li Hongchou, the show’s 23-year-old director and screenwriter.

All TV dramas submitted for broadcast must pass the station’s checkup before airing.

Heat on the Internet

Li and his schoolmates started production in a 2-story house in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province last year. All they had to work with was a 15,000 yuan ($2,195) video camera and a computer. There was not a budget to speak of, let alone pay for the actors, and they worked fast, simultaneously posting episodes while shooting the next.

The first season was then broadcasted on the Internet in October 2008. Each episode attracted around 1,000 comments from viewers. The second episode garnered an impressive 894,228 hits, making it one of the most-watched dramas on China’s leading video website, youku.com.
At first, the show mostly attracted students of the same age as the producers, then other age groups caught on, eventually turning heads in the industry.

What surprised Li most was, before making it to TV, the pirated DVD of his show could already be found in every part of the country, costing 5-10 yuan ($0.70-$1.40) a piece.

“Our show reflects the real life of college students. No one has ever showed something like this on TV, so that makes my show unique,” Li said.

No sex, just smiles

Regardless, the producers were advised to revise the show, making sure it was optimistic, positive and “sex-free” enough to pass TV stations’ tastes.

In Episode 2, a scene in which a stylish punk girl lights up a cigarette and smokes was censored in fear that it may be a bad influence on young people.

“I would be willing to have my character quit smoking in season 2, in order to show people that smoking is a bad thing,” said Zhao Ning, the student who plays the punk girl in the show.

Another interesting example of compromising for the censors was changing the name of the show from Living Together to Story of Roommates.