Cyndi Stivers: So, future of storytelling. Before we do the future, let's talk about what is never going to change about storytelling.
辛蒂史帝佛斯:關於說故事的未來。 在我們談未來之前, 我們先談談,關於說故事, 永遠不會變的有哪些。
Shonda Rhimes: What's never going to change. Obviously, I think good stories are never going to change, the need for people to gather together and exchange their stories and to talk about the things that feel universal, the idea that we all feel a compelling need to watch stories, to tell stories, to share stories -- sort of the gathering around the campfire to discuss the things that tell each one of us that we are not alone in the world. Those things to me are never going to change. That essence of storytelling is never going to change.
珊達萊梅斯:永遠不會變的。 顯然,我認為好故事永遠不會改變, 人們需要聚在一起交換彼此的故事, 需要談論那些感覺普世的事情, 我們都有股強烈的需求 去觀賞故事、 去說故事、去分享故事, 有點像圍著營火, 討論一些事來告訴我們每個人 我們在世界上並不孤單。 對我而言,那些都是不會改變的。 故事的那種本質是永遠不會改變的。
CS: OK. In preparation for this conversation, I checked in with Susan Lyne, who was running ABC Entertainment when you were working on "Grey's Anatomy" --
辛蒂:好,為了準備這場對談, 我和蘇珊林恩因談過, 當你在做《實習醫生》時, ABC 娛樂台是她在經營。
SR: Yes.
珊達:是的。
CS: And she said that there was this indelible memory she had of your casting process, where without discussing it with any of the executives, you got people coming in to read for your scripts, and every one of them was the full range of humanity, you did not type anyone in any way, and that it was completely surprising. So she said, in addition to retraining the studio executives, you also, she feels, and I think this is -- I agree, retrained the expectations of the American TV audience. So what else does the audience not yet realize that it needs?
辛蒂:她說她有個難忘的記憶, 和你的選角過程有關, 在沒有和任何主管討論過的情況下, 你就找人來試鏡, 且有許多來自三教九流的人。 你並沒有以任何方式將任何人分類, 這點非常讓人訝異。 她說,除了重新教育了 電視公司的主管之外, 她覺得你也── 而這點我也同意── 重新教育了美國電視觀眾的期望。 還有什麼是觀眾自己 還不知道他們需要的?
SR: What else does it not yet realize? Well, I mean, I don't think we're anywhere near there yet. I mean, we're still in a place in which we're far, far behind what looks like the real world in actuality. I wasn't bringing in a bunch of actors who looked very different from one another simply because I was trying to make a point, and I wasn't trying to do anything special. It never occurred to me that that was new, different or weird. I just brought in actors because I thought they were interesting and to me, the idea that it was completely surprising to everybody -- I didn't know that for a while. I just thought: these are the actors I want to see play these parts. I want to see what they look like if they read. We'll see what happens. So I think the interesting thing that happens is that when you look at the world through another lens, when you're not the person normally in charge of things, it just comes out a different way.
珊達:觀眾自己還不知道的? 嗯,我覺得我們 還沒辦法回答這個問題。 我是說,我們還在一個 和看似真實世界相距甚遠的地方。 我並沒有請來一群 看起來非常不同的演員, 只因為我想闡明一個重點, 並不是為了標新立異。 我從未想過那麼做是新的、 不同的或怪異的。 請那些演員來試鏡, 只因為我覺得他們有趣, 對我而言,這個想法讓大家感到驚訝, 但我有一段時間毫無所覺。 我只是想:我想看 這些演員詮釋這些角色。 我想看他們讀劇本的模樣。 看看會如何。 我想,這當中很有趣的事是, 當你用不同的濾鏡看世界時, 當你不再是一貫主導事情的人時, 世界看起來就不一樣了。
CS: So you now have this big machine that you run, as a titan -- as you know, last year when she gave her talk -- she's a titan. So what do you think is going to happen as we go on? There's a huge amount of money involved in producing these shows. While the tools of making stories have gone and gotten greatly democratized, there's still this large distribution: people who rent networks, who rent the audience to advertisers and make it all pay. How do you see the business model changing now that anyone can be a storyteller?
辛蒂:以你現在運作的這個大機器, 這個巨擘──如你所知, 去年當她來演說時── 她是個巨擘。 依你所見,接下來會發生什麼事? 製作這些節目涉及了龐大的金錢。 雖然製造故事的工具變得更大眾化, 還是有很大範圍的傳播: 租電視頻道的人, 在各個時段賣廣告給廠商, 讓所有人買單的人。 現在每個人都可以說故事,對於商業 模式的轉變來說,你有什麼看法?
SR: I think it's changing every day. I mean, the rapid, rapid change that's happening is amazing. And I feel -- the panic is palpable, and I don't mean that in a bad way. I think it's kind of exciting. The idea that there's sort of an equalizer happening, that sort of means that anybody can make something, is wonderful. I think there's some scary in the idea that you can't find the good work now. There's so much work out there. I think there's something like 417 dramas on television right now at any given time in any given place, but you can't find them. You can't find the good ones. So there's a lot of bad stuff out there because everybody can make something. It's like if everybody painted a painting. You know, there's not that many good painters. But finding the good stories, the good shows, is harder and harder and harder. Because if you have one tiny show over here on AMC and one tiny show over here over there, finding where they are becomes much harder. So I think that ferreting out the gems and finding out who made the great webisode and who made this, it's -- I mean, think about the poor critics who now are spending 24 hours a day trapped in their homes watching everything. It's not an easy job right now. So the distribution engines are getting more and more vast, but finding the good programming for everybody in the audience is getting harder. And unlike the news, where everything's getting winnowed down to just who you are, television seems to be getting -- and by television I mean anything you can watch, television shows on -- seems to be getting wider and wider and wider. And so anybody's making stories, and the geniuses are sometimes hidden. But it's going to be harder to find, and at some point that will collapse. People keep talking about peak TV. I don't know when that's going to happen. I think at some point it'll collapse a little bit and we'll, sort of, come back together. I don't know if it will be network television. I don't know if that model is sustainable.
珊達:我認為它每天都在改變。 快速、快速改變的一切很了不起。 我覺得⋯⋯明顯地恐慌, 並不是件壞事。 反而蠻讓人興奮的。 有某種平衡機制正在發生, 意味著任何人都可以做些什麼, 這概念十分美好。 我想,現在說找不到好作品, 是件可怕的事。 世界上充斥著這麼多作品。 現在光電視上大概 就有 417 個電視劇, 任何時段任何地點都有。 但你就是找不到。 你找不到好的作品。 現在有太多糟糕的作品, 因為每個人都可以做出點什麼。 就好像每個人都在畫同一幅畫。 並沒有那麼多好畫家。 要找到好故事、好節目, 是越來越難了。 因為在 AMC 電視台上 有一個小節目, 這裡有一個,那裡有一個, 要找到它們在哪裡就變得更困難。 我認為搜尋寶石, 找出誰做了很棒的網路劇集、 誰做了這個, 它⋯⋯我是說,想想可憐的劇評家, 他們現在一天要花 24 小時, 困在家裡看所有的東西。 這不是容易的工作。 所以,傳播引擎變得愈來愈廣大, 但要為每個觀眾找到好的節目 愈來愈難。 和新聞不同, 對新聞而言,一切已經 被剔除到只剩下你是誰, 電視似乎越來越── 所謂電視是指任何 能收看的電視節目── 似乎是變得愈來愈寬廣。 所以任何人都在製造故事, 反而天才有時被埋沒了。 會愈來愈難找到, 到某個臨界點,就會崩垮。 人們不斷談論 電視高峰(peak TV)。 我不知道那何時會發生。 我想到某個時間,它會開始崩解, 而我們就會回到一體。 我不知道會不會是以 電視聯播網的方式出現。 我不知道這個模型是否永續。
CS: What about the model that Amazon and Netflix are throwing a lot of money around right now.
辛蒂:那麼亞馬遜和網飛(Netflix) 投入很多錢的那個模式又如何呢?
SR: That is true. I think it's an interesting model. I think there's something exciting about it. For content creators, I think there's something exciting about it. For the world, I think there's something exciting about it. The idea that there are programs now that can be in multiple languages with characters from all over the world that are appealing and come out for everybody at the same time is exciting. I mean, I think the international sense that television can now take on makes sense to me, that programming can now take on. Television so much is made for, like -- here's our American audience. We make these shows, and then they shove them out into the world and hope for the best, as opposed to really thinking about the fact that America is not it. I mean, we love ourselves and everything, but it's not i. And we should be taking into account the fact that there are all of these other places in the world that we should be interested in while we're telling stories. It makes the world smaller. I don't know. I think it pushes forward the idea that the world is a universal place, and our stories become universal things. We stop being other.
珊達:確實。 我認為那是有趣的模式。 我認為它有讓人興奮之處。 對內容創作者而言, 我認為它有讓人興奮之處。 對世界而言, 我認為它有讓人興奮之處。 有這些節目 能被多重語言觀賞, 主角們來自世界各地, 都很吸引人,且能讓所有人同時觀看, 這個概念很讓人興奮。 我是說,電視現在 能夠呈現出的國際感, 我覺得很合理, 節目的國際觀。 我們太多節目都是製作給⋯⋯ 像在這裡是給美國的觀眾。 我們製作那些節目, 把它們推出給外界, 期望能有最好的結果, 卻沒有真正想到美國不代表全世界。 不管我們多愛自己, 美國不代表全世界。 我們應該要想, 世界上有這麼多其他地方, 是我們可以在說故事這塊著墨的。 這樣能讓世界變小。 我不知道。 我想,這個模式說明, 世界是全人類的地方, 而我們的故事變成是全人類的產物。 我們不再是他者。
CS: You've pioneered, as far as I can see, interesting ways to launch new shows, too. I mean, when you launched "Scandal" in 2012, there was this amazing groundswell of support on Twitter the likes of which nobody had seen before. Do you have any other tricks up your sleeve when you launch your next one? What do you think will happen in that regard?
辛蒂:就我所知,你開創了 很有意思的方式來發表新節目。 我是說,當你在 2012 年 推出《醜聞風暴》, 推特上的支持迅速高漲,非常驚人, 可以說是前所未見。 你在要發表下一個節目時, 還有任何其他的袖裡玄機嗎? 在這件事上,你認為未來會如何?
SR: We do have some interesting ideas. We have a show called "Still Star-Crossed" coming out this summer. We have some interesting ideas for that. I'm not sure if we're going to be able to do them in time. I thought they were fun. But the idea that we would live-tweet our show was really just us thinking that would be fun. We didn't realize that the critics would start to live-tweet along with us. But the fans -- getting people to be a part of it, making it more of a campfire -- you know, when you're all on Twitter together and you're all talking together, it is more of a shared experience, and finding other ways to make that possible and finding other ways to make people feel engaged is important.
珊達:我們確實有些很有趣的點子。 今年夏天我們會推出 一個節目《悲戀再續》。 對那節目,我們有一些 很有趣的點子。 我不確定來不來得及實現那些點子。 我認為它們很好玩也很好笑。 但在推特上直播節目的這個想法, 其實只是我們認為那樣會很好玩。 我們沒料到評論界會 和我們一起推特直播。 但影迷們──讓人們成為 節目的一部分, 讓它更像個營火── 你知道,當大家都一起在推特上, 所有人一起說話, 它就更像是共有的經驗, 找到其他方式讓共有成為可能, 找到其他方式讓人們有參與感, 是很重要的。
CS: So when you have all those different people making stories and only some of them are going to break through and get that audience somehow, how do you think storytellers will get paid?
辛蒂:當有這麼多 不同的人在創造故事, 卻只有其中一些人能夠成功, 得到觀眾的心, 你認為說故事的人要如何賺錢?
SR: I actually have been struggling with this concept as well. Is it going to be a subscriber model? Are people going to say, like, I'm going to watch this particular person's shows, and that's how we're going to do it?
珊達:我其實也對這個觀念很掙扎。 將來會是訂閱模式嗎? 人們是否會說, 我就是要看這個人的節目, 而我們就要採用這個做法?
CS: I think we should buy a passport to Shondaland. Right?
辛蒂:我們應買本 到珊達國度的護照,對吧?
SR: I don't know about that, but yeah. That's a lot more work for me. I do think that there are going to be different ways, but I don't know necessarily. I mean, I'll be honest and say a lot of content creators are not necessarily interested in being distributors, mainly because what I dream of doing is creating content. I really love to create content. I want to get paid for it and I want to get paid the money that I deserve to get paid for it, and there's a hard part in finding that. But I also want it to be made possible for, you know, the people who work with me, the people who work for me, everybody to sort of get paid in a way, and they're all making a living. How it gets distributed is getting harder and harder.
珊達:這我就不知道了, 但對我來說是有更多事要做。 我確實認為將來會有不同的方式, 只是我不知道是什麼。 我的意思是,老實說, 許多內容創造者 並不見得有興趣做發行者, 主要是因為我夢想要做的事, 就是創造內容。 我真的很愛創造內容。 我想靠它來賺錢, 且我想要賺到我用它應該賺得的錢, 這是有難度的。 但我也希望能創造可能性, 為了那些和我一同工作的人 和那些為我工作的人, 讓大家都能賺到錢,都能謀生。 要如何發行就變得愈來愈困難。
CS: How about the many new tools, you know, VR, AR ... I find it fascinating that you can't really binge-watch, you can't fast-forward in those things. What do you see as the future of those for storytelling?
辛蒂:那麼眾多的新工具呢? 虛擬實境、擴增實境⋯⋯ 我覺得很炫的是,你無法狂看、刷劇, 你不能快轉這些東西。 未來把這些技術用在說故事上, 你有什麼看法?
SR: I spent a lot of time in the past year just exploring those, getting lots of demonstrations and paying attention. I find them fascinating, mainly because I think that -- I think most people think of them for gaming, I think most people think of them for things like action, and I think that there is a sense of intimacy that is very present in those things, the idea that -- picture this, you can sit there and have a conversation with Fitz, or at least sit there while Fitz talks to you, President Fitzgerald Grant III, while he talks to you about why he's making a choice that he makes, and it's a very heartfelt moment. And instead of you watching a television screen, you're sitting there next to him, and he's having this conversation. Now, you fall in love with the man while he's doing it from a television screen. Imagine sitting next to him, or being with a character like Huck who's about to execute somebody. And instead of having a scene where, you know, he's talking to another character very rapidly, he goes into a closet and turns to you and tells you, you know, what's going to happen and why he's afraid and nervous. It's a little more like theater, and I'm not sure it would work, but I'm fascinating by the concept of something like that and what that would mean for an audience. And to get to play with those ideas would be interesting, and I think, you know, for my audience, the people who watch my shows, which is, you know, women 12 to 75, there's something interesting in there for them.
珊達:過去一年我花了許多時間 單純在探究那些工具, 得到許多展示,密切關注。 我覺得它們令人驚艷, 主要是因為我認為 大部分人都會把它們和遊戲聯想, 大部分人都會把它們和動作聯想, 我覺得有一種親密感 顯然存在於這些新技術中。 這個想法⋯⋯想像一下, 你可以坐在那裡, 和費茲交談, 或至少費茲對你說話時 可以坐在那裡, 費茲是《醜聞風暴》中的總統, 當他對你說 為什麼他要做出那些選擇時, 那是個非常真誠的時刻。 你不是在看著電視螢幕, 你是坐在他旁邊,和他對談。 當這個人在電視螢幕上 這麼做時就已經能讓你愛上他, 想像一下坐在他旁邊, 或像哈克這個角色, 他正要處死某人。 你眼前不再只有一個場景 是他對著另一個角色快速說話, 而是他走進一間小室, 轉向你,告訴你 接下來發生的事, 和他感到害怕緊張的原因。 這會比較像戲院,我不確定會成功, 但我覺得這個概念 以及它對觀眾的意義,都令人驚艷。 能夠運用那些點子,會很有趣, 我認為,對我的觀眾而言, 看我的節目的人, 也就是從 12 到 75 歲的女性, 對他們來說是有趣的。
CS: And how about the input of the audience? How interested are you in the things where the audience can actually go up to a certain point and then decide, oh wait, I'm going to choose my own adventure. I'm going to run off with Fitz or I'm going to run off with --
辛蒂:那麼觀眾的參與度如何? 你對於這種事有多感興趣? 像是觀眾可能在劇中某個點決定, 喔,等等,我要選擇 有自己的冒險; 我要和費茲私奔,或我要和⋯⋯
SR: Oh, the choose- your-own-adventure stories. I have a hard time with those, and not necessarily because I want to be in control of everything, but because when I'm watching television or I'm watching a movie, I know for a fact that a story is not as good when I have control over exactly what's going to happen to somebody else's character. You know, if I could tell you exactly what I wanted to happen to Walter White, that's great, but the story is not the same, and it's not as powerful. You know, if I'm in charge of how "The Sopranos" ends, then that's lovely and I have an ending that's nice and satisfying, but it's not the same story and it's not the same emotional impact.
珊達:噢,那些 「選擇你自己的冒險」的故事。 它們會讓我困擾, 並不是因為我想要控制一切, 但當我在看電視或電影時, 我知道 當我能完全掌控故事的走向 和別人的角色時, 故事就不會那麼精彩。 如果我能告訴你我希望 沃特懷特發生什麼事, 那很棒,但故事就變了, 它就沒有強大的力量。 如果由我主導《黑道家族》的結局, 那很好,我想要 很棒又讓人滿意的結局, 但那就是不同的故事, 情緒上的衝擊也不同。
CS: I can't stop imagining what that might be. Sorry, you're losing me for a minute.
辛蒂:我無法不去想像 那會是什麼樣子。 抱歉,我出神了一下。
SR: But what's wonderful is I don't get to imagine it, because Vince has his own ending, and it makes it really powerful to know that somebody else has told. You know, if you could decide that, you know, in "Jaws," the shark wins or something, it doesn't do what it needs to do for you. The story is the story that is told, and you can walk away angry and you can walk away debating and you can walk away arguing, but that's why it works. That is why it's art. Otherwise, it's just a game, and games can be art, but in a very different way.
珊達:但很美好的一點是, 我不用去想像它, 因為文斯有他自己的結局, 因為是別人設定的結局, 才讓它那麼強大。 你知道,如果你能決定 《大白鯊》中是不是鯊魚贏, 它就不能發揮原來的作用。 故事就是它被說出來的樣子, 你可以看完很生氣, 或是看完產生激辯, 可以看完產生爭論, 但就是這樣才有效果。 那就是為什麼它是門藝術。 否則,它就是個遊戲。 遊戲也可以是藝術, 但是截然不同的形式。
CS: Gamers who actually sell the right to sit there and comment on what's happening, to me that's more community than storytelling.
辛蒂:遊戲者放棄了觀賞, 而是對劇情產生各種評論。 對我而言,這像是社群論壇, 而不是說故事了。
SR: And that is its own form of campfire. I don't discount that as a form of storytelling, but it is a group form, I suppose.
珊達:而且那就變成 自己的營火晚會了, 我無意貶損, 但這就會變成 集體創作的故事型態了。
CS: All right, what about the super-super -- the fact that everything's getting shorter, shorter, shorter. And, you know, Snapchat now has something it calls shows that are one minute long.
辛迪: 好的。那對於 那些特別特別⋯⋯ 就是事物變得越來越簡短的現象。 妳知道的,社交程式 Snapchat 上 現在流行一種一分鐘長的影片。
SR: It's interesting. Part of me thinks it sounds like commercials. I mean, it does -- like, sponsored by. But part of me also gets it completely. There's something really wonderful about it. If you think about a world in which most people are watching television on their phones, if you think about a place like India, where most of the input is coming in and that's where most of the product is coming in, shorter makes sense. If you can charge people more for shorter periods of content, some distributor has figured out a way to make a lot more money. If you're making content, it costs less money to make it and put it out there. And, by the way, if you're 14 and have a short attention span, like my daughter, that's what you want to see, that's what you want to make, that's how it works. And if you do it right and it actually feels like narrative, people will hang on for it no matter what you do.
珊達:那挺有意思的。 一方面,我認為那很像廣告, 我是說,很像是,被贊助的感覺。 另一方面,我完全理解這個做法。 是種非常棒的做法。 妳想想,世界上 大多數人用手機看電視。 你看像印度, 大部分資訊來自手機, 大多數產品跟和手機相關, 簡短就相當合理。 若可以用簡短的內容 收取更高的費用, 有些發行者發現這是賺大錢的方法。 創造內容的 成本和宣傳費用也會變少。 順道一提, 如果你像我的女兒一樣 14 歲,注意力短, 你就是想看簡短的內容, 你就是想做簡短的內容, 這就是運作的方式。 如果做對得好,能感受到故事性, 無論你怎麼做,人們都會留下來看。
CS: I'm glad you raised your daughters, because I am wondering how are they going to consume entertainment, and also not just entertainment, but news, too. When they're not -- I mean, the algorithmic robot overlords are going to feed them what they've already done. How do you think we will correct for that and make people well-rounded citizens?
珊達:我很高興你有女兒, 因為我很好奇她們如何接收娛樂 和娛樂以外的事, 例如新聞。 當她們仍未⋯⋯被過度的演算法 一貫地根據她們的喜好推播資訊。 你認為我們該如何匡正此現象, 教育觀眾為成熟的公民呢?
SR: Well, me and how I correct for it is completely different than how somebody else might do it.
辛蒂:嗯,我和如何糾正這個問題 跟其他人的做法完全不同。
CS: Feel free to speculate.
辛蒂:請隨意猜測。
SR: I really don't know how we're going to do it in the future. I mean, my poor children have been the subject of all of my experiments. We're still doing what I call "Amish summers" where I turn off all electronics and pack away all their computers and stuff and watch them scream for a while until they settle down into, like, an electronic-free summer. But honestly, it's a very hard world in which now, as grown-ups, we're so interested in watching our own thing, and we don't even know that we're being fed, sometimes, just our own opinions. You know, the way it's working now, you're watching a feed, and the feeds are being corrected so that you're only getting your own opinions and you're feeling more and more right about yourself. So how do you really start to discern? It's getting a little bit disturbing. So maybe it'll overcorrect, maybe it'll all explode, or maybe we'll all just become -- I hate to be negative about it, but maybe we'll all just become more idiotic.
珊達:我真的不知道未來會怎麼樣。 我可憐的孩子們一直是我實驗的對象, 我們仍推行所謂的「阿米什夏天」, 我會關掉所有電子裝置、 收走她們的電腦等玩意、 讓她們叫囂,直到慢慢冷靜下來 過一個沒有電子用品的暑假。 但老實說,這是個充滿挑戰的世界, 就連我們身為大人 都如此想看我們想看的, 而不知道我們被灌輸的 有時只是我們的個別見解。 目前的運作模式是, 你在網上看個推播資訊, 推播給你的資訊就會被更動, 這樣你就會只收到 跟你想法一致的內容, 你就會對自己越來越肯定。 你要如何開始察覺? 這些開始變得令人不舒服。 可能它們會矯枉過正, 可能它們會過於泛濫, 或者我們全部都會變成⋯⋯ 我討厭把它想得如此負面, 但可能我們終將變得更加白癡。
(Cyndi laughs)
(辛蒂大笑)
CS: Yeah, can you picture any corrective that you could do with scripted, fictional work?
辛蒂:對,你可以想像 在編寫虛構的作品中 修正什麼事嗎?
SR: I think a lot about the fact that television has the power to educate people in a powerful way, and when you're watching television -- for instance, they do studies about medical shows. I think it's 87 percent, 87 percent of people get most of their knowledge about medicine and medical facts from medical shows, much more so than they do from their doctors, than from articles. So we work really hard to be accurate, and every time we make a mistake, I feel really guilty, like we're going to do something bad, but we also give a lot of good medical information. There are so many other ways to give information on those shows. People are being entertained and maybe they don't want to read the news, but there are a lot of ways to give fair information out on those shows, not in some creepy, like, we're going to control people's minds way, but in a way that's sort of very interesting and intelligent and not about pushing one side's version or the other, like, giving out the truth. It would be strange, though, if television drama was how we were giving the news.
珊達:我常常思考, 電視有強大的力量 來教育群眾, 當你在看電視時, 譬如,關於醫學節目的研究。 我想有 87% 的人, 他們大部分的醫學常識 來自於醫學節目, 遠多於他們從醫生口中得知, 或是從閱讀醫學文章而來的。 所以我們力求準確,每次我們犯錯 我都感到非常愧疚, 像做了壞事一樣, 但我們也分享了 很多有用的醫學資訊。 在那些節目上提供資訊有很多種方式, 觀眾把這些當作消遣, 或者他們並不想閱讀新聞, 但在節目上有很多提供 適當資訊的方式, 而不是恐怖的方式,好像 我們要操縱觀眾的思想, 而是一種有趣又慧黠的形式, 而不把單一觀點推給觀眾, 像是,交代事實真相。 即使這樣聽起來很奇怪, 好像要用電視劇做新聞。
CS: It would be strange, but I gather a lot of what you've written as fiction has become prediction this season?
辛蒂:的確會很奇怪, 但我想,很多你虛構出來的故事 如今已成為這一季的預測?
SR: You know, "Scandal" has been very disturbing for that reason. We have this show that's about politics gone mad, and basically the way we've always told the show -- you know, everybody pays attention to the papers. We read everything. We talk about everything. We have lots of friends in Washington. And we'd always sort of done our show as a speculation. We'd sit in the room and think, what would happen if the wheels came off the bus and everything went crazy? And that was always great, except now it felt like the wheels were coming off the bus and things were actually going crazy, so the things that we were speculating were really coming true. I mean, our season this year was going to end with the Russians controlling the American election, and we'd written it, we'd planned for it, it was all there, and then the Russians were suspected of being involved in the American election and we suddenly had to change what we were going to do for our season. I walked in and I was like, "That scene where our mystery woman starts speaking Russian? We have to fix that and figure out what we're going to do." That just comes from extrapolating out from what we thought was going to happen, or what we thought was crazy.
珊達:因此《醜聞風暴》一直很擾人。 這個節目在講 政治的一發不可收拾── 基本上我們告訴節目製作, 每個人都會留意報紙的報導。 我們閱讀大小事、談論大小事。 我們在華盛頓有很多朋友, 而我們把自己的節目當作一種推測。 我們會圍坐在房間揣想, 如果發生錯誤,一發不可收拾, 所有事完全失控怎麼辦? 而結果通常很棒。 只不過現在感覺一切真的要大亂, 所有事真的要失控, 我們揣想過的情節竟然成為現實。 今年,我們這一季 曾打算以俄羅斯操控 美國大選的事作結, 我們編寫內容、計劃一切, 準備就緒, 然後俄羅斯就被捲入 美國大選的風波中, 我們突然得修改這一季的一切準備。 走進房間的時候,我說, 「神秘女郎開始說俄語那幕? 我們要改掉,想想要怎樣做。」 那只是推斷得來的, 從我們原來認為會發生、 或以為很瘋狂的事推斷而來的。
CS: That's great. So where else in US or elsewhere in the world do you look? Who is doing interesting storytelling right now?
辛蒂:那是很棒的事。 那從你的角度,在美國或任何地方 誰在說有趣的故事呢?
SR: I don't know, there's a lot of interesting stuff out there. Obviously British television is always amazing and always does interesting things. I don't get to watch a lot of TV, mainly because I'm busy working. And I pretty much try not to watch very much television at all, even American television, until I'm done with a season, because things start to creep into my head otherwise. I start to wonder, like, why can't our characters wear crowns and talk about being on a throne? It gets crazy. So I try not to watch much until the seasons are over. But I do think that there's a lot of interesting European television out there. I was at the International Emmys and looking around and seeing the stuff that they were showing, and I was kind of fascinated. There's some stuff I want to watch and check out.
珊達:不知道,有很多有趣的事。 英國的電視節目明顯令人驚艷, 也一直在製作有趣的節目。 我無法常看電視, 主要是因為太忙於工作。 同時在我忙完一季工作前, 我也儘量少看電視, 即使那是美國電視節目。 否則內容會不知不覺佔據我的腦袋。 我就會開始想, 為什麼角色不可以戴著皇冠 談論身為王室的感想? 這很荒唐。 所以一季節目結束前我不會看太多, 但我的確認為有很多有趣的 歐洲電視節目。 我之前在國際艾美奬頒獎禮上, 四處觀賞他們展出的東西, 而我被迷住了。 有不少我想看也想多知道的內容。
CS: Can you imagine -- I know that you don't spend a lot of time thinking about tech stuff, but you know how a few years ago we had someone here at TED talking about seeing, wearing Google Glass and seeing your TV shows essentially in your eye? Do you ever fantasize when, you know -- the little girl who sat on the pantry floor in your parents' house, did you ever imagine any other medium? Or would you now?
辛蒂:你可否想像⋯⋯ 我知道你並沒有太多時間研究科技, 但你知道幾年前有人在 TED 談到觀看、 戴著谷歌眼鏡看電視 幾乎等於從眼睛裡看? 你有沒有幻想過 當你仍是那個坐在你父母家中 廚房地板上的小女孩時, 有一天會出現其他媒介嗎? 或者你現在有想過這個問題?
SR: Any other medium. For storytelling, other than books? I mean, I grew up wanting to be Toni Morrison, so no. I mean, I didn't even imagine television. So the idea that there could be some bigger world, some more magical way of making things --- I'm always excited when new technology comes out and I'm always the first one to want to try it. The possibilities feel endless and exciting right now, which is what excites me. We're in this sort of Wild West period, to me, it feels like, because nobody knows what we're going to settle on. You can put stories anywhere right now and that's cool to me, and it feels like once we figure out how to get the technology and the creativity of storytelling to meet, the possibilities are endless.
珊達:任何其他媒介。 用書本以外講故事的媒介? 我小時候希望長大後會變成 童妮摩里森,所以不! 我連電視都沒有想過。 所以,想到會有一個更大的世界、 有更魔幻的方式去創造事物⋯⋯ 我總會對新科技的推出感到興奮, 而我總是第一個希望嘗試的人。 這些新機會感覺無止盡 也很令人興奮, 這也是吸引我的部分。 我覺得我們好像處於蠻荒西部時期, 因為沒人知道我們將如何定型。 現在你把故事放在哪裡都可以, 這對我來說是很酷的事。 不過,一旦我們找到將科技 和說故事的創意結合的方式, 那將有無限的可能性。
CS: And also the technology has enabled the thing I briefly flew by earlier, binge-viewing, which is a recent phenomenon, since you've been doing shows, right? And how do you think does that change the storytelling process at all? You always had a bible for the whole season beforehand, right?
辛蒂:科技也允許 我剛提過的事發生—— 觀看狂熱,這是最近有的現象, 自你製作節目開始,對吧? 你認為這現象會改變 說故事的過程嗎? 你永遠都有本整個季度的 節目聖經在手,是嗎?
SR: No, I just always knew where we were going to end. So for me, the only way I can really comment on that is that I have a show that's been going on for 14 seasons and so there are the people who have been watching it for 14 seasons, and then there are the 12-year-old girls I'd encounter in the grocery store who had watched 297 episodes in three weeks. Seriously, and that's a very different experience for them, because they've been inside of something really intensely for a very short period of time in a very intense way, and to them the story has a completely different arc and a completely different meaning because it never had any breaks.
珊達:不,我只是 總知道什麼時候要結束。 所以對我來說, 我可以作出評論的唯一方法, 是當有個已經播了 14 季的節目, 有人已經追看了 14 季, 而我在超市遇到幾個 12 歲女孩 用了三個星期追完 297 集。 對他們來說那是非常不同的體驗, 因為他們一直沉浸其中, 用極短的時間, 以強烈的方式, 對他們而言,整個故事是不一樣的, 有不一樣的意義, 因為他們看的故事從來沒有中斷過。
CS: It's like visiting a country and then leaving it. It's a strange --
辛蒂:就像遊覽完一個國家, 然後就離開了。感覺很奇怪⋯⋯
SR: It's like reading an amazing novel and then putting it down. I think that is the beauty of the experience. You don't necessarily have to watch something for 14 seasons. It's not necessarily the way everything's supposed to be.
珊達:就像讀完一本精彩的小說, 然後把它放下。 我想這就是體驗的美好, 你不一定要追看一套 14 季的節目, 這不見得是每件事該有的形式。
CS: Is there any topic that you don't think we should touch?
辛蒂:有任何你不想談的話題嗎?
SR: I don't think I think of story that way. I think of story in terms of character and what characters would do and what characters need to do in order to make them move forward, so I'm never really thinking of story in terms of just plot, and when writers come into my writer's room and pitch me plot, I say, "You're not speaking English." Like, that's the thing I say. We're not speaking English. I need to hear what's real. And so I don't think of it that way. I don't know if there's a way to think there's something I wouldn't do because that feels like I'm plucking pieces of plot off a wall or something.
珊達:我不認為我是這樣看故事的, 我認為故事是以人物, 以及他們會怎麼做、 必須怎麼做來讓故事繼續發展, 所以我從不只以情節構想故事, 當作者走入我的工作室 說服我加入某些情節時, 我會說:「你不是在說英文。」 我真的會這樣說。 我們不是在說英文, 我要聽到真實的部分, 所以我不會這樣想故事。 我不知道有沒有辦法 去思考我不會接觸的題材, 因為那就像要我從牆上 拔出情節的碎片一樣。
CS: That's great. To what extent do you think you will use -- You know, you recently went on the board of Planned Parenthood and got involved in the Hillary Clinton campaign. To what extent do you think you will use your storytelling in the real world to effect change?
辛蒂:好,你認為你會怎樣運用⋯⋯ 你最近成為「計劃生育」的董事, 又參與了希拉蕊的助選活動, 你認為你會怎麼用說故事的能力, 在現實世界中 帶來強而有力的改變?
SR: Well, you know, there's -- That's an intense subject to me, because I feel like the lack of narrative that a lot of people have is difficult. You know, like, there's a lot of organizations that don't have a positive narrative that they've created for themselves that would help them. There's a lot of campaigns that could be helped with a better narrative. The Democrats could do a lot with a very strong narrative for themselves. There's a lot of different things that could happen in terms of using storytelling voice, and I don't mean that in a fiction way, I mean that in a same way that any speechwriter would mean it. And I see that, but I don't necessarily know that that's, like, my job to do that.
珊達:嗯,你知道,那⋯⋯ 對我來說是一個尖銳的問題, 因為我覺得那缺少明確的陳述 對許多人來說很困難。 有很多組織 沒有為自己創造一個正面的陳述 來幫助自己。 有很多政治或商業活動 只需要一個好的陳述。 民主黨可以做更多事, 只要他們有一個令人信服的陳述。 以運用說故事來表達而言, 可能讓很多不同的事情發生, 我不是指以虛構的形式, 而是指每個為政治家寫演講稿的人 都會認同的實際方式。 我可以想見, 但我不確定那⋯⋯是不是我的工作。
CS: All right.
辛蒂:好的。
Please help me thank Shonda. SR: Thank you.
請替我感謝珊達。 珊達:謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)