Blowout food documentary, confused about the future?

Food documentaries gradually become social and humanistic documentaries?

If you pick a C position for the documentary market, the type of food with the highest annual output is naturally a strong contender that cannot be bypassed.

"Top food" "Life A String 3" and "Flavor of the World 3" have been broadcast at the end of 2021, jointly supporting the year-end carnival of "national foodies", and the traffic and word-of-mouth brought by the two works have also further triggered the industry's rethinking of the road to the upgrading of food documentaries.

In 2012, "China on the Tip of the Tongue" truly realized that the food documentary broke the circle, after nearly ten years of development, the food documentary in the national audience "foodie gene", no longer mechanically introduce the types of food, share food stories, promote mainstream values, but with food as the introduction, truly record the current Chinese society's character image and natural landscape, the formation of food first, characters and culture occupy the core, natural scenery (city atmosphere) supplemented by the creative idea, Thus further catering to the tastes of today's young audiences.

The number of food documentaries created in 2021 is still blowing up, and while fierce competition is fierce, what are the innovative factors of the year for the food narrators who are gradually questioned? Under the saturated market, how to alleviate the obstruction of word of mouth? The key is, in the development stage of the next new decade, how can more remembered "Chen Xiaoqing" be born?

The works that sit on the double harvest of word-of-mouth and traffic belong to the aforementioned "Life String 3" and "Flavor of the World 3", and the producers behind the two works, Station B and Tencent Video, whether in the number of works or in the overall topic traffic, the strong performance of the two is undoubtedly the number one player in the food documentary track in recent years.

Video sites with Tencent Video and Station B as the main representatives are intensifying the harvesting speed of food documentaries.

Since the 2018 "Father of the Tip of the Tongue" Chen Xiaoqing (the general director of "China on the Tip of the Tongue 1, 2") officially announced his joining Tencent Video, Tencent Video's "food universe" has gradually taken shape, and the works that have been scored on Douban in 2021 alone include "Flavor in the World 3", "Flavor Origin • Guiyang", "Boiling Bar Hot Pot 2" participated in by Chen Xiaoqing's team, and "Start It!" cooperated with local satellite television. Seafood", homemade IP "Eclipse of the Day", "Towards the Direction of Supper 2" and so on.

Food documentaries are also of far-reaching significance to Station B.

According to the 2020 B station Guangzhou international documentary official propaganda data, the number of B station documentary users has exceeded 90 million, and the food category is undoubtedly an important weight that B station needs to maintain this group of young users, and B station is launching the "unavoidable food ji" series to continue to maintain the heat. The effect is also remarkable, "A String of Life 3", "Small Town Night Food 2", "The First Meal", "Strange Food", "I Powder You", "Come to Supper" and many other works, the achievements in data and word-of-mouth should not be underestimated.

With the strong support of the platform, the attention and topic volume will naturally rise. Although the current food documentary can not be compared with the traffic of popular dramas and variety shows, it has shown a significant growth rate, from only 2 hits in 2018 to about 5 in 2021, while "Flavor of the World 3", which is still updated, has reached 290 million hits, and it is not a problem to finally break 1 billion like the previous series.

The "unit series" is the mainstream of the current food documentary market, and under the series, the length of a single episode is also different, including a single episode of more than 40 minutes of "long film" "Life a String 3", "Taste of Lao Guang 6", about 30 minutes of "medium film", "Flavor of the World 4", "Fireworks And Taste", etc., less than 15 minutes of "light film", "Next Meal", "Boiling Bar Hot Pot 2", "Start! Seafood", "Let's Supper", etc., the platform side has set the length of a single episode to meet the tastes of different audiences.

Tencent Video's battle with Station B on food documentaries has also spawned creators to rack their brains to talk about differentiation for different food categories and different groups of people. Looking back at this batch of works in 2021, it is not difficult to find that almost every stroke and stroke of the word "food" has been singled out to sing the protagonist, and the core pursuit of food documentaries has been further highlighted in 2021.

The content selection is changeable, and the two cores pursue the same

Judging from the list of food documentaries in 2021, the content selection presents the following key directions -

First, geographical distribution is the choice of most creative teams.

Works such as "Taste of Lao Guang 6", "Zhiwei Xinjiang", "Proud Hunan Cuisine", "Flavor Origin Guiyang" and other works are typical representatives. For the documentary channels of various local satellite televisions across the country, the region to do food documentaries, with the help of local food culture, can show the natural scenery and humanistic scenery of the hometown, create a characteristic city label, but also continue to meet the pride of local audiences, and continue to attract national audiences to travel and sightseeing.

This operation path also provides a mature set of samples for platform-side cooperation with local government content.

The creators of the documentary go deep into the localities, and the gastronomic characteristics are matched with the style of the people, customs, folk customs, etc., and the narrative methodology of this set of food stories is more attractive.

Second, the thematic creation of specific types of food, such as the hot pot theme "Boiling Bar Hot Pot 2", the home-cooked food series "Next Meal", the barbecue-themed "Life String" series, and the "I Powder You" subdivided into the Chinese rice noodle complex and so on.

The theme of such documentaries is more distinct, the topic is more vertical, and the psychology of accurately radiating the type of diners to "check for leaks and fill in the gaps" and "watch the guide suggestions" will cover a type of food in an all-round way, such as "Boiling Bar Hot Pot 2" from 6 themes, exploring 18 kinds of "cold and not cold" hot pot; "I Powder You" uses five episodes of stories to introduce more than a dozen kinds of rice noodles with different "personalities" and different tastes in the southern region, forming a major feature; the "String of Life" series covers the unique barbecue culture of all parts of China. More than 500 barbecue stalls in nearly 30 cities continue to grow into one of the hottest series of IPs for Chinese food documentaries.

Third, it is simply and rudely divided according to the food time period, and it is also a flattering choice that gradually forms a content system, and the theme of morning, middle, night and supper does not set too much limit on the type of food. "Leave the troubles to yesterday, let the breakfast open today's hope", "The First Meal", in a witty and humorous way, explores the taste of China's morning rise hidden deep in the city; "Towards the Direction of Supper 2" focuses on the end of the day, healing fatigue through supper, and ending the busy life with a sense of ritual.

Although the food documentary market in 2021 is huge, it will continue to explore more differentiated content by focusing on subdivided content, making each other very different, so that audiences can better understand the essence of food.

Although today's food documentaries will innovate and explore ingredients, regions and forms, there are two core themes that cannot be avoided: first, the pursuit of artistic ingenuity; second, constantly explore the humanistic care behind food.

The inner volume of the pursuit of art in food documentaries is largely opened by the team of Chen Xiaoqing behind the "Flavor of the World" series. Chen Xiaoqing's documentary style generally starts with a relatively grand brushstroke, examining the unique charm of Chinese food culture from a broader perspective, among which the food culture information is detailed and emphasizes the relationship between food and history and region and humanities.

In the "Rooting" narrative of "Flavor of the World 1", Chen Xiaoqing's team traced a wheat seed from northwest China to the origin of Iran, and searched for flavor roots in gastronomic differences, while the creation of the series, the whole team lasted 2 years, spanned 5 continents around the world, and visited more than 20 countries, which needed the top documentary creation scale to support.

The subtitle of "Flavor of the World 3" is "Sea Fresh", which is more lively than the previous two seasons that focused on the theme of "seafood", such as the fourth episode of "Catch the Sea. "The Comings and Goings" takes the audience on a professional immersive journey to the sea. It is reported that in order to study crabs, Chen Xiaoqing's team read millions of words of information, after consulting more than 800 crab varieties in China, Chen Xiaoqing was not satisfied, until he photographed "a particularly sweet crab" in Lushun, called Red Jia Hong.

Humanistic care is also an eternal topic of food documentaries now, and the creators interpret the temperature treatment contained in people through different perspectives, such as family affection, friendship, love, and even kindness between strangers.

Focus on a certain character to show the world, its typical work is the "String of Life" series created by Station B.

The "String of Life" series has formed a casual and rough brand style with thick fireworks, likes to use a strong visual stimulation of a single knife, with the narration of the city atmosphere and the highlight moments of the behind-the-scenes characters, to build a barbecue that young people can't forget. At this time, the audience will draw from the etiquette ceremonies, dinner table order, and strong local fireworks that traditional food documentaries often contain, and the interpersonal relationship is no longer the relationship between the three generations of grandparents, but friends, colleagues and strangers who hate each other, when the young audience enters a more intimate and familiar eating environment, they will enjoy a new and exciting food journey.

In addition, the "String of Life" series is also full of the aesthetic taste of the "Net Life Generation", and its explanatory style is also full of youthful language, and the overall display is extremely strong pyrotechnics. For example, the title of a single episode, the first season's "No Meat No Joy", "Darker Than the Night", "The Protest of the Teeth", the second season's "How Many Of You", "Our Family Features", "Next Time"... In addition to being playful and witty, it also brings new thinking to documentary creation.