The Paper's reporter Xu Minghui intern Du Yitong
In the fast-paced era when traffic is king, there is a documentary about "book" that not only attracted Hu Ge to participate in the dubbing throughout the process, but also won the affirmation of countless young audiences. On the eve of the Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger, the second season of "But There Are Books" produced by Station B was launched, continuing the style of the first season and expanding the horizons, this documentary focuses on those who are still adhering to their ideals - publishing editors, libraries in cities and grasslands, cartoonists, translators, book collectors, by recording the various book lovers of this era, capturing those book-related stories for the audience.
At the end of 2019, the first season of "But There Are Books" was widely acclaimed after the first season was launched, with a Douban score of 9.0 points in the first season, and also won the Best TV Documentary Award at the 30th China Television Golden Eagle Awards and the Best Series Documentary Nomination at the 26th Shanghai TV Festival Magnolia Awards.
Documentary poster
How to make documentaries that young people like?
How can a documentary on a niche subject like a book be made with both depth and good look?
The library, one of the quietest corners of the city, but the most active thoughts, the first episode of the second season of "But There Are Books" begins in the library, telling the story of a group of seemingly ordinary people who have great skills and devote themselves to the library business out of love for books.
Every morning at 7 o'clock, the figure of Shen Xieyuan, a 98-year-old version cataloger, always appears on the bus to the Nanjing Library on time, and the documentary footage follows the old man from his home to the beginning of the bus.
Master Shen Xieyuan, a 98-year-old version cataloger
Shen Xieyuan is a veteran figure in the field of domestic version bibliography, he has been dealing with ancient books for a lifetime, known as the "living dictionary of ancient books", through the observation of line grid, avoidance, engraving, paper, font, seal, Shen Xieyuan can easily distinguish the version and authenticity of ancient books. "It's not a blowing word, as soon as [the book] is taken up, I know what it is, the Ming Dynasty or the Qing Dynasty." The footage of the documentary recorded Shen Lao's proud expression.
Elder Shen said: As soon as you put the book on it, you will know what age it is
Since the 1940s, Shen Xieyuan has been immersed in library work under the guidance of interest, and in the study of edition bibliography, this difficult field of studying ancient book editions and sources, Shen Xieyuan has been doing it for seventy years. When it comes to various experiences in buying books, Shen Xieyuan gushed endlessly, and also imparted experience: "Buying books is equivalent to making a girlfriend, don't talk about it before you succeed, if you talk about it, you won't succeed." ”
In this episode, in addition to Master Shen Xieyuan, there are also national librarians who are fluent in Japanese, English, French, Greek, Latin and other languages, gu Xiaojun, a learned "sweeping monk"; there is also a monk from the Ganzi Tibetan area of Sichuan Province, Jigme, who built a public welfare library on the Tagong Grassland in his hometown, and a group of local children who love to read and write... Sunrise and sunset, the library welcomes a large number of people every day, providing readers and friends with a quiet and comfortable world, just as an audience member left a message "This peace of mind is my hometown", the library's momentary leisure allows them to harvest inner peace in the chaotic world.
A library on the prairie
A Douban netizen wrote a short comment to the documentary, "You can always be in tears for some pure persistence." "The various characters who appear in the documentary, their lifelong love and persistence, show the audience a firm belief and courage not to be disturbed by the world."
Zhao Jia, at the age of seventeen, shocked the comic book industry with her work "Black Blood".
In the story of the second episode of the second season, "Becoming a Cartoonist", Zhao Jia, who was famous in the comic book industry at the age of seventeen and was known as a comic book wizard, although in the following twenty years, she encountered many twists and turns in her life, and also experienced the ups and downs of the national comics, but under the heavy blows, she never gave up and still adhered to her comic ideals. "There were sixpence all over the place, but he looked up and saw the moon." In addition to cartoonists like Zhao Jia, there are many more writers, translators, editors, and binding designers, hiding behind the book, obscurity but sticking to the brightest light in their hearts.
"But There Are Books" animates the ups and downs of the cartoonist Zhao Jia's life
Carl Sagan once said: "Books break the shackles of time and prove that human beings can do miracles." "The documentary is also a key to open the door of the book, so that the audience cherishes every piece of the fate with the book even more." The emergence of "But there are books" is not only a carnival of insiders in the "book circle", but also in these people, things and things related to books, the audience in front of the screen also draws energy from it, rekindles the interest in reading, and firmly pursues the footsteps of dreams.
Make it easier for documentaries to get out of the loop
For a long time, the positioning of the documentary is the three highest people with high age, high education and high income, and the circle layering is more obvious, but the B station breaks this point. In 2016, the documentary "I Repair Cultural Relics in the Forbidden City" was successfully released from the circle at Station B, making the originally extremely niche film a hit on the Internet, and also allowing Station B to see the possibility of creating a new online new school documentary. Zhu Xianliang, senior consultant of the documentary of station B, introduced to the surging news reporter: "In order to let more young people fall in love with documentaries in station B, we create documentaries loved by young people in a lively form and rich in network content according to the characteristics of generation Z users. Add a variety of creative elements such as animation, theater, and special effects to make the documentary both profound and beautiful. ”
Later, "But There Are Books" configured animation screens for a lot of content.
In addition to the content and form close to the preferences of young people, the documentary creative team also set aside some bullet screen points during video editing according to the bullet screen culture, which is convenient for the audience to communicate while watching the video and let the bullet screen fly for a while. As mentioned in the documentary "But There Are Books", Yuan Zhesheng, the author of "Lonely Game", was praised by Zhang Dachun as "one of the two writers who supported the 21st century Taiwanese novel". At this time, the audience on the bullet screen wondered who the other writer was, followed by a bullet screen replying that another writer was Huang Guojun," Zhu Xianliang said, "Which is undoubtedly a small science popularization for the audience watching the video later." Not only that, the audience will also point out some problems in the video content in the bullet screen, such as in the documentary "Those Things in History", a shot of Su Dongpo holding a line-bound book was pointed out by the careful audience to be wrong, the emergence of line-bound books in history should be in the Southern Song Dynasty, and it was not yet popular in the Northern Song Dynasty period where Su Dongpo was located, so the use of wire-bound books in the video was not rigorous. It is the active interaction of a large number of viewers on the bullet screen that helps viewers gain additional knowledge and experience, and also helps video creators make better works. ”
In order to encourage the development of the documentary market, Station B announced the "Dark Room Light Plan", which solicits proposals for excellent documentary works from UP owners and documentary enthusiasts for all documentary practitioners and documentary fans. When talking about the selection criteria for documentaries, Zhu Xianliang said: "It is not based on commercial value and traffic as the criterion for judging the quality of documentaries, but to measure its value by whether it can meet the user attributes of the community." ”
Responsible Editor: Liang Jia Photo Editor: Shen Ke
Proofreader: Shi Gong