Uncle Pauline tells stories
| Himalma anchor
"Shan Hai Jing : Goblin School" | representative works
Beijing | living city
Versatile, childlike | characteristics of the work
01: Transition from radio host to child story anchor
In 2003, Zhou Baolin entered the Beijing People's Radio and Television Station, successively serving as a producer and editor in more than ten radio programs, and creating a number of film and television drama works.
In 2015, Zhou Baolin's career ushered in an inflection point.
At this time, Himalayas was in the stage of development, and Zhou Baolin, who had been dealing with audio content for many years, became the early anchor of Himalaya.
"In the process of telling stories to my children, I enjoyed it, because I myself worked in the broadcast industry, and I also had the idea of telling stories to more children, but there was no clear plan for what content to talk about and what direction to develop."
After communicating with the Himalayan team, Zhou Paulin's children's story debut "Twelve Bedtime Stories" (now renamed "25 Minutes a Day | Uncle Pauline Tells Stories") was officially broadcast in the Himalayas, and he also knocked on the door of children's education with the title of "Uncle Pauline Storytelling".
In 2016, Zhou Baolin officially served as the host of the Beijing Radio brand column "The Story Pocket of the Hairy Dog", and at the same time founded the brand column "Uncle Pauline Tells Stories". At present, "Uncle Pauline Telling Stories" has been simulcast on more than 100 radio stations across the country, covering about 256 million people in 26 provinces across the country, with a radio arrival rate of 74%.
Zhou Baolin said that after switching to the direction of children's stories, I was happier, and contact with children made me feel very relaxed. But the development of the field of children's stories brings not only emotional pleasure, but also a sense of urgency to constantly recharge themselves.
Unlike ordinary children's story radio anchors, just read stories that have been written. Zhou Also plays the role of creator and educator. Using stories to guide children to make the right choices and establish the right concepts has always been the direction of his efforts.
"It's human nature to like to listen to stories. Package the educational content with stories, make them into 'sugar-coated cannonballs', evade the brain 'filter', and let the knowledge sneak into the child's brain. This is 'story education', following the child's nature and educating the child in the most acceptable way for the child, in order to achieve the best results. Zhou Paulin said metaphorically.
At the height of the smog in Beijing, Zhou Baolin found that his son did not like to wear a mask, so he created "The Story of Sandy with a Small Mask" based on "Sandy". "I told my son the original story prototype and then gave him a new mask and said it was 'Sandy'. The son was particularly excited, eager to sleep with 'Sandy' in his arms at night, and the next day he happily wore 'Sandy' to kindergarten. ”
In addition to Zhou Baolin's son, many children who heard this story also obediently put on masks, and parents left messages in the background to express their gratitude to Teacher Zhou.
Uncle Paulin's story education allows children to subtly form good habits, bringing more space for parents and teachers to reflect and improve.
02: Sound can carry more functions
In the era when visual information fills the screen, sound is like a flower in a crack, becoming a spiritual outlet to soothe people's impetuous hearts.
"The energy generated by sound is not a substitute for vision products. The characters conveyed in the cartoon are what the children see, but if I say that there is a palace in front of you now, everyone imagines a different answer, which is why I have always insisted on deepening in the field of audio communication. ”
In order to give full play to the imagination of children, in many stories, he will tell some characters or pictures out of a rough outline, and the details in the outline are filled by children.
The voice opens up to a universe where many people will meet for a wonderful date.
Zhou Baolin tells children's stories, but friends of other ages often appear in the comment area, some of whom are grandparents, parents and even some office workers.
"My show attracts a lot of different types of people. Although it is said that children are educated with stories, some adults also long for the missing parts of their education to be filled in a certain period of time, my stories involve knowledge education, aesthetic art, three views of cultivation and other aspects, in a way, my story may be applicable to most people. ”
Using only sound, you can even complete interactions across time and space distances.
Preset foreshadowing in the program is a big reason why Zhou Baolin is deeply loved. He often makes a small reversal of the story, and many children will guess the ending of the story in the process of listening to the story, but he often excludes the results that the children may think of and creates a biased result.
"When I live, children often ask me how the ending of various stories is set. This is a very good way for children to keep thinking and increase participation during the listening process. ”
In order to let the children really feel the charm brought by the sound, Zhou Baolin even invited some small listeners to participate in the production of the program, through their own personal guidance to let them understand how different sounds are emitted, and how the programs they usually like to listen to are produced.
The Himalayan circle is a common tool for Zhou Paulin to interact with children. Through messages and comments, he can understand the direction that children like and adjust the content of his program.
"The difference between 'Uncle Pauline Telling Stories' and the general traditional radio program is that our production method is similar to the production of film and television dramas, and when updating the album synchronously, I ask my team not to produce a lot in advance, but to see the children's feedback on each character and plot. The feedback time is about a week, and the plot of the story is also readjusted in the next week. This keeps the content fresh. ”
03: The Himalayas are the main battlefield
The Himalayas are the main battlefield of Zhou Paulin's creation.
"I am very grateful to himalayas, whose support over the years has made me feel grounded and cordial. Every time the teachers of the Himalaya team communicate with us, they will provide a lot of practical help in content planning, future development, and technical support. Especially under the premise of children's content gradually improving, Himalaya can still give us such a team that pursues more high-quality content greater support, which is really amazing! ”
Continuous attention and support by the platform, to make satisfactory results, so that Zhou Baolin and his team are full of energy. He didn't want to turn the show into a fragmented piece, but to form a system that would distinguish it from ordinary producers.
Last year, Zhou Baolin and his team determined the framework for the future development of the program - left-handed science, right-handed mythology.
Scientifically, they created the story of the "Jiaolong Junior Expedition Team" and created an account to log on to the Himalayas simultaneously. With China's cutting-edge scientific and technological achievements as the background, the content covers the mainland's world-renowned achievements in aerospace, deep-sea exploration, high-speed railways, cross-sea bridges and other scientific and technological fields, the story is thrilling, suspenseful, cultivating children's scientific thinking and rich imagination, the content has been reviewed by the famous domestic scientist team.
"Jiaolong Junior Expedition Team"
In terms of mythology, Zhou Baolin's team took the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" as the model, referred to the historical materials collected by many historians, and structured the two main lines of the list of gods and the Journey to the West, and made a big combing of the traditional Chinese mythological content, making it a complete system of the Chinese mythological universe.
High-quality content needs to support each other with commercialization.
Zhou Baolin is quite satisfied with his commercialization in the Himalayas, "In 2017, the "Journey to the West" I told the children was launched on the Himalayas, and the number of listeners was more than 8 million a day, and at least 3 or 4 million. Since then, my show revenue has been able to fully support the content creation of our team of nine people. There are also many mother and baby brands that find us through Himalaya, and Himalaya helps us filter out many brands, saving us the energy of screening, which is a great choice. ”
Regarding the future, Zhou Baolin is full of confidence and hopes to cooperate with experts in different fields through Himalayas to create more high-quality content in children's education, open up the advantages of the platform and the advantages of content, and send out his own dazzling light on this platform.
Host Q&A
Q: What offline events have been held?
Zhou Baolin: Story contests and carnivals have been held. Our theme carnival is still very influential, each session will have a lot of families involved, the third session is done with Phoenix TV, the effect is particularly good. I hope that after the epidemic, I can cooperate with Himalayas and do some more interesting activities.
Q: How did you get on the path of broadcast hosting?
Zhou Baolin: In fact, in middle and high school, I was very introverted, wanting to express but not daring to express. When I was a sophomore, I realized that I had to break through, so I joined the school art troupe, walked to the front of the stage, kept performing, and found another piece of the sky. When I first started out as an editor and journalist, I always liked the field of broadcasting, and when I was in college, I also had experience as a host and an actor, so I became a radio host.
Q: How do you polish your child-facing story?
Zhou Baolin: The stories given to children should be related to their own lives, but also have a sense of freshness, and must also reflect a certain degree of interaction. So before I create, I often talk to the familiar children around me about what they like, ask for advice from small listeners and parents online, meet their preferences with the overall story direction, and enhance the interaction between them in a reversed way.
*The article features images provided by the anchor