Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Li Li
The first documentary in China with the theme of the revitalization of ancient Chinese books, "Ancient Books Through Time and Space", recently ended in watermelon video. This Medium Video Documentary, created by the original team of "But There Are Books", is only about 15 minutes per episode, but it has attracted the welcome of many viewers: "So interesting! "It's not a long time, so it's good for dinner." "After reading it, I want to make a crab stuffed orange!"
A reproduction of Song Dynasty cuisine in the film
The revitalization of ancient books is an unfamiliar field for the general audience. Ye Shen, the general director of the documentary, recently admitted in an exclusive interview with a reporter from Yangcheng Evening News that this subject is more difficult than "But there are books", "but it is very worth doing". He said they tried to balance professionalism and popularity, "opening a window" for the audience, and "after watching it, they may explore this treasure house of Chinese civilization more deeply."
"Yangcheng Evening News" reported on April 22
Reproduction: Watching the Song Dynasty people eat "crab stuffed orange", the audience is hungry and crying
Ancient Books Through Time tells the story of how contemporary researchers and artists have made ancient books "come alive". But from another point of view, it also allows the audience to get a glimpse of the life of ancient Chinese people through ancient books.
The first episode of "Feast in Ancient Books" made many viewers "cry". The protagonist of this episode is the writer Lu Ran, who and his team spent 5 years reproducing more than 300 Song Dynasty delicacies. In the documentary, he demonstrated the practice of Song Dynasty cuisine such as "crab stuffed orange", and in the process popularized many Song people eating crabs. For example, the Song Dynasty was the climax of China's first crab eating, every autumn, no crab can climb out of the Kitchen of the Song People; Su Dongpo likes to eat bad crabs, and Song Gaozong's favorite is to wash his hands; the best companion of Song Dynasty crabs is oranges, so there is a verse cloud "Orange crabs are fat and fat".
Lu Ran and his friends recreate Song Dynasty cuisine
With the spread of "Feast in Ancient Books", Beijing Guanfu Museum recently held a "Song Feast Through Time and Space", and the main creator of "Ancient Books Through Time and Space" and Ma Weidu, founder of Beijing Guanfu Museum, Hong Huang, a well-known media person, and Zhang Zhiqing, deputy director of the National Library, tasted the reproduced Song Dynasty cuisine. The "banquet" was broadcast live on Douyin, attracting many netizens to watch.
"Song Feast Through Time" live broadcast
In addition to learning the practices of Song Dynasty cuisine such as the cold dish "Shan Hai Du" recorded in the ancient book "Shan Jia Qing Offering", people also learned a lot of "cold knowledge" that "can't be filled" in the "Feast in Ancient Books", such as: "chai rice oil salt sauce vinegar tea", which was originally formed in the Song Dynasty; most of the Tang Dynasty people had two meals a day, and the modern people's three meals a day system began from the Song Dynasty; the Song Dynasty already had "fruit salad" and "cold drink", as well as decanting soup made of radish and sugarcane" "gang pulp"; the Song Dynasty even had "takeaway"—— In an era without phones and apps, diners would call servants to restaurants to order food, and the restaurant would pack the food in a box and then send a guy to deliver the food.
"Ancient Books Through Time and Space" also restores more pictures of the life of ancient Chinese people. In addition to "food", there is also "clothing". For example, in the seventh episode of "The Restoration of Ancient Clothing and Crowns", Chen Shiyu, a scholar of costume history, examines ancient costumes through ancient books and restores them. Many costume dramas and variety shows," including "Qing Ping Le", appear in costumes and variety shows," including "National Treasures," and many of them are from his hands. This episode made many viewers marvel: "Ancient Chinese costumes are really too beautiful and exquisite! ”
Poster for the seventh episode of "The Restoration of ancient clothes and crowns"
Innovation: "Two Creations" "Classic of Mountains and Seas", feel the "romance of the ancients"
In the Lingnan Creek Cave, under the shadow of the moon, above the willow shoots, a vicious-looking, neck-severed head appeared. It flapped its wings, or took off into the air, or flew over the ground, devouring crabs and earthworms in the mud swamps by the river. Before dawn, it hurried back to its place and landed on its sleeping master. When the master woke up, he only thought he had a dream, but he had a feeling of fullness out of thin air. This magical creature called the "flying-headed beast" was recorded in the ancient Tang Dynasty book "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks". Now, it is "reborn" under the pen of the ghost painter "Satan Jun".
Painting of "Satan the King"
In addition to the reproduction of ancient books, "Ancient Books Through Time and Space" also focuses on those artists who use ancient books as inspiration for creation, and "Satan Jun" is one of them. In his eyes, the Classic of Mountains and Seas, known as the "Encyclopedia of Ancient Social Life", is like "the gods playing with puzzles", "that is a kind of romance that belongs to the ancients". In addition, Ying Yonghui, who has designed more than 40,000 art characters based on ancient book fonts, and Zhang Yu, who sought artistic inspiration in "Peony Pavilion" and painted posters for many film and television works... The stories of these artists are also presented one by one in "Ancient Books Through Time".
Zhang Yu and the movie poster she created
In the eyes of artists, ancient books have always been "alive", and there are hidden channels for modern people to "communicate" with the past. "Satan Jun" once saw such a sentence in the "Guangxu Dinghai Native Textbook": "If the totoaba is the fat of the totoaba, it can be accompanied by glue..." He remembered that Nie Huang's "Sea Mistake Map" also had the word "totoaba", and then looked at the appearance, is it not the most common yellow fish in his hometown Zhoushan?! In the past, local fishermen used boiled yellow maw as glue, but because of overfishing, there are fewer and fewer yellow croakers in the wild.
"Satan Jun" said: "In fact, the ancient books are not the connection between the predecessors and the contemporaries? Nie Huang would never have thought that a contemporary young man, because he had painted totoaba, had understood the local textbooks of the Qing Dynasty and knew that his father's generation used yellow fish maws as glue. If my grandfather was still there, I really wanted to take that local textbook and talk to him about his childhood: whether he had ever been to the surrounding islands, whether he walked or took a boat to Dinghai City, and what kind of fish lamps there were when the flower lights were on the fifteenth day of the first month. Did you glue the toy with glue made of yellow fish?"
"Satan" is creating
Persistence: Conjuring the Dunhuang Testament, So that the thousand-year-old book "reunion"
The creation of the documentary "Ancient Books Through Time and Space" originated from the establishment of a special fund for the protection of ancient books by ByteDance and the China Cultural Relics Conservation Foundation at the National Library on June 17 last year. The initial start-up capital of the fund was RMB 10 million, which was used for the restoration of more than 100 precious ancient books (pieces) such as the Yongle Canon, and the training of 100 restoration talents. During this period, under the guidance of the China Cultural Relics Conservation Foundation, the National Library of China, and ByteDance Public Welfare, the "Ancient Books Through Time and Space", which presents the guardian's adherence to and inheritance of ancient books, has gradually taken shape.
In "Ancient Books Through Time and Space", people have seen the efforts of one ancient book researcher after another: folk collector Li Shuangjie has collected 25,000 family trees; Li Dejing, president of the Dongba Cultural Research Institute, rescues and translates and sorts out Dongba ancient books; Du Weisheng of the Guotu Ancient Book Restoration Center and others restores the "Yongle Classic"; Zhang Yongquan, director of the Dunhuang Studies Research Center of Zhejiang University, splices and conjugates the fragments of Dunhuang fragments scattered around the world to achieve the "broken mirror and reunion" of ancient books from a thousand years ago.
Dunhuang fragments
These stories first impressed the documentary's creative team before they touched countless audiences. Zhang Ting, director of the episode "Life in the Family Tree", revealed that filming Li Shuangjie's story was the first time in her life that she really saw the family tree in person: "This is also one of the joys of making a documentary: every time you touch a subject, it is like starting a new journey; everyone who knows someone can leave an unforgettable memory." Ye Shen, the general director of "Ancient Books Through Time and Space", revealed: "In fact, the research, filming and production of each episode are also a shock to our creators. For example, the episode of "Stitching and Tearing Civilization" is about Dunhuang Studies, and in the past we probably knew that there was such a discipline, but we didn't know that there had always been people doing conjugation work to 'reunite' Dunhuang suicide notes scattered all over the world. Such a basic work, they have been doing it for decades. ”
"Ancient Books Through Time and Space" has a total of 9 episodes, and after the broadcast, many viewers said that they "didn't see enough". Ye Shen admitted that this documentary only shows a corner of the vast treasure house of ancient Chinese books, "If there is an opportunity in the future, I want to continue to show the story of ancient books for everyone."
【Dialogue】
Although ancient books are "old", they are actually closely related to modern people
Yangcheng Evening News: In fact, your team has done a lot of book-related documentaries in the past, and this time doing ancient book themes should feel familiar?
Ye Shen: Yes, from the earliest "Book Fans" to the later "But There Are Books", we have been doing stories about books in the past. In fact, when we first did research for Book Fans in 2017, we already wanted to include content about ancient books. But at that time, we visited the famous bibliophile Wei Li, and he suggested that there was too much to tell about ancient books, and if possible, we should still make a documentary alone. We think he made a lot of sense, he didn't touch the ancient books at the time, but he kept thinking about it. Until we came across this project, we felt that it was too coincidental, isn't this what we most want to do?
The main poster of "Ancient Books Through Time"
Yangcheng Evening News: The subject of ancient books is considered to be unpopular, how do you think about the relationship between professionalism and popularization?
Ye Shen: We don't want ordinary people to think that ancient books are the kind of things that are unfathomable and should even be shelved. We hope that ordinary people can also feel the charm of ancient books. This series we finally named "Ancient Books Through Time and Space" is to tell everyone that ancient books look very old, but its relationship with ordinary people is actually very close.
Yangcheng Evening News: Specifically, what is the difference between filming "Ancient Books Through Time and Space" and "But Still Books"?
Ye Shen: "But there are still books" has three characters in the episode, "Ancient Books Through Time and Space" is mainly based on a protagonist, in addition to finding an expert or scholar to popularize science for everyone, enhance the output of "dry goods". In addition, although both series have animations, the styles of animations are not the same. Take the opening animation, "But There Are Books" is a kind of fresh healing system, but the opening of "Ancient Books Through Time and Space" we have done very lively and cool, is a "one-shot to the end" design. But for us, the external form is different, and one thing is very similar, that is, although we seem to be doing book documentaries, we are actually doing character documentaries, and we are all paying attention to people's stories.
Zhang Yu and her paintings
The creative team "post-95", before shooting ancient books, we must first "touch"
Yangcheng Evening News: "Ancient Books Through Time" is only about 15 minutes long in each episode, and there are only 9 episodes in total, and many viewers now say that they are still watching it.
Ye Shen: Yes, this time it is the length of the medium video, which is also an exploration for us, hoping to make it easy for more viewers to enter. But it was a bit of a pity that I later found that there was too much material to put in. However, for the revitalization of ancient books, "Ancient Books Through Time and Space" is a relatively new attempt. To be honest, before I started doing it, everyone had some doubts in their minds. Our team has been exposed to the subject matter of many books in the past, and we know that the ancient books are actually very cold, and there is a certain threshold, and even if you lack a little ancient literature foundation, it is difficult to enter. So to make a documentary, whether the audience can accept it or not, we still want to grope while doing it.
Yangcheng Evening News: Can you tell us more about what other "lost pearls" we haven't seen?
Ye Shen: In fact, in the process of doing research at the beginning, we accumulated a lot of interesting people and stories, but because of the limited space, we could only show a small part of them in the end. For example, we interviewed Zhang Yongquan, a teacher from Dunhuang Studies, but in fact, there are many researchers worth showing off the camera. Also, this time we showed the Dongba script, but in fact, there are many ancient books of ethnic minorities that are also worth mentioning.
The Dongba ancient books in the film
Yangcheng Evening News: Can you introduce the creative team, and what is the average age? What homework did you do for this shoot?
Ye Shen: Our episode directors are basically "post-95s". How to let these young directors quickly understand the ancient books to a certain extent, dig up the most effective information, and find a point for them to empathize is indeed a big challenge. Before shooting, everyone first read books, invited experts to give lectures, and we also organized a study - to go to the Buyi Ancient Book Office in Beijing and let everyone touch the ancient books by hand. The owner of the bookstore was known when we made "Book Fans", and he specially prepared us a variety of ancient books of different dynasties, paper, binding and printing methods, so that everyone could first have a basic understanding of ancient books in the senses. Next, each episode director will do research in this field according to what he wants to shoot.
The guardians of ancient books are on fire, and the theme of ancient books "Erchuang" is also on fire
Yangcheng Evening News: After the documentary was broadcast, the audience response was still quite good, especially many young viewers have become very interested in the field of ancient books.
Ye Shen: Thank you for the audience's liking. Indeed, in addition to showing the charm of ancient books, we also want modern people to get something from ancient books. For example, when we photograph how ancient people ate and dressed, and how artists found inspiration from ancient books to create new creations, they all wanted to highlight the relationship between "ancient" and "modern", so that young people could see that the original ancient books could still be "played". Judging from the audience's response, everyone generally has two feelings, one is eye-opening, and the other is very proud.
In the film, Chen Shiyu restores ancient costumes
Yangcheng Evening News: There are many netizens doing "two creations" about this documentary, and they can also see their interest in this subject.
Ye Shen: Yes, this time the platform has done a lot of cut-out communication, which is convenient for netizens to carry out "two creations", so there are many short videos on this topic on the Internet now, which are very young expressions. I heard that the whole topic has been viewed more than 30 million times in the watermelon video, which is indeed an unexpected surprise for this unpopular subject. If we can achieve a little popularization effect on ancient book culture, it will have reached the original intention of our creation.
Yangcheng Evening News: Now the experts interviewed in "Ancient Books Through Time and Space" have also become celebrities.
Ye Shen: Yes, two days ago, Mr. Zhang Yongquan's video was on the hot list of a certain platform, and then there was the media to interview him. He called our choreographer and said something hot, he didn't understand it at all, and even had a little suspicion that it was a liar who wanted to interview him. We quickly gave him a science popularization, saying that this proves that netizens are very concerned about your work.
Dunhuang researcher Zhang Yongquan
Yangcheng Evening News: Do you think the popularity of "Ancient Books Through Time and Space" can prompt more young people to devote themselves to the work of guarding, researching and inheriting ancient books?
Ye Shen: This topic happened to be talked to Teacher Zhang Yongquan. He said he plans to study ancient books all his life, but he won't ask everyone to be like him, after all, the job doesn't need so many people. From the perspective of documentary creators, we first come to "open a window" for the audience who are interested in this field, and many people may spontaneously explore this treasure house of Chinese civilization more deeply after watching it; second, we also hope to let everyone see how others live and how to do research, if young people can understand some attitudes towards life, work, and things around them, we think it is enough. (For more news, please pay attention to Yangcheng Pie pai.ycwb.com)
Source | Yangcheng Evening News Yangcheng Pie
Image | Respondents provided
Editor-in-charge | Shao Ziheng