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"Land of the Gods", Douban score as high as 9.3 points,
It is the most recently rated domestic nature documentary.
Someone concluded that
It has a BBC-level production level and picture texture,
At the same time, it has a "very Chinese value background".
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Wild yaks run on a plateau at an altitude of 5,000 meters
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The film documents China's diverse landscapes, stunning landscapes and encounters of various wildlife
The documentary consists of four episodes, each 50 minutes long,
Four animals are particularly special to Chinese:
Wild yak, white dolphin, Asian elephant, Siberian tiger.
Behind the 200-minute film,
It's a team of less than 60 people.
More than 1,000 days and nights of "don't die" shooting.
An interview with Zeng Hairuo, the general director of "Land of the Gods",
Talked about the oriental aesthetics in the film and the behind-the-scenes story.
Author: Lu Yuhan
Editor-in-charge: Ni Chujiao
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2500-3000 years ago, wild yak rock paintings in Bison Valley, Qinghai Province
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More than 3,000 years ago, tigers were carved into rocks, believing that they had the ability to travel between heaven and earth
Compared to most nature documentaries, the 4 animals filmed in Land of the Gods are a bit special.
They were all once incarnations of God. At that time, the power of man was not as strong as it is now, and we worshipped the power of these animals.
Wild yaks, in Tibetan legend, are the domestic animals of mountain gods. They cruised among the mountains of Kailash earlier than humans, were used as ancient totems, designed as masks, and painted on rock walls.
White dolphins, in the folk have the name of "sea spirits". In the coastal areas from southern Fujian to Guangdong, white dolphins are often seen at sea during the Mazu festival and are regarded as the embodiment of Mazu.
Asian elephants, the largest animals on land, were once abundantly distributed in China's Yellow River Basin. In the Dai texts, elephants support heaven and earth, and thus the world is created.
The Siberian tiger, one of the most important gods in shamanism. More than 3,000 years ago, humans carved the tiger on the rock, believing that it played a role in traveling between heaven and earth and communicating all things.
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Highland landforms in the northwest corner
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Small fishing villages on the southeast coast
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Temperate forest in the northeast corner
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Subtropical rainforest in the southwest corner
At the same time, these four animals are the flagship species of the four corners of Northwest, Southeast, Southwest and Northeast China, and when they are put together, they constitute the entire Chinese ecosystem and natural civilization.
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Photograph the various wildlife encountered during the shoot
Director Zeng Hairuo, who worked for CCTV, and his last work, "The Third Pole", tells 40 stories of symbiosis between Tibetans and the harsh natural environment on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and gets a high score of 9.4 on Douban.
After filming "The Third Pole", he always had a feeling of dissatisfaction, thinking that the story of people and animals had not yet been told. "In the daily life of Tibetans, whether it is wild animals or domestic animals, there is a special power that can be explored in more depth."
In his view, this "special power" is what people often call "divinity", which gives "Land of the Gods" a little "romantic imagination".
Calm down and watch "The Land of the Gods", as if you can really understand what is called "animism".
In the no-man's land of Changtang and Tibet, a small wild yak went missing from the herd the day after its birth and was picked up by the staff of the Wilderness Conservation Station. It grew up at the protection station, treating the staff as relatives, following them on morning runs and patrols.
After the baby white dolphin dies, the mother will surround its corpse for more than a week as she tries to wake up her child.
In Menghai Township, Yunnan Province, two baby elephants used the tires left by humans in the sugar cane fields as toys, and even "fought hard" for this. More and more human objects have entered the childhood memories of Asian elephants.
As the largest cat, the Siberian tiger is like a big cat when stretching its waist
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The village of Wembunan at an altitude of 3600m
The monks are listed as making wild yak masks and are looking for traces of wild yaks
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Around the Spring Festival in 2022, a string of tiger footprints appeared at the foot of Changbai Mountain
It shows that the Siberian tiger is about to spread to the top of Changbai Mountain
In order to embody the divinity of animals, the documentary's lens language has made sufficient efforts. For example, the perspective of the upward shot is used to express the oppression of animals when facing humans.
A large number of aerial photographs, wild yaks galloping on the wasteland, white dolphins jumping from the sea, Asian elephants that meet humans in a narrow road, and Siberian tigers that are difficult to find in the forest, each frame seems to warn: "the land of the gods", sacred and inviolable.
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Wild yaks have strong cardiopulmonary function and dense hair, and can adapt to temperatures of minus 30 or 40 degrees
In the face of these "higher species", the shooting process is not easy. No matter how advanced the equipment is, how careful the action is, "you can only shoot them if they are willing to be photographed." ”
In the episode Of wild yak, the appearance of the protagonist "Kunlun" is not in the shooting plan of the director team. They were filming herders selling cattle when suddenly a wild yak appeared, lying in ambush on the hillside, with only its horns exposed.
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Kunlun suddenly launched an attack on the yak herd
Until then, the team hadn't had any close encounters with unusually alert wild yaks. Now that it has taken the initiative to come, Zeng Hairuo's first reaction is to take a close-up of the close-up first. The team managed to ambush and move forward little by little, "When you got close enough to him, you saw that his eyes were not right." At that moment, I probably knew I was going to photograph this animal. ”
Sure enough, Kunlun rushed directly into the herder's family yak herd. It has just been defeated in the battle for mating rights in the wild yak herds on the mountain, and it has come down the mountain to "grab relatives".
It wasn't the first time it had mated with a domestic yak, and there was still his flesh and blood in the herd. This year, the little yak selected by the herders to sell to the market was Kunlun's child.
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The dying calf fell
Just as the calf was tied to the car, Kunlun appeared again. It rushed toward the cattle, seemingly to save its own children. The calf, who had inherited his father's wild nature, also struggled with all his strength in the car, hitting him covered in blood, and the rope around his neck was getting tighter and tighter.
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The wild yak Kunlun's eyes were very domineering
The camera switches back and forth between Kunlun and the calf, the calf's eyes are wet, with a newborn childishness, and Kunlun's eyes are full of anger and the pride of looking at sentient beings. Finally, in the midst of chaos, the calf ran out of strength and died. Kunlun also seemed to compromise and turned away.
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Elephants in estrus can become unusually grumpy
At the end of the Episode of Asian Elephants, heart-wrenching images also appear unexpectedly: the second eldest of the elephants fell off a cliff and died, a baby elephant died of pesticides, and the remaining adult male elephants entered the control area. Since then, the female elephants in the elephant herd have never seen an adult male elephant, and no baby elephants have been born in the elephant herd.
Zeng Hairuo and the team thought about it for a long time, and finally decided to put such news into the film, "As human society becomes more and more modern, the balance of power between animals and humans has changed." They once had divinities, but whether this divinity still exists is the question that Land of the Gods explores. ”
The following is the narration of director Zeng Hairuo.
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The wild yak Kunlun is significantly stronger in the family yak herd
The land of the gods involves the concept of territory. Each animal has its own territory, and the territory is not only about his food and drink, but also about the food and drink of his children, and the same is true of man.
But how exactly should this place be allocated? We talk about this in every episode.
Wild yaks, they are the most adaptable to the plateau environment of the animal, people are equivalent to "holding the thighs", a part of the wild yaks raised into domestic yaks, by milking, selling cattle to obtain income, in order to survive in this wilderness.
But with the large amount of grazing, the pasture of domestic yaks has become more and more extensive, which is equivalent to eroding the pasture of wild yaks. Not only wild yaks, but also Tibetan antelopes and Tibetan wild donkeys, all of which share a meadow. If there are more domestic yaks, there will naturally be fewer wild yaks and other wild animals.
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In order to feed, white dolphins often appear near fishing boats to find fish that have slipped through the net
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In Taishan, Guangdong Province, after seven or eight hours, people finally succeeded in helping the stranded white dolphins return to the sea
Another example is the white dolphin, which is actually a very advanced animal, living in the sea by the sonar system.
Why are more and more white dolphins straying into inland waterways? Because offshore there are all kinds of human production activities, the sound of ship engines, bridge repair, reclamation, all kinds of infrastructure... They are equivalent to being in a very noisy sound field, and many sounds they do not know what they are, which will affect their sonar system and even their minds.
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The nearshore was full of fishing boats
So is this something that can be solved simply by humans going backwards? No. Many people have lived there for generations, herders grazing, fishermen fishing, they also need to survive, and it is unrealistic to let them leave.
Nor can it be solved in a scientific way alone. Because science is just a tool that can be used to understand animals, and it can also be used to expel animals, and even exterminate animals.
Ultimately, I think it's a matter of mindset. This brings us back to the original concept of the "Land of the Gods", instead of simply talking about protecting animals, we are talking about how to understand them.
If you really feel that they are divine, you will remain in awe, respect its territory, respect its way of life.
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Asian elephant, Menghai County, Yunnan Province
The original inspiration for Land of the Gods was the human-elephant conflict in Yunnan.
There are a dozen wild elephants that often enter the places where humans live, but this is only a superficial phenomenon, and the real elephant herd crisis occurs inside it.
We mention the concept of "elephant map" in the film. Elephants have strong memories, and they have a map in their heads that records where they once walked, which used to be large, but then it shrank step by step.
Today's elephant maps are actually completed by human participation, and the houses, cottages, roads, highways, reservoirs, etc. built by humans have reshaped the maps of elephants, and many places have once been their food sources.
At the same time, the habitat of the elephants was divided, and the herd could not find other kinds. Under this new map, the most important question for elephants is how to get enough nutrients, how to reproduce, and how to pass on genes.
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It was too hot and the baby elephants were playing in the water
A lot of people feel bad about watching this episode of elephants, in large part because elephants are such a big animal, such a tall, brave species, but they face such an embarrassing problem. This feeling will make you unbearable.
The locals' attitude towards elephants is also interesting. In fact, the Dai people themselves are very religious of elephants, they are called old elephants. They have various theories that the old elephant will not hurt the Dai people. They also liked to name the elephant, saying that as long as I shouted the name of the elephant, the elephant would not invade my village, and so on.
But when elephants really come to harass the village, they will be angry, angry, and even use firecrackers and knock pots and pans to drive them away.
When we went to Yunnan, we saw the feeling that two farmers had to fight with elephants all night to prevent elephants from sneaking in at night, holding out torches all night in the crop fields, and even fighting with elephants to the death.
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Wild Asian elephants accidentally walked into town
I didn't see an elephant at the time, and I said I guess I wouldn't come at night. The local conservator told me that the elephants were watching us at the top of the hill, looking at the field, and they would come, really. It turns out they came later.
Eventually they found that expulsion actually meant little, so they produced people like Zhao Ping, a ranger in the film, who was responsible for monitoring the elephant herd and announcing the where the elephants were several times a day. Locals can arrange labor according to this "elephant time", you enter and retreat, and we travel at the wrong peak.
This is why with smartphones, a new pattern of getting along with elephants has emerged.
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The infrared camera set up by the scientific team to capture the Siberian tiger "a family of four"
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Siberian tigers can cover hundreds of square kilometers, and they convey information by spraying urine and leaving marks on the ground
When modernization develops to a certain extent, people's awareness of protecting nature will become stronger and stronger. The state has also made many policies, including the establishment of various protected areas.
So in the last episode of the Siberian Tigers, we'll see the results of conservation. A team of scientists, who followed a female tiger for 14 years, brought 4 small tigers to the forest, and these small tigers will continue to reproduce.
At the end of the last century, due to human logging and war, it was almost determined that there was no population of Siberian tigers in China that could breed. By this year, there have been places where the so-called "tigers in all mountains" have been realized again, and even the number of other populations has risen.
People are really trying to do that, and nature is very cooperative. To put it bluntly, as long as you want to do it, there will be some changes.
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Behind the scenes of the documentary filming
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It was normal for the crew's cars to be trapped in the wilderness mud
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Seeing the elephant herd wandering, everyone in the film crew took out their equipment
We weren't a purely nature-shooting team, which added up to about fifty or sixty people, and went through a long process of groping.
Because these animals are all mobile, there are many repetitive movements, and the daily routine is to eat and eat. So to grasp their rules, when to be in heat, when to engage in mating fights, when to rob relatives, when to give birth, to shoot at these times.
When filming, we experienced the epidemic, which will cause us to miss some key shooting periods, including the impact of typhoons on the southeast coast, and many of the shooting is fragmented.
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Shoot tidbits
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The film crew encountered an elephant coming towards them and ran wildly
Animal shooting is also very thrilling. For example, when they were filming wild yaks in Tsochi Village, they were filming, and the wild yaks rushed directly to the camera. Our people usually run with the camera first, not to let the camera crash, and our cameraman was injured when he escaped.
When photographing elephants, I suddenly found an elephant coming, and I met our photographer in a narrow way. The photographer did not know at the time, it was the person who took the drone to remind, only to see the elephant coming, the drone filmed them holding the camera all the way to the picture.
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The team paid particular attention to the animal's eyes during the shoot
The hardest part is not photographing these animals, but rather storytelling their behavior.
When we first talked about the concept of "gods," these former gods appeared in the form of stories. So when we talk about these animals today, we have to find the stories of them today, or today's legends.
Before shooting, we will research a story that we want to shoot, but a lot will change during the shooting process. The initial shooting was almost a crash, it took a lot of time, a lot of energy, but the shooting effect was not good.
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At the foot of Mount Jade Everest at an altitude of 4,900 meters, photographers photograph a wild yak that has just been attacked by wolves
Like the white dolphin, we have repeatedly considered whether to give up, because the cost of shooting at sea is very high, and every time we go to sea, we need to rent a boat and rent good equipment, but we may shoot a few shots. By the next day, the white dolphins that had been photographed earlier were missing again. Even though I've shot a lot of footage, I still don't think I can tell a story.
Later I said, then don't shoot, but people don't go. Our episode director is also very persistent, she stays there, every day to the fishing village to chat with people, to learn about the new situation, to wait for things to come.
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The white dolphin, trapped in the mire, has a damaged sonar system and can only observe the outside world through eyes with poor vision
One day I heard that an old white dolphin had fallen into a quagmire, and the villagers were rescuing it, so we rushed over. We saw that there was mud on the eyes of the "old white" and kept stroking them open. It usually doesn't use its eyes very well, but at this time it can only look at you with its eyes, and that's what we want to pass on.
In fact, the rescue process is several hours before and after, in a very remote place, the rescuer did not think to shoot and record anything, if you are not on the scene, you have nothing.
For example, kunlun's story, it was only two days to really shoot it, but for these two days, we spent a year or two waiting.
To put it bluntly, you need to stay in the wilderness, and after staying long enough, the mountain gods will give you some chances.
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The staff at the conservation station and the small wild yaks they picked up
From the time of its original design, Land of the Gods was not a BBC nature documentary. I would rather make it into a Chinese-style film, using Chinese culture as a background to tell the story between today's Chinese and environment.
When working on Land of the Gods, I became more and more aware of what "divinity" really was. In fact, it is largely an ability to communicate with nature.
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Ono Yak and conservation station staff patrol together
In the early days of human beings, they had this ability. This is not a mysterious force, but actually means that people are simpler, less anxious, the ears can hear more things, and the nose can smell more information. For example, in the past, farmers could predict the weather, and hunters could sniff out the distance of animals, which was the instinct of survival.
In this sense, humans were also members of the gods. But today, this ability to communicate is no longer necessary in urban life.
Our filming of Land of the Gods is itself a process of communication. When you are in the wild, you are almost alone, you can only mobilize your judgment of animals, your feelings about nature. One of the things that the whole "Land of the Gods" has to do is to convey how we feel on the spot.
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Herders teach their daughters and baby yaks to live in peace
Why did I make this film? On the one hand, it tells you about the environment, or how people and animals should get along. But in fact, 99.9% of the audience did not have the opportunity to deal with wild animals, and we do not recommend that he deal with wild animals.
I prefer to think about this problem from another perspective, that is, when you have lived in the city for a long time, you need to return to nature.
After watching the film, you will grow a breath and think about the fact that the world is very rich. Take your eyes a little away from the busy city life, look at the eyes of animals, experience a little change in nature, and restore some people's ability to communicate with nature.
Part of the source of the material: Bilibili produced the documentary "Land of the Gods"
This article is original to "one article", and it shall not be deleted or appropriated to any platform without permission, otherwise legal responsibility will be pursued.