On the morning of April 24, the 2024 China-Myanmar New Media Workshop opened at the International Communication Development Center of CIPG. Ten Myanmar media practitioners from Myanmar Global New Light News, MRTV, Skynet News, Vidya and other media organizations conducted a one-week training visit on topics such as media communication development, video production practices, and future trends of new media.
The China-Myanmar New Media Workshop aims to promote media exchanges, enhance media cooperation, and promote people-to-people bonds. In the exchange and discussion session after the opening ceremony, Cao Huaru, a producer of the Chinese studio, shared his international communication experience around the business practices of the studio, combined with documentary film program production and platform building, and interacted with Myanmar media peers.
The following is an excerpt from this sharing.
Documentary: "Seeing the Future" production experience sharing
"Seeing the Future" is a documentary directed by British director Luo Fei that focuses on the theme of rural development and digital education in China. In the creation of this documentary, the director paid special attention to the fact that the primary school students in rural Yunnan have something in common with his childhood experience - a homeroom teacher teaches all the subjects and even takes care of the children's lives. In this kind of teacher-student relationship, when new digital education and online courses appear, when children have art, music, and psychology courses, how will their relationship with teachers change, and how will their mentality change? In the creation process of this film, we pay special attention to the children's perspective and use artistic and creative video methods to present the children's inner world.
△ Picture of the documentary "Seeing the Future".
From a child's point of view, it is the international common language found in this film.
Platform Building: "New Era, New Image" Sino-foreign Joint Creation Project
The "New Era, New Image" Sino-foreign joint creation program collects excellent proposals from all over the world, sets up a team of senior Chinese and foreign mentors to co-create, and disseminates the results to the world online and offline. The 62 documentary video works selected for the first year vividly tell the story of China in the new era through real and intuitive expression, providing more diverse and novel perspectives for the international community.
△ The first creation plan results release ceremony
In the short video "My Personal Experience of China", the owner of the company, Tu Jianguo, is a "foreign senior intern" who goes to China every day to work part-time in various industries. He has experienced many different professions in China from the unique perspective of a foreign intern, he has studied Kunqu opera, cloisonné, worked as an AI trainer, and also worked as a river chief and forest ranger...... In the process, he has also witnessed the development and changes in various fields in China. "It's very easy to look at China in the new era from a foreigner's perspective and make it into a documentary. And such a first-hand perspective is more efficient and authentic in international communication.
△ Poster of the short video "China My Personal Experience".
The handsome Turkish guy Abu in the short video "Foreign Son-in-law Abu "Can't Roar to Stage" is also a "witness". Abu is in full swing in the countryside of Luzhou, Sichuan, and his living conditions here are exactly what we yearn for: "picking chrysanthemums under the east fence and leisurely seeing Nanshan". Starting from his personal experience and feelings, it is a good story that is real and infectious.
△ The poster of the short video "Foreign Son-in-law Abu "Can't Shout" on the stage".
In the international adaptation of the documentary "Light Up Ali", we found two international common languages. First of all, in terms of narrative, the engineer diary was chosen. "Light Up Ali" itself tells the story of 30,000 builders of the State Grid who traveled through no man's land and spent more than a year building the power grid in the low temperature and storm environment in the Ali region of Tibet. How can such a story be told internationally? In the international adaptation, it is chosen to tell it from the perspective of an engineer. Because engineers are not only the protagonists of the story, but also characters who can be understood by the world audience - everyone has the experience of building blocks and building Lego when they are young, and everyone is inseparable from infrastructure engineers in their lives.
Another point is ecological protection. It is also the common language of people all over the world. In the process of adapting the film, details such as laying a floor mat before the mechanical approach to ensure the growth of the plateau turf were also added to the film, which is also the concept agreed on by the Chinese and foreign teams in the creation.
△ Poster of the documentary "Light Up Ali".
In "The Birth of Fu Bao, the Guardian of the Giant Panda", experts from China and South Korea worked together to overcome difficulties during the epidemic, allowing the female giant panda "Hua Ni" in South Korea to become naturally pregnant and successfully give birth to the first panda cub "Fu Bao" in South Korea.
△ The poster of the short video "The Birth of the Guardian Panda".
In the era of mobile Internet, small-screen communication needs to be more able to grasp the fragmented time of the audience, produce more intimate and real content, and find an international common language that reaches a wide range of audiences to generate empathy. The creation and dissemination of short video works will become the focus of the second creation plan, through diversified topic selection, narrative means, the use of cutting-edge technology, and innovative scene expansion, to create a number of more efficient and more potential short video products, tell Chinese stories to the world, and show a three-dimensional and real image of China.