Cover news reporter Li Yuxin
About 150 years ago, the Russian scientist Mendeleev made the world's first periodic table according to atomic weight, which became a major achievement in the history of scientific development and left an immortal glory in the world. But what Mendeleev certainly did not expect was that 150 years later, he would appear in a Chinese documentary in the form of a lively animated figure and lead the audience through the history of the discovery of elements.
In June this year, the science and education documentary "Mendeleev is Busy" premiered on the CCTV Documentary Channel, which was connected with the animated image of the famous chemist Mendeleev and popularized the basic knowledge of chemistry to the vast Chinese audience through interesting knowledge introduction. In terms of content, the film tells the story of carbon, silicon, uranium, iron and other elements that play a key role in the process of human civilization from the power of toxic elements and their functions. However, from the style, the humorous and humorous commentary, the lively and dynamic soundtrack, and the colorful pictures have broken people's conventional impressions of science and education documentaries.
"The subject matter of science and education documentaries is not naturally storytelling, nor is it a popular documentary type. I am not good at the field of natural sciences, but when I want to tell the audience about this scientific knowledge, especially young people, I still have a huge desire and impulse to create. Perhaps, the future chemist of our country will appear in the audience of 'Mendeleev'. Li Jinwei, the general director of the documentary "Mendeleev is Busy", said.
"Liberal Arts" director digs out the chemical "cold knowledge"
"Learn mathematics, physics and chemistry well, and walk all over the world without fear." This somewhat joking saying seems to accompany the post-80s and post-90s students. And director Li Jinwei's creative path also coincides with this sentence. As early as 2018, the documentary "My Newton Coach", also directed by Li Jinwei, was broadcast, which focused on the physical knowledge in sports and received a lot of praise in the industry. It is precisely because of this that the current "Mendeleev is Busy" was born.
"Same series as 'Newton,' but a little more mature." On Douban, you can see this netizen's evaluation of "Mendeleev is busy". From physics to chemistry, from Newton to Mendeleev, Li Jinwei and his team have spent nearly two years to continue the series. In the future, there will be a work on mathematics broadcast, which perfectly matches the field of "mathematics, physics and chemistry".
More than three hundred years ago, the German alchemist Brand once looked for gold in the urine, in the middle of the yin and yang error, he accidentally found a chemical element - phosphorus; and during the Ming Dynasty in China, the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang can be called "the father of the periodic list of elements", it is precisely because he set a lot of rules for the name of his grandson, there are now such strange words as sodium, magnesium, aluminum, cobalt, alkene and so on... In "Mendeleev is Busy", there is a "cold knowledge" of chemistry, coupled with interesting commentary and pictures, which can be described as refreshing the audience's "knowledge points".
Being able to easily find interesting points about chemistry in the field of natural sciences requires a certain degree of professionalism. But what is surprising is that Li Jinwei is indeed a full "liberal arts" director, and has nothing to do with "science". Li Jinwei also said that the early script creation accounted for nearly half of the time in the entire production process. Li Jinwei also took over a series of work from the early script, to the field shooting, and then to the post-dubbing.
"The biggest difficulty of this film is in the script creation stage. I was a pure liberal arts student, and when I went to school, these were all subjects that broke me down. And the interesting chemistry knowledge in the film comes from this "liberal arts" director. When writing the script, Li Jinwei needs to consult a large number of materials every day, and then collect interesting knowledge, go to relevant experts to verify, and understand the exact scientific truth. "From physics to chemistry to mathematics, every discipline is a new challenge." Li Jinwei said.
The chemists of the future, perhaps, are in the audience of "Mendeleev"
In "Mendeleev Is Busy", careful viewers may find that in the story of each episode, there must be a story with "Chinese elements". Not only the story of "the Ming Dynasty royal family took the name but created strange characters", but also "the ancient silver needle test poison encountered egg yolk turned black", and "the Ming Great Wall was made of glutinous rice mortar" and other topics, are all interesting stories related to chemistry in ancient Chinese history. Li Jinwei also said that the "Chinese element" has always been a very important point in his creation of such documentaries.
In the process of creation, Li Jinwei also had some confused moments. Because compared with the current hot food documentaries, science and education documentaries not only have a high threshold for the audience, but also lack innate storytelling and topicality, and the attention in the industry is not high. "Science and education documentaries are in this state, and I am one of the few directors who will do science documentaries. I still hope that more and more people will enter this field, so that they can continuously improve the grade of the film and come up with eye-catching works in the world. ”
In the interview, Li Jinwei talked about an experience with a British documentary company that was running an event to broadcast Earth live from the space station. "I asked them at the time why they were doing this show. They said, 'There are also commercial considerations, but people who don't watch TV will be the next astronaut.' I think that may be the meaning of our science and education documentaries. ”
Although in Li Jinwei's view, "Mendeleev is Busy" is not a large-scale, large-scale documentary, and in the film and television industry, it also belongs to a very niche and partial genre. "Is it possible that China's future great chemists will appear in the audience of 'Mendeleev'? This is also a small contribution we have made to the country's science education. ”
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