Audience taste enhances in documentaries Documentary harvest word of mouth

The hit documentary "Dynasty" uses a cinematic narrative and lens to show the brutal struggle in the animal world, which is shocking. We found that with the advent of the online student era, in order to "accommodate" the audience's taste, today's blockbuster documentaries are obviously no longer cold and serious, and the two-dimensional wind and variety show temperament are getting stronger, and they are constantly harvesting traffic and word of mouth. As a result, the taste of young audiences is also gradually improving.

"Dynasty" content "shock" received high ratings

The nature documentary Dynasty, co-created by Tencent Video and the BBC, is very attractive to documentary fans. At present, it has been launched for three episodes, received more than 120 million views, and more than 85% of the audience participating in the rating gives a five-star rating, with an overall rating of 9.7 points, making it another documentary masterpiece this year. And seeing that the producer is Michael Gunton, who has produced many classic works, we know that this achievement is expected.

The film took 4 years to shoot, mainly through a large number of short-throw shots to capture the micro-expressions of animal protagonists, with cinematic character settings and soundtracks to show the drama of chimpanzees, emperor penguins, lions, tigers, wolves and other animal worlds. Many people look at it and are shocked, "This is the essence of all animals, as if human nature evolved from it."

How do documentaries become influencers?

In 2018, documentaries received frequent attention. Silly and interesting "If the National Treasure Can Talk", "A String of Life" that compares life with barbecue, "Flavor of the World" after the "tip of the tongue", and even the star reality show "Strange Life" that borrows from documentary shooting techniques, have been favored by young users. It is not difficult to find that most of these documentaries are produced and promoted by online platforms - from the self-broadcast of traditional TV platforms, to the production of TV stations, network simulcasting, and then to online production and network broadcasting - the production and broadcasting mode of Chinese documentaries is becoming increasingly diversified, gradually meeting the aesthetics of young users and enhancing interactivity.

Looking at major video platforms, Tencent Video has invested more in self-made documentaries and achieved more eye-catching results. After former CCTV producer Chen Xiaoqing joined, he was responsible for the quality control of all its documentary studios. As of now, in addition to the "Documentary 72 Hours", "Flavor of the World", "Flavor of the World 2", which have been broadcast, "Planet" in cooperation with the BBC, etc. are also the highlights of next year's documentary.

And this year, the quality of the documentary that Youku participated in was also good. The third season of "The Great Craftsman" has reached 110 million views, and its condensed version has landed on the CCTV Science and Education Channel, becoming a precedent for the output of content to national television by online documentaries.

At present, iQiyi is more focused on purchasing exclusive broadcast rights, such as "Bell's Survival School Season 2", "Wild River", "Shengmen", "Human World", "The Last Lollipop", etc. are all broadcast exclusively on the platform.

It is worth mentioning that the first to make a splash in the field of documentaries is station B. In the audience's previous cognition, documentaries generally focus on seriousness and culture, and it is difficult to intersect with the two-dimensional culture, and may not be associated with network phenomena such as "net red" and "tap water". In fact, the attention of "I Repair Cultural Relics in the Forbidden City" was not high when it was first broadcast on CCTV, but it could become popular after the B station was launched.

The second season of "Bird's Eye View of China", which is currently being broadcast on station B, has received a rating of 9.7 points, attracting a large number of users to watch and leaving bullet screen comments. Earlier, "If National Treasures Could Talk" was ridiculed by users as a "bubble noodle" documentary because each episode was only five minutes, and the human head pot, Tao Yingding and Owl Zun became cultural relics Internet celebrities, and the flexible copywriting also became the golden sentence of the Network. More importantly, the creativity of letting cultural relics "open" to speak meets the user's viewing preferences and adapts to the needs of new media communication.

Not only that, Station B is no longer limited to broadcasting and promoting excellent documentaries or purchasing copyrights, but is directly involved in the production process. Among them, "A String of Life" is known as the "Chinese version of the late-night canteen", and it is also a high-traffic, high-reputation work. Some analysts say that this work is actually a social activity that young people have participated in, representing youth.

In contrast, the "Historical Those Things" that took over "A String of Life" "played more openly" and was very witty, not only adding details such as comics, Internet hot words, and paragraphs, but also reflecting the "deconstruction" of traditional documentary works, both like reality shows, but also like sitcoms, historical cross-over dramas, and the shadow of documentaries, focusing on catering to the tastes of young people.

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Another trend: documentary variety shows

In addition, in today's creative environment, it is increasingly common for documentary production to be "combined" with other film and television forms, such as the concept of "documentary" implanted into variety shows.

The recently concluded "Strange Life" has unexpectedly become a small hit. The show focuses on "documentary + reality show", which updates the audience's understanding of variety shows to a certain extent, with a score of 9.1 points. The program is written by Zhao Qi and Ou Daming, and the team has a lot of experience in documentary production. In the film, the travel experience of Mao Buyi and others adheres to the truth and pursues nature, bringing people a lot of life thoughts.

Another example is the popular reality show "Couple's Journey", which later gave birth to the documentary reality show "Our Couple's Journey", which combines the characteristics of documentaries and reality shows, from the beginning of a flat and straightforward presentation of the travel feelings of two people, to driving the development of the plot through specific "tasks", constantly creating suspense, strengthening the sense of danger, and upgrading the audience experience.

In addition, variety shows such as "Wild Kitchen" and "My Kid" also have the characteristics of documentaries.

In fact, video websites are promoting the rapid growth of online documentaries, documentaries in order to harvest traffic, in the way of creation ushered in changes, from audio-visual, language, subject matter and other aspects of "accommodation" to the audience, with grounded, young form to attract the audience, thus becoming a "blockbuster" and "Internet celebrity". Documentary filmmakers have also begun to lower their posture, no longer just with ideals, but in an effort to gain market recognition.

However, the production and investment costs of blockbuster documentaries are very high, and in the case of rapid changes in audience viewing habits, it is a test whether creators can capture users with lower-cost documentary content.