2020-08-06 17:57:45
Documenting the Era: Seminar on High-quality Development of Chinese Documentaries
On the afternoon of August 4, 2020, the "Documenting the Era: Seminar on High-quality Development of Chinese Documentaries" forum, sponsored by the National Radio and Television Administration, China Media Group and the Shanghai Municipal People\'s Government, presented by Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Radio and Television, Shanghai Media Group and the Organizing Committee of Shanghai TV Festival, and co-sponsored by SMG Innovations and iFORMATS Chinese Formats Database, was held in the Sunshine Classroom on the 9th floor of Shanghai Television Tower. Taking "Document Contemporary Life and Show the Era’s Voice" and "Cross-border Innovation of Documentaries" as themes respectively, this forum discussed in depth the current situation and future development direction of Chinese documentaries.
Ma Li, director of the Press and Publicity Department of National Radio and Television Administration, Luo Yi, deputy director of Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Radio and Television, Wang Jianjun, secretary of the party committee and chairman of Radio and Television Shanghai and Shanghai Media Group, Song Jiongming, director and CEO of Shanghai Media Group, and Chen Yuren, vice president of Shanghai Media Group attended the forum.
Ma Li, director of the Press and Publicity Department of National Radio and Television Administration
Documentary, telling Chinese stories in genuine language, has important cultural, artistic and social values. It records the truth, explores the unknown, presents the nature, observes society, praises the beauty and criticizes ugliness, so it is both a recorder of the times and a spreader of civilization.
With the rapid improvement of documentary production, excellent works are constantly emerging
According to the survey of "CVB" system, audience rating of documentary has increased significantly for more than a year. In the first half of this year, the audience ratings of 23 documentaries exceeded 1% in a single episode, and the ratings of People First: Xi Jinping Commanding Battle Against "Epidemic" exceeded 2%.
The development scale of documentary is expanding quickly
With the rapid development of economic society and the great improvement of people\'s living conditions, general audiences have higher demands for high-quality spiritual and cultural products. Documentary is popular with more and more audiences, especially young audiences, for its value in knowledge dissemination, artistic aesthetics, ideological education, etc. Works with "good response and good sales" are gaining generous returns from the market.
Adhering to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, we will firmly seize the great opportunity for the development of documentary, stick to the correct political direction, guidance of public opinion and value orientation, and make great efforts to create major topics such as "securing a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, decisive battle against poverty" and the centennial of the founding of the Party, so as to play a better role of the documentary creation and dissemination project of "recording a new era" and promote the high-quality development of documentary.
Firstly, optimize the policy environment
The Press and Publicity Department of National Radio and Television Administration plans to further highlight the key points and encourage the creation of more and better documentaries on the basis of a series of previous policies promoting the development of documentary.
Secondly, highlight the leading role of projects
Concentrate on poverty alleviation and an all-round well-off society, focus on the centennial of the founding of the Party, and do a good job in documentary creation. Meanwhile, actively explore the essence of Chinese excellent traditional culture and strive to launch high-quality documentaries.
Thirdly, strengthen the talent cultivation
Strengthen cooperation with the relevant departments and the training of talents on the documentary, and explore a group of young talents to join in documentary creation.
Fourthly, intensify overseas propagation
Make more efforts to support outstanding domestic documentaries and production organizations to participate in overseas high-level film and television festivals and exhibitions, encourage Chinese television media and production organizations to strengthen cooperation and exchanges with overseas organizations, and encourage Chinese and foreign organizations to jointly produce outstanding documentaries with "Chinese themes and international expressions".
Luo Yi, deputy director of Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Radio and Television
In 2010, the National Radio and Television Administration issued several opinions on accelerating the development of documentary, which put forward the overall requirements and main tasks for the development of documentary and construct the overall system and development strategy of the documentary market. The birth of the professional platforms has provided a professional platform for the Chinese documentary industry, presenting a good momentum for overall development interspersed with twists. At the same time, under the guidance of the National Radio and Television Administration, the creation of documentaries in Shanghai has a huge development. It has created a number of remarkable works around the major themes such as the centennial of the founding of the Party with proactive plan and careful layout.
This year, in order to fulfill the requirements of the National Radio and Television Administration on promoting the high-quality development of radio & TV and network audio-visual industries, the 26th Shanghai TV Festival included documentaries playing on the Internet into the collecting scope of documentary films. This time, the "Documenting the Era: Seminar on High-quality Development of Chinese Documentaries" of STV Forum showed that Shanghai TV Festival always sticks to locate the pulse of the era and keep pace with the era with the courage of cultural innovation. At the same time, it regards the implementation of the Party and the state to promote the prosperity of socialist TV culture and TV art in the new era as its own responsibility and mission.
Wang Jianjun, secretary of the party committee and chairman of Shanghai Media Group
I am glad to meet all the guests and colleagues presented during the Shanghai TV Festival. On behalf of SMG, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all of you who are gathered here today for giving advice and suggestions to the development of Chinese documentary industry.
Our colleagues engaging in documentary expressed their enthusiasm and reverence for life with their sharp perspective and the feelings and responsibilities of media people. They visited all walks of life in society, crossed China and even the world, and showed the beauty of human development with their cameras.
Shanghai has a long history of documentary. In 1993, Shanghai launched the first professional TV documentary program Documentary in the country. Since then, Shanghai has established the "Shanghai Style" documentary brand. In 2002, the DOCUTV was established, which is the first professional documentary channel in the country. In 2014, with the emergence and rapid growth of new media, PGC and other new content platforms, the demand for documentaries by online audiences continued to grow, which provides a driving force for creating the new form of program content, new channels for spreading and operating and new market of documentaries. Last year, SMG set up a documentary center, which integrates the documentary professional teams of DOCUTV, Dragon TV, Convergence Media Center, Yicai, Copyright Asset Management Center and other channels and departments to create more excellent works.
Document Contemporary Life and Show the Era\'s Voice
Focusing on the people\'s police, Police Stories-Guardians on the Move is rooted in the management of Shanghai, a super-large international city. Cai Zheng, deputy director of Dragon TV, explained the reason for choosing "Police": considering that the police work is full of suspense, conflict and humanity, the phenomena in the world can be observed from the perspective of police.
Liang Hong, director of CCTV-9, introduced that CCTV documentaries were based on three levels: industry logic, era topic and national mission. Smoothing misunderstanding through understanding and communication is an important mission of documentary creators. As CCTV, we are responsible for conveying Chinese stories to the world. There are many unique values in Chinese culture that need to be exchanged and recognized.
Yi Li, head of SMG Documentary Center and director of DOCUTV, told the story of the shooting of anti-epidemic program of Life Matters. The main creator of Life Matters, a famous brand of SMG documentaries, put forward the idea of making documentary to record the event after the outbreak of the epidemic. At the end of March, conditions permitted, the team sent 13 producer directors and photographers to Wuhan successively. After returning to Shanghai, they began to edit during quarantine in hotel.
Aerial Photography in China records the changes of China from an overlooking view. Yu Le, creative director of CCTV Documentary International Media Co., Ltd., set forth the advantages of aerial perspective: 1. It is suitable for the whole family to watch together. The aerial perspective provides novelty and relaxation for the audience who have busy lives during the 50-minute journey. 2. The aerial perspective changes the scale, thus answering why people gather in this city and why they inhabit by water.
Recently, Yang Xiaoqing, director of the China Agricultural Film and Television Center, is creating a series of documentaries with the theme of "poverty alleviation". As for this magnificent epic theme, she proposes to express with a highly macro perspective, the depth of media thinking and the character stories close to life, conveying the "philanthropism" of assistance by the subtle influence.
Documentary is the hard currency of soft power. The key to international communication lies in the authenticity and resonance of the content. However, interest is the most acceptable factor for the general audience. We need to find out the development trend of interest. One is to explore the unknown world to present "familiar strangers" in the documentary; the other is the true feelings, which share the truth, goodness and beauty of the character\'s mental process, and the emotion is resonant.
Dialogue 2: Cross-border Innovation of Documentary
Cross-border and breakthrough have become buzzwords in recent years. We are also pleased to see that the documentary, a serious art form, has realized breakthroughs and leaps in platform, space and creation.
Since the dawn of the Internet, it has belonged to young people, said Zhao Jie, vice president of the Central Newsreel and Documentary Film Studio and chairman of the Documentary Committee of the China Federation of Radio and Television Associations. Young people tend to search on Internet platforms to find their "circles" and make appointments.
Xu Zheng, a famous director and actor, said that he was deeply attracted by documentaries. He thinks that documentaries have completely entered a new era, and all the people record themselves and the world in their own way. He believes that documentaries will make great breakthroughs in form and content in the future. At the same time, he will also use documentaries to tell those touching stories.
Gan Chao, vice president of Youku and general manager of Pan-Entertainment Content Center, explained the pursuit of Youku from three aspects of truth, goodness and beauty: truth is the rigid demand of the times, goodness is the means of expression, and beauty is the communication effect. At the same time, with the help of the platform, Youku will improve the sound development of the industry, so that it is not hard to make documentaries in the world.
Innovation is the base of iQIYI. Ning Yuqi, director of iQIYI Documentary Center, said that based on the cooperation with innovative teams, IQIYI opens up new directions and new contents, and brings users and participants into the industry, thus forming a perfect system.
When it comes to short videos, Zhu Lexian, director of Documentary Studio of Tencent Penguin Pictures, mentioned their documentary Breakfast in China, which filled the audience\'s fragmented time with short and pithy narrative forms. However, we should keep exploring how to make short videos with depth and content.
