In 2020, on the occasion of the 600th anniversary of the completion of Forbidden City , "News are released·Forbidden City" returns again. Continue to launch popular cultural programs, leading the public to explore historical secrets and crack cultural codes. As soon as the program was broadcast, it ushered in a good start with the same variety show ratings and the first in the Internet. The third season still follows the style of the first two seasons, with the new product developers of the Forbidden City leading everyone to search for strange treasures, unveiling the mystery of the Forbidden City through numerous twists and turns.
In recent years, some craftsmanship-made cultural variety shows have become popular "hot" programs for young people, turning the original niche cultural interest into a popular cultural carnival. In view of this, more and more cultural variety shows that are dressed in the "coat of traditional culture" have appeared on major satellite TV and video platforms. However, if you explore the performance of the program in depth, the core focus of the young audience of some programs is still on the shallow-level entertainment tastes such as celebrity guests and program gossip, and have not achieved the original intention of spreading excellent traditional culture. So, how can an excellent cultural variety show take into account the "coat" and "inside" of traditional culture?
■ Build a time channel between history and the present
In an interview, Mao Jia, the director of "News on the Forbidden City", explained: "Since it is a cultural program, we must maintain the continuity of culture and let the people who liked it before look at it: It's not bad, it's still the same flavor!" In Mao Jia's view, only inheritance can be inherited. Only iterated in inheritance can culture have vitality. In the third season of the show, what needs to be broken through urgently is how to maintain the original characteristics and essence, and achieve new iterative development to meet the audience's demands. "We try to connect the typical and unopened areas of the Forbidden City with cultural relics, and strive to give the audience a complete cultural output." If the first season is an exploration of the Forbidden City, the second season is a presentation of the Forbidden City, and the third season is a deep cultivation of the Forbidden City. This season not only displays cultural relics, but also sorts out history. Like the Qin'an Hall in the Forbidden City, in addition to the cultural relics from the Ming and Qing dynasties, it also contains jade books of Song Dynasty Song Huizong . Such a "time and space capsule" shows that "The Forbidden City is not only a royal building from the Ming and Qing dynasties, but also a museum that carries the history and culture of our entire nation."
The Forbidden City is unique in all its treasures, and the safety of cultural relics is very important. Speaking of shooting, Mao Jia said that every Monday, the Forbidden City closed, and the shooting time of the program team from 8 am to 5 pm is. "All arrangements must be accurate to minutes, and there is no chance of reshooting each shot, and it must be done in one step." There were also difficulties in shooting, and Mao Jia said that he was "trapped" when filming the Forbidden City Juanqinzhai. Juanqinzhai is the most secret corner of Qianlong Garden and also Qianlong’s personal private space. Juanqinzhai is small and exquisite, and there is not much room for activity. What is amazing is that there is an exquisite stage here. Who is playing here? Who is listening here? Why did he build such a stage?
Qianlong likes to listen to Nanqu. Has anyone ever performed on this stage? However, the crew searched through all the historical materials and found no records of opera performances here. Perhaps the hierarchy was very strict at that time, so the emperor was not inconvenient to speak out publicly and be a fan of the votes here alone? "Of course this is just our guess, but as a cultural program, this guess cannot be directly output to the audience." So, the program team invited actors to perform mock-ups, and finally showed "several scenes that are most likely to happen." But it is difficult to reproduce the scene where Qianlong appeared on stage. "Junqinzhai has a small space and cannot be filmed on site to avoid destroying the current situation of cultural relics. It can only be collected in the camera space and then synthesized through animation later." Even the actor Zhou Yiwei, who participated in the performance, exclaimed: "Did I really perform here?"
Mao Jia did not want this show to become a "fast consumer product". "Every shot must be accurate, and looking back is still worth savoring." For example, the crew used 3D animation to restore the original appearance of the Ming Dynasty of the Palace of Taihe, and the entire shot only took 3 seconds. But for these 3 seconds, the team carefully researched the size of each beam and column and the structure of each window grille, and repeatedly compared the color drawings on the inner eaves to achieve "infinitely close to the truth of history". There is also music in addition to the shot of "infinitely close to the truth of history". Every season of music is carefully produced by a professional music team, "Even a sound effect must be specially arranged according to the content."
Mao Jia believes that the Forbidden City is like an open historical timeline. What people usually see is only a section of history. When all sections are linked, the context of history is restored. "In this sense, the third season is also a summary of the first two seasons. "The New Palace Museum has been filmed for three years, and Mao Jia was quite touched, "What happened in every season, every episode, and even every day is vivid in my mind, and I am always challenging myself, repairing myself, and updating myself. "
■ "People" who are involved in "cultural heritage"
, a teacher in the Department of Advertising in the Department of Art, Binhai College, Nankai University, said in an analysis of this season's "News from the Forbidden City": "The media that dares to assume social responsibilities should have a certain degree of realistic attention and aim to have a positive media public opinion influence on the media audience. Media programs based on the communication of traditional excellent cultures should have a sense of social responsibility of the times. On the basis of popularizing various cultural carriers and forms, they should talk about people with things and combine the sufferings and glory in the inheritance of Chinese cultural context to achieve the purpose of infecting and educating today's people. "
She introduced: Taking this episode of October 31 as an example, the program shows many patriots who donated cultural relics to the Forbidden City on the "Jingren List" of Jingren Palace. The list includes both social celebrities and ordinary people. Regardless of their status, their love for culture and motherland is in line with each other. At the same time, this episode not only continues the live scenes of using actors to reproduce the creative process or historical background of cultural relics, but also reproduces the collection of everyone in the war era through actors and stars who are highly concerned by young people. Zhang Boju After hardships, they have protected precious cultural relics such as the "First Post in China" from being plundered, and then donated all the cultural relics to the country, presenting all the past and present lives of the cultural relics being passed down to the audience.
In addition, the exploration task of this episode is "Looking for the Forbidden City" The magical animal that is second-generation, the so-called "second-generation" refers to "lost and regained". The answer is the "Five Ox Picture" collected in Jingyixuan, the Forbidden City. This famous work in the Tang Dynasty was lost in the late Qing Dynasty, but it appeared in the auction market in Hong Kong in the 1950s. At that time, Premier Zhou ordered the rescue of national treasures "at all costs", and Mr. Sun Chengzhi, an expert in calligraphy and painting restoration, took 8 months to repair it to make this treasure reappear in the Forbidden City. Therefore, the arrangement and design of this season's program closely connects the profound imprint of "people" in the cultural heritage, allowing the audience to understand the hard-won cultural relics on the basis of understanding traditional culture, guide the young generation to cultivate patriotism, and work together to inherit and protect traditional culture, so that the wisdom of the ancestors can be preserved and continued. As Deng Lun said at the end of the show, "In the future, I also hope to shoulder this responsibility and pass on this spirit. ”
■ Looking for the "common" of different cultural circles
In the new season of "New Palace", college student design teams from 20 universities including Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Communication University of China will compete for "new" quotas through cultural and creative design competitions. The ideas of young people collide with each other in the program, adding new ideas to this "N-generation" program.
college students each create cultural innovation products with different personalities, allowing the concept of endless life to be practiced in the latest practice. This season adopts a team battle competition to inject a steady stream of youth power into the Forbidden City. In the first episode of the program, Tsinghua University School of Fine Arts and Central Academy of Fine Arts designed a pair of Forbidden City-themed shoes based on the back-passing elements, a pair of Forbidden City red with green and a pair of white marble tones, making the elements of the "Forbidden City" enter contemporary life in a more distinct but more conducive to the public's acceptance.
In the second episode of the program, the group of female figurines of Taoji and "Five Ox Pictures" were used as back-passing elements, and students from Beijing Institute of Technology and Jiangnan University extracted cute points as creations. As Lei Jiayin instructed: "Each girl band has specific actions and images, and is also a rare top ancient craft. Students can do some extended design ideas at all levels."In this way, the cute baby figures for dancing terracotta figurines are designed to emphasize the value concepts of modern society such as "It is better to dance than to forget the troubles in life"; a set of "graceful lady" cultural and creative products also imply the creator's expectations: "We believe that the beauty of women is not just thin, she is fat, cute, and free. ”
Zhang Mengwen, deputy secretary of the Party Committee and vice president of the School of Design and Art of Beijing Institute of Technology, said that college students deeply participated in the cultural and creative design and development of "New·Forbidden City", and participated in the process of cultural and creative products from concept to design and finally going to the market in the entire process. In other words, "New·Forbidden City" provides a full set of practical platforms for young students who are about to enter society from product design and development to production and sales of finished products. Zhang Mengwen said: "This not only allows students to fully demonstrate the theoretical knowledge they usually learn, but also educate and tutor them with rich experience, repeatedly modify and design excellent works, and ultimately transform the product design into a finished product that can be directly sold, allowing students to witness the birth and release of the product in person. This greatly helped college students achieve self-breakthrough and growth in the entire link, and accumulated invisible experience capital for their future development in the design industry and personal careers. "
Zhang Mengwen said that the design practice experience of traditional cultural themes has made these future designers more consciously turn traditional culture into a part of their own "gene". Participating in "The New Palace" is not only to propose design creativity, but also rooted in the cultural imprint of students. The program's educational method of entertainment and silently moistening things, the theme content that combines traditional culture with modern fashion design, and the youthful and lively expression form have a subtle positive impact on students, which is more effective and more entertaining than classroom education. Zhang Mengwen said: "Students use careful thinking and use every design detail to show the rich connotation of the excellent traditional culture of the Chinese nation, express the permanent charm and style of the cultural story behind it, and spread it to young people and even the public in the way of young people. The "national hot trend" represented by the Forbidden City's cultural and creative industry not only shows the national cultural confidence of contemporary Chinese people, but also shows the level and cultural heritage of domestic design. "
In the research, Li Wei observed that "national style fever" actually formed an important circle of youth popular culture a few years ago. There are already a group of stable young fans in the Hanfu circle and ancient music circle, and they continue to create cultural aesthetic experiences for young people through self-media platforms, which provides reference for cultural variety shows: the popular culture circle of young people is essentially a relative system that deviates from the mainstream cultural circle, and wants to enter their spirit The world needs to use the discourse model that can resonate with young people and change "opposition" to "common".
In terms of the production methods of cultural variety shows, in addition to the traditional "you say and I listen" model, cultural variety shows represented by "News from the Forbidden City" borrow from various expression forms such as outdoor reality shows, competition PK, and scene theaters. Starting from the needs of young people's media contact, they will use visual expression, curiosity, story-based narratives, etc. Multiple expressions interspersed with programs, making mainstream culture above the temple a popular topic that can also attract young people's attention. At the same time, in the broadcasting methods of cultural variety shows, there are both complete program resources shared by major video platforms and TV stations, and there are also small video segments that are easy for young people to share instantly or edit in social media and short video apps and split and cut, which is better than the previous phenomenal cultural variety show " Chinese Poetry". "Hi " has created the "universal literary youth" Peng Min and the "poetry talented woman" Wu Yishu. The multi-channel program communication methods have helped them show the "highlight clips" of knowledgeable people in the program to gain great attention, and expanded the program influence and appeal of the times.
"Any cultural variety show has time and space restrictions, which determines that the ability to guide young audiences to establish cultural confidence is also limited by only the content of the program.Therefore, combining the cultural and entertainment attributes of online programs with offline extended cultural and creative activities to attract young people to independently explore culture is the key to actively guiding Chinese excellent culture in cultural variety shows. "Li Wei said, "The Forbidden City has performed quite well in this regard. Each episode of the program arranges designers to create the Forbidden City's characteristic cultural and creative products, and viewers can place orders and purchases directly while watching the program. The characteristic of different from other cultural and creative products is that the cultural and creative products of each episode are closely in line with the theme elements explored in this episode of reality show. The interests of online programs constitute the direct incentive for offline product monetization, so that these elemental symbols that carry traditional excellent cultural genes exist not only in the eyes and ears of the audience, but also in their pillows, bodies, and hands... directly affect the traditional cultural aesthetic interests of the younger generation, and achieve deep integration and inheritance in the daily lives of modern people. Another thing worth mentioning is the cultural and museum exploration program " National Treasure " launched by CCTV. It selected 9 of the cultural relics exhibited throughout the season for the annual National Treasure Special Exhibition. It was selected to be exhibited simultaneously in the Archery Pavilion Plaza of the Palace Museum and local museums during the Spring Festival after the end of the program. It is based on the audio-visual content of the media and provides offline extended experiences, attracting audiences, especially young people, to go out of their homes for a cultural journey, deeply feel the spiritual baptism of the excellent traditional Chinese culture, and the confidence and pride of culture naturally arise. ”
■ Holding the original intention of cultural communication of program content
Cultural variety shows should extract the "inside" of excellent traditional culture, and they need to explore abstract spiritual perception based on different cultural representations. Cultural variety shows should use this as the core to infect the audience, thereby inspiring the audience to naturally develop cultural resonance and confidence from the heart. Inserting positive cultural spirit expression into the cultural representation of the audience's interest, so that the "coat" and "inside" of traditional culture are both the core proposition of cultural variety shows.
Li Wei believes that Chinese culture is profound and profound, and cultural essence is acquired through abstract understanding and perception, and variety shows are restricted by expression methods, so that Arouse and lead the cultural interests of young people, the cultural genes above the temple must be transformed into cultural carriers that are popular with the public. Therefore, using cultural variety shows as the communication carrier of China's excellent traditional culture, it is necessary to find the creative foothold in combination with the program's own positioning and combine it with consistent creative ideas. This creative foothold can be a specific materialized carrier of traditional culture. For example, "New! Forbidden City" each season of the program launches cultural propositions and problem-solving exploratory reality shows around the Forbidden City. For example, "The Great Wall" sets up knowledge game links during the process of celebrity guests climbing the Great Wall to arouse the participation of young audiences. These are mostly seasonal broadcasts. The cultural variety show that appears in a style, each episode popularizes traditional cultural knowledge with diversified entertainment expressions. The whole season of the program also forms the overall expression of a kind of excellent traditional cultural elements, thereby subtly completing the inheritance and popularization of the abstract connotation of Chinese culture; this creative foothold can also be a specific expression of traditional culture, such as "Dinglaolongdongkong" is based on traditional opera and other intangible cultural heritage art forms, and on this basis it carries out popular entertainment expressions of traditional and popular; for example, " Extraordinary Craftsmanship " is based on traditional folk craftsmen, and seeks China in a deep exploration and experience Treasure-level culture and skills; for example, " Chinese Chinese Character Dictation Conference ", " Chinese Idiom Conference ", "Chinese Poetry Conference" and other series of traditional language and culture based on China's profound and profoundness, leading the audience to deeply appreciate the beauty of language and text in the competition and competition of intelligence and memory of young people.
600-year-old Forbidden City is full of vitality because of its youthful taste. Mao Jia is not surprised by the love of young people for the Forbidden City, "Young people are not unsatisfied with traditional culture, and cultural accumulation does not mean that they are old papers. It just needs to choose a suitable frequency to connect with their discourse system. "The New Palace Museum" uses a younger and more common way to explore traditional culture, which echoes the young people's enthusiasm for traditional culture.
Source: Tianjin Daily
