About the documentary topic?

First, strive to record the truth of the essence of things.

People will not deny that authenticity is the life of documentary. As a TV viewer, you choose to watch a documentary in order to see the real thing, otherwise it will make the audience lose trust in the documentary. Once this trust is lost, the whole concept of documentary will collapse. As the creator of documentary, it is also based on the principle of pursuing authenticity. No matter whether the documentary is compared to "the hammer to create nature" or "the mirror to observe nature", there is no doubt that the truth of the story is the life of the documentary, which is also the fundamental difference between the documentary and the feature film. However, documentary is by no means the true face of reality. What the creator shoots and what he doesn't shoot is already subjective. "Truth is actually the product of people's involvement in the material world, and it is people's judgment on the connotation of the material world. The existence of objective things is independent of people's spiritual world. This material world does not depend on people's feelings, but is perceived through people's feelings. " Therefore, a good documentary is not a superficial record, but can express the truth that reflects the essence of things through a deep record of objective things. Conscious documentary creators are trying to get as close to the truth as possible.

1, capture the documentary theme that best shows the essence of the times.

There is a saying in the circle of TV stations: if you choose the right topic, you will be half successful. This jargon illustrates the importance of choosing a topic for a documentary. Facing the endless world, what theme do you choose to shoot a documentary? One hundred people will choose one hundred topics, which involve everyone's hobbies, life experience, circle of friends, knowledge, perception of the surrounding world and world outlook. But I think the most important thing is the news quality of each director, which is the most important factor for us to choose the topic of social humanities documentary. The so-called news quality refers to the ability to observe and analyze society and life. Teacher Wang Wenli, who filmed the documentary "Mao Mao's Complaints" in those years, learned from others by chance that a female migrant worker was going to sue and immediately threw herself into filming. As a result, she not only filmed a touching life story, but also reflected the profound theme of the changes in social ethics brought by farmers' going to work in cities in the process of urbanization in China. The documentary "Reunion Day" tells the story of director William Wang meeting a veteran of Taiwan Province Province who came to the mainland to find his relatives. She followed up and filmed an embarrassing love story, explaining the background of the times when people on both sides of the strait longed for reunification. In May, 20001,UNESCO officially listed China's ancient drama Kunqu Opera as a world cultural heritage. Seeing this news, I think it must be of great artistic and historical value to shoot this topic, but from which angle can we better reveal the essence of things? I read another news in the newspaper: students from Minhang No.3 Middle School in Shanghai are learning to perform Kunqu Opera. So I decided to shoot from the perspective of Kunqu art inheritance, and I finally succeeded. The documentary "Learning Kunqu Opera" was shortlisted for the French International Audiovisual Festival (FIPA) and was well received by foreign judges, because the inheritance of Kunqu Opera is the perspective of the whole world and all mankind.

2. Have a good creative attitude.

It takes a relatively long time to make a successful documentary that can reflect the true colors of things. At this stage, we must have the mentality of being free from external interference, enduring loneliness and concentrating on creation. I remember when 199 1 started shooting the documentary Dexing Square, I didn't know the theory of documentary at that time, but I just wanted to shoot a documentary that could truly reflect the lives of ordinary people in Shikumen Lane. At that time, the truth of understanding was life-oriented, without any false elements, showing the original taste of life. So the film crew tracked and filmed in Dexing Square for eight months. Life in the alley is endless and trivial, but we have excavated the stories of ordinary people's true feelings from this unremarkable life, which reflect the truth close to the essence of things, that is, the housing situation of ordinary people in Shanghai in the early 1990 s and the worldly wisdom in Shikumen Lane. Each generation can become the wealth of the next generation, and can leave valuable historical materials, but the premise is true and thoughtful. In 2002, CCTV's "Witness" column planned the series of "The Weight of Time", selected some China classic documentaries made in 1990s, and organized revisiting filming. Go back to Dexing Square, which is separated by 10 years, and shoot Dexing Square after 10 years. The feeling of this shooting is completely different from that of 10 years ago. I can't find the sincerity and interest of Shikumen Hutong 10 years ago. The fundamental reason is that the creative mentality has changed and become impetuous and utilitarian. The film "Revisiting Dexing Square" was badly made. Therefore, when you meet a good documentary topic, and you have neither creative passion nor good mentality, you'd better not shoot it, because the documentary is "created with your heart" and it "consumes life".

3. Documentary shooting is a process of repeated thinking.

Repeated thinking is to see the essence through the phenomenon and profoundly reveal the truth of things. "Lv Xian Waal put it well:' Judging from the script, there are many films that are passable, with flawless directors and brilliant actors, but these films are worthless.' What these films lack is what people call' soul' or' attraction' and are named' existence'. Abel Gans (French director) once said, "What constitutes a film is not the picture, but the soul of the picture". I understand that the "soul" referred to here is the creative inspiration and ideological spark of the work, that is, a good work should have a profound reflection on the essence and truth of things. Man is not a genius, and it often takes a process to understand the essence of things, from outside to inside, from here to there, in order to reach the depth of understanding. When I filmed Dexing Square, I didn't want to deal with the housing problem at first, because the housing was not commercialized at that time, and the people's housing was difficult, so the government could not solve it for a while, so it was listed as a sensitive topic at that time. But since we want to film the lives of ordinary people and show the truth of the matter, this problem cannot be avoided. For this reason, I experienced several rounds of thinking, and finally focused on the housing problem, which truly recorded the living conditions of ordinary people in Shanghai in the early 1990 s. So a good documentary director should be a thoughtful person. As the saying goes, "writing is like a person." The same is true of documentary works, and the director must have a good idea before he can show it in his works.

Second, strive for the art of recording.

For documentaries, "record" is an important concept, which is the carrier of documentary facts, the basis of ideographic language, the form of expression and the process of shooting records. John Gleason clearly defined documentaries as "creative treatment of reality", and the positive significance of this definition lies in denying those documentaries that simply copy daily life and dividing documentaries into the category of artistic creation. Therefore, the pursuit of documentary artistry is an important link in documentary creation.

The documentary was made. Documentary is different from feature films, which have a complete script in advance, and all scenes and shots are arranged artificially. Documentaries are completely different. Not only is there no script in advance, but almost all scenes are in a natural state (except scene reproduction), which is the photographer's record on the spot. Scene is the spatial state of the existence of objective things, and process is the time flow of the movement and development of objective things. So the camera should capture what is going on from all the favorable angles of the scene. The quality of shooting directly affects the success or failure of documentary.

1, to the scene.

The shooting of each specific scene has its specific connotation, which requires all members of the film crew (director, camera, recording and lighting) to quickly enter the specific scene, coordinate and work hard, and their mental state must not be separated from the shooting scene. When the subject is in progress, it is active and you are passive. If you are in a passive position, you must pay close attention to it, otherwise the photographed things will be fleeting and it will be too late to regret, which will directly affect the authenticity of the record. Only when each film crew enters the scene being filmed can they have foresight, foresee what may happen next and accurately capture the development process of things. In the documentary "Learning Kunqu Opera", there is such a plot: Chen Jie goes to Beijing Kunqu Opera Theatre to register. In the hall, Chen Jie was nervous when watching others take exams. She suddenly turned and ran to the door. It turned out that she wanted to practice her voice outside and open it. I didn't know what Chen Jie was going to do at first, but he soon realized sensitively that she might need to practice her voice, so he followed the camera and recorded the process. There is another small treatment in the long shot of this sudden plot: Chen Jie is a little shy and doesn't want to be seen practicing her voice. She ran to the back of a house and hid. Photographer Gong Wei didn't follow up, but stopped in the distance and recorded Chen Jie's voice from space. This kind of handling is very good, which not only makes things more real, but also leaves more room for aftertaste. Therefore, shooting a documentary requires a very high level of photographers, not only skilled camera technology, but also insight and judgment on things and strong professionalism.

2. Be creative on site.

Dziga vertov called the camera "the eye of the movie". He said: "Movie eyes work and move in events and spaces, and observe and record impressions in a completely different way from human eyes." It should be said that the "movie eye" originates from life and is higher than life. Higher than life itself embodies the process of creation. This creation is not fiction, but discovery. At the shooting scene, all members of the film crew should be full of creative passion and record in a way different from the human eye. The camera not only records the images of life, but also records the situations of life. Image is the reappearance form of material object, which has the symbolic function of expressing meaning, and situation is a complete and concrete narrative concept. So the camera can't just copy the image mechanically, but should record the life completely. In this situation, there are not only the subject of things, but also the environment and background; There are narrative language, imagination and lyrical context. To achieve such a state, it depends on the passion of creation. When filming the documentary "The Last Tricycle on the Beach", we learned that the old man Lu had been living alone in a rented hut since his wife died, and his life was very miserable. Our film crew followed his home and noticed a picture of his wife hanging on the wall. The photographer suggested that the old man wipe off the dust accumulated in the picture frame, and the old man gently wiped the picture frame. Everything was so natural that the photographer recorded this scene. When the film was broadcast, many viewers said that they couldn't help crying when they saw this scene. This shot is so infectious-this is the "movie eye" born of the photographer's passion. I believe that as long as we shoot documentaries with passion, we will find new discoveries in various scenes.

Thirdly, documentary is the art of editing.

Documentaries, like feature films, form their own unique artistic language by changing the combination of shots. Later editing is the key to realize this special artistic language. The creation of this stage is of great significance to the documentary. Eisenstein believes that "theme" is the structure that makes every part of a work meaningful. As the idea or theme of the work unfolds over time, it acquires a rhythmic form. That is, with the development of each part in time, the relationship between them constitutes the rhythm. From Eisenstein's point of view, we can see that "theme" covers the content, thought, structure and rhythm of the work, and highly summarizes the goals to be achieved in the later editing work.

1, refining the theme

Shooting a documentary with realistic themes may have established the theme at the time of selecting the topic, or it may have been established during the shooting process, but in any case, the theme must have been established in the middle and late stage of shooting. Post-editing is the specific operation stage to realize and perfect the theme. First of all, we should sort out the materials we took in the early stage. Because in the early shooting, due to the uncertainty of the theme, the uncertainty of people and things, there will be a lot of shooting materials. Generally, the film ratio of my documentary is about 30 1, that is, I can shoot 30 minutes of material and make a documentary of 1 minute. Of course, it depends on personal creative habits, some people are many, and some people are few. Therefore, in the later stage, according to the needs of the theme and content, the material that is out of the theme should be removed. If the pre-shooting is addition, then the post-editing is subtraction. The process of refining the theme is to "require every part of the work to contain the theme that dominates the whole work" (Eisenstein). This process is often very painful, because too much emotion is poured into the shooting process, which will produce thinking inertia, and you are often reluctant to eliminate some plots and scenes that you think are wonderful, and these plots and scenes are out of the theme. So this process must be done rationally. Otherwise, I want to, but I can't bear to give up. Editing these materials together, there is no logical connection between them, which makes them messy, the theme is not prominent, and the rhythm can't go up. It won't be a good documentary.

2. Find the most suitable structure.

Today, the whole trend of documentary development is that narrative and expression methods move from closed to open, from preaching to pluralism. Documentaries with real pictures are far from enough. The audience wants to see something real, vivid and profound. Grierson thinks that documentary shooting is "a dramatic event at the door". Our life is full of stories, and the audience comes to see narrative films with certain expectations. "Dramatic" and "story" are always important elements of attraction. Telling a touching story is a challenge for all documentary creators. The theme of some documentaries is a story with dramatic elements: people, events, contradictions and conflicts ... For example, the documentaries Mao Mao Complaints and Reunion Day are such themes. However, the theme of most documentaries itself is not too dramatic. There are only a few fragmentary plots. How to organize the content and plot of this kind of topic well and make the audience like it depends on the creator's active use of his brain, mobilizing various means, trying several editing schemes and finding the most suitable structure. When I was editing and learning Kunqu opera, I met a challenge. We started filming on the opening day of the new school year, and experienced the process that the school Kunqu Club recruited new students, and the new students received enlightenment education, and followed the growth of three students, until one of them applied for a professional troupe and was finally admitted, and embarked on the road of dedicating himself to Kunqu art. At first, I set up the structure according to the time sequence of events and compiled 100 minutes. I always feel that the rhythm is procrastinating and the narrative style is not ups and downs. I also tightened up on the original basis, removed a character, and then removed some redundant plots and made it up for 80 minutes. However, there is still a feeling of procrastination throughout. Another difficulty is that at the end of a children's report performance, the lens is very wonderful and the content is very deep, which shows the immature performance of children and embodies the ideological connotation of China Kunqu art successors. But this scene is used too much, just like a Chinese drama program, and it is always not enough if it is used less. Later, I adopted another structure, which listed the occurrence and development of events as a main line and established it in chronological order; The second line is children's report performance, which is a line with concentrated time and space. These two lines are organically combined to form the concept of complex montage proposed by Eisenstein, which Eisenstein calls "intellectual montage"-that is, two unrelated and incomplete meanings collide to produce a brand-new meaning. This structure changes the rhythm of procrastination and injects a new element-aesthetics. Later, the documentary "Learning Kunqu Opera" was filmed for 64 minutes, and the content increased instead of decreasing, and the artistry and ideological content were obviously improved. "The picture reproduces the reality, and then it goes to the second step, that is, in a specific environment, it touches our feelings, and finally it goes to the third step, that is, it produces an ideological and moral significance at will."

Documentary has the unique charm that other media can't replace, and has the powerful function of knowing the world and self. It is an art with enlightenment cultural connotation. As professionals engaged in documentary creation, they should avoid impetuousness, strive to follow the principles of documentary creation, strive to explore the artistic creation space of documentary, and record the theme in depth. Then, there will be less impetuous works and more valuable documentaries on our screen.