No one would have thought that Zhang Songwen ’s first reality show would become a hit in a village on the outskirts of Beijing.
Since the TV series "Hurry Up" hit the airwaves in 2022, "treasure actor" Zhang Songwen's profound and vivid insights into life have made countless people interested in his living conditions. One of the most talked-about things is that he rented a house in Suzhuang Village, Shunyi, Beijing, for 15 years. "Brilliant Garden" truly records Zhang Songwen's leisurely and pastoral life in Shunyi, Beijing. For example, the show filmed Zhang Songwen attending a wedding in the village. Facing a person who can only be seen on TV, Mr. Shunyi said, "He wants to bring the TV series (character) here, who cares about him!" which showed the humor and enthusiasm of the locals. Zhang Songwen also took his actor friends for a walk on both sides of the Chaobai River to experience what "the reed stalks that remove makeup stand proudly in the cold winter"; they went to Shunyi's local specialty "Li Sui's Fair", where there was a dazzling array of snacks and a bowl of hot noodles. The picture is full of rich fireworks... It is reported that after the broadcast of "Brilliant Garden", the audience heatedly discussed Zhang Songwen's lifestyle, and this small village in Shunyi, Beijing became crowded overnight, with tourists from all over the country visiting here. . But many people came because of Zhang Songwen, but stayed because of the beautiful scenery in the suburbs of Beijing. With the vibrant fields and countryside and the natural and simple folk customs, they understood firsthand why this place could attract a person who loves life so much to live here for a long time.
Perhaps "Brilliant Garden" is just a slow-life variety show, but the long-tail effect it brings proves that the mass communication attribute of variety shows is like a steady stream of living water to the culture and tourism industry, injecting new vitality like a drop of water piercing a stone.
Zhang Songwen shows daily home life in "Brilliant Garden".
Variety shows have a close two-way interaction with the cultural industry
In fact, if we explore the application of traditional cultural elements in the context of variety shows, it can be traced back to the late 1990s. At that time, cultural programs were still in their infancy, and their formats and contents were relatively simple. Most of them were competitions such as "Happy Dictionary" and "Cultural Life", and family challenges. Among them, the "Hundred Schools Forum" at the beginning of the 21st century has the most profound influence. The program encourages individualized thinking and the appreciation of both refined and popular tastes. The in-depth and simple explanations by experts such as Yi Zhongtian make obscure knowledge come to life, and have been sought after by countless young viewers. Although this program has not broken away from the "studio + preaching" model of cultural variety shows, it has laid a market foundation for the popular dissemination of traditional culture.
In the past ten years since 2013, as online audio-visual programs have entered a period of rapid iteration and diversified vertical segmentation development, as well as the social awakening of traditional culture, cultural elements have also moved from "niche" to "mainstream" in the audition market. Its scope of business has gradually divided into two categories: "cultural vertical" and "cultural +", occupying a huge market share. The "cultural vertical" in a narrow sense can be understood as "Chinese Poetry Conference", " sees words like faces ", "there are poems and distances", "wanjuanfengyaji" and other purely cultural export variety shows focusing on poetry, reading, and literature. However, this form is still easy to fall into the trap of being too high-minded and too few. Some practitioners subjectively believe that the entertainment of variety shows will weaken the importance of cultural value output, and they can only choose one of the two. Therefore, TV audiences who only focus on the cultural part are passive to The dissemination does not buy it; or the model and content are integrated like "two skins", but the result is that the form and content are extremely separated and the dissemination power is not high, making it difficult to be widely recognized by the market.
The definition of "culture +" variety shows is broader and can be understood as integrating cultural elements into diverse variety show themes to achieve pan-public communication as much as possible. "Culture + film and television interpretation" programs such as "China in Classics", " National Treasures " and "Good Years Study Club"; "Flowers and Boys Silk Road Season", "Jumping into the Geography Book", "Towards the Mountains and Seas" "Culture + Tourism" programs such as "Departure"; and "Culture + Entertainment" and "Culture + Music" such as "Twelve Hours in the Capital", " The Most Beautiful Central Axis ", " Let's Run " and " Extreme Challenge Treasure Tour " Culture + Food" and other more innovative and integrated trend models.
There are various Beijing landmarks in "The Twelve Hours of Beijing".
Compared with "cultural vertical", "culture +" is more like an exploration of variety shows to balance culture and commerciality. It is also a way for variety shows as social communication products to closely follow social emotions, enhance nationality, and achieve emotional value and ideological resonance with the audience. The point is. For example, programs such as "National Treasure" storytell, visualize and popularize history, supplement it with precise dramatic interpretations by well-known actors, and empower and "activate" new technologies such as AR, making traditional culture, historical classics, cultural relics, etc. All become more vivid and three-dimensional in the dialogue between ancient and modern times. For example, "Run", "Extreme Challenge Treasure Tour", "Farming", " Hello Life ", "Flowers and Youth·Silk Road Season", etc. use regional culture as the "lining" to use entertainment, competition, tourism, As a "face", rural experiences, etc., reflect the deep exploration and integration of local culture from the program theme, game settings, scene layout, and celebrity invitations, or use the interesting interactive mode that variety shows are good at to combine traditional handicrafts, unique folk customs, and extraordinary Heritage skills and so on are presented to the public. This kind of "culture +" integration allows the audience to feel the charm and value of culture first-hand in terms of viewing and fun.
《Come on! Beijing food in "Beijing Central Axis".
There has also been a close two-way interaction between variety shows and the cultural industry. On the one hand, variety shows provide a platform for the cultural industry to display, allowing more people to understand and pay attention to local cultural resources; on the other hand, the cultural industry also provides rich materials and inspiration for variety shows. This two-way interaction promotes the cultural industry and variety shows to form a virtuous cycle ecology. The most significant effect is still in the cultural tourism industry. For example, "Starting to the Mountains and Seas" went to Yili, Gannan, Ganzi and other places to explore a check-in guide for niche travel attractions, which attracted many viewers to go there. "Here comes the show!" "Beijing Central Axis" is an immersive visit to the hutongs that carry history, culture and all kinds of life, starting a time and space journey on the central axis of Beijing. The cultural atmosphere of Beijing presented in the Reuters photos alone has driven many young people to visit the same alleys. . "Wanjuan Fengya Collection" went to Shaoxing, Xi'an and other cities for research and study, focusing on ancient people's life such as clothing, food, travel and learning, and copied classics such as "Preface to the Lanting Collection", "Peach Blossom Temple Song", "Shang Xiang Si" and "Qing Ping Tiao" After the famous scene in "Drama New Life" recorded in Wuzhen Wucun was broadcast, the local performance market became more and more popular. It has become even more popular, and even related tourist attractions use "Drama New Life" as a promotional slogan... These are all direct or indirect benefits brought by "variety show + culture", creating more development opportunities for the cultural tourism industry and effectively promoting local culture. Tourism consumption encourages the public to protect cultural resources and injects a steady stream of vitality into industrial development.
As Wang Tianying, the producer of "Sven Jiangnan 2" said in the interview, with the joint efforts of everyone, cultural variety shows are gradually moving from superficial knowledge popularization to the separation and classification of cultural details. It is refined and delicate, and continues to help build a systematic and grand cultural landscape in the audiovisual field.
"Culture +" variety shows face greater challenges
However, given the overall lack of creativity in the variety show market and the lack of investment, the future development of "Culture +" variety shows also faces greater challenges.
One is the homogenization of topic selection. Take location selection as an example. Variety shows have flocked to Zhejiang, Yunnan, Hunan and other places one after another. The topic selection angles have also invariably focused on "food", "landscapes" and "countryside", relying too much on existing thinking paths, without new presentation perspectives or creative integration. model, resulting in the rich cultural tourism resources being exploited excessively and monotonously. Secondly, the program formats, presentation techniques, and program guests also tend to be similar. What can be proved is that in recent years, many "travel + everything" programs have continued to fail. The reason is nothing more than a lack of themed innovative perspectives, an inability to keep pace with the times and adding new ideas, and it is difficult to increase the open rate of young audiences. Thirdly, many current programs have only a cultural "propaganda shell", and the core culture is superficial, making it difficult to bring in-depth and simple gains to the audience. The last point is that new media integration thinking needs to be strengthened.In the era of short videos, "culture +" programs need to be more popular. However, currently few programs have truly understood the effective strategy of integrating production and dissemination of large and small screens in the planning stage. Most of them use celebrities as publicity gimmicks, weakening the real Cultural highlights need to be combined with traffic.
Beijing-style variety shows inherit excellent traditional culture
What creators can learn from is that in recent years, Beijing has always played a key role in the inheritance of China’s excellent traditional culture. It has deeply cultivated the cultural resources of the capital, taken root in people’s lives, and launched a series of high-quality literary and audio-visual programs. For example, "The Forbidden City", "The Most Beautiful Central Axis", " The Most Beautiful Chinese Drama ", "Twelve Hours in the Capital", "Winter Dream Appointment", " Museum City ", all combine culture with long and short video media. Deep integration. Similarly, Beijing is also based on the national cultural center, vigorously implements the "Culture +" strategy, promotes the integrated development of culture, technology, finance, tourism, etc., injects new vitality into the development of the cultural industry, and makes audio-visual products appear "national high-quality semi-Beijing" and "innovation-led" "See Beijing" and "the core resources are in Beijing". Among them, "New: The Forbidden City" has driven the cultural and creative market of the Forbidden City. The crowdfunding of pajamas with the theme of "Good News of Fortune (Bat and Crane)" alone exceeded 8 million yuan; "City of Museums·Chinese Civilization Exploration Season" all There are 153 hot searches on the Internet, with a total number of topic reads of nearly 1.86 billion and more than 7.079 million discussions; "The Most Beautiful Central Axis" has launched " true color ", "When the Bell Rings", "Fengden", "Cold Window", etc. Many well-received music works have received enthusiastic response among different age groups. In the second season, the cumulative number of plays on the platform reached 600 million, and the average number of plays of the program songs reached 20 million; in the third season, the innovative use of "location road show + "Recording Live Broadcast" format to create an accompanying onlooker effect and a continuous topic effect, #The most beautiful central axis Beijing Lu Xun Museum live broadcast#, #The most beautiful central axis Beijing Miaoying Temple White Pagoda live broadcast#, #The most beautiful central axis aosen recording# and so on The popularity of live broadcasts is high...
The opportunities and challenges of "culture +" variety shows coexist, but in the final analysis, the mission of variety shows focusing on the new era and new culture is correct, and the development path is in line with the current social trend of thought. If you just want to better ride on the wind of traditional culture and become a cultural inheritor, you still need to take root in the people, continue to excavate and innovate from the cultural propositions and formal carriers that the people really want to understand and really need, and constantly explore traditional culture An expression that keeps pace with the times.
Beijing News reporter Zhang He
editor Tong Na
proofreader Zhai Yongjun
