I recently watched the documentary "Dunhuang", which was shot very carefully and neatly. When I watched it, I was slightly moved: because of the subject matter itself, because of Xu Wei's theme song, because of Zhang Chu He Yong's soundtrack, because of the neatness of the camera, because Zhou Bing, Xu Wei, Zhang Chu He Yong all grew up on the ancient Silk Road... and even more because : Zhou Bing has been making documentaries, and Zhang Chu and Xu Wei have been making music.

Director Zhou Bing is the original producer of "Chronicle", so he has accumulated a lot of experience in making documentaries. I would like to remember "Chronicle" here. It is my favorite sub-column in "Eastern Time and Space". Each issue will broadcast a documentary or feature film. However, "Eastern Time" first changed the version, then changed the host and finally changed the broadcast time, gradually submerging itself in the screen. When I heard about the revision in the station, I got a headache. Why do we TV producers always have to revise the version? Is it because the audience is impatient or are we more impatient? "Animal World" has a long lifespan and remains invincible precisely because it has not changed. Even the music is the same as it was more than ten years ago, and people still like to watch it.

I like doing TV, but I watch TV less and less. Nowadays, after playing draft, we play celebrities on the screen, and after playing stars, we play blind date, one wave after another. Documentaries are becoming increasingly difficult to watch. I admit that I am also one of those people who do boring programs, especially entertainment programs. They are very lively and exciting when I am doing them, especially when I am in high spirits before the live broadcast. A beam of chasing light during dimming or the conversation of colleagues in the intercom headset can do the trick. It arouses enthusiasm for work. If the camera or director is changed at a certain time, I will feel that it is wrong. The huge stage and team of colleagues are like Titanic, as colorful as the lights and sound. But after the show ended, the music was still lingering in my ears. The stage was instantly deserted. Listening to the voices of my colleagues calling it a day and looking at the dark stage, my heart felt even hollower than the stage. It seemed like nothing was left. Below, there are only hallucinatory passing clouds.

What attracts me to television at this time is not the worldliness of the work, but its indispensable team spirit. At the same time, I also miss documentaries infinitely.

It takes a long time to shoot a documentary, and the shooting process is boring. The shooting cycle ranges from a few days to several months or even years, which requires a certain amount of precipitation and patience. In the early stage, the requirements for picture quality and lens language were relatively high, so the camera had to carry a large machine to capture a sense of depth that a small machine could not capture. A large camera weighs more than 20 kilograms, and each time a camera is taken, several need to be carried. Hours, every day. After returning, the selection rate of materials is basically 1/10 or lower. Now I can still remember those hot summer days when we traveled to a place for many days, loaded with BT belts and chargers, and took a heavy big camera and tripod to shoot documentaries.

Compared with the exhaustion in the early stage, the later stage of the documentary also takes a lot of effort. First of all, the requirements for the manuscript are very high, because there are too many shots, and each shot needs to be recorded and synchronized with the sound. We all like to work late into the night when doing post-production because there are so many people in the editing room during the day that we can’t sit still. But at night, no one is trying to grab the editing machine and there are no noises to disturb us, so we feel very comfortable working. I like this process. I can’t tell why. Although it’s tiring, I really like it. By the time the film was finished, I almost couldn't keep my eyelids open, but this was also the most exciting moment because I could sit down and watch the fruits of my labor over and over again.

When I finish typing these words, it feels like time has returned to ten years ago. Indeed, we need to find a meaningful topic, partner with a tacit cameraman, and a humorous driver, and shoot together hard and attentively for a few days, and then through our hands, we will turn it into movies one by one and give them names one by one. , this kind of work is interesting no matter how tiring it is.

When communicating with colleagues, he said: "The older I get, the more I like watching documentaries. It is a kind of enjoyment to watch documentaries quietly." I said: "I have already liked documentaries when I was young." But now , which TV station would give more time to documentaries?

I thought of Sunshine TV and Yang Lan. I don’t want to say much else, I just want to say: No matter what, the Sun TV founded by Yang Lan gave us the first human geography documentary channel. Maybe she knew what the fate of this channel would be in China from the beginning, but she did. A righteous person. Today, who would keep filming a duckling like in "Duck's Tale"?

So, as long as Zhou Bing and the others keep making TV documentaries, it is enough.