Narrative of documentary
In documentary creation, narrative skills and structural methods are not only the process of selecting and processing the materials, but also the process of the creators expressing their understanding and feelings about life through the selection and combination of the materials. In other words, narrative structure is the means and form that the creator gives meaning and explanation to the material. The artistry and ideological content of a documentary depends not only on its content, but also on its editing and combination. Appropriate combination of clips can make the original good content more exciting, and some general content can also be played better. On the contrary, improper editing combination may spoil the original excellent material and make the original excellent content lose its due effect. Therefore, the significance of narrative and structure to the work exceeds the material itself to some extent.
Due to the differences in life accumulation, life feelings, artistic skills and artistic pursuits, different creators have different narrative skills and structural styles. Even if different documentaries come from the same creator, their narrative styles will not be exactly the same, just as there are no exactly the same two leaves on a tree. However, on the other hand, just like the classification of buildings, although the structures of houses vary widely and have different shapes, we can still roughly divide them into several categories according to certain standards, such as wood structure, stone structure, civil structure and reinforced concrete structure. Documentary narrative methods can also be classified in this way. The common narrative methods of documentary are: picture plus explanation, interview plus explanation, and objective recording.
First of all, the picture shows. This narrative mode was once the dominant narrative mode of China's documentaries. At that time, due to the influence of Soviet "visual political theory", most documentaries adopted this narrative mode. For example, The Silk Road, The Story of the Yangtze River and Talking about the Canal. In actual creation, there is usually a topic first, and the creator writes a written manuscript according to the topic, and starts shooting after the leader approves it. In the later editing, dubbing is based on the text draft first, and then drawing is made according to dubbing. This narrative method attaches great importance to the creation and narrative function of the commentary, and expresses the development of the content through it. With the development of this form, there are a lot of explanations and music, ignoring the role of other sound elements and images in the overall image modeling of the work, making the picture more or less a graphic tool, and the whole movie looks more like a piece of paper from the manuscript. In addition, from the creative point of view, this narrative method often pays attention to * * * rather than personality, and pays attention to themes and conclusions rather than specific events and characters. Creators often regard themselves as government workers who represent the government, rather than artists who express their opinions, so that the film carries too many cultural and social connotations. As a result, the abstract is more than concrete, vague and overwhelming details, which gradually deviates from the essence of television and loses the possibility.
Second, interview and explanation. The mode of illustration and explanation is the product of the times. With the development of the times, especially the improvement of the audience's film and television culture, the disadvantages of this narrative mode are increasing day by day. Therefore, documentary creators have to seek a new narrative way, and the narrative way of interview and explanation appears under this background. With the intervention of interview, the proportion of understanding and speaking is reduced, which reduces the degree of subjective intervention of the film to some extent. On the other hand, with the intervention of the interview, the past and future time and space can be displayed to the audience, thus expanding the expressive force of the whole film. Of course, the alternation of explanation and interview brings rhythm factors to the film, which is more suitable for the audience's viewing needs. As a narrative way, interview has different presentation ways. It should be noted that the interview here refers to the narrow interview, that is, the communication between the reporter and the interviewee, and the language structure of the interviewee in the film. Some documentaries run through the interview and bear the narrative function of the whole documentary. For example, Loyalty uses a large number of interview paragraphs to show the audience the process of captured volunteer soldiers, the cruelty they suffered in the US military concentration camp, and their life after returning to China. In this documentary, because most of the content to be reflected in the film has become the past, and there are no available audio-visual materials, interview has become the only available narrative means. Some documentaries, in order to overcome the disadvantages of pictures and explanations, combine background factors with dynamic processes, and integrate interviews into the process of events, and * * * assumes the narrative function. For example, the first episode of A Trip to Guangdong, Opening the Market, used a lot of interviews with actual voices to explain the necessity and importance of opening the market and implementing a market economy. Some documentaries regard the interview as a detail and assume the function of local narrative. For example, the large-scale documentary "Looking at the Great Wall", in order to inspect the westernmost end of the Great Wall, the host Jiao interviewed the geography teacher; In Three Grasses, I interviewed Mrs. Xiao in order to understand the liberation of Gulu Lake. As a narrative way of TV documentary, interview plus explanation is an improvement of the creative concept of TV documentary. Other successful films using this narrative method include Manifesto of the Producer Party, Deng Xiaoping, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and China's Diplomatic Situation.
Third, objective records. Since 1990s, the concept of documentary creation began to rise, and the narrative mode of objective record appeared in documentary creation. It opposes the subjective form of large-scale explanation, advocates non-interference with the subject, maintains the original ecology of life, and emphasizes the objectivity of material selection. This narrative mode draws lessons from the creative mode of feature films and puts forward higher requirements for creators. It requires the creator to go deep into life, actually experience life, and even fully integrate into the subject's life, from which details, plots and even stories can be extracted. Different from feature films, documentaries are based on synchronous materials, which are real in life, rather than fiction and acting. It is conceivable that it is difficult to produce good works without the long-term investment and in-depth and meticulous interviews of the creators. It should be noted that the interview here refers to the interview in a broad sense, that is, all social investigation activities carried out by reporters to obtain program materials. Objective recording is not pure objectivism, it must be integrated with the subjective performance factors of the creators, otherwise the film will become a running account of hearing and recording. Therefore, in a sense, this narrative method is a perfect combination of subjectivity and objectivity. In actual creation, creators usually spend a long time on-the-spot interviews and communicate with interviewees, gradually forming a harmonious and natural atmosphere. When the interviewee reaches the natural expression of his true feelings, the real shooting begins. This method requires the creator to have a deep knowledge of interview and certain interview skills. When shooting formally, try to hide the creator and leave the image and voice of the creator out of the picture. When editing, a story is often used to structure and narrate, and the actual sound is widely used, with less reliance on explanation. From the creative point of view, this narrative method generally starts with small topics, pays attention to personalized events and characters, and pays attention to narrative plots. Creators often regard good-looking programs as the first element of creation, and as a result, movies have attractive factors, which are good-looking and durable. This narrative method is a return to the original meaning of documentary, and it is also a development direction of current documentary creation. Whether it is Marriage, Teacher of Yin and Yang, Xiaowu and Reunion Day, they are all representative works that adopt this narrative method.
The evolution of narrative mode is accompanied by a series of factors such as technical means, creative concept and audience appreciation level. However, this does not mean that the new narrative style will appear and the old narrative style will die out, but this old narrative style will gradually retreat to a secondary position. Even today, when objective documentary narration is dominant, there are still many excellent works that adopt the first two narrative methods, such as Sand and Sea with Pictures and Explanations and Liberation with Interviews and Explanations.
Narrative is to arrange a series of events to illustrate a fact or express an opinion; Structure is the way to arrange and combine materials. In documentary, structure is the concretization of narrative, and narrative can be carried out smoothly through structure. Therefore, building a structure is the way to build a narrative.
As an important aspect of documentary creation, structure refers to the arrangement and combination of early materials, and different structures will produce different narrative effects. For example, Rivesta's Victory of the Will was only re-edited by the Soviets, which changed the structure of the material and turned it into an anti-fascist film "Ordinary Fascist". It's a bit like the arrangement of carbon atoms in chemistry. One method is graphite. If this arrangement is changed, ordinary graphite will become dazzling diamonds. However, this kind of "chemical change" in documentary creation is only a few after all, and most of the structural changes will only cause so-called "physical changes", that is, the difference between good and bad narrative effects. Excellent documentaries have a rigorous, unified and natural structure, while inferior documentaries have heavy carving traces, giving people a relaxed and even chaotic overall feeling. The level of structural ability is the most important aspect to distinguish the level of documentary. Even in the face of the same material, directors with different structural abilities will create programs with different quality. For example, the documentary short film "Sister" broadcast in "Living Space" was originally intended by the director to make a character film reflecting the advanced police. Later, the producer found that if this material was re-edited, it could become a documentary that better reflected children. It was the producer's golden finger that made my sister come out.
The structure of documentary can be divided into internal structure and external structure. The so-called internal structure is the internal logical connection and organizational form of each element that constitutes the image, while the so-called external structure is the external organizational form of the documentary, that is, the framework of the documentary. The internal structure is more a matter of content, while the external structure is more a matter of form. This paper mainly discusses the external structure directly related to narrative mode. There are two common literature structures: linear structure and block structure. Linear structures are divided into three categories: single-line structure, double-line structure and multi-line structure. According to whether the clues cross, double-line parallel structure, double-line cross structure and net structure are derived.
First, linear structure. The most important feature of linear structure is that there is one or more clues running through the film, which can be internal or logical, such as the water shortage in distant villages and the artist's creative experience in the centennial celebration in China. It can also be external and formal, such as the pagoda tree at the entrance of Longji Village and the Great Wall of Wan Li Great Wall. Professor Zhang Yaxin also talked about "Distant Villages" in her monograph "Comparison of Chinese and Foreign Documentaries". She thinks this film is a typical circle structure, and its center is the problem of water shortage, and all the materials are centered around this center. Obviously, Professor Zhang's formulation is essentially the same as that of this article. The Great Wall of Wan Li in Japan and the Great Wall of Wangwang in China are both based on the Great Wall of Wan Li in China, but the Great Wall of Wan Li in Japan is more about the lives of people on both sides of the Great Wall. In this film, the Great Wall is not the theme that the creator pays attention to, but the central clue that runs through the whole film. In the actual creation, the creator not only showed this centerline through interviews, but also strengthened this centerline with the aerial photography of the Great Wall.
For more complex narratives, films with linear structures often use two or more clues. For example, China Centennial Festival has five clues: 1, painter's painting, 2, exhibition site, 3,000-year historical facts, 4, painter's talk about creative ideas, and 5, painter's diary.
Linear structure can make complex narrative clear, chaotic and not chaotic. Linear structure is a common structure in documentaries, but not all subjects have a central line. In addition to imposing a symbolic element in the later period, the intervention of interview is an important remedy. Interview, as a structured way, is a symbol of the improvement of the creator's structural ability. The use of interviews as a structural factor should be considered in the early stage of conception, in addition to later discovery. In this way, because the structure is not imposed on the film in the later period, the whole film appears natural and whole. As a structural factor, interview has two functions. First, the actual voice being interviewed, as a transitional factor, plays the role of connecting the pictures. Compared with commentary as a transitional factor, interview as a transitional factor is very difficult, but once successful, it will make the film more compact and concise. For example, fate constantly leads to new characters and new scenes through interviews with characters, thus realizing its typical nested structure. Second, the interview as a clue throughout the film. Creators often design the structure very comprehensively at the beginning of the interview to ensure that they can interview what they need. In the later editing, the creator will divide the interview into several paragraphs, and according to the needs of the program content, let these paragraphs be distributed in the corresponding positions of the film, thus connecting the whole film. For example, the painter's creative experience in "Chinese Centennial Festival", "God Deer! Deer! Liu Ba's Self-narration in To Be Alive.
Second, the plate structure. Of course, not every documentary can have this line of linear structure, nor does it mean that documentaries only use linear structure. Especially those documentaries based on the logic of arts and sciences, a considerable part of these documentaries belong to the feature films that people used to call before. Because most of them are subject first, the explanation is basically reversed from beginning to end, and the material taken is only a tool to demonstrate the theme, which makes the material and the material lack internal logic. If we can't find reasonable external clues, we can only find other structural ways. Plate structure appears in this situation.
The so-called forum structure is to divide different content into different parts according to different people, time, region or theme, and each part may be unconnected or linked. For example, destiny and ancestral home are typical plate-like structures. Destiny is divided into chapters according to the characters, but the creator carefully selected the characters when he conceived, often at the end of the last character's content, or from an interview with him, or from an event related to him. This special cross-sectional structure is also called nested structure. The nested structure not only maintains the relative opposition between sections, but also strengthens the connection between sections, so that the whole film can still maintain a relatively perfect integrity after being divided into several sections. Ancestral house is a traditional plate structure, which is divided into five plates, and each plate has a subtitle, namely: ancestral house geomantic omen, a farmer, clansmen, benevolent lovers, weddings and funerals. Although the five sections are all around the ancestral home of Feng Lin Cuo, there is no obvious external connection between them. It is best to use the traditional block structure as the main body with tension, otherwise, the whole movie will appear fragmented due to the lack of necessary internal relations between blocks.