From The Works To The Goods: Shanghai School Documentary Image 20 Years Development Research

The development of documentary film is closely related to social and cultural transformation. The narrative strategy and program operation of Chinese documentary films have been constantly changing as the market economy and mass cultural grew more mature since the90’s.The Shanghai Documentary Channel, founded in2002, has been working on the production, operation, communication of documentary files. By the end of2012, the Documentary Channel has broadcast24hours a day,7.5hours for the premiere, up to812hours for the self-made programs, and150,000,000RMB revenues was generated by the channel. By using the Shanghai Documentary Channel as an example, this paper attempts to study the development of Shanghai documentary during the transition period.Apparently, as one of the most successful domestic documentary channels in China, Shanghai Documentary Channel’s program operation mode, production, and management mechanism draw public attention in the field, however, still lack of a systemic organization. This paper focuses on the period from the establishment of "Documentary Studio" program in1993to the enterprise management of real media in2013; combine with the social and cultural transformation, the paper divides this period of20years into three stages:the work, production, and commercialization era of documentary films. According to the time flow, this paper will organizes the known historical facts and tries to depict and outline the development history of the channel from the perspective of program narrative strategy and operation.In the work-making era (1993-2002), documentary films such as "Documentary Studio" was considered to be a form of high-art; directors often ignored the production time frame, cost, revenue, and audience’s preference, and the narrative strategies were rather unitary. As time moved on to the product-making era (2002-2008), an assembly line were formed for documentary film-making, the collectivization of broadcasting, categorization of channels, and growth of mass culture had contributed to the assembly line; the documentaries that were made during this era used "true representation" as the main narrative method. The "profit-making" commercial era (2009-2013) was symbolized by the SMG’s separation between producing from broadcasting; documentary channels were transformed into enterprises, the modes of film investment, production, and marketing were altered, and films began to be commercialized. These drastic changes had pushed the "entertainment attribute" of documentary films onto a new high level.It took20years for Shanghai’s documentary film to transform from "work-making" to "profit-making;" it is in these same20years, the mass culture in China has grown rapidly. Therefore, this essay will be introducing proper amount of mass culture theory in order to discuss the relationship between documentary film-making and social context, and aiming to explore the future of Chinese documentary film by studying the high and low, and eventual stabilization in its development history.