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The documentary "Front Wave" uses 7 episodes to show the real life of the elderly through long-term tracking and filming. "The Ageless God of Love" records the pursuit of love by the elderly who go on blind dates at IKEA; "Tomorrow Will Be Better" continues to track the road to the driving test of a 96-year-old man; "Going with the Flow" tells the story of an elderly man's online shopping life, mixed with sadness and humor; "Bathing" shoots a group portrait of five elderly people taking a bath, telling the pain of life and the dignity of life...

After the film was broadcast on Tencent Video and Dragon TV, it sparked heated discussions and received attention and recognition from many young and middle-aged audiences. The series "Front Wave" concluded recently. Director Fan Shiguang accepted an exclusive interview with a Beijing News reporter and shared his feelings about following the elderly for a long time: whether the elderly live a good life has a lot to do with their own personality. He revealed that the next season of "Front Wave" is already in preparation, and the crew plans to focus on middle-aged people who are more difficult to shoot than the elderly. The shooting area is no longer limited to Shanghai, hoping to break the restrictions of dialects and reach a wider audience.

Episode 6 of "The Front Wave" "Going with the Current" is not only the story of Wang Minhua, but also a microcosm of the lives of contemporary elderly people.

Whether you live well when you are old has a lot to do with your personality

The crew of "Front Wave" started researching and filming in November 2022, and spent a year filming the stories of nearly 20 contemporary Shanghai elderly people. Fan Shiguang said that "Front Wave" hopes to change the public's stereotypes about the elderly through vivid characters, and also wants young and middle-aged people to understand what life is like in old age, because that is everyone's future. "There will be many myths and obsessions in life, and the lives of these elderly people will make everyone see through these myths. 'It is better to look at the long-term'. After the time span becomes longer, many things that you are particularly persistent in wanting to get will feel that they are not so important." Fan Shiguang and his team observed that the most important thing in the life of the elderly is not necessarily money. A healthy body and a harmonious family atmosphere are the real "hard currency."

In the process of following and filming the elderly, the crew of "Frontier Waves" deeply saw their sorrows and joys, and was deeply touched by the saying "character determines destiny". "Whether you live a good life when you are old has a lot to do with your character. If a person has been complaining about everything since he was young, has a fragile heart, and always feels that others have let him down, then it is likely that he will not live a good life when he is old." The protagonist of the sixth episode of "Frontier Waves" - 75-year-old Wang Minhua gave the crew a lot of inspiration. Originally, they wanted to film how early Alzheimer's patients fight the disease, but unexpectedly found that Wang Minhua did not take the disease seriously and was still happily shopping online. "The original name of this episode was 'Going against the Current', but after the film was finished, I felt it was inappropriate. Because Ms. Wang Minhua taught us that the attitude of life of going with the flow is also very good, so it was changed to 'Going with the Flow'."

When making documentaries, be restrained and avoid sensationalism; truth is most important

"Front Wave" not only presents the real life of the elderly, but also reflects the multifaceted nature of human nature and the complexity of life. For example, the third episode "Tomorrow Will Be Better" follows a 96-year-old man taking a driver's license test. The story sounds very inspiring, but this episode does not stop at the beautiful side. Instead, it allows the audience to see more complex aspects of life - the contradiction between the soul that still yearns for poetry and the distance and the body that "tomorrow will not be better"; the conflict caused by the asynchronous physical aging of partners; the pressure brought to middle-aged children who are burdened by taking care of their elderly parents, etc. Fan Shiguang said that the reason why everyone can watch documentaries must be because of its authenticity. "Reality must also be complex. But whether it is literature or documentary, the purpose of presenting the complexity of reality is to enable everyone to better understand life and live a good life."

There is a warm and romantic side to the lives of the elderly.

Fan Shiguang is one of the directors of the highly rated documentary "The World of Man". This time, "The Front Wave" is more restrained in narrative style than "The World of Man", with almost no narration, and the use of music is also quite cautious. Fan Shiguang said: "I specifically told the composer Dong Xiaojiao that the music in this documentary should not be sensational, but a companion." However, under the restrained form, the creator's keen antennae and abundant emotions have not changed. Fan Shiguang admitted that he had more thoughts on old age because of filming "The Front Wave". He believes that aging is a gift from God to mankind. "It gives life an end. It is no longer a wilderness, but a track with a starting point and an end point. Then this process becomes meaningful."

The next season is already in preparation, with middle-aged people as the main characters

The subjects of "Front Wave" are all elderly people living in Shanghai, who usually speak Shanghainese. After the show was aired, some viewers said that they had to use subtitles to understand what the grandparents were saying, which seemed a bit tiring. Fan Shiguang admitted that the dialect of "Front Wave" did make it difficult for the audience to watch. Therefore, the crew considered looking for subjects in a wider area for the next season. Not only for easier understanding of the language, but also for the hope that the show can have more landing points and the characters filmed can be more representative. Fan Shiguang revealed that the next season of the show will be filmed with middle-aged people as the subject, and it is currently in preparation.

Every era has important social issues. Fan Shiguang believes that "middle age" is an important issue in today's Chinese society, just as "youth" was a very important social issue in the 1980s. Fan Shiguang revealed that the crew has begun to look for and contact potential subjects for filming. "Filming middle-aged people also requires planning some dimensions in advance, such as childbirth, marriage, workplace, etc. Each one is not a small problem, so we will start from these aspects to find them." After initial contact, he and the team felt that filming middle-aged people would be more difficult than filming the elderly. Because the state of the elderly is more free and easy, middle-aged people are still within the rules of society, they will have many concerns, and they will care about their decency and image. It is difficult but we have to do it, because - "What we want to shoot is the plight of every kind of person. The pain of middle-aged people is very real, no worse than that of the elderly."

Beijing News reporter Yang Lianjie

Editor Tong Na

Proofread by Liu Yue