Director of "Midnight Snacks 3": It's not about how to make delicious food, but about the world of food
2024-08-14
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The food documentary "Midnight Snacks 3" is currently on the air. Since the first season, the "Midnight Snacks" series has been positioned as "urban midnight snack culture". Each season will choose a new city as the filming location, focusing not only on the food itself, but also on urban culture, night atmosphere and character stories. The first season focused on capturing the feeling of "wildness", whether in the choice of food or the presentation of characters and environment, it strives to be vivid and vivid; the second season pays more attention to showing the unique character of different cities. The film's chief director Du Xing accepted an exclusive interview with the Beijing News reporter and said that the third season of "Midnight Snacks" further deepened the content of the story and broadened the perspective, showing the unique food and character stories of each city more comprehensively; in terms of image style, a more restrained approach was chosen to avoid using shots that are only for the pursuit of visual impact or alienation effects. "Even when shooting food, we try to make the picture closer to daily life and closer to the reality seen by the human eye."
Poster of "Midnight Snack World 3".
"Jianghu" means survival first
Beijing News: As a food documentary, the "Midnight Snacks" series has always been full of the flavor of the city and the world, or it can be called the "jianghu spirit". How do you understand the word "jianghu"?
Duchenne:The bustling night market, the lively stalls, the atmosphere full of human touch and life, whether it is the stall owner or the diners, all kinds of people under the night can find a sense of belonging in a bowl of hot snacks and feel the breath of fireworks. These contents are of course in the film, but it is not limited to this. Life is a sea, and the rivers and lakes are everywhere. In my opinion, "jianghu" first means survival. How to survive is the biggest proposition and foundation of mixing in the rivers and lakes. How to get ahead, how to hide, how to improve, how to overcome the disaster, secondly, "jianghu" represents a free attitude towards life and an unrestrained cultural atmosphere. It also means tolerance and diversity. Everyone can find their own place on this stage. Jianghu does not mean that there must be big conflicts and big noises, and there must be fighting and killing to get revenge. The few people sitting at the front table are heroes, but those who wave flags and shout in the back also have names. You can ride the wind and waves, or you can be mediocre; you can choose to be strong, or you can choose to be patient, or you can make big moves; you can have small happiness, you can go smoothly, or you can start all over again. The world of Jianghu has a wealth of possibilities.
Stills from "Midnight Snack World 3".
Beijing News: Another major feature of the "Midnight Snack" series is that it tells the stories of stall owners, diners and related characters, showing the living conditions and life philosophy of the stall owners. How do you view these connections in the film?
Duchenne:At the factual level, these connections seem to me to be objective, inevitable, and obvious facts. Cooking is a manual job. Why did a stall owner or shop owner choose this path in the first place? Was his craft inherited or self-taught? What opportunity prompted him to create a kind of food intentionally or unintentionally? How did he stand out in the Roujiamo business? How did he stay the same for 20 or 30 years? Why did he use an iron skewer instead of a pan? Why did he stir-fry first and then stir-fry? Was he bold or meticulous? Was he an extrovert with a bad temper or smiling and taciturn? Why did he season like this when others seasoned like that? Why did his noodles become harder than before? Behind all this, it is not just about the technique, but also about the person's circumstances and personality. No two people in the world can cook dishes that taste exactly the same, and even one person cannot cook exactly the same dishes every day.
Food without people is tasteless
Beijing News: Are you concerned about the proportion of food and characters in the film?
Duchenne:In the "Midnight Snacks" series, the stories of stall owners, diners and related characters constitute the core of the entire work. These stories are not only about food, but also about life. They reflect the real emotions and living conditions of ordinary people, allowing people to feel the humanistic care and social value behind them while enjoying food. With such creative consciousness, we are not entangled in who is the main character and who is the secondary character of food. In this film, we enter society through food and discover people's stories; and when telling the stories of characters, food always runs through them and is not thrown away. If you watch "Midnight Snacks" just to drool and just to watch how protein hardens, you may be disappointed. We are not filming how to make food or how to appreciate food, but filming men and women who eat and drink, and the world of food.
The stories of stall owners, diners and related characters constitute the core of the entire work.
Beijing News: For example, in the first two seasons, some netizens felt that the story was over-emphasized and the food became a supporting role. As a food documentary, what kind of balance should be struck between showing the food itself and the story of the protagonist?
Duchenne:We are not saying that when we meet a late-night snack vendor named Lao Wang on the street, we will immediately ask him who his first love was, when his relatives died, and whether he had ever fought with anyone. It is not like that. We are very wary of such blunt routines. On the contrary, we learned from the food that he was laid off to make a living and had nowhere to go. When he was setting up a stall, he met the beautiful girl across the street. He couldn't stand the boredom and gambled all his belongings to mine. He failed miserably. After coming back, he believed more in the power of patience and made a dish of fried duck feet with a timeless taste. He is both a stall owner or a shop owner, and a person at the same time. Food is part of his life, but not all of it. The way we see him cooking, or the food he makes, cannot fully represent him, nor can it fully represent him at the moment. Behind this food is a long experience, a huge background, and all of him. In this sense, food is naturally a channel for us to understand people's stories. Food without people is tasteless.
Behind a good story is trust and openness
Beijing News: What is the biggest challenge in the creation and shooting of this season?
Duchenne:The biggest challenge is still finding stories, communicating with the subjects, and building relationships with them. Behind a good story is trust and openness.
Beijing News: Specifically, how were the subjects and protagonists presented in the film found and selected?
Duchenne:In the process of selecting the protagonist, we will conduct a lot of preliminary research work, including field visits, interviews and data collection. We look for stall owners and diners with unique stories that can represent local culture. Their experiences are often full of struggle and perseverance. In addition, we will collect clues through social media and online platforms to find people who are popular on the Internet. The whole process is both rigorous and full of the fun of discovery. Desk research will take at least one or two months. We need to get familiar with the target city through massive data, mainly from three aspects: one is to read the history of the city, one is to understand the local geographical environment and representative products, and the other is to read local literary works. At the same time, we have extensive contact with "insiders", including senior media practitioners, cultural researchers, food lovers, etc. The rich observation perspective provides us with a more diversified and multi-level perspective. In this way, about 20 to 30 stalls were selected. The next homework is to conduct down-to-earth field research. Generally speaking, our field research in each city lasts for three or four weeks. Our perspective is definitely not that of a local, and we don’t pretend to be a local. In fact, we have a vision of discovery, but this vision of discovery is not that of a traveler. In fact, we adopt an anthropological approach. During the field research, we tried to study the tradition behind the local late-night snack culture, how this tradition was formed, and what has changed and remained unchanged over the long years? This is a very important topic in our work. Our identity is like a wanderer from an anthropological perspective. After the research, we prepared six or seven stories for shooting, and before shooting, we did a polyphony and determined three stories.
Stills from Yinchuan of "Midnight Snack World 3".
Beijing News: What qualities of the protagonist are you most interested in?
Duchenne:Almost every character we have photographed will leave a deep impression. When encountering problems, what are the temptations of human nature, the limitations of human nature, and the shackles of life? I am particularly interested in this type of protagonist. For example, Sen Lin in Quanzhou, he used to win by beating his opponent with his fists, but lost to gambling. Now, he brings happiness to people with his skills and succeeds by serving others. Moreover, in the end, in his subconscious, he was driven by fear to practice boxing because he had been bullied. There are also several other characters that I personally like very much. Lao Xie, the "midnight snack male god" who has been stir-frying roujiamo on Xinhua Street in Yinchuan for 30 years, is determined and resolute; Sister Zeng, the "soy milk queen" in Liuzhou, is a resolute and smiling woman; Lao Yang in Kunming, a "crazy man" who loves to dance, is actually very responsible and gentle to his family.
Behind the authenticity lies the respect for diversity
Beijing News: The "Midnight Snack" series showcases many cities, including popular tourist cities and relatively unpopular ones. How were the eight cities for the third season selected?
Duchenne:Nowadays, many cities seem to be becoming more and more similar in appearance and losing their own characteristics. We hope to find those unique, vibrant and individual faces in these seemingly identical cities. We do not deliberately balance the selection according to the size, popularity or geographical location of the city, but focus on those cities with distinct food traditions, unique lifestyles, geographical environments and cultural backgrounds. This season, we have selected eight cities with their own characteristics, including well-known tourist hotspots such as Qingdao, Kunming and Quanzhou, as well as less well-known cities such as Yinchuan, Xiangyang and Liuzhou, which are extremely rich in night market culture. We also went to Lhasa to discover some lesser-known delicacies. Every shoot is like an adventure, full of unknowns and surprises. The most important thing about choosing a city to shoot is that our director team must have the confidence to handle them properly. This confidence comes from our deep understanding of the city and our emotional attitude towards it. If we don’t have an emotional resonance with a city, it is almost impossible to shoot it well. Not only that, we must be able to convey why we like the city and what characteristics we like about it. For example, Qingdao is a city we have always wanted to shoot, but it was not until the third season that we really had enough confidence. Some cities, such as Nanjing and Chengdu, have not been filmed since the first season, but have not yet been realized. In the third season, we also investigated Nanchang and Shijiazhuang, but due to lack of sufficient confidence, we finally decided to put it on hold. In short, we hope to find our own perspective, maintain an appropriate distance, and approach each city with a sincere attitude to explore their unique charm.
Stills from Qingdao of "Midnight Snack World 3".
Beijing News: The food for "late night snacks" must be closely related to this city. What criteria were used to select the food for this season?
Duchenne:Generally speaking, gourmet food refers to delicious food. But delicious food is essentially a consensus, a consensus on experience. So, as a consensus on experience, there is no absolute standard. It depends on what kind of space and time, and what kind of group forms the consensus. First of all, it depends on whether the physical object is representative, reflects the local cultural characteristics, its historical origins and production technology, whether it has a unique story, and finally whether it is loved by the local people, that is, whether the locals think it is "authentic". At present, when "Internet celebrity culture" is rampant, the word "authentic" has been almost overused. What exactly is "authentic"? My personal explanation is: in a certain place, at a certain time, whether it is a group of people or an individual, there is a reason to love a certain kind of food. From a country, a city, to an overpass, an alley, to a family, there is always a reason to love a certain kind of food. Behind authenticity, there is actually respect for diversity. It is not that I am authentic and yours is not. We will also pay attention to the evolution of gourmet food. For example, the birth, continuation and innovation of certain delicacies are closely related to the development of a certain stage of society. From the humble food, we can see the traces of the times left on people. Many delicacies still popular in the night snack stalls are actually the product of the era of material scarcity, such as chicken racks, offal, tail bones... In the poor era, these things were tasteless and a pity to throw away, but the working people used their own life creativity to give them a sense of abundance, and the result was a convenient and cheap delicacy. These life wisdoms of the difficult times, in turn, have precipitated strong emotions in the memories of many people, and they are hard to forget for a long time.
Stills from "Midnight Snack World 3".
Beijing News: Did you have any difficulties during the selection process?
Duchenne:Sometimes we encounter very tangled situations, such as two foods that are both very distinctive, but we can only choose one. At this time, we will make a decision based on the overall narrative structure and theme, and strive to make every dish play the best role in the film. We are not a food illustration guide and do not undertake rigorous scientific recommendation functions.
Colleagues are generally becoming more confident in their cooking abilities
Beijing News: After filming three seasons of "Midnight Snack World", has it brought any changes to your life?
Duchenne:On the one hand, I have become more fond of food and more willing to explore the specialties of different regions; on the other hand, I also cherish the time spent with family and friends, especially the wonderful moments of sharing delicious food. Another point is that after seeing more and eating more, my colleagues are generally more confident in their cooking ability and often ask us whether we should copy it.
Stills from "Midnight Snack World 3".
Beijing News: After "A Bite of China", the number of food documentaries has increased significantly, and the categories have become more and more detailed. In your opinion, is there still a lot of room for food documentaries? Are food documentaries facing any collective "bottleneck" nowadays?
Duchenne:This space depends on what is called a food documentary. Eating is the most frequent behavior in our daily life, and the most common language and medium in life. If we use food as the main theme, or one of the themes, to create a documentary, there are still many possibilities. Seeing the skin of the meat bubbling in the hot oil and the hot buns being bitten open, I will drool myself, but in addition to drooling, sometimes I will shed tears. People's emotional experience is very rich. We may need to explore more diverse cultural backgrounds, deeper social issues, or use more innovative technical means to present the charm of food. We can try some cross-cultural exchanges, such as asking foreign chefs to come to China to learn traditional cooking techniques, or asking Chinese chefs to promote Chinese cuisine abroad. Such stories can not only increase the highlights of the program, but also promote cultural exchanges and development. For example, I have always wanted to film my mother's dishes, which are bland, with strange combinations, may not look good, and may not seem nutritious, or even unbelievable, but when it is mentioned, everyone will drool, eat several bowls as soon as they get home, and call their mother to make reservations as soon as they get off the plane; another type is the real catering world, such as the real world order, real encounters, and real social environment, how people face and deal with it. Respect diversity and face reality. Of course, the difficulty lies in how to reach a consensus. As a creator and a producer, you need to take some risks, and as an audience, you need to be more tolerant. This is not just a bottleneck facing food documentaries, but a problem faced by all creators today.
Beijing News reporter Liu Wei
Editor: Xu Meilin
Proofread by Chen Diyan
