Aerial China
The documentary Aerialchina, which shows China from a bird’s- eye perspective, was aired on CCTV-9 in January 2017. Each episode features some of the most representative and beautiful
landscapes in the country. The series consists of a total of 34 episodes, each 50 minutes long, and covers all of China’s 23 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities and two special administrative regions.
The documentary was an immediate hit. Viewers exclaimed that the beauty was tear-jerking. CSM Media Research data shows that when Aerial China was on the air, CCTV-9’S primetime ratings doubled. Even the notoriously hard-to-please reviewers on the Chinese website Douban scored it a 9.4 out of 10.
Aerial China is about love, according to director Yu Le. “It is a strong affection for the land on which we live. It is an overview of the world in which we live. This affection goes beyond time and space,” he explains.
Journey in the Sky
“Previously, my friends thought that the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region only had prairies, yurts, and donkeys, and now they know they were wrong.”
“I had to fight back my tears while watching. The richness and beauty of our motherland are perfectly presented in a breathtaking way.”
Even Yu was a little surprised by many of the comments. The 33-year-old has been working as a director for 13 years and didn’t expect the younger generation to empathize with many details of the documentary. Yu likes that without subtitles, Aerial China could still stand as a scenic film.
“Generally, the longest time anyone is willing to watch a purely scenic film is three to five minutes,” Yu says. “So how did we keep people’s attention for the full 50-minute stretch or even longer? It’s because the entire documentary was designed around transmitting multiple sets of information. When people watch the documentary, their brains have to keep working. The information they learn is much more than images depicted on screen.”
Yu explains that much of this additional information is transmitted through the narrator, so he placed great focus on the voiceover. “Who is our target audience?” he asked. “We wanted even seven-yearold children and the elderly to understand and remember the content without trouble. That was our aim.” Yu points out that to optimally communicate with the audience, the voice should lead viewers deeper into the visual journey rather than simply reading captions. From the first to the final draft, the script for the first season of Aerial China was revised at least 10 times. Producers were aged between 20 and 40. Although the final narration script of each episode consists of about 6,000 to 7,000 words, early drafts contained as many as 150,000 words.
Music is another way to transmit information. Yu agreed with the music producer that it should demonstrate compassion for this land. “And love is just an overall theme; music is needed to help the air travel routes be coherent.”
Soprano singers added a soft touch to the background music. Producers wrote high-pitched music, and the female voices only appear at the end of each episode or very briefly elsewhere. Yu was pleasantly surprised by this design: “The sopranos add a finishing touch by expressing loneliness and joy in the sky.”
“Unprecedented View of China”
When the shooting of Aerial China first began, Yu’s idea was to “demonstrate an unprecedented view of China.” In his mind, aerial photography breaks through previous shooting limitations. “It is a different view from the air. Different heights can result in different emotions.”
It took nearly a year to shoot the first six places, including Shanghai, Xinjiang, Heilongjiang, Jiangxi, Shaanxi and Hainan. The crew dispatched 16 manned helicopters and 57 unmanned aerial vehicles, all equipped with the world’s most advanced 4K Ultra HD cameras. In total, they traveled 150,000 kilometers, a length equal to a journey around the earth’s equator four times.
“Helicopters can shoot from a good variety of heights and angles,” Yu reveals. “They can hover in the air and adjust speed when needed. Drones are more flexible, capture more vivid details and can fly into more dangerous environments.” Subjects for which the drones were deployed include coconut collectors from the Li ethnic group in Areca Valley, Hainan Province’s Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County, who can “climb faster than monkeys”, and the only existing brown giant panda, named “Qizai,” in Shaanxi Foping National Nature Reserve in the Qin Mountains. The magnificent mountains and rivers of Xinjiang were filmed across all four seasons using helicopters.
“Like most viewers, I have limited knowledge about each province,” Yu admits. “Especially after we conducted investigation and filming, we realized that we do not know the land of China as well as we thought. Only when I travel the land on foot do I really feel its existence.”
Some critics argued that the documentary did not convey deeper philosophies or values. Yu retorted by stating, “My job was not to teach a class on geography or philosophy. To be honest, I just want to express my love for the land with it.”
Some viewers pointed out that the documentary highlights only the beautiful side of China, and argued that the less-than-stunning side also needs to get exposure. Yu explains: “We presented one side of China with the hope of exposing truth, goodness and the beauty of human nature, so that people reflect on why beautiful things get destroyed and develop their own values. This is my purpose in filming this documentary.”