Author | bean

In the Maasai tribe of East Africa, a 14-year-old boy mixes milk and cow blood to draw on the Maasai people's vital source of life. At the same time, in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, milk is poured into a hot pot mixed with grains and dairy products, and the boiling milk blends with the aroma of tea, rising up a mellow fragrance that has passed through thousands of years. As the camera focuses on the global journey of a glass of milk, the grand narrative of human civilization unfolds in the ripples of milk fat.

This documentary "Milk is a History of Civilization", jointly produced by Tencent Video and Telunsu and produced by Daolai Media, has been launched for six episodes.

This bold attempt to make a separate documentary for milk is the result of Tencent Video's insistence on innovation in the food documentary track. Tencent Video has always been deeply engaged in the food documentary track, creating a solid matrix of "head IP leading + subdivision track". Among them, the head production "Flavor World" series not only meets the audience's expectations for high-quality content, but also continues to explore the development of IP back-chain; Vertical content such as "Little Sour Village" and "Night Supper" has launched the incremental market through subdivision tracks. In such a wide-ranging and layered "flavor universe", the emergence of "Milk is a History of Civilization" is inevitable.

Small incisions can also carry big stories, as the first vertical food documentary with milk as the protagonist, the pattern of "Milk is a History of Civilization" has long been opened. The film focuses on the "civilization attributes" behind a glass of ordinary milk, spanning more than ten countries on five continents, telling the inextricable relationship between milk and human civilization from a global perspective, starting from the origin of human beings to pry the colossal gears of civilization evolution, intertwining the status and role of milk in different regions and cultures.

This is not only the transformation of food documentaries from dishes to drinks, but also the subversion of the cognitive inertia of "milk" by documentary aesthetics. "Milk is a History of Civilization" is undoubtedly a bold and successful breakthrough, realizing the leap from "flavor" to "civilization" in terms of artistic value, and opening a new paradigm of documentary cultural expression.

The integration of delicate humanities and civilization epics, and a new attempt to deconstruct documentary culture

Can milk also be made into a documentary? This may be the first question that many viewers ask when they see this documentary, and the chief director Chen Xiaoqing has already given the answer. He once mentioned that milk is a very good window. First of all, it is particularly universal in space, and secondly, the history of the development of milk is almost the same as the time when humans went to civilization, and it is able to carry more narratives.

"Milk is a History of Civilization" obviously has a stronger narrative ambition, that is, to use the historical memory and emotional sustenance carried by milk as the axis to connect the epic chapters of the entire milk civilization.

But the grand perspective and thick humanity do not mean obscure and far away from the audience. "Milk is a History of Civilization" skillfully dismantles the grand civilization history of milk into the survival wisdom and emotional memory of countless ordinary people, and weaves an epic sense across time and space with a grand vision and delicate humanity. This narrative strategy of "seeing the big from the small" makes the history of civilization no longer a cold historical event, but a vivid story that can be touched, and also provides a new idea for cultural decoding for the documentary industry.

A 75-year-old man, Dita, has been running a milk station in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore for half a century. His daily job is to inspect the quality of the milk delivered to the milk station, and then go to the market to buy spices and come back to "supervise" the production of his son's dairy products.

Guanglin, who commutes more than 100 kilometers to work every day, the scenery along the way is her companion and the beginning of her story with the desert. This slender girl, who braved the scorching sun of Ulan Buhe to collect data, study soil improvement, from rigorous data research to a sip of milk during the tea break, this young girl used her perseverance day after day to participate in the evolution of ecological change in this desert oasis.

In the Apennines, Italian cheesemaker Paolo needs to monitor changes in six cauldrons at the same time. With nearly 30 years in the industry, Paolo's work is clean and neat. From observing the changes in the curd cubes to the shaping and placement of the cheese, he used time and skill to show the audience the miracle of the transformation of milk from liquid to solid.

Behind these little people is the global path of milk across the South Asian subcontinent, the thousand-year-old route of the Yellow River, the Apennines and the Po River Plain, and it is also the expression of the emotional value of milk in multiple forms under nomadism, agriculture and industrial civilization, which also makes the documentary "Milk is a History of Civilization" a model of global perspective expression.

Sensory shock and knowledge density coexist, and the documentary is good-looking

For documentaries, "good-looking" is not a single emotional feeling, but a strong feeling under the tripartite resonance of hearing, vision, and knowledge density.

In terms of soundtrack, music director A Kun not only understands the content expression of documentaries, but also knows how to use music to tell stories. In the third episode of "The Nourishment of Life", a soundtrack in the style of disco instantly pushed the audience from the obsession with mellow yogurt on the snowy plateau to the expectation of a new story of yogurt in the modern metropolis; In the fourth episode of "The Vast Heaven and Earth", when a grain of sand in Ulan Buhe, Inner Mongolia is transformed into a sky full of stars, the magnificent violin soundtrack allows the audience to have a personal perception of the relationship between a drop of milk and the vast world. The soundtrack forms an intertextual relationship with the picture, which is the emotional charm of the music, and it is also the audio-visual shock that the documentary brings to the audience.

The high demand for the delicacy and emotional concentration of the presented images is the obsession of this food documentary. In addition to making every frame look good, this documentary has also made a lot of innovative attempts in the presentation of the picture and the lens language. For example, many of the transitions in the film are carefully designed, from the milk sweet porridge in South Asia and China to the milk rice in Turkey, the intersection of Asia and Europe, this transition completed by flowing milk not only completes the geographical leap, but also completes the transformation of milk's global civilization.

Various special photographic methods, such as the process of milk curdling shown by microphotography and the slow flow of plant juice under macro lenses, transform scientific observations into visual spectacles, and also form a metaphor of "a drop of milk sees civilization".

At the same time, the "Exploring the World" series of animations at the end of each episode expands the theme of this episode with a vivid illustration style. This innovative exploration of visual style and content expression has also become the "finishing touch" of this documentary.

In addition to the audio-visual sensory satisfaction, the documentary also conveys to the audience the transformation of the identity of milk in different regions from a unique intellectual perspective: the ecological wisdom of Norwegian brown whey, the contract between Tibetan Oxue yogurt and nature, and the coagulation magic of Yunnan wild vegetable juice on milk...... These little-known cases not only satisfy the audience's thirst for knowledge density, but also imply the logic of civilization evolution, and at the same time complete the transformation from "milk can still be made into a documentary?" to discover that "milk documentaries can still be so good" cognitive reversal.

Tripartite resonance, "ecological operation" to build a new path for documentaries to break the circle

"Milk is a History of Civilization" uses a humanistic documentary to leverage an in-depth dialogue about cultural narratives, brand values, and platform capabilities. From online cultural resonance, offline brand communication linkage to derivative development and accurate customer acquisition, the new platform ecological operation link, from cultural penetration to consumption penetration, infinitely extends the life cycle of documentary IP, and realizes the value symbiosis of culture, brand and platform.

Through the broadcast of the documentary online, milk was sublimated from a "nutritious product" to a symbol of civilization consensus. By showing different cases of milk civilization - the ethnic meeting of the largest living matrilineal clan, the Minangkabau, the blood genes of the Slavic people, the milk-transporters who have existed in the small Colombian city for two centuries, and these human civilization have a role in the process of human civilization. Milk is reconstructed as an emotional bond across regions, which dissolves the cultural alienation of Chinese people from dairy products and changes the audience's perception of this food.

According to data from Meiland, an authoritative consulting agency, documentaries continue to arouse strong social discussions, with an increase of 45% in social discussions in 0 years, and high-quality content is highly concerned by Generation Z+Y (0-0 years old). The increasingly clear strong social attributes provide a perfect soil for documentaries to carry out offline social interactions. Together with Terensu, the platform cooperated with Black Pearl Restaurant in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to launch joint menus and food tasting activities, inviting more young people to enter the restaurant and enter the world of food documentaries, which is not only the value empowerment of the brand, but also a new exploration of the communication path of the documentary.

不要小看這些線下活動，作為互聯網活躍度最高的 Z 世代，他們會將線下社交場景中的心得體會在線上繼續延伸，把更多人帶入到關於這部紀錄片、關於品牌的討論場中，進而形成了一個從熱議話題到口碑，從線下到線上的高頻傳播場。在微博上， “乳糖耐受可以被訓練出來”的知識點被反覆討論；“這口順德非遺雙皮奶太絲滑了”“奶茶你更愛甜口還是鹹口”等美食出圈話題也持續調動著觀眾的觀看慾望。而在 3 月熱播網路紀錄片融合傳播指數上 TOP1 的好成績，更是印證了以“線下反哺線上”傳播通路的效果。

For the development of derivative products of this documentary, Telunsu has launched 6 limited editions of the "Pure Milk Dream Cover" documentary, which continues the packaging of the aesthetic style of the ending illustrations, which is aimed at the emotional consumption of high-consumption groups; In the film, the dialogue between the chief director Chen Xiaoqing and the spokesperson of Telunsu Yi Yang Qianxi, as well as Yi Yang Qianxi's small card products, are accurate customer acquisition for the fan group.

In the field of documentaries, especially in the field of food documentaries, Tencent Video has always adhered to the innovative mechanism of "content light innovation and ecological strides". Content attempts again and again, and industry ecological leadership again and again, are inseparable from the vigorous support of the potential energy of the Tencent video platform. Online + offline + derivatives development, this kind of "ecological operation" not only consolidates Tencent Video's leading position in the long video track, but also redefines the industrial value of documentaries as a "cultural hub" - it is not only an emotional resonance field for brands, but also a new medium for dialogue between civilizations.

The profundity of "Milk is a History of Civilization" lies in the fact that it uses milk as the "least common divisor" to achieve the ultimate goal of cultural expression diversity - to find common ground in differences. Although there are thousands of forms of civilization, human beings' dedication to survival, reverence for nature, and desire for social interaction have always been the same. The documentary of the future will not only be a content product, but a higher-level expression of intercultural dialogue. This is the best documentary aesthetics, and it is also the strategic moat in the documentary field established by Tencent Video under the dual model of "high-quality food documentary IP+ cultural value benchmark".