A tome is where the heart is

Zhu Xianliang has been working in the documentary arena for three decades, mostly with traditional broadcast TV stations. In 2017, he joined Bilibili and started to focus on making products for new media platforms.

The team at the platform has made works about food and history, which have received over 100 million views. "The documentaries distributed via new media platforms offer more interaction between the audience and the production team than ever before," he explains.

"We know reading is a niche area on our platform, but we need to produce documentaries covering all manner of subjects and interests, as well as make something that younger viewers can learn from," Zhu Xianliang says, adding that their goal is to get more young people falling in love with documentaries.

"The directors should keep the audience in mind when creating a documentary, especially for an audience on Bilibili, because danmu-meaning 'bullet words' which are short live comments that appear on the screen in real time-have become part of the viewing experience," Zhu Xianliang says.

"For shots that we know will trigger many danmu, we need a few seconds of 'filler content' to leave room for the audience to have a 'bulletword carnival'."

The documentary has received many favorable reviews, garnering a score of 9.2 points out of 10 on review site Douban and 9.8 points on Bilibili.