Nantou ancient city, located in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, is an ancient town with a history of more than 1700 years. It is known as “the capital of eastern Guangdong and the source of Hong Kong and Macao”. It is a sample of urban culture in which tradition and modernity, inheritance and innovation blend and coexist. In the endless stream of the main road of the ancient city, the small shop of Liu Qipei, the successor of the silhouette, stands on the street. He and his apprentice are stationed in this shop and leave a vivid memory for tourists with the traditional craft of “forming a shadow in seven seconds”. But these days, Liu Qipei has a more challenging task to complete.
Silhouette is a provincial intangible cultural heritage in Guangdong. It can be traced back to the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. It is a kind of folk traditional arts and crafts with a long history. Through the rapid and detailed observation of the silhouette object, grab the character’s facial features, cut away the dragon and snake, and present the character’s profile on the paper in just a few tens of seconds. As a representative inheritor of silhouette, Liu Qipei inherited family studies and learned silhouette from his grandfather and father since childhood. In order to practice his hand strength and precise control, his father trained him to grasp the iron pen made of hemp rope wrapped around steel bars, practice martial arts in the sand table, and control the scissors with his ring finger, little finger and tiger mouth.
After long-term hard training and practice, Liu Qipei came to Shenzhen from Sichuan to seek broader development space. From the initial establishment of sites in the folk culture village, to the long-term invitation of enterprises to customize the silhouette, and then to the opening of their own shops in the ancient city, this traditional craft is slowly accumulating attention and recognition. In more than 30 years of working in silhouettes, Liu Qipei has made silhouettes for more than 200000 people, including social celebrities and foreign heads of government. In 2020, Liu Qipei won the “Chinese list · Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritance Award”, which is known as the highest honor of the Chinese session. However, the award ceremony originally scheduled to be held at Stockholm University was postponed due to the capricious covid-19 epidemic. As usual, Liu Qipei not only received tourists in the store, but also followed the team of intangible cultural heritage in Shenzhen into the campus and community activities, tirelessly showing more people the intangible cultural heritage art of silhouette, hoping to make more young people close to this traditional art.
In November 2021, the film and television drama “Mrs. Huzhu” produced by Tencent video will be released soon. This online drama, adapted from popular online novels, continues to attract attention and Discussion on the Internet because of its ancient costume idol drama, emotional twists and turns, mysterious color and exquisite visual effect label. Wang Jun, director of Shenzhen cultural heritage protection center, also keenly captured the great potential of massive traffic on the network platform to promote the dissemination of traditional culture. Integrating intangible cultural heritage products with popular IP cultural content has become the direction Wang Jun wants to try. “Mrs. Huzhu” became the first water test stone, and Liu Qipei’s unique silhouette became the first selected intangible cultural heritage project. The silhouette is used to reproduce the romantic scene of the bright moon and the two people leaning on each other in the poster of Mrs. Huzhu. Black and white reflect each other, and the charm is vivid, giving people infinite imagination and aftertaste. With the combination of intangible cultural heritage and content, combined with Tencent’s self operated video e-commerce channels, the opportunity for non legacy cultural and creative products to break through marketing barriers and expand consumer groups has sprung up with the dual boost of film and television and e-commerce. The profound historical and cultural connotation and exquisite presentation of intangible cultural heritage also endow film and television IP with more profound cultural value.
Making a silhouette for Mrs. Huzhu is different from Liu Qipei’s previous needs. Silhouette pays attention to the on-site observation of characters. Liu Qipei can adjust the line of sight, more comprehensively analyze the appearance characteristics of characters, and form a three-dimensional and plump character image in his mind. However, the creative material that Mrs. Huzhu can provide is only a poster. As a veteran craftsman with a simple life and dedicated research, Liu Qipei doesn’t know much about popular star artists. To restore the scene, we also need to create a picture atmosphere. Liu Qipei drops ink and faints. He searched many star photos and posters, tried many times, and finally got satisfactory results.
Shenzhen cultural heritage protection center adheres to the characteristics of Shenzhen. While vigorously excavating the accumulation of local intangible cultural heritage, it also provides favorable protection policies for foreign intangible cultural heritage. The inheritance of intangible cultural heritage needs to arouse the attention of young groups, which is also the focus of the cultural heritage protection center in recent years. Therefore, it spared no effort to popularize intangible cultural heritage on campus, communities and enterprises, and cooperated closely with new media and network platforms, which greatly expanded the popularity and attention of intangible cultural heritage. At the same time, intangible cultural heritage provides the platform with content with profound cultural connotation and increases the place of excellent traditional culture in entertainment consumption.
Since the launch of Mrs. Huzhu, the broadcasting volume has exceeded 3 billion times, and the silhouette poster commemorative card, as a limited commodity, has been sold out in the pre-sale period. The experiment of the combination of intangible cultural heritage and popular film and television IP has achieved initial results, and has also sent back a solid response from the market for the new way of grafting traditional culture into film and television entertainment. Wang Jun’s work goal is to promote the connection between intangible cultural heritage and forces from all walks of life, make intangible cultural heritage known to everyone, and arouse awareness of concern and protection. However, he knows that the core to solve the problem is to let the young generation identify with excellent traditional culture and inherit intangible cultural heritage. The combination of Mrs. Huzhu and intangible cultural heritage products is a new attempt, making the video platform a new position for the dissemination of traditional culture.
