An Analysis of Narrative Language used in Film and Television Commentary Videos: Evidence from Bilibili.com

: With the advent of the new media era, audiences are no longer satisfied with watching film and television works but with output and sharing their views through We-media platforms. At the same time, the fragmented communication mode brought by the new media era makes the audience demand to obtain the substantive content of the film in a short time. Thus, film and television commentary videos came into being. This paper chooses the most representative video we media platform - Bilibili. From the perspective of narrative language, this paper analyzes the picture, sound, and text language of video commentary. Through the extensive use of case analysis and literature analysis, this paper concludes that, in terms of picture language, video commentary vloggers will re-edit the original film of film and television works according to their understanding and the narrative logic of the video so that the original movie will play an auxiliary role in the narrative. In addition, some bloggers elevate narrative tension by inserting material other than the original film. Regarding text language, film and television commentary videos have labeled role definition, highly summarized plot, and subjective theme summary.


Research background
Since the film came out in 1895, it has gradually developed into a necessary art form for human beings for more than one hundred years. With the advent of the we-media era, the fragmented communication mode has impacted the traditional communication mode of movies and the reading habits of audiences. The audience has created a need to get more substance in the shortest possible time. At the same time, with the popularity of smartphones and the emergence of more and more we-media platforms, the threshold for audiences to express their views has been lowered, and the popularity of video production technology has also declined the entry threshold for audio-visual video production. As a result, more and more people interested in film and television production or who master relevant knowledge and can make videos begin to publish self-made film and television commentary videos through We-media platforms. And with the continuous development in recent years, it has a comparable system and scale [1].
According to the 2021 China Short Video Industry Development Analysis Report released in 2022, Chinese short video users reached 934 million in 2021. The average daily usage time has got 125 minutes. There is no doubt that short video is one of the most popular communication methods among Internet and new media users in recent years. Current research generally agrees that in 2015, short video blogger Gu Amo released the video "Three Minutes to show you & LT; Birdman & GT;" After becoming popular on the Internet, video commentary videos in the form of "X minutes to take you through XXX" became popular on the Internet and entered the public's vision. Gu Amo is also the founder of domestic film and television commentary videos [2]. Take Bilibili as an example. Muyu Shuixin, a video blogger with video commentary, has 9.145 million fans, 1.18 billion views, and 1,195 articles. Xiao Pian said that Xiao Pian had 5.793 million followers and contributed 1,182 videos with a total of 1.17 billion views. This can intuitively feel the popularity and popularity of video commentary. Therefore, it can be confirmed that the film and television drama commentary video has high research value.

Literature review
Domestic research on video commentary can be divided into the following points.
First, the research on the communication strategy and characteristics of video commentary. It mainly studies the aspects and innovation of the communication mode of short film and television commentary videos, as well as the factors that attract the audience. This kind of research takes Gu Amo, the pioneer of domestic video commentary, as the research object. Most of the literature believes that Gu Amo created a new narrative mode of "fragmentation and micro-narration." This model is consistent with the audience's psychology in the current fast food cultural environment. In addition, with the advent of the new media era, the audience's reading mode has gradually shifted to fragmentation. This is also a fundamental reason for the wide spread of its video.
In summary, the arrival of the new media era makes the audience's reading habits change to fragmentation. Traditional long videos do not conform to the psychology of audiences in the new media era. Therefore, the prominent feature of film commentary videos is the fragmented narrative mode, which facilitates the dissemination and acceptance of audiences [3].
Focusing on the research perspective of this paper, narrative research on film and television commentary videos accounts for a small proportion of the Internet. Qi Fenglin (2020) analyzed the narrative structure, value, and characteristics of "online film review short films" from the perspective of post-modern times. In terms of narrative structure, he believes that the narrative structure of "online film review short films" has the characteristics of fragmented narrative and interpretation. The narrative value caters to the audience's psychology and promotes cultural exchange. The narrative features show the popularization of the narrative subject, the grid of narrative style, and the anti-traditional narrative skills.
In addition, the reasonable use of video commentary. This kind of research is mainly aimed at the infringement disputes caused by the secondary creation of the original film caused by video commentary videos. According to the current study, there is no clear rule and definition of fair use rules for short video creation in China. Zhang Yuning combined the "four elements" management when judging whether video commentary is infringing. That is, he made a judgment based on "the purpose and nature of use," "the nature of the copyrighted work," "the quantity and importance of the part used," and "the impact of use on the potential market or value of the copyrighted work." According to him, video commentary videos may be considered fair use when they have a high degree of transformation and output the author's views, without substantially replacing the original work [4].
To sum up, the current research on video commentary mainly focuses on its transmission mode and other aspects, and there is almost no research on narrative language. Therefore, from the narrative language perspective, in-depth video commentary analysis has considerable value.

Research methods
(1) Case analysis: In this paper, the top three TV commentary bloggers in Bilibili 100 UP Main List released by Bilibili in 2021 will be ranked by the number of followers. They are Mu Yu Shui Xin, Elephant screening Room, and Xiao Pian said Big. From the perspective of narrative language, the top five videos of all their videos were selected, and a total of fifteen videos were selected. This paper studies and analyzes the characteristics of sound language, picture language, and text language and explores the factors that attract the audience.
(2) Text analysis method: This paper will summarize and analyze the interpretation of copy, picture, and sound text from the relevant video texts of Musyu Shuxin, Elephant screening Room, and Xiaoxiang Shuxiang.

Picture Language
In the explanation process, the picture usually appears as an auxiliary explanation. Video commentary bloggers will insert appropriate images according to the logic of their commentary to help the audience understand the plot, increase the tension of the program, drive the audience's emotions, and other purposes. This paper divides the analysis of film and television interpretation of picture language into the following parts.

Use of the original screen
First the use of images from the original series. Film and television interpretation bloggers will insert the original pictures in the interpretation process to achieve the role of auxiliary interpretation. For example, in one of the commentaries on Chornobyl released by the Elephant Screening Room, the narrator says, "One of the softest and most powerful scenes in the whole story is that outside the quarantine zone, many people have slowly gone about their normal lives. In amusement parks where mothers and children play on swings and fountain squares where smiling children sit on the shoulders of young fathers, A middle-aged wife is smartly twirling her husband's hair while a man jumps in the swimming pool and makes a graceful arc in the water. Finally, there is Mira, who has set up a small shop in the mall and, despite being alone, still smiles when he sees his friends." The pictures show children playing in the amusement park, people swimming in the swimming hall, etc. Without explanation, these pictures are just meaningless fragments, and only with explanation can the audience understand the meaning. In addition, while the original footage showed the Chornobyl nuclear power plant before the explosion, the Elephant screening Room was used to show how people lived after the disaster. With the commentary, the original picture is endowed with a meaning of "praise to life and individuals." Therefore, film and television commentary bloggers re-edit the original film according to their narrative logic and subjective understanding. Such an approach will dissolve the picture itself and give it a new meaning subjectively, making the image appear as a complementary aid to the interpretation.

Use of other video materials
The second is the use of other video materials. With the development of film and television commentary video continuously, a lot of film and television commentator blogger is no longer just limited to the original show picture editing reorganization. Still, appropriately insert the picture outside the original show, such as network popular ghost livestock video, homemade animation, etc., in a more intuitive way to explain the plot, or keep the narrative tension, to mobilize the audience's emotions.
(1) The use of funny materials Some bloggers will appropriately insert some funny jokes or ghost material as baggage in the explanation process to improve the explanation's interest and narrative tension. Such treatment can fully mobilize the audience's emotions, make the audience always keep the desire to watch, and to a large extent, avoid the situation where the audience loses patience and shuts down the video when the video is too long.
Not only files, surveillance records, inspection reports, autopsy records [insert Tsui Jinjiang clenched his fist: I want them all] -small piece said the blockbuster "[piece] Chinese drama peak" Chasing the Night, "China's most muscular suspense drama, it is the only one! (2) The use of simple animation Some bloggers use simple animations for movies and television adaptations of novels or when they involve very complicated plots or relationships between characters. In this way, the audience can more intuitively understand the logic behind the relationship and avoid audience confusion. In this way, the audience can have a deeper understanding of the story's development, which significantly avoids the situation in which the audience cannot understand the explanation. At the same time, the production time and money cost of this kind of animation are relatively low, and the simple, special effects added in the production process can also make the audience can not help but laugh. It is also helpful to the audience's emotional mobilization and rhythm tension.

Use of music
When making commentary videos, most bloggers will choose background music to assist commentary according to the content of the commentary videos, which is consistent with the theme and not distracting. Let the audience focus on the story itself. For example, the Elephant Screening Room used a purely musical version of "You Rise Me Up" in the background while narrating "Chernobyl." It is a good foil for the drama to show the tragic atmosphere after the disaster and the victims after the disaster to regain hope in life.

Selection of the original soundtrack
Due to the time limit, film and television commentary bloggers usually cover the audio track of the original drama with the weak narrative ability and replace it with the dubbing of secondary creation with the subjective color of the blogger. To ensure the rhythm of explanation so that the audience in a shorter time to get more information. However, for the key plot points of the original series, some bloggers will choose to insert the soundtrack of the original film so that the audience can feel the atmosphere of the original movie on a small scale. This is conducive to increasing video narrative tension. For example, Muyu Shuixin released a complete segment of Chen Duxiu's speech when explaining THE Awakening Age so that the audience could intuitively feel the thoughts and passions of the martyrs.

Qualitative labeling of roles
Due to the time limit, film and television commentary bloggers must make the audience remember the characters in the story in a short time and understand the development of the plot and the relationship between the characters. To make the video more informative in less time and to keep the characters in mind, film and television bloggers often use the method of labeling feelings in the show. For example, in the narration of the Night's Chase, the hero is named "Xiao Bai," and the hero's brother is called "Xiao Hei." Such a popular and exciting code name can facilitate the audience to understand the positioning of the characters in the play, reduce the difficulty of the audience to identify the characters, and focus on the story's development.

High summary of the plot
Influenced by time limits and fragmented reading habits of the audience, film and television commentary bloggers will highly refine and summarize the plot in their videos. Delete some emotional lines that have little impact on the main property. For example, Muyu Shuixin, in the commentary video of Romance of The Three Kingdoms, only used a few words to cover the plot of the Peach Garden Three vows. Only the most basic causes, processes, and event results are retained. In this way, the audience can understand the general development trend of the story in a shorter time and get more substantive content. However, this can also lead to a lack of understanding of the story, resulting in a lack of knowledge of the story, a lack of empathy, and other problems.
After this experience, the three people hit it off and drank together. Liu Bei said, "In these troubled times, heroes will emerge." The day when the yellow turban is pacified is the time when the leaders rise. An army at this time is bound to achieve great results. Guan Yu very much agreed, only saying to listen to your words in ten years. It is easy to find a friend but challenging to find a friend. Liu Bei said frankly that he was the royal family after the King Jing of Zhongshan in the Western Han Dynasty, but now he was left with nothing and no reward for his ambition. Hearing this matter, the two people of natural forbearance Guan Zhang, expressed willingness to conspire with Liu Bei. Three people came to Taoyuan and became brothers of the opposite sex. They did not seek to be born on the same day of the same year but died on the same day of the same month." --Commentary copy of Muyu Shuixin [Muyu Micro Theatre] Romance of The Three Kingdoms (Complete Works)

Summary and interpretation of subjective ideas
At the end of most movie commentary videos, a brief evaluation and summary of the commentary and a subjective interpretation of the blogger's intention will be made. For example, in the commentary video of Hello Tree, Mu Yu Shui Xin concludes that the film's theme is to show the complexity and charm of the human brain. This interpretation can often play the role of opinion leaders and provide ideas for audiences to understand and feel the film and television works. At the same time, it also has the function of arousing the audience's perception and thinking and improving their sense of acquisition. In addition, it can also stimulate the audience's review and discussion and increase the topic degree and discussion degree of the commentary video.
The film presents the audience with a beautiful dream containing some discussion of society. Still, more of it is a charming exposition of the complexity of the human brain and the spiritual world.
99% of people don't understand the most misunderstood masterpiece in China. Do you know it? Wang Baoqiang is at the top of his acting game

Conclusion
With the development of the Internet and media, video commentary has become a prevalent form of video. A unique output system and narrative logic have been initially formed in the video commentary category and are gradually improving. It is foreseeable that in the future, video commentary will shine in the field of a short videos. It is foreseeable that in the future, video commentary will shine in the area of the short video.