On 27 November, Li Ziqi, a quality vlog producer, shared her view on content production at the Culture, Education, and Tourism Development Forum of the Asia Youth Leaders Forum 2021.

The full speech is as below.

First, thank you for your support. In fact, I'm just an ordinary vlogger and I'm doing nothing unusual. In terms of content production, I can only speak for myself as an ordinary content producer.

In my opinion, producing good content needs perseverance, and most importantly, intense passion and devotion. I'll take myself as an example. Maybe you have watched my Life Series videos. This series of videos is about the life circle of plants, from being planted to germinating, growing, blooming, bearing fruit, and being served on the table. Actually, I came up with the idea by chance. A teacher left a comment, saying that the students in his class thought rice grew on trees. I was shocked at the moment. Rice grows on trees? That's absurd. Then I thought, if only I could teach children where the food they eat comes from and help them understand the importance of harmonious coexistence between human and nature. That’s why I made the series. 

Actually, it was not named "Life Series" at the beginning. I just shot these videos. In this process, for example, in the spring, I grew lots of vegetables like chilies, eggplants, beans, and tomatoes. I have to know when each of these seeds germinates. My photographer knows that there's no script for videos of this kind except for over-complicated ones. So, I have to do some memorization. The seeds are different. I'll take tomato and bitter gourd seeds as an example. Tomato seeds germinate very quickly, while bitter gourd seeds sprout slow because their husks are thick. A tomato seed germinates at a proper temperature roughly within three days after it's watered. So, on the third day, I would set a time-lapse camera and, based on the growth rate of the seed, decide the interval between shots. Then I started taking photos. 

We have a 2-square-meter room specifically for time-lapse shooting. I took the seedling pots inside and filmed them in a simulated natural environment. If the seed has a thick husk, it takes longer to germinate. I knew at which time it might germinate, and I asked our photographers to keep that time in mind. If the seed grew slowly, I might record how it germinated at the speed of one shot every two hours. Actually, there were many more. In the growth cycle, for example, the flowering of rice or the sprouting of corn needs shooting too. Every morning I walked in the garden, I would know the state of each crop and the scenes I could get – for example, blooming, sprouting, or bearing fruit. Then I asked our photographers to record it. 

In my computer, there were countless folders, storing the videos of each crop at different stages of growth. I sorted them all out. At the final stage of harvest, we picked and cooked the plants and brought the food to the table. After all source materials were gathered, we categorized them and edited them into a video.

I've talked a lot. What I want to say is that content production takes time and that we can't get what we want instantly. Society needs fast food, but also calls for banquets. It takes time and energy to do it and improve it. There is an old saying, only passion can guide us through this lengthy journey. I think the same goes to producing content.

I started making videos at the end of 2015, and I made them all by myself to 2016. I bought a 70D SLR camera. It has a flip screen, so I can see myself on the screen. It is automatic. I used to be a newbie who didn't know where the camera buttons are. I searched the functions of every camera button on Baidu forums, kept the functions in the memo, and practiced them one by one. Then I discovered that as long as the camera is in automatic mode, a click can realize autofocus, auto white balance, exposure, and so on. Later on, I carried my tripod around and took videos all by myself. 

In May 2017, I got my first photographer Jiujiu (uncle). Jiujiu (uncle) is his nickname. He's not my real uncle. In fact, he is not my full-time photographer. He has his own studio. We shoot videos on schedule. He also taught me a lot of editing knowledge. I started editing videos with a computer, and my editing skills got much better than before. With his professionalism, I could avoid situations in which auto white balance resulted in so much exposure that I couldn't take videos, especially when there's too much sunlight. With Jiujiu and, later, assistants, we've been making progresses and learning. I have also been exploring myself. Step by step, we get where we are now. 

I didn't come up with those innovative ideas out of thin air. Like I just mentioned, for example, the idea of the Life Series came from a comment of a follower. I don’t think it is just my team and I that made this happen. It is this era, this development, and an opportunity. Of course, I work hard myself, which is necessary. I also want to thank my team – Jiujiu and my assistants – and my fans who give me lots of support. I think a result is caused not by a single event or element but by a lot of factors.