Late at night, the open-air basketball court in Taipan Village, Taijiang County, Guizhou Province was still boiling.
Spectators formed four human walls, extending from around the arena to the night sky.
Whenever a goal is scored, the audience will cheer "woo-woo-woo".
Photographer Yao Shunwei is very familiar with this kind of cheering.
He knows that when a traditional bullfight is held, the locals also "woo-woo-woo" to cheer on the wrestling buffaloes.
From day to night, to the dawn of dawn, he ran around the arena, found a suitable angle, stopped, stabilized his center of gravity, and patiently waited for a wonderful scene on the arena or in the audience.
Every time, he would sit until his legs were numb and then move.
Because once you leave, there is no chance to squeeze back in.
After a video shot by Yao Shunwei was released, it quickly caused a huge response.
On Twitter, someone reposted Yao Shunwei's video, which was quickly reposted and praised by Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian.
Some netizens feel that this lively scene is comparable to the world-famous NBA, and they call these basketball games held in rural China "village BA".
Locally, the country basketball game has been popular for many years.
And this time, a local event "fired out of the circle".
In the eyes of relevant people, the popularity of "Village BA" is both inevitable and accidental.
The 4 minutes and 15 seconds of the video shot and edited by Yao Shunwei is the tipping point for the rural basketball game to break the geographical restrictions and push the "village BA" to the world.
on fire
Country basketball game
Taipan Village is located in Taijiang County, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou Province.
Zhang Shoushuang, Secretary of the Party Branch of Taipan Village, introduced that Taipan Village is a local market town village with convenient transportation and advantageous geographical location.
In the local traditional festival "June 6th", people from all over the world come here to gather, hold lively events, sing and dance, and express their hopes for a good harvest.
Young men and women can also take this opportunity to "walk the village" to find their sweetheart.
The famous country basketball game was held at this time.
The main members of the team are villagers from Shili Baxiang, and basketball fans from different regions can also form a team.
There are also many players who have retired from the CBA.
The audience during the game may reach tens of thousands
Entering Taipan Village, and walking along the road on the left to the village for two or three minutes, you can see this famous basketball court.
The stadium is located directly in front of the Taipan Village Village Committee, and the highest stand has 21 levels.
There are several restaurants and canteens beside the arena, and there are large golden corn kernels drying on the open space near the arena.
If it weren't for a white wall with the words "China's 'Village BA' Holy Land", a sky blue stand, and tourists who came to take pictures and "check in", at first glance, this place seems to be no different from an ordinary open-air basketball court.
But the villagers here know how "different" this golf course is.
Mr. Zhang, a cadre stationed in the village, told reporters that since there were no benches installed in the stands, the audience sat next to each other.
The "auditorium" is also much more than these blue steps.
During the game, people stood on the corridor in front of the village committee, on the roof next to the stadium, on the hillside, and in the cornfield.
Some villagers also inserted some small wooden sticks on the retaining dam beside the stadium.
With the support of wooden sticks, they can sit firmly on this slope with more than 50 degrees.
A live audience of a football game may reach tens of thousands of people.
The audience who rushed to the scene was far more than the villagers of Taipan Village.
The surrounding villages and towns, as well as basketball fans from other provinces, will come here to watch.
There are no tickets for the basketball game in Taipan Village, and the audience can choose their seats freely.
"The game usually starts in the evening. But if you want to get a good seat, you have to come at least at noon. One or two o'clock in the afternoon is too late." Recalling the grand occasion of the game, a villager told reporters with an unfulfilled feeling.
Due to the rare availability of seats, many audience members were reluctant to leave once they were seated.
Going up 8 steps from the highest stand, there is a spacious open space.
The stall carts selling barbecue and other snacks are pushed around on the platform, which allows the spectators who are staying in place to fill their stomachs nearby, and also makes the business of the hawkers particularly easy.
Basketball court from old to new
The ball holder is also fitted with an electronic scorer
Zhang Shoushuang witnessed the birth of this stadium.
He told reporters that once, the villagers played on the old golf course in the village.
The ground of the old court is uneven, and the two white arcs are the three-point line.
The basketball hoop was shaky due to moisture and had been removed for safety reasons.
Today, there are only two wooden stakes left in the original place of the ball rack, and the old backboards are placed on the side of the court.
The field was covered with corn.
Obviously, the capacity of the old stadium is far less than the new stadium.
But Zhang Shoushuang remembered that when basketball games were held in the past, it was also very lively, and the slopes and valleys on the side of the court were full of people.
In Zhang Shoushuang's impression, there are thousands of fans who came to watch the game, standing under the apple and pear trees, cheering for the athletes.
However, the small stadium has become more and more difficult to carry people's enthusiasm.
In 2016, under the coordination of the village cadres, a new stadium was built according to local conditions in the "small soil concave" which is only separated from the old stadium by a road and a row of houses.
In 2018, the stands and guardrails on the sidelines were improved.
The construction of the stadium is supported by both the government and villagers.
Several basketball stands were purchased with the support of the Culture and Tourism Bureau.
In order to make the game more atmosphere, an electronic scorer was also installed on the basketball hoop.
If there is a "lore" on the field, the jumping score on the scorer can ignite the atmosphere more than the scoreboard that needs to be turned by hand.
Talking about the blue stand, Zhang Shoushuang showed a satisfied smile.
When the stadium was designed and built, he was not yet the party secretary of the village.
In order to avoid visual monotony, the village cadres at that time proposed to paint the stands and solicit opinions from the villagers on the color scheme.
The alternatives are red, orange, blue, green, yellow... Zhang Shoushuang is in favor of choosing blue.
Blue can not only set off the passion on the field, but also set off against the blue sky and white clouds of Guizhou.
"It's hot in summer and it's painted sky blue. It feels like playing in the sea," Zhang Shoushuang said.
after the explosion
How to go further?
If you want to build the IP of "Village BA", you need to protect its "country flavor".
After the "Village BA" became popular, the local official media deployed more manpower to report on the rural basketball game, and the platforms of WeChat video account, Douyin account, Weibo and other media platforms synchronously broadcast the live game live.
Construction: Protect the "country flavor" and ensure the safety of those present
Pan Jianhua, deputy director of Taijiang County Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau, has many ideas about the next steps to improve the basketball court.
He told reporters that in order to build the IP of "Village BA", it is necessary to protect its "country flavor".
Don't transform the open-air basketball court into a closed indoor court, replace the court with a wooden floor, do not charge tickets, and do not need to build too "luxury" lighting, just let the game be played in a rural environment and air to maintain it. features.
More importantly, ensure the safety of those present.
During a competition, due to too many people, one wall was trampled and the guardrail was crushed. It was Zhang Shoushuang and other staff who discovered it for the first time and lifted a lamp post as reinforcement to eliminate the hidden danger.
The load-bearing walls of the stands need to be reinforced, as well as the construction of medical clinics and public toilets to meet the needs of players and spectators.
On publicity:
Matrix live broadcast realizes 1+1>2
Dig deeper into the backstory
According to Guizhou Daily, Wu Tao, Secretary of the Party Committee and Director of the Guizhou Provincial Sports Bureau, as well as a number of academics, all believe that the popularity of "Village BA" all over the Internet is a result of accumulation and success.
As early as June 2021, the "Beautiful Countryside" basketball league was officially launched as an IP event in Guizhou province.
Since late April this year, a total of 2,445 private basketball teams have been organized across Guizhou, holding more than 4,200 games.
The local "big festival 'three six nine', small festivals happen every day", every festival, people always like to gather together and hold activities together.
This laid a cultural foundation for the lively scene of "Village BA".
After the "Village BA" became popular, the local official media deployed more manpower to report on the rural basketball game, and the platforms of WeChat video account, Douyin account, Weibo and other media platforms synchronously broadcast the live game live.
Mr. Zhang, a local media staff member, told reporters that the live broadcast matrix is the camera on the scene that transmits the signal to the same server, which then distributes the signal to different live broadcast platforms.
During the live broadcast, these platforms will present the pictures taken from the same angle.
Through such a live broadcast matrix, different platforms and accounts can be channeled to each other, and the live game can be recommended to different audiences to achieve the effect of "1+1>2".
For example, one of the media accounts has a lot of followers because of its infrequent operations.
On August 9, after only one hour of live broadcast, it gained thousands of fans.
Mr. Zhang believes that in the future, this matrix will become larger and larger.
On August 16, Guizhou Jinsi Media Co., Ltd., which is controlled by Taijiang County Rong Media, established the China VBA (Village BA) brand communication and operation center.
At present, there are more than 10 staff in the operation center, mainly planning six aspects of business: "phenomena analysis and research", "event information release", "media publicity and promotion", "business cooperation and development", "comprehensive coordination" and "news publicity".
They will also pay attention to monitoring and collect reports released by major media, and include them in topics such as "rural revitalization" and "industrial development" to dig deeper and present the stories behind "village BA".
Mr. Zhang said that to maintain the popularity of the "Village BA" IP, it is also necessary to have regular and sufficient events as support, and work together with the Sports Bureau to prevent the IP from cooling down.
Photographer who shot fire "Village BA"
"Only know basketball
to make a good basketball game"
When the reporter saw Yao Shunwei, he had just finished filming for the day and rushed back to his home in Guiyang from Anshun by night.
Although he has been busy for a day, his face is not tired, and his eyes are still bright.
Yao Shunwei, who was born in 1992, just turned 30 this year.
During college, after taking a photography class, he developed a strong interest in photography.
As soon as he graduated, Yao Shunwei devoted himself to the photography career.
Yao Shunwei's hometown is Huishui, Guizhou.
Around 2020, he went to Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture for the first time to help the locals do a live broadcast to bring goods.
Taking advantage of the gap between shooting, he and his colleagues strolled around the nearby villages, and were immediately attracted by the folk customs and scenery there.
Yao Shunwei learned that it is the "Hometown of Hundred Festivals", except for the busy farming season, almost all festivals are held there.
In some places, the primitive and natural way of life is still preserved.
Once, Yao Shunwei worked overtime until two or three o'clock in the middle of the night. He was surprised to find that a basketball game was still being held on the court.
At that time, he decided that he must go to shoot the basketball finals there.
Shooting from all angles alone
On the day of the "June 6" basketball final, Yao Shunwei came to Taipan Village.
Together with the audience at the scene, he waited from daytime to late at night, and greeted the arrival of the dawn in a warm atmosphere. He couldn't help but cheered "woo-woo-woo" with the audience several times.
He saw that some people were so sleepy that they were reluctant to leave, and he couldn't help suspecting that even in their sleep, they would cheer with the people around them.
Yao Shunwei did not bring an assistant when the video was filmed.
Alone, he ran around the field with a drone, shooting all angles.
Yao Shunwei told reporters that before the shooting, he had roughly conceived the content of the shooting: a packed stand, enthusiastic cheers, fierce basketball confrontation, and figured out how to describe the grand scene of the scene through composition.
But he felt that he only achieved 30% of the expected effect. "The enthusiasm of the audience was not captured, and the intensity of the confrontation was not captured."
The main reason is that there are too many people.
Find a place to squeeze to the sidelines and sit down. It is difficult to even move your feet, and you almost have to be squeezed onto the field.
He waited patiently to capture the wonderful moment.
After halftime, my legs were too numb.
I stood up to shoot for a while, but I was worried about blocking the people behind, so I immediately walked away.
Once you leave, you can't go back to your original location.
On the other hand, the equipment at hand was insufficient.
For a moment, he found a girl in the audience dancing and cheering after scoring a goal, trying to capture her excited look, but was unable to take a close-up due to the lack of a telephoto lens.
Yao Shunwei said that the impactful visual effects of this video were largely due to the stepped audience seats.
Each level of the ladder is very high, just to pull out the sense of hierarchy.
"I knew how to shoot right away," Yao Shunwei said.
"To shoot with love,
to have a different effect.”
Yao Shunwei's family told reporters that he has been a basketball fan since elementary school.
When I grow up, whenever I have time, I will play basketball and watch the NBA.
"The shooting of 'Village BA' did not specifically refer to the NBA's shooting methods, but it may have been influenced by some subtle influences." Yao Shunwei said, "Only by understanding basketball can you shoot a good basketball game."
Yao Shunwei said that he did not deliberately shorten the length of the video to adapt to the characteristics of the Douyin short video platform.
"The material just cut out a video of more than 4 minutes. I thought the platform would not be pushed, but I didn't expect it to be pushed. It may be mainly because the content is in place."
After the video was released, a netizen contacted him, expressing the hope that the video he shot could be forwarded to Twitter to show the world the beauty of China and break the stereotype of Western media.
Yao Shunwei agreed.
After that, Yao Shunwei's video was posted on Twitter, and Zhao Lijian quickly retweeted and praised it.
"All of a sudden, the screenshot of that tweet started going viral on the Internet," Yao Shunwei recalled.
Talking about why the video can show such an ideal effect, Yao Shunwei said that on the one hand, it is because he loves basketball, and on the other hand, because he loves photography.
Skilled in basketball and photography, knowing how to capture a shot, and how to express it through composition, rather than tackling it as a simple task.
"The first is a hobby, and the second is a hobby. Shooting with love can show a different effect." Yao Shunwei said.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News reporter Wang Yuchen and Du Yuquan