Nearly 200,000 square meters of mirrors focus on a tower of molten salt in Dunhuang, Gansu Province, making the 100MW solar power station the first in Asia and the third in the world that can generate power for 24 hours a day. Accurate arithmetic allows the mirrors to automatically track the direction of sun and absorb energy at the maximum.

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The premiere of China Reinvents Itself was held in Beijing on Jan. 18, highlighting the leading role of innovation in the country. Launched last week on CCTV-9, a television channel operated by China Central Television, it was the world’s first large-scale documentary dubbed using artificial intelligence. Researchers used information technology to simulate narration by renowned voice actor Li Yi.

Li was an announcer, voice actor and language artist in China. He had a high reputation for his voice over work on a series of documentaries and films, such as The Yangtze River, Daming Grand Palace, Beautiful China and Human Planet. However, the voice actor unfortunately died of illness in 2013 at the age of 50.

Many people missed Li and his voice, especially documentary directors, including Shi Yan, director of China Reinvents Itself. When casting a voice actor for the project, he believed Li Yi was the most suitable, but he had unfortunately passed away. However, through the power of technology, Shi was able to revive Li.

The six-episode program records Chinese innovations in such sectors as information, energy, manufacturing, life science, aviation and maritime transportation. The program team became well aware of the domestic circumstances after spending six months choosing topics from a multitude of scientific and technological projects.

China is a leading global innovator in voice recognition. As a representative of AI, the technology of voice recognition was included in the documentary. In light of this, Shi came up with an idea of using AI to simulate Li’s voice.

On hearing the idea, researchers also agreed it was an opportunity to refine their algorithms and optimize the performance of AI. They hit it off. But the difficulty of the task was unexpected. To achieve this goal, AI engineers, directors and musical editors worked day and night to make constant improvement, thus leading to the wonderful results.

At the premier, recordings of Li’s previous works were played side by side with the documentary. Li Ruiying and Zhu Jun, who had collaborated with Li for a long time, said they could not distinguish one from the other. Sports anchor Sha Tong expressed concerns about his career while producers Xu Huan and Liu Ying considered the documentary to be an homage to Li Yi as well as the best example of the spirit of innovation. The core value of the documentary is to carry forward the spirit of innovation and encourage the people who embody it.

The documentary not only presents the greatness and spectacle of Chinese innovation but also aims its lens at the individuals and groups who enabled the remarkable achievements. Its main characters rarely appear in the public, and their research seems beyond the understanding of laypeople. However, our lives will greatly change as a result of their success in scientific research.

For example, nano power generation is still in the experimental stage, but it has already produced progressive results and may change the way we generate energy. The artificial sun is able to unleash a tremendous amount of energy by simulating solar fusion while the successful transformation of saline-alkali land will contribute 10 billion tons of grain in 2020. Also, rocket engines with greater thrust can send us farther into the space.

Such stories are so ubiquitous that it is hard to choose the best ones. This documentary covers a wide array of the latest scientific research achievements, such as light quantum computer, China’s space station plan and intelligent manufacturing, which may have appeared in the news, but the details behind these technologies remain unknown to most people, the directing team suggested.
All these stories involve reams of information about science and technology. The challenge for the documentary crew is how to express frontiers of science and professional knowledge in an attractive way.

It is the first documentary in China that has attempted to focus on innovation of science and technology. Having no experience to draw on, the creation team must explore on their own. Liu Ying said that each story was changed several or even a dozen times. Some of the young directors even burst into tears because they were overwhelmed by the pressure.

Almost every story is filled with hardships. The creators did not exaggerate the dramatic effects on purpose. Instead, they aimed to present the extraordinary process of innovation in major scientific and technological projects.

Innovation is not always as exciting as people might think, but the public can gain a deeper understanding of the difficulties that innovators face through the documentary. Persistence sometimes is more important than innovation. The stories in the field of science and technology are not stereotypical. On the contrary, they are the best material for documentaries. We hope more young directors can pay attention to this domain and showcase the stories of innovation across China, Shi said.

 

The article was translated from Beijing Youth Daily.

 

(edited by MA YUHONG)