Recently, when the video website is opened, the audience will find some special categories of online dramas - micro-short dramas.
Just this week, Tencent Video exclusively broadcasted the short drama "My Brother Can't Be So Cute", with the wonderful setting of the protagonist's soul-possessed pet accompanying his brother, and started a series of interesting stories.
Looking at these short dramas, each episode is only 5 minutes long, and the volume is about 20 episodes.
After all, the time to watch a whole drama is equivalent to watching two to three episodes of a TV series or a movie, and it is effortless to finish it in one breath.
There is even a barrage of jokes: "If you play at double speed again, the episode will be gone in the blink of an eye." The two short video platforms Douyin and Kuaishou simply launched "paid short dramas", such as Douyin's "Super Security" second The paid price for the last five episodes of the season is about 1.4 yuan per episode.
In August 2020, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television added the category of "Online Micro-Short Dramas" in the background of key online film and television dramas, which is regarded by the industry as a sign that micro-short dramas are officially included in supervision and are on the right track for creation.
After more than a year of development, more and more professional teams have entered the game, making this film and television category gradually changed from sporadic spontaneous creation in the past to a large-scale industry.
According to data released by the Kuaishou Short Play Industry Conference, from January to October 2021, the total number of Kuaishou short plays will exceed 770 billion.
On the other hand, the long-term video platform has also begun to deploy. Tencent launched the "Fenfen Theater" at the end of last year, and more than ten works have been launched.
Among them, "Aunt's World" received a super high score of 8.1 points.
For short video platforms, micro-short dramas seem to be a promising new monetization channel; for long video platforms, they are like “competing products” that compete with the former for the market and take the route of high-quality products.
However, compared with the creation of more mature long dramas, there are still problems such as low public awareness and uneven quality of micro-short dramas.
Take "Aunt's World" as an example, as the blockbuster top-selling work of "Zhenfen Theater", its broadcast volume is more than 46 million, compared with the 2 billion broadcast volume of Tencent Video's popular drama "Beginning" a while ago, "Auntie". We're less than one-fourth as popular.
So can mini-series really become a new outlet for film and television?
Yang Xiaolin, director and professor of the Film Research Institute of Tongji University, believes that under the trend of platform support and the participation of professional production teams, the quality of short plays will also be greatly improved in the future.
Old tunes and new ones, video sites spare no effort to encourage the creation of mini-series
In fact, mini-series is not a new product.
As early as 2013, Wanhe Tianyi produced two episodes of "Unexpectedly" and "Report to the Boss", attracting fans with the ridiculous and funny plots unique to young people and becoming a hit for many years.
Its episodes, ranging from five to ten minutes in length, were dubbed "mini-series" at the time.
Looking further ahead, there are animated short films such as "Little Broken Child" that became popular on the Internet in 2003.
In the Japanese market, where animation is more mature, this is even more of a fixed category - these three- to six-minute episodes are vividly called "instant noodles", that is, you can watch one in the time of soaking in instant noodles. set.
In Yang Xiaolin's view, these can be regarded as the "pre-history" of the mini-series.
Although popular works are often discussed for a while, short dramas have never grown into a force to compete with long series.
After 20 years, the micro-drama is ushering in a new round of development.
In 2020, in addition to the existing three categories of online dramas, online movies, and online animations, the SARFT filing backend for key online film and television dramas has added a new category of "Internet Micro-Short Dramas".
This means that micro-short dramas are no longer a sporadic test of the water, but have truly become a new category of content that cannot be ignored.
At the same time, major platforms have spared no effort to seize this new high ground by opening brand theaters and creating incentives.
In January this year, Kuaishou announced the launch of the "Short Drama Winter Holiday File", and launched a batch of short dramas intensively.
Among them, there are the short drama "Wan Scum Chaohuang" adapted from the comics, as well as the short drama "Backlight" which highlights the warmth of parents, and "Single Mother Remarriage" which focuses on family life, etc., and the number of broadcasts has exceeded 100 million.
Douyin launched the "Douyin Short Drama New Program" to attract creators to create exclusive short dramas for the platform.
According to relevant disclosures, Douyin will also use short dramas as a separate first-level entry and place them on the homepage of Douyin App to increase its exposure.
Tencent's "Fenfen Theater" has launched a series of works in the Lunar New Year, and plans to launch it in seasons throughout the year according to themes such as comedy season, national style season, interactive season, and suspense season, presenting diverse types of short dramas.
The quality is uneven, and there should be more bearing in addition to filling the "fragmented time"
In Yang Xiaolin's opinion, after many years, it is a "natural" thing for major platforms to compete for the layout of short dramas, which is in line with the current trend of mobile viewing.
According to the "China TV Drama (Internet Drama) Industry Survey Report", in 2019, the usage time of Chinese short video users exceeded that of long videos for the first time.
This means that short videos have become the mainstream of audiovisual consumption.
Compared with starting a web drama with dozens of episodes, the experience of chasing dramas for three to five minutes is easier.
On the other hand, the current online dramas are filled with water and the content is boring, forcing users to seek a more compact content narrative.
Under the impact of the epidemic, the business risk of micro-short dramas that can be completed with an investment of one million yuan is lower. In addition, the theater operation of the platform has naturally become a feasible direction for transformation and exploration.
However, from the perspective of film and television producers, although we know that short videos are in the limelight, it is difficult to obtain the same income as long dramas through monetization methods such as creation incentives for medium and short videos, splitting the amount of broadcasts, or live streaming. Some large film and television companies are not very willing to enter the game.
Therefore, although the pace of platform layout of micro-shorts has accelerated, the currently launched works have not yet formed a climate.
The price of "Super Security", which is "one yuan per episode", is much higher than that of long episodes in terms of viewing time.
But actor performances and special effects production are far from traditional long dramas, which inevitably disappoints paying users.
In addition, the vertical screen micro-shorts did not completely get rid of the exaggerated and routine short video creation style of the Internet celebrity production company.
And the "Shifen Theater", which is known as taking the "high-quality" route, also has a rough presentation.
For example, the five episodes of "The Fourth Interrogation Room" tell a criminal investigation story, which is more like a 30-minute episode that is roughly cut into a five-episode mini-series for broadcast.
And "Wife's Counterattack" was simply ridiculed by netizens as a "double-speed version" of the hit drama "The Temptation to Go Home" a few years ago.
Even though the plot of the husband cheating on his best friend and the wife returning to her husband's side for revenge is fast-paced and refreshing, the audience still gave bad reviews.
Among them, "Aunt's World" stands out.
Whether it is the choice of themes focusing on the middle-aged and elderly groups, or the easy unfolding of each episode that echoes a hot topic in society, it brings the audience a bright joy.
"Aunts" have won word of mouth and expressed the truth of creation - short dramas are not compression of long dramas, nor are they just filling the fragmented time of instant noodles.
A good mini-drama does not need eight turns in one minute. The limited lines, scenes and light stories can still highlight the humanistic concern, and this is the key to the future development and growth of the mini-drama.
Huang Qizhe