Recently, Stephen Chow and the short video platform reached a short drama cooperation to jointly develop and operate the "9527 Theater" and announced that the first short drama "Golden Pig and Jade Leaves" will be launched in May 2024. This drama will be produced by Stephen Chow , produced by Yi Xiaoxing and starring A-list actresses. The introduction of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" on the short video platform is "aims to make the audience laugh easily, relieve fatigue, relax their muscles, and face life with a more uplifting spirit."
There is a natural binding relationship between "Stephen Chow" and "making the audience laugh easily". How is the short drama that was once criticized as "tacky and awkward" developing now? What impact will the participation of famous film and television personalities such as Stephen Chow have on the short drama industry? West China Metropolis Daily and cover news reporters interviewed industry insiders.
Big waves wash over the sand
The past and present life of traffic short dramas
Compared with traditional film and television works, each episode of short dramas is generally controlled within 3 minutes, and each episode has 80-100 episodes. The rhythm is tight and the plot is compact. An eye-catching information point can often appear within the first 10 seconds. Before 2023, the hit short drama "Wushuang" earned more than 100 million yuan after eight days of airing, creating the "myth of instant wealth." Hengdian, a famous film and television shooting base, was also nicknamed the "vertical store" because of the proliferation of short drama theaters everywhere. According to the "China Online Audiovisual Development Research Report (2023)", more than half of short video users have watched short dramas within 3 minutes.
Xiao Yang is the person in charge of a short drama mini program. He has entered the short drama industry in 2021 and has witnessed the history of short dramas from growing freely to living on the basis of merit. "Short dramas are actually the continuation of short videos. Its creative thinking and The short videos are almost the same." Xiao Yang told reporters that there is no need to spend a lot of effort designing costumes, actors with superb performances, or even considering the rationality of the plot. As long as the rhythm is fast enough, the visual stimulation is great, the emotional pull is strong, With a strong sense of immersion, short plays can "explode".
Under the temptation of traffic, short dramas with extremely low creation thresholds opened their doors to ordinary people, attracting a large number of investors and dramatists to pour in. The short drama platform was flooded with marginal, vulgar, and unrestricted content. However, as the relevant departments launched rectification of the short drama industry on November 15, 2023, the barbaric growth momentum of short dramas "daring to film anything, and they will become popular once filmed" has been curbed. Hundreds of short plays were removed from the shelves, and the short plays that passed the review formed their own profit model.
multi-party game
Profitable short plays test your own strength
According to relevant data, as of November 2023, the average daily revenue of short dramas in mainland China has reached 80 million yuan.
If short plays want to achieve economic transformation, they are currently mainly divided into three aspects: "paid viewing", "brand customization" and "advertising exchange".
The short drama is pushed to the user's eyes. The user taps his finger on the screen to jump to the short drama mini program, and clicks and pays to watch based on the average price of 1-2 yuan per episode. It integrates the short drama platform, traffic platform, and users. The "pay-to-view" profit model is also the mainstream profit model in the short drama market.
Liu Zhenghao is the boss of a film and television company in Chengdu. In his view, the dependence of short dramas on traffic is fundamental. “The higher the popularity, the platform will push it to more users. If you want to make profits in a short time, generally They all need to rely on streaming to gain popularity." The so-called streaming means paying money to a platform that has a large number of users to obtain traffic in order to gain higher exposure for the short drama. "ROI (input-output ratio) is about 1:1.2."
Liu Zhenghao initially only played the role of content production. The short drama platform provided the script and his team filmed it. The copyright belongs to the short drama platform. In 2023, he tried to put the short dramas produced by his company on the platform, and divided the accounts based on the total amount of users' on-demand viewing and the platform. "It's not difficult to put a short play that you own the copyright on on the platform. What's difficult is the cost of streaming it." Liu Zhenghao said frankly.
"The number of short dramas in the early days was small. In order to attract users, the short drama platform would actively invite film producers to join the platform. After users paid to watch, the film producers would be given a very high share of the share. Sometimes they would also cooperate with the film producers to bear part of the production costs." Liu Zhenghao He said that the bonus period had already passed when he entered the stage to launch the short drama, and the account sharing ratio given by the platform at that time was only 5%.
After the short drama platform puts the video on the shelves, it usually spends a small amount of money to stream it. In the early days, due to the high market popularity, the traffic was very considerable, but now the market has entered a cooling-off period. Once the streaming effect is not good, the short drama will sit on the shelf. "Ignored" and lost at least hundreds of thousands of dollars in production fees.
Liu Zhenghao thought twice and turned his attention from the short drama platform to the short video platform with a large number of users, but he encountered the same problem, "If I want to have a considerable number of clicks, I need to invest about 40,000 yuan per episode. ." One of Liu Zhenghao's short dramas had 100 episodes. After a quick calculation, he decided to evacuate. "Later, we played the show on our company account. There was no advertising, only the plot, so it was used as a way to attract fans."
Xiao Yang told reporters that most short drama platforms will hold the copyright in their hands to ensure maximum profits. Now the era of "short dramas must be popular" has passed. For those short dramas with extremely low traffic, they choose to cooperate with advertisers. Cooperate and adopt the "watch ads and watch dramas for free" model to attract users. However, in the short drama industry with serious homogeneity and increasingly fierce industry competition, the living space of such films is getting smaller and smaller.
Superstars enter
Short plays are expected to become high-quality products for the public
At present, most of the popular works in the short drama market are about bosses, time travel, sweet pets, sadomasochism, God of War and other themes that make the audience "addicted". Ren Zhonglun, chairman of the 8th Council of the Shanghai Film Association and professor of the Chinese Department of Shanghai Normal University, told reporters, “Such grassroots counterattacks or themes of wealthy families’ sweet pets have their own unique advantages. They are easy to understand and can quickly satisfy the audience’s inner needs. The expectation of a better life.”
In Ren Zhonglun's view, short plays with character relationships and conflicting plots are in line with the rules of film and television creation. However, unlike literary and artistic works, short plays are a product of the Internet era. They need to meet people's needs to use fragmented time to obtain information, so "Fast" is the obvious characteristic of short plays: the content is fast-paced, and the plot is explained quickly; the production speed is fast, a short play can usually be completed within 7-10 days; the dissemination speed is fast, and popular short plays can get traffic in a few days Breaking tens of millions.
"Our attitude towards short plays must be both serious and non-serious." Ren Zhonglun said that art is essentially a dream factory. Short plays allow the audience to realize their inner dreams, and its expression method also makes it easier for young people to accept it. The current situation of abandoning certain aesthetic pursuits through overly entertaining expressions should be viewed from multiple angles.
"Any new product must be mixed in its early stages of free development. Those crude and vulgar short plays have been eliminated. We must use an inclusive attitude to look at the process of improving the quality of short plays." Ren Zhonglun believes that short plays are still on the path of development. Although the routine of online cool articles can bring instant gratification to the audience, if it wants to gain vitality, it needs to enhance its spiritual value and bring spiritual enlightenment to the audience.
At present, the audience for short dramas is mainly concentrated in third- and fourth-tier cities, and the ratio of male to female audiences is relatively even. Ren Zhonglun believes that short plays have good development prospects, because the short play industry has transformed from "ordinary people's involvement" to "professionals' involvement", and its quality will be greatly improved. However, due to the particularity of the short play audience, it It will not turn into a "niche art", but will gradually become a "mass fine product".
"If the relevant departments are setting industry standards for short dramas, then the addition of Stephen Chow may provide a new production possibility for short dramas. Just like "Flowers", when Wong Kar-wai was not filming a TV series, no one would think TV dramas can still do this, and the same reason applies to Stephen Chow entering the short drama industry." In Ren Zhonglun's view, most of Stephen Chow's works are grassroots and entertaining, which is consistent with the current theme orientation of short dramas, and can also make up for shortcomings. The play has a gap in "comedy" works.
Detawen data shows that in 2023, a total of 899 new micro-short dramas will be released on major platforms, an increase of 98% compared to 2022. iiMedia Consulting data shows that China’s online micro-short drama market size will be 37.39 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 267.65%. It is worth mentioning that the short dramas that stand at the top of the traffic pyramid attract not only professional film and television people such as Stephen Chow. In fact, before Stephen Chow announced the production of short dramas, the State Administration of Radio and Television had already issued the "Follow" on January 12, 2024. The creation plan of "Micro Short Play Goes to Travel" mentioned in the notice that "it will further extend the value chain of the micro short play industry and better guide and transform traffic advantages into industry and market advantages", opening a new era of "short plays + cultural tourism". This undoubtedly provides a direction for the "quality" of short plays.
West China Metropolis Daily-cover news trainee reporter Liu Ye