the drama market in the first half of the year: the traffic kings were almost wiped out, and dark horses emerged in the niche market
2024-09-09
한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina
in the first half of this year's drama market, the deviation from expected hits has intensified. faced with the audience's aesthetic iteration, what should creators do?
online dramas need to empathize with others and create for others
the 2nd beijing online audiovisual art conference was held in tongzhou, beijing, from september 2nd to 3rd. with the theme of "new power of art and literature, audiovisual creates the future", the conference included an opening ceremony and summit seminar, 6 theme seminars, 3 project solicitations, and a number of online audiovisual art series activities, aiming to promote the high-quality development of online literary and artistic creation.
looking at the drama market in the first half of the year: the ancient costume dramas that were previously the traffic kings were almost wiped out, and traffic stars were increasingly unable to drive big ips. instead, dark horses emerged in some niche tracks.
the highest score of chinese tv series in 2024 was won by the healing drama my altai; the drama in the clouds, which was released at the same time as joy of life 2, was just as popular; the strange stories of the tang dynasty: journey to the west also broke people's inherent thinking that sequels are not as good as their predecessors...
"the certainty of unearthing so-called blockbuster hits is no longer the only key. audiences tend to get bored with the old and love the new. creators and platforms cannot stick to the conventional narrative context of the past and need to create some forward-looking content," said xie ying, vice president of youku, at the beijing internet audiovisual art conference.
the creator's sense of crisis
faced with the aggressive development of micro-short dramas, creators running on the traditional online drama track are increasingly feeling a sense of crisis.
"the production cycle of a project is two to three years or even three to five years. at a time when audiences' aesthetic tastes are changing with each passing day, if creators are unable to create content with a forward-looking mindset, the day their work is broadcast will be the day it is eliminated by the market and the audience." dai ying, senior vice president of iqiyi, said that after the broadcast of "kuang da", many partners told her that their project was the next "kuang da" when they met her.
"but at the moment when 'kuang biao' became 'kuang biao', it was full of anxiety." dai ying believes that in the field of artistic creation, copying and pasting is not only "particularly invalid", but also the risk is greater than creating an innovative type of work.
in her opinion, for content creators, only by lowering their own posture and being able to see the advantages of other works and the needs of the market can they be able to settle down and work carefully on a work without missing any details.
tencent video has made great achievements in the first half of this year with phenomenal dramas such as "fang hua", "joy of life 2" and "the story of rose". however, li eryun, deputy general manager of tencent online video's film and television content production department, is worried about the next "rose".
"people no longer ask me who the director is or who the male and female protagonists are, but ask me what kind of emotional value the drama provides to the audience. when chasing dramas, users are more concerned about whether the emotional value can be satisfied, and whether things and characters can make them resonate and feel involved. the most obvious thing is that comedy is very popular at the moment." but li eryun believes that this does not mean that comedy will always be popular. the emotional value that the audience needs this year, next year and three years later will be different.
in addition to emotional needs, there are many other changes. for example, users' patience in watching dramas has decreased, their professionalism in watching dramas has continued to improve, and the evaluation dimension is no longer unique. there are more professional evaluations on photography, performance, costumes, props, etc., and the aesthetic level of content is getting higher and higher. these new changes have put forward higher requirements for creators.
"in the practice of high-quality creation, we increasingly realize that maintaining the continuous output of high-quality dramas is not an easy task. precisely because it is difficult, we must do it all the more," li eryun believes.
"the audience is discerning, so don't judge the current audience based on past works. the audience is constantly improving, and their aesthetic taste is also constantly improving," said teng congcong, director and screenwriter of "my altay."
give the audience who know the goods the real good goods
can a work without a strong rhythm, strong reversal, and not driven by a plot become a hit? my altay gives the answer. this web drama adapted from prose is melodious and healing. in an era when everything is speeding up, it allows people to regain a state of mind to slow down.
teng congcong explained the reason for the success of the play with the phrase "there is a source of living water". what touched the reporter was a photo she shared during her speech of peng yining, one of the screenwriters of "my altay", writing the script: on the balcony at night, peng yining had her husband's t-shirt and her daughter's socks on her head.
"if it were daytime, she would have finished writing the script of my altay on a south-facing balcony in beijing with no air conditioning and exposed to the sun on three sides. peng yining's own inward exploration is the theme of the third episode of the play, which is what woolf said about women needing a room of their own. so there are some characters in our play that are admired by everyone, such as token. her life dilemma as a woman comes from the inward exploration of us writers ourselves."
"at present, we have entered an era of downward empathy and upward creation, and the biggest hits must come from realistic themes," dai ying believes that whether it is warm realism's praise of truth, goodness and beauty, or critical realism's lashing out at falsehood, evil and ugliness, they all fit the emotions of the current era.
another dark horse, "the strange stories of the tang dynasty: journey to the west", broke the curse of sequels by upgrading the story, scenes, details, etc. the general director of the play, bai shan, said that in order to achieve realism as much as possible and restore the original flavor of the heyday of the tang dynasty, they made a one-to-one accurate restoration of the props, referring to a large number of historical documents, to ensure that each prop can reflect the life and cultural characteristics of the heyday of the tang dynasty, and enhance the historical authenticity of the series.
build a moat with high-quality products
during the conference, the reporter watched the entire episode of "border water past" and even spent 18 yuan to preview it. there are also many people in the industry who "spend money to watch dramas". with a small amount of publicity, a new team, and no popular stars, this drama did not follow the usual formula, and even the early advertisers did not "bet on the right horse".
xie ying said that the platform needs to shift from the creative end to "exploring more possibilities" and find emotional connection points and value-carrying points that are in sync with users, so as to fit in with users and even lead users.
in her opinion, "good content + good creators + actor adaptation" is the key formula to increase the probability of a hit. it corresponds to realistic creative techniques, idealistic protagonists, and romantic public sentiment, rejects data-only theory, single aesthetics, and crude pandering, and attempts to achieve the breadth of themes, depth of topics, strength of characters, narrative speed, aesthetic intensity, professionalism of creators, and adaptation of actors while seeking the greatest common divisor, thus forming differentiated competition.
in addition, the continuous emergence of new and cutting-edge creators such as shen ao, the director of "new life", and suan, the director of "border water past", has provided an important talent pool for opening up new prospects for online dramas.
"only by pursuing innovation and change with the principle of 'user first' can the platform continuously accumulate experience and build a value moat for long videos with the continuous supply of high-quality content," said xie ying.
despite facing numerous challenges, online dramas are still undergoing self-revolution and iterative upgrades. zhu zhengwen, deputy director of the tv drama department of the state administration of radio, film and television, listed a number of high-quality dramas including "kuangbi", "the three-body problem", "the long season", "my altay" and "flower", and summarized the five major trends of online drama changes: "the whole nation is still chasing dramas, science fiction content is developing rapidly, the boundaries of drama themes are constantly expanding, the aesthetic system is being reconstructed, and artistic expression has reached a new high."
"future online dramas will need the guidance of the national cultural development vision and strategic goals. the new and subversive online drama creation model has strong vitality," said zhu zhengwen.
(source: workers daily)
