in-depth reading | in the short drama market, those who find new paths will have the first chance
2024-09-17
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with a reversal every 15 seconds and a advancement every 30 seconds, each episode of this micro-short drama is only a few minutes long. it constantly stimulates the audience with its climaxes and endless "cool points", and has won a large number of fans.
the rapidly developing micro-short drama is becoming a new outlet in the film and television industry, and has also attracted attention and discussion from all walks of life. in the face of the micro-short drama market with a surge in traffic, how can jiangsu occupy a place? what new opportunities does the rapid growth of the micro-short drama market bring to the development of jiangsu's cultural industry? how can jiangsu micro-short drama achieve high-quality development? recently, the reporter talked with people in the jiangsu micro-short drama industry to try to find answers to these questions.
abandoning the clichés of "cool dramas", jiangsu explores the innovation of short drama themes
in march this year, "i am a hunter" produced by nanjing lanyingxiang culture communication co., ltd. was launched. through the "anti-fraud battle condensed by youth and blood", the audience can understand the "thousands of routines" of online fraud. only one day after the launch, this short play rushed to the top of the tencent video short play list, and then dominated the list for a long time on the entire network. wang fang, the screenwriter of "i am a hunter", revealed that this is a vivid "anti-fraud guide": based on real cases such as campus loans, "pig killing", ai face-changing fraud, and forged admission letters, it tells the story of film and television screenwriter students cooperating with the police to infiltrate the fraud gang and dig out the mastermind behind the scenes.
in the micro-short drama market filled with ancient idol dramas, time travel, and domineering ceo themes, some film and television companies in jiangsu have a rational understanding of the market. they have abandoned the clichés of "happy dramas" and explored diverse content such as legal education, cultural tourism, and rural areas, injecting a breath of fresh air into the muddy short drama market.
the short drama "stories from the judicial office" is the only jiangsu project selected for the 2023 national radio and television administration's online audiovisual program creation and dissemination project. the drama uses the community judicial office as a carrier to present the true stories of mediators in grassroots judicial offices to the audience in an artistic way. screenwriter zhang ningning has been paying attention to the judicial office since 2012. over the past 10 years, he has conducted in-depth interviews in more than 20 grassroots judicial offices and incorporated the stories and details of the interviews into the script.
"micro-short dramas should not only pursue the pursuit of viewing pleasure, but also shoulder social responsibilities." zhang ningning believes that when shooting micro-short dramas, the production team should not only consider the demand for traffic, but also strictly control the quality and values.
"go to a city for a drama." in recent years, with the help of the ip effect of film and television short dramas, more and more short drama filming locations have attracted tourists to check in. many places in jiangsu have cleverly combined micro-short dramas with cultural and tourism consumption.
the suzhou short play "a dream of the starry sky" integrates themes such as intangible cultural heritage and the protection and renewal of ancient cities. it is based on the story of zhu yiran, the inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage project suzhou fan, and shen feng, an engineer who returned from overseas to protect the ancient city, working together to contribute their youthful strength to their hometown, showing the charm of suzhou that integrates tradition and modernity. the heroine of the story is the inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage fan-making skills, and dreams of restoring the "tung leaf fan" and bringing the suzhou fan to the world stage. the hero is an "ancient city cell dissector". in the process of collecting information about the ancient city, he shows suzhou's experience and achievements in the protection and renewal of the ancient city.
changzhou dinosaur park, based on local characteristics, launched the first domestic theme park fantasy sweet pet short play "my dinosaur boyfriend", which is set in the dinosaur park and tells the romantic story of a girl who is a dragon trainer and meets a dinosaur boyfriend from ancient times. in the play, the famous attractions and amusement projects in the dinosaur park have become important elements to promote the development of the plot. nanjing micro-short play "food knocks on the door" tells the tortuous story between a "kitchen phobia patient" and a gourmet. the play features famous city attractions and buildings such as the qinhuai river, confucius temple, and the ming city wall, as well as local delicacies such as nanjing xiaolongbao, dan siu mai, and phoenix shrimp.
the breakthrough is not only reflected in the subject matter, but also in the quality. wang fang revealed that the actors of "i am a hunter" are all from professional schools, especially the participation of "old drama bones" such as he zhengjun and zhou xiaoli, which adds a lot of "movie feeling" to the short drama and provides quality assurance. pan yue, the chief director of "a dream pillow galaxy", said that during the creative stage, the crew not only consulted well-known writers such as fan xiaoqing and ye mi, but also visited representative inheritors of intangible cultural heritage such as wang jian, sheng chun, and yao huifen, and went deeper into the ancient streets and alleys such as pingjiang road and no. 32 street in gusu district for research. different from the single narrative of most short dramas, this drama constructs multiple dimensions such as "intangible cultural heritage line", "career line" and "love line", conveying human touch and fireworks.
deploy industrial chains in multiple locations to empower the micro-short drama industry
the booming micro-short drama market has created new opportunities for the development of the cultural industry. many places in jiangsu have targeted the micro-short drama track and laid out a full industrial chain service system from creation, shooting, production, distribution to derivative industries.
in june this year, nanjing pukou district established a 150 million yuan online micro-drama industry fund to promote the development of the entire micro-drama industry chain from script creation, filming, financial support, etc. the relevant person in charge of pukou district said that they hope to build a comprehensive service platform so that micro-dramas can connect with more industries and become a new growth point for pukou district's cultural and creative industries.
not only that, pukou also released 10 free filming locations for micro-short dramas, including old scenic spots with rich cultural heritage such as xiangtang, laoshan national forest park, xigang lotus township, and shuimo datan, as well as beautiful villages and new art spaces such as the qiuyushan cultural celebrities memorial hall, huachang dragon valley, ruikai dream manor, and jiuhua village. it hopes to leverage the "micro-short drama + cultural tourism" to promote pukou's filming locations to "go viral."
another district that is actively developing the micro-short drama industry is wuxi binhu district. relying on the wuxi national digital film industry park, binhu district began to engage in micro-short drama shooting last year, raising nearly 200 million yuan in funds for short drama development, base shooting, professional talents, investment and distribution, etc.
the core of short dramas standing out is to have a good story. wuxi has established the "online literature ip short drama conversion and trading platform" to achieve cross-border integration between online literature and short dramas. at present, wuxi has completed the conversion of 216 dramas and 50 overseas novels, and a number of high-quality online dramas such as "outside the court" and "lovely bad guys" have emerged.
in april this year, binhu district also established the "hollywood short drama base". "the base was transformed from the no. 1 studio of wuxi national digital film industry park, covering an area of 600 square meters. it not only has multiple scenes, but also can realize functions such as motion capture and virtual production, making on-site shooting more efficient. at present, there are 7 short dramas being filmed at the base at the same time." the relevant person in charge of wuxi national digital film industry park told reporters that in order to improve the shooting efficiency of the crew, the park has built a full industry chain service platform, providing a series of butler-style services from project establishment to shooting and production to review for free.
yangzhou is also eyeing the construction of a micro-short drama shooting base. in early june, the yangzhou grand canal short drama industry base was unveiled. "yangzhou, with a history and culture of more than 2,500 years, is full of scenery and has a natural advantage in shooting short dramas." jiang dawei, the head of operations, revealed that the next step is to invest 80 million yuan to build a real-life studio, create multiple indoor and outdoor scenes of different artistic styles, and also build an led panoramic digital studio. through holographic projection technology, 5d stereo, motion capture, and metaverse scenes will be presented to create an immersive digital studio. yangzhou also took the lead in establishing the "china yangzhou grand canal short drama industry alliance", covering short drama ecological chain enterprises and businesses such as film and television production, catering and accommodation, garden scenic spots, bar entertainment, sports venues, clothing and makeup, vehicle rental, and art training.
good content + supervision help promote micro short dramas to be "fine"
data shows that in 2023, the market size of my country's online short dramas will reach 37.39 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 267.65%. it is expected that by 2027, the market size of china's short dramas will exceed 100 billion yuan. while the short drama industry is booming, problems such as low content quality, uneven quality, and homogeneous themes are becoming more prominent.
"many producers invest 30,000 to 50,000 yuan, shoot for seven or eight days, and end up with a shoddy finished product." xie liang, head of nanjing shaoyi culture media co., ltd., believes that the popularity of short dramas has brought new challenges to content creation. no matter how the media and presentation form change, the audience's desire for good content remains the same, which requires short drama practitioners to learn how to tell stories. "when the bubble recedes, the ones who can go further must be good stories that stand the test of time."
on this point, jiang dawei and xie liang share the same view. jiang dawei believes that nowadays, audiences are not satisfied with emotional "satisfaction" and prefer works with depth. producers cannot blindly produce works with vulgar and melodramatic plots to attract traffic. low-end circulation is harmful to both the company itself and the market. he believes that relevant regulatory review mechanisms are indispensable. in june, the state administration of radio and television implemented "classification and tiered review" for micro-short dramas, which means that micro-short dramas have officially entered the "full filing era". the yangzhou grand canal short drama industry base plans to set up a "micro-short drama review center" to check micro-short dramas from scripts to directions.
liu yongchang, a professor at the school of journalism and communication of nanjing normal university, believes that the production of short short plays is still in its initial stage, with good and bad works being mixed. many works have the characteristics of fast-food entertainment culture and have not yet formed an overall aesthetic style at the artistic level. however, he believes that as regulatory policies become increasingly stringent, high-quality short short plays will inevitably emerge. in his opinion, jiangsu has inherent advantages in developing short short plays, because jiangsu has a long cultural heritage and a rich intangible cultural heritage, which are the cornerstones for the creation of "good stories".
the process of mini-dramas going from wild growth to elimination of the dross requires both supervision and support. wang fang said: "on the one hand, we must strictly adhere to the bottom line and strengthen content review and qualification review; on the other hand, we must increase support for high-quality mini-dramas, form positive momentum through the establishment of an evaluation system, and guide them on the path of high-quality creation."
during the interview, many industry insiders believed that the power of science and technology in the development of short short dramas should not be underestimated. "short dramas should be 'born for intelligence' and accelerate the integration of aigc technology with short drama creation. especially for themes such as 'fantasy' and 'science fiction', ai technology can create a large number of ultra-real landscapes and give short short dramas a spiritual charm." the reporter learned that wuxi's customized short drama "tin embroidery" for intangible cultural heritage was shot with the assistance of a large ai model. it showed the charm of tin embroidery through a group of women, which was very shocking.
as a new cultural form, short dramas are also expected to play a role in the “going global” of chinese culture. recently, the short drama “glazed beauty”, a joint production between china and foreign countries, started filming in wuxi. the drama tells the story of archaeological students from china and iran who traveled to the ming dynasty and reformed the traditional porcelain firing process from a modern perspective to improve the quality of porcelain. the drama will use multiple languages such as english and arabic. with the high traffic of short dramas, chinese intangible cultural heritage will “go global” in another form.
xinhua daily·jiaohuidian reporter zhou xian and wang hui
