Interface News Reporter | Zhao Yifan
Interface News Editor | Song Jianan
A sweet Chinese actress with long black hair, delicate features, and a slim body, she transformed into a hot European and American girl with blond hair and blue eyes. This seemingly impossible thing has appeared frequently in short dramas with the help of AI voice and face changing technology.
With the tightening of domestic regulatory red lines, repeated saturation of themes, and accelerated industry involution, many short drama manufacturers have turned their attention overseas. AI has opened up new ideas for them to obtain high returns at low cost - replacing the faces of Chinese actors with the looks of foreign actors.
Source: Chichen AI Practical Notes
The cost of producing a short drama in China is usually between 500,000 yuan and 700,000 yuan. Overseas, this value often requires about 1 million to 1.5 million yuan, which is twice or more higher. The popularity of the concept of
short dramas has also increased actors' salaries. Li Peiyu, the social media marketing manager of Yidiantianxia, told Jiemian News that domestic actors are mainly concentrated in Xi'an, Chengdu, and Hangzhou. When a certain drama becomes popular, not only does the actor's value increase, but the schedule also becomes tighter, and the producer either chooses to wait or offer a higher salary.
In foreign countries, although there are many actor resources, their knowledge of the short drama model is still shallow, and further discussion with service providers is needed.
The long overseas shooting cycle is also one of the reasons that pushed the producers to turn their attention to AI. In the short drama market that is heavily involved, it is not an exaggeration to describe it as “every second counts”.
A film and television employee who did not want to be named said that domestic actors are often racing against time. They can shoot for 12 to 15 hours a day, and a drama can be completed in 7 to 10 days. Most foreign actors work eight hours a day, and even if they are paid overtime, the maximum is only 10 hours, and the cost is much higher than in China.
Overall, the domestic short drama production cycle is about 1 to 2 months, while overseas filming will extend the time to twice as long. But if AI is used, the situation will be much better. According to Jiemian News, even if the AI face changing and dubbing construction period of about 10 days are added, the domestic production cycle can be half the time compared to overseas.
As for the price, it is determined by the effect of AI production. According to Deng Tinghao, CEO of Shanghai Hamu Technology, AI face-swapping is currently about RMB 30,000 to RMB 100,000 per unit, lip-sync matching requires an additional RMB 20,000 per unit, and the most advanced package is around RMB 150,000. The company's previous main business was AI face-changing services.
"If you don't have high quality requirements and want to capture the popularity of the short drama, then using AI for simple replacement can reduce the cost by at least 20% in terms of time and money." Li Peiyu said.
Source: Twitter
Some companies have begun to try it out. There are two main categories: one is the big publisher at the head of the industry, and the other is studios or individuals who simply pursue the popularity of short dramas. The former is not short of money, and it is not objectionable to put some budget into trying it on the basis of ensuring quality. The latter does not have high quality requirements, and the most important thing is to catch up with the popularity and reduce costs.
ai has become an attractive bargaining chip on the gambling table. The producer only needs to invest hundreds of thousands in production costs, and there is a chance of leveraging the return of tens of millions of funds.
However, the real situation is that there has not yet been a benchmark case that has become popular due to the use of AI in the industry, and the technology of AI changing face and voice is not as good as imagined. If
ai short dramas want to gain audiences and traffic, the first condition is suitable and exquisite visual effects. According to Luo Xiaoqi, the person in charge of kreadoai at Yidiantianxia, if you observe carefully, you can still see the difference between the faces taken by AI and those shot by real people. Whether at home or abroad, AI face replacement still has certain flaws, especially when the face is covered by hands.
Even if the producer is willing to invest more money to "change" the actors' faces, the costumes, scenes, and props will still remain the same and cannot be replaced by AI.
"For example, the dressing style of foreigners is very different from that of Chinese people. Changing your face cannot change your clothes." Yu Zhichao, head of the short drama department of Qiuyuan Film and Television, explained.
Luo Xiaoqi also pointed out that AI is not yet able to solve all the problems encountered. It can reduce a lot of production costs and time, but the final output still requires some subsequent optimization by designers or editors.
ai face-changing and voice-changing requires multiple technical supports, such as deep learning, computer vision, natural language processing, etc. For some film and television companies without AI technology foundation, it has added an additional investment.
More importantly, domestic short dramas are not in line with the "taste" of foreign audiences. For example, Europe and the United States are more interested in themes such as "werewolves", "vampires", and "marriage first, love later", while domestic or Middle Eastern audiences are more interested in dramas such as "grassroots counterattack", "sadomasochism" and "husband-in-law". Attract them.
"It is difficult for European and American audiences to understand why boys are humiliated when they marry into a girl's home." Deng Tinghao said.
Therefore, AI's participation in short drama production is still in the exploratory stage, and there are still only a few companies willing to really invest heavily.
Employees of the above-mentioned film and television company told Jiemian News that 80% of the company’s AI services are used in dubbing and translation, and AI face-changing can only support the number of short dramas. If there is a problem with the content or the actors, they are more willing to take the video off the shelves directly, because the investment in short dramas is relatively small, unlike TV dramas that easily cost tens of millions.
It now seems that some service providers’ advertising slogans of “Using AI to shoot overseas short dramas can earn millions a month” are more of just a gimmick. If you want to completely replace real actors with AI, you still need to wait for the technology to become more mature.
