short drama industry may welcome the "biggest" creator.
Recently, Douyin announced an exclusive high-quality micro-short drama cooperation with Stephen Chow. The two parties will jointly develop and operate the "9527 Theater". The first season of the first high-quality micro-short drama "Golden Pig and Jade Leaves" is expected to be released in May this year. TikTok is online. In fact, before this, another well-known Hong Kong director Wang Jing had led his team to enter the short drama industry. Compared with last year's mixed bag, this year the short drama industry has begun to welcome more professionals in the fields of TV series and movies. With the addition of the team, the production level has also risen. At the same time, platforms represented by Douyin and Kuaishou are also further increasing investment in creators and encouraging short dramas to become high-quality. After going through a stage of intensive policy supervision, the short drama industry seems to have begun to accelerate towards the next stage of transformation.
The platform has spent over 100 million in cash and traffic to attract professional film and television creators
It is reported that the first batch of works of "9527 Theater" are already in production. The first work "Golden Pig and Jade Leaves" is produced by Stephen Chow and supervised by Yi Xiaoxing. A-list actresses participated. The film aims to make the audience laugh easily, relieve fatigue, relax and be active, so that they can face life with a more uplifted spirit. The name "9527 Theater" comes from the "9527" stalk that has appeared many times in Stephen Chow's works. In the movie " Tang Bohu Spots Autumn Fragrance ", the number of Tang Bohu played by Stephen Chow who sneaks into Washington as a servant is "9527" ".
It is understood that through cooperation with Douyin, Stephen Chow, as a initiator, jointly unites outstanding young creators to directly create content for users based on the Douyin account of "Director Stephen Chow's Works". Regarding entering the micro-short drama industry, Stephen Chow said: "Short dramas are a rapidly developing field of technological innovation and media innovation in recent years. This time we cooperate with Douyin in the short drama theater, hoping to bring more joy to the audience. Very happy. I look forward to this new attempt, and everyone will support it."
Since this year, short video platforms represented by Douyin and Kuaishou have further increased their focus on micro-short dramas. On January 18, Douyin launched the "Chenxing Project", a high-quality short drama, targeting all industries including film and television companies, media organizations, MCNs, and individual creators to collaborate on high-quality short dramas. Nandu reporters learned that the cooperation model of this plan is divided into two types: one is the joint production model, which means jointly producing high-quality short dramas with producers in the form of cash investment. Douyin will work with its partners to evaluate and grade specific projects, calculate costs, jointly invest, and jointly launch high-quality micro-short dramas. It will also provide full-process support from topic selection to script creation to content production to account operation. The other is a joint operation model, in which creators and institutions are responsible for the development and production of short dramas. Douyin will provide tens of millions of traffic support for a single drama and comprehensive operational support. The support policy provided by Douyin for the former model includes up to 5 million cash and 100 million traffic support, while the traffic support for the latter model can reach up to 50 million traffic support.
Kuaishou also provides similar policy support. At the previous 4th Golden Drama Awards ceremony, Yu Ke, head of the plot business center of Kuaishou Entertainment Business Department, said that Kuaishou Xingmang short dramas will be upgraded in 2024 to help creators achieve lower thresholds, more secure income, and split accounts The gradient is higher. Starting from the first quarter of this year, Kuaishou short drama plans to open up the introduction of content from the entire network and embrace diversified content; it will continue to provide efficient product capabilities and marketing/distribution systems, while investing billions of traffic and hundreds of millions of cash to support traffic short dramas.
famous directors "dimension reduction strike" have entered the short drama industry
It can be seen that both companies have placed creators in an important position in the short drama business strategy, and this time Stephen Chow's entry into the short drama industry has been attracted by many Practitioners of short plays jokingly call it "dimensionality reduction attack". In fact, Nandu reporters learned during their previous industry survey on micro-short dramas that since last year, many production teams that shoot long-form dramas and online majors have begun to enter the short drama industry.Nandu reporters learned that a short drama can take up to thirty or forty days from project establishment to launch. The production cycle is much shorter than a TV series that can take several months or even a movie that can take several years. In addition, the average cost of each short drama is hundreds of thousands. The investment cost is not high, but the rate of return is good. It not only attracts more professional film and television people, but also attracts many investors to pursue this short-term and efficient project.
In fact, before Stephen Chow, another well-known Hong Kong director, Wang Jing, had already taken advantage of the situation to enter the field of short plays. He led the Hong Kong team to start filming "Billions of Silly Princes" in Hengdian, and personally served as the chief editor and director. Regarding the film director's "dimensionality reduction attack" to shoot short plays, producer Qin Xiangmin, who has been focusing on the Internet field, told Nandu reporters that it is undeniable that this is one of the popular performances of the micro short play industry, but at the same time, film teams have The admission also shows that the film market environment in recent years has not been ideal. "In recent years, the film market has been relatively short of new projects. The return on investment in short dramas is very cost-effective, and it is easy to explain to investors. After all, these well-known teams have large film and television companies behind them." In Tan Xiangmin's view, cooperation like Stephen Chow's Projects are mostly dominated by platforms to carve up the market pie, but he believes that the participation of famous directors or actors does not necessarily guarantee that the project will make money. “In fact, there are still certain differences between the thinking of filmmakers and the audience of current short dramas. Yes, their investment in these projects must be considerable, but it’s hard to say whether they can make money.”
High-quality short plays have become an industry consensus
Zhang Yi, chief analyst of iiMedia Consulting, believes that the entry of more professional teams actually indicates that The micro-short drama industry is gradually moving towards high-quality products and pursuing long-term and valuable development. "Short plays have developed rapidly in the past two years, but there are also problems such as vulgar and homogeneous content and a relatively low overall production level. The entry of professionals can produce better works to serve the audience. As a new format, short plays are urgently needed. It is necessary to improve the artistic appreciation of works and enhance the communication role of cultural value."
Indeed, Qin Xiangmin told Nandu reporters that since the first half of this year, high-quality short dramas have gradually become the development consensus of the industry. "In the past, Hengdian could only produce a film with 200,000 to 300,000 yuan. In the first half of this year, many production costs increased to 700,000 to 800,000 yuan. In April and May of this year, many film teams came to Shenzhen. We have recently started filming. All the dramas were shot using movie cameras." Tan Xiangmin revealed that the previous strict supervision of short dramas by relevant departments also brought a round of reshuffle to the industry. Many platforms that had previously produced and released short dramas with vulgar themes have been banned. A large number of them have been eliminated, and the remaining distribution platforms are increasingly inclined to produce high-quality short dramas.
Obviously the platform has also felt the change in the industry trend. Wang Chen, the person in charge of Douyin short dramas, mentioned in a previous interview that when bad content is managed by the platform, high-quality content can gain even more exposure and playback space. For users, they see high-quality content, which increases Watch time and interaction time. Qian Lili, the person in charge of Douyin’s premium short dramas, even said frankly that short dramas, as a content form, will undergo quality upgrades like other content forms. It's like the web dramas of 20 years ago are completely different from the web dramas of today. At this level, content quality upgrade is an inevitable process that all content forms must go through if they want to develop in the long term.
Regarding the development of high-quality short drama industry, Qian Lili said that the high-quality development of short plays has just begun. The payment market and advertising market of short plays are growing rapidly. Therefore, when the content becomes more high-quality, how can it be better commercialized? Revenue is a problem faced by the entire industry, and it is also the direction of future efforts of the platform.
Written by: Nandu reporter Xu Bingqian
