"Isn't this the plot of our Chinese boss?"
On the streets of Los Angeles, several American girls gathered around a mobile phone, laughing and screaming from time to time. The lines coming out of the mobile phone reminded the passing Chinese director Guo Chengyu of some familiar scenes on the Chinese short video platform. He couldn't help but come up to talk and ask. It turned out that what the girl was watching was the boss short drama in reelshort.
Guo Chengyu is 24 years old this year. After graduating two years ago, he started working as a slash youth. In the process of "slash", he took the first step to become a professional director and also entered the lives of more local people. Unexpectedly I found that Americans have also fallen in love with the "boss" theme and Mary Sue plot that have been iterated countless times on the Chinese Internet. The popularity of short dramas with Chinese genes in the United States also gave him a sense of new opportunities in the film and television market.
In this wave of micro-short dramas going overseas, reelshort has performed quite well. It is understood that it is an overseas short drama app owned by crazy maple studio, the overseas subsidiary of Chinese Online. In November last year, the app topped the U.S. app store’s free entertainment list, and on January 4 this year it topped the U.S. app market again.
Change career
"It is difficult for new independent film directors not to slash"
slash youth refers to a group of young people who are no longer satisfied with the "career-specific" lifestyle and choose a diverse life with multiple careers and identities.
At the end of 2022, Guo Chengyu completed his college education at the University of California, San Diego, majoring in visual arts media. At this time, he made a bold decision: to switch careers and become a director.
Changing careers is never easy.
taught himself online how to write scripts, the structure of story creation, and the expression of lens language... He learned the production process almost from scratch. Guo Chengyu said that if you want to make a really good work, you need to be able to write a good script and have a good team. "As a Chinese, I don't have a circle or connections in the United States."
Fortunately, while helping a friend to shoot, He met a graduate student from the Chapman Film School by chance, and through communication with him, he got to know more people from the film school. "Later, these friends became members of the crew of the film."
As he accumulated contacts in the film and television industry , Guo Chengyu came up with an idea: while working as a director, perfecting the script and preparing the crew to produce an independent short film of his own; while working as a slash youth, shooting advertisements for business clients to support expenses.
The film production cycle and return cycle are relatively long. Although the production cycle of short films is not as long as that of feature films, it is not easy for Guo Chengyu, a fledgling newcomer, to shoot an independent short film for the first time: there is no financial return and no capital. To support, you need to hire a crew and bear the salary expenses of dozens of people, the rental of houses, venues, cars, etc. for filming.
A film requires a good script and waiting for the opportunity, and these are costs. "From the moment I graduated, I knew that with my resources and abilities, there was no way to survive solely on my love for movies. I had to use various methods to make a living."
Be a slash young man and work for the people you love Career and life.
doing "slash"
"It feels like a reverse output of Chinese culture"
In the process of "slash" for his own life, Guo Chengyu took the first step to become a professional director and also walked into the local area People's lives, it was discovered that a short play with Chinese genes became popular on the streets of the United States.
"I can't marry her" "You saved my life, let me marry him on your behalf..."
On November 15, 2023, while walking on the streets of the United States, Guo Chengyu heard several local girls gathering around, Watching the video on his mobile phone, he sometimes shouted excitedly. Out of curiosity, he leaned forward and listened carefully to the conversation in the video. "I was thinking at that time, isn't this the plot of our Chinese overlord?" Passed by
After asking, I learned that this is a popular reelshort skit.
At this time, Guo Chengyu had not yet fully realized the popularity of the short drama. It was not until shortly after that he received a shooting assignment to take family photos for Chinese mother Zhong Xiumin (pseudonym), her husband and children.
On December 30, 2023, slash young man Guo Chengyu was setting up the filming location and adjusting the equipment and lighting as usual. Lisa Wang and her husband and children were arranging their clothes and resting and waiting. Guo Chengyu heard an interesting conversation.
"You must come and see this. This is really strange. It's so hard to stop watching." Lisa Wang's husband took out his mobile phone and talked about the short drama he had watched recently, and introduced the plot content with constant gestures with his hands. , trying to tell Zhong Xiumin how novel and interesting these short plays are.
"This is a plot I watched when I was in junior high school in China." What's interesting is that Lisa Wang took a look at the content of the short play and responded with a helpless tone after a while.
Guo Chengyu heard the conversation between the couple and was filled with pride in "reverse cultural export".
Gradually, Guo Chengyu discovered that short plays frequently appeared in his life, which aroused his interest.
reelshort is an overseas short drama app owned by crazy maple studio, the overseas subsidiary of Chinese Online. It stars European and American actors. The core of the story is the Mary Sue plot that is well known to the domestic public. It is mainly open to foreign users and has been developed in a short time. surpassed tik tok and became the top downloaded application in the app store.
Not long ago, that is, on November 12, 2023, Beijing time, the above-mentioned app topped the free entertainment list of the US app store. On this day, the number of new installations and downloads in a single day reached 326,000, and the net income reached US$459,000. .
Also in November, Guo Chengyu's first independent short film "a call", which he prepared and completed through slash life, won the Golden Angel Award at the China-US Film Festival, completing the first step of becoming a professional director. The next step is to find another way out of making short films. It was at this time that
encountered the "Boss" short drama. The short drama with Chinese genes became popular on the streets of the United States, which also made him smell new opportunities in the film and television market. "This may become another 'slash' for me." "
Why short plays are so popular in the United States
"You don't need to think too much"
"My American friends around me have never had much exposure to content like "The Boss" before."
When I was the director of the short film "Snow in the Spring", I met "Lower People" "With the trend of short dramas, Guo Chengyu had doubts in his mind: Most of the contents of short dramas are boss themes and Mary Sue plots. How can this become popular in the United States, which pursues high-quality films?
opened the above-mentioned short drama app. The content categories are exactly the same as the general types of domestic online novels: "love after marriage, love after marriage," "sweet revenge," "dating my boss," etc.
has various video partitions on its application page. These partition types are also the most popular short dramas in the app currently called "true luna" ("The True Moonlight Goddess") and "the double life of my billionaire husband" (" "The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband") and "fated to my forbidden alpha" ("Fated to My Forbidden Love")... Among them, "The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband" ranked first, with 425,600 + likes.
Guo Chengyu and the crew of "A Call". The
short drama became popular overseas, and also caused many domestic netizens to sigh: It turns out that foreigners also like "Internet cultural and sports dramas".
"Because it doesn't require too much thinking, I watch these short dramas to relax." Guo Chengyu asked many local friends in the United States around him. He learned that most of the friends who watch the short dramas are on TikTok or other social platforms. At that time, I saw the advertisement and saw a lot of comments saying it was very popular, so I downloaded the app, "They have never been exposed to this type of plot before, and they are curious." The curiosity of the
short film director also came, and Guo Chengyu began to study this type of plot. Something special about the production of a short play.
reelshort is not the first short drama platform in the United States. As early as the beginning of 2020, quibi, which was invested by major Hollywood film studios and Disney, came out. The app's short dramas have a variety of contents, including suspense, war and other themes of different categories. The pictures are well-made, but after half a year, after On October 21, the closure was announced to the outside world.
's high-quality Quibi did not become popular, but three years later, reelshort, which focused on Mary Sue plots, became popular.Guo Chengyu found that the production method was unusual, "I saw relevant articles, and the production process was different from the conventional shooting thinking that I usually come into contact with. First, I decided on the explosive and exciting points to be shot, and then inserted different world views into it. and character design."
In Guo Chengyu's view, this shooting model is successful, because whether in China or in the United States, audiences who watch short dramas do not watch them for in-depth content, but like big plots. The high emotions that were quickly aroused during the reversal undoubtedly successfully satisfied the entertainment needs of a specific local audience group.
Guo Chengyu and the crew of "A Call".
does not "enter the game"
more than one minute costs 3,000 US dollars
The demand is there and the production process is understood. As a director, Guo Chengyu is not in a hurry to "enter the game".
Laymen watch the excitement, while insiders watch the door. Some people think that the overseas short dramas still have the original formula and the familiar taste, but the male protagonist "Long Aotian" in the domestic drama has been changed to the blond "Sebastian". Some people also believe that the shooting of short dramas is a small production with big profits. A few minutes of an episode and a few days of filming can create the traffic myth of "10 million recharges in 24 hours" and "100 million sales in 8 days", and they all hope to "get rich overnight" I had the idea to film short plays abroad. Jia Yi, the founder of
reelshort, admitted in an interview with the media that overseas short dramas are not domestic copy-paste versions, but self-made dramas that use European and American actors and scenery.
In fact, self-made dramas also mean high costs.
"Many times objective factors such as differences in wages and living costs between China and the United States are ignored." After winning the award for his first independent short film "A Call", Guo Chengyu tried to understand the hot short drama market and contacted investors.
But after doing some calculations, he found that short play shooting is not a small production, especially in terms of production costs. "Not to mention the salaries of actors and production teams, the cost of luxury houses and scenery is a huge expense. , investors come to you, they think this is a job with a maximum of 100,000 US dollars.” Gao Weina,
who specializes in short film production, also said in an interview with the media that the cost and standard of producing short plays locally are no lower than those of movies. Gao Weina founded the entertainment company Forest Dream in the United States. According to her calculations, generally speaking, a short drama will have 50 to 100 episodes. Each episode is more than one minute, and the production cost of each episode is about 3,000 US dollars.
However, for the post-90s Chinese directors with dreams, Guo Chengyu chose to wait and see the market for the time being and did not rush to produce short plays. "I am also conceiving a script suitable for vertical screen short plays."
According to him, the content of the script It is not a "tycoon", but adds the imagination of the movie: every time a person opens the door, he will leave the original time and space and enter a very similar parallel world, but every time he returns to the room, he will return to the original world. .
In Guo Chengyu's view, the future of short dramas is not limited to "The Boss", but also requires "quality thinking" and more energy and money must be spent on the quality of content. The points will be used up one day. If quality short dramas can be developed overseas, then I believe this can also provide more employment opportunities for film and television people, and at the same time, pheasant filmmakers like me can also have more opportunities. Multiple opportunities for development."
Now, while preparing for his next work, Guo Chengyu shoots commercials, videos, and survives.
Written by: Nandu reporter Li Zhiqi Pictures provided by the interviewee
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