□Wang Xiaoyu (Wuhan University)
Micro-short plays became popular in 2023, and achieved extraordinary results in the Spring Festival of 2024. Short plays on various platforms have been praised by the audience. The "Data Selection" released by "Guangming Daily" on February 23 mentioned that the number of short dramas during the Spring Festival exceeded 800 million; in particular, the drama "I Became a Stepmother in the 1980s" was filmed for only 10 days, and 80 million yuan was invested in the post-production period. Ten thousand yuan, but after it became popular, the audience's single-day recharge reached 20 million yuan, which shows that the micro-short drama has the momentum of "breaking the circle". But after the temporary popularity, for short dramas to achieve rapid development, sincere creation and high-quality production are still the key.
First, let’s talk about personal experience. The booming development of short plays has led many long-form video platforms to enter the short video market and move towards sophisticated production. Mango and Tencent have even set up special short play theaters and sections. During the winter vacation, I watched no less than 20 micro-short dramas on major platforms, including platform-exclusive dramas with exquisite production and reasonable plots, such as " provokes ", " Aunt's World ", "Xu Yan", etc. ; There are also mini-program dramas that appear in WeChat advertisements and video comment areas.
mini-program dramas are relatively the roughest. They focus on exciting content and pursuing a sense of fun. Each episode lasts 1-2 minutes, and often requires paying to watch the subsequent plot at critical moments. Most of the platform's exclusive short dramas are high-quality productions. Since I have watched a lot of short and quick skits, and I have never let go of the double speed button when watching traditional TV series, I wish I could just watch the conflicts in the plot and the relationship between the male and female protagonists. The result is that the experience is the same as not watching it, and the experience is incomplete. , there was no emotional ups and downs, and it became a "watch" drama in the true sense. The experience of short dramas is also the same for me. I quickly watched one short drama and felt very satisfied at the time. The next day, I was immersed in another one, which became the drama version of watching short videos. The overall experience is: there are indeed a few high-quality dramas, and you can watch one drama in a day, but most of the short dramas have similar content and plots, and the makeup and actors are also very similar, and the mini programs are mostly adapted from the novels of The Overbearing President, The skits of revenge novels even left me face-blinded. Therefore, although there are excellent short dramas that continue to explode in popularity, there are still a large number of passing or below-passing productions mixed in among them.
Secondly, from the perspective of the creation of the short play, where does the content of the short play come from? Most of them are adapted from online articles. Recently, short dramas derived from movies or variety shows have been launched, such as "Master and Me" (starring the popular comedy CP in "Annual Comedy Competition Season 2"), "Beyond" Bar! "Ah Juan" (a spin-off of the movie " Lion Boy "), as well as the creator's own creations and so on.
It seems that the types of micro-short dramas have increased, but most of the short dramas still revolve around female channels. The plot development either has twists and turns in one episode, or it never has twists and turns, and it is fun to the end. The types and content of short plays need to be innovated after someone joins the short play industry, and the needs of the audience will also change rapidly. For example, Tencent’s “Shifen Theater” has added martial arts, male videos, and suspense short drama categories, enriching the content of the short drama section. There is also an interactive micro-short drama " Moyu Xuanqi 2". The audience, as "immortal officials", guides the heroine step by step in establishing a foothold in the harem through the interactive options on the page. These are the reasons why the short drama is brilliant. It seems to have become a pattern for audiences to go from chasing idol dramas and fairy tale dramas to complaining about their homogeneity, from being attracted to short-series dramas to complaining about the instability of content creation. So the current "high-end" audience for micro-short dramas will eventually pursue more refined, sincere, and appropriate productions after enjoying the "short, fast, and refreshing" carnival. Therefore, although micro-short dramas are very high-volume this year and are gradually moving towards high-quality creation, the key to development is to calm down and think about content creation and accumulate energy to produce high-quality products.
Finally, from the perspective of the future development trend of micro-short dramas, from the end of last year until now, film and television bosses and directors have announced their move to the micro-short drama market. Now we can also see some veteran actors starting to perform short dramas and transform The results are pretty good; however, there are differences between long and short series, as well as the creative routes, plot narratives, and character arrangements between movies and TV series, and micro-short dramas. The presentation of the completed work and the audience's acceptance are still unknown.In addition, the user profiles of micro-short dramas have gradually expanded from the original third- and fourth-tier cities to first- and second-tier cities, and the audience has become more and more diverse. The original text routines of revenge, domineering CEO, and elite satisfaction will inevitably be challenged. The innovation of content, the multi-type aesthetics of creators, and the diverse needs of audiences all mean that the focus of micro-short dramas is not on "micro" and "short", but content is still king; before short dramas become the Red Ocean, there are still developments. force space. The unexpected performance of
micro-short dramas during the Spring Festival indicates that it has excellent development potential in the future. However, how to maximize the potential, maintain the momentum, and develop in the long term requires a tight grasp of the core of content creation. living. More and more high-quality creations, the country's strict management of shoddy dramas, and creators' escape from homogeneous content will definitely allow future short dramas to present a diverse aesthetic and viewing experience. Although
short dramas are popular, they still need to gather strength to develop.
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