Some time ago, the hit dramas " Mo Yuyunjian " and " The Story of a Rose " were fighting. Yu Zheng and Wang Jun fought again, repeating the confrontation between "Story of Yanxi Palace" and "Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace" in 2018 situation. "In the Clouds" is a revenge drama, and "The Story of a Rose" was once promoted as "not a fun drama but still a hit", as if it wanted to differentiate itself from "In the Clouds". The two dramas tell completely different stories, but they are so destined that their creative methods are highly similar: full of strong "short drama flavor".
Posters of "In the Clouds" and "The Story of Roses"
The essence of short plays can be summarized as "compression of explosive points", condensing as many explosive points as possible in the shortest possible time, making the audience dizzy and attracting Audience attention. The price is, they are all busy creating explosive points, where can they care about logic?
In the past period of time, short plays and long plays have been "distinct", each with its own characteristics, track, and audience. The iconic significance of "Mo Yu Yun Jian" is that it officially uses "short play" as a thinking method to guide the creation of long plays. Is skit thinking a kind of "poison"?
The three stages of short plays
What we often call "short plays" has two levels of meaning. On the first level, short dramas refer to short episodes of dramas. Since the 2010s, the number of episodes in Chinese TV series has continued to grow. In 2011, the average number of episodes of TV series released in my country was only 31.8, but it has risen rapidly for five consecutive years since then. The average number of episodes in 2016 has reached 44.6, and it has been roughly stable at around 42 episodes from 2017 to 2019.
In 2020, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued a document advocating that TV series and online dramas should not exceed 40 episodes, and encourage the creation of short plays within 30 episodes, so the number of TV series has been reduced. After that, a number of high-quality suspense short dramas with episodes ranging from 8 to 16 episodes appeared on the market. For example, iQiyi’s Mist Theater and Tencent’s x theater’s high-quality short dramas have an average of 12-16 episodes. Another reference to
short dramas is the "micro-short dramas" that are hotly discussed today. What micro-short dramas refer to is not that the number of episodes in the series is small (some micro-short dramas have more than a hundred episodes), but that the length of a single episode is very short. Following the definition in a notice from the Internet Audiovisual Program Management Department of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, micro-short dramas are "dramas whose single episode lasts from tens of seconds to about 15 minutes, has a relatively clear theme and main line, and a relatively continuous and complete storyline." set. This article follows the public's expression habits and uses skit to refer to the micro-short drama to be discussed below.
The development of domestic short dramas has gone through three stages. The first stage was from around 2010 to 2015, represented by online short dramas such as "Dapeng's Bar", "Report to the Boss" and " Never Expected ". They have the characteristics of "joke dramas", and each The collection revolves around one or several independent stories, and skillfully uses humor, satire, exaggeration and other techniques. It is short and concise, making it easy to consume in fragments.
Since the content of each episode is relatively independent and lacks a long-term coherent storyline and character development, the audience's stickiness is low. At the same time, early online short dramas lacked exploration of business models and mainly relied on advertising placement and platform subsidies, lacking sustainable profit channels. The second stage of
short plays is the vertical screen short plays and interactive plays around 2018. With the popularization of mobile Internet and the sudden rise of short video platforms, short videos have quickly occupied users’ fragmented time and become the mainstream form of content consumption for the new generation. The launch of vertical screen dramas such as "Life Got a Hand on Me" is a direct imitation and adaptation of the short video viewing mode on long video platforms. The vertical screen drama adopts the vertical screen playback format of mobile phones. Users can watch it in full screen without rotating the screen, which is more suitable for the usage scenarios of mobile devices. Interactive dramas allow choices to be made during the viewing process, affecting the direction of the plot, breaking the limitations of traditional linear narratives, and enhancing the audience's sense of participation and involvement.
The vertical screen short drama "Life Has Attacked Me" launched by the long video platform
Although vertical screen dramas and interactive dramas have made bold attempts in creativity and form, they have not caused large-scale response in actual promotion, nor have they formed a sustained trend. trend. Mainly because users of long video platforms are more inclined to watch content with longer duration and more complex plots, and their acceptance of formats such as vertical screen dramas is limited.At the same time, the content quality of vertical screen short dramas and interactive dramas is uneven, and there is no large-scale high-quality content production system, making it difficult to attract and retain audiences.
Since 2020, the development of short dramas has truly entered an explosive and mature stage. The biggest feature of short dramas at this stage is that they combine the fragmented characteristics of short videos with the integrity of traditional dramas.
On the one hand, the length of a single episode is short. The pace of modern life has accelerated, and free time has been divided into many short segments. The duration of a short drama episode is usually between tens of seconds and more than ten minutes, which is very suitable for watching during commuting, lunch break or waiting. The audience can get emotional resonance or entertainment experience in a short period of time.
On the other hand, the content of the skit has integrity. Compared with short videos, there are internal connections and coherence between the episodes of short dramas, and they still maintain a relatively complete starting point and transition within a shorter length. Once the audience begins to pay attention to a certain short drama, they will often be attracted by the compact plot and the fate of the characters, and have a strong desire to continue watching the next episode or even the entire drama.
In summary, the third stage of short dramas combines the widespread dissemination of short videos with the immersiveness of traditional dramas. It not only adapts to modern people's fast-paced lifestyle, attracts audiences who are accustomed to fragmented content, but also satisfies the pursuit of The traditional audience with the continuity of the plot has successfully grabbed the public's attention in a short period of time and has become a force that cannot be ignored in the current field of film and television content.
The essence of short plays is "compression of explosive points"
Due to their short length, short plays must attract and maintain the audience's attention in a very short period of time. Therefore, "explosive points" have become an indispensable element of short plays. The "explosive point" is the most impactful or turning part in the plot, which can instantly stimulate the audience's interest and generate a strong emotional reaction or curiosity, thereby achieving the purpose of retaining the audience.
To sum up, the "explosive" keywords of the short drama include the following groups.
time travel and rebirth. The protagonist travels from modern times to ancient times or the future, or starts life again after death. This setting introduces freshness and uncertainty into the story, and also provides space for the growth and transformation of the characters.
revenge and counterattack. After suffering unfair treatment or betrayal, the protagonist often uses wisdom, courage or sudden power to fight back against the enemy and achieve an improvement in self-worth. This type of plot is very satisfying and can inspire a sense of justice and compassion.
The son-in-law and the boss. The former mostly refers to men who are in a weak position in marriage, while the latter is a symbol of power and wealth. These two character sets are often used to explore the complex relationship between gender, power and love.
Gender and emotional entanglement. Emotional lines include but are not limited to love, breakup, reunion, love triangle, etc. The complexity and uncertainty of the relationship between the sexes is an important driving force for the development of the plot, especially when it comes to sensitive topics such as "running with the ball", conflicts between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and scumbag mistresses, which are more likely to arouse resonance and discussion.
The grudges and social classes of wealthy families. By showing the luxurious life and internal struggles of the upper class, it reflects the conflicts and contradictions caused by class differences. This type of plot often contains elements such as family inheritance struggles and business intrigues, and is gimmicky and novelty-seeking.
Erotica and violence. Erotic and violent elements are sometimes used to increase the excitement and appeal of the plot, such as kissing scenes, bed scenes, male favors, exposed flesh, competition for favor, burial alive, assassination, etc.
These "exploding points" are common in popular literary and artistic works, and the short play collects and "compresses" them. Since the short play is extremely short, it will inevitably have a profound impact on the creative technique - to tell a relatively complete story in an extremely short space, the creator needs to extremely "compress" the narrative structure and audio-visual language. Compression of
plots. In order to convey the core information within a limited time, short plays often focus on a single event or conflict, avoid lengthy foreshadowing and complex interweaving of clues, and pursue the directness and efficiency of the plot.
space compression. Scene settings are relatively simple, usually limited to one or two main locations to reduce the time required for transitions and background transitions.
image aesthetic compression. The pursuit of image aesthetics gave way to narrative efficiency.Especially in low-cost short plays, due to limitations of equipment and technical conditions, exquisite lens scheduling and light and shadow design are almost impossible.
character image compression. In traditional long-form narratives, characters are often multi-layered and multi-faceted, including the complex interweaving of good and evil, strength and weakness, love and hate; short dramas need to advance the plot quickly within a limited time, leaving room for character development. Space is limited. In order to enable the audience to quickly identify and remember the characters, screenwriters often choose to simplify the characters and highlight their most significant personality traits or behavioral patterns...
It is true that the high-intensity plots and emotional fluctuations of short plays can bring immediate entertainment experience to the audience. But this kind of "compression" also brings strong and direct harm to video art.
The aesthetic aspect goes without saying. More importantly, in order to condense as many explosive points as possible in the shortest possible time, the short drama sacrificed the foreshadowing and details of the story, the changes in the relationship between the characters, and the development process of the events. They all lack necessary transitions and explanations, and are likely to have logical breaks, plot jumps, common sense errors, and loopholes.
However, as long as the pace is fast enough and there are enough explosive points, many viewers can tolerate these flaws in the short drama. Short plays have invisibly gained a kind of "immunity" - the audience has relatively low expectations for the logical rigor and plot rationality of short plays, and values its entertainment and recreational functions more.
Therefore, although various popular literary and artistic works in the past were also designed to create a sense of enjoyment and satisfy the public's entertainment needs, the artistic value of short plays is even lower. Traditional popular literature and art, such as martial arts novels and romance novels, usually have longer lengths, allowing for more detailed character portrayal and complex plot development; they adopt richer narrative structures to provide a multi-level reading or viewing experience; not only It provides instant entertainment enjoyment, and also attempts to lead the audience into a world full of beauty, truth and kindness, and stimulate deep emotional resonance and thinking, etc. The appeal of the short play is much simpler and more crude. Writer Li Er has a precise description: "In traditional literary works, we have to go through many, many corridors to reach Pan Jinlian's bedroom, and we have to go through many, many foreshadowings of the love between children. Only then can we see the scene where Daiyu buries the flower. But now we have summarized it in ten words: stabbing someone in the door and taking off their pants when going to bed. "
Although compared to short videos, short plays have a certain "completeness". "ness", but the "completeness" of a short play does not refer to the depth and breadth of literary and artistic works, such as deep themes and humanistic care, ingenuity in structure and narrative, and the pursuit of aesthetics and art; the "completeness" of a short play is Through the arrangement and combination of various "explosion point" elements, a narrative coherence is formed and is extremely compressed.
The limitations of the influence of short plays
In recent years, many players have entered the short play circuit, and the reason is obvious - it is profitable. The length of a single episode of
short dramas is shorter, and the cost of shooting and production is much lower than that of traditional long dramas. The script writing, cast, scene construction, etc. are more streamlined, thus reducing the overall production cost, which can be hundreds of thousands or even Tens of thousands can be used to film a short drama; the rise of short video platforms has a large number of active users, providing a broad user base for short dramas; the profit model of short dramas is flexible, and can be unlocked by freeing the first few episodes and paying later Attracting users to pay to watch, it can also customize content according to the needs of advertisers, achieve brand placement, and even directly produce advertising micro-dramas...
It is not difficult for viewers to find that although some short dramas have gained extremely high popularity, such as this year's "I'm Here" "Being a stepmother in the 1980s", " wrote the script ", " gave her the handle ", but the leading actors did not gain the same popularity and influence as the leading actors in long-running dramas. In other words, the influence of popular short dramas is far less than that of popular long dramas. At least so far, short dramas are not popular - if you are the protagonist in a popular short drama, you can only play a supporting role in a long drama. Start.
This reflects a fundamental dilemma of short plays from the side: compared with long plays, short plays have low style, low industry status, and low influence.
Short dramas have a short production cycle and strict cost control. They are restricted in terms of script polishing, shooting conditions, post-production, etc., and the various resources available to the works are limited; while long dramas have a long broadcast cycle and require advertising placement and copyright sales. There is more room for commercial value development, which can bring higher profits to producers. Long-form dramas will have greater investment in casting and production, attracting more top-level resources, including directors, screenwriters and actors, forming a A virtuous cycle further enhances the influence of the work and the popularity of the starring actors.
The length of short plays constrains the development and depth of characters. In just a few minutes, the character's personality, background, and motivations are often not fully displayed, limiting the space for actors to display their acting skills; while in long plays, characters have longer durations. Timelines and more scenes to show complexity and growth provide actors with richer performance opportunities and help audiences grow to know and love them.
Short dramas usually have limited production and marketing budgets, lack similar promotion efforts, and hits are limited to the circle; long-form dramas are often invested and produced by large production companies or TV stations, with stronger financial support and professional teams, able to invest more. Multiple resources were used for publicity and marketing, and the influence of the hits was beyond the reach of short plays.
Under the combined influence of various factors, at least for many years to come, long-form dramas will still be the mainstream of the drama market. Even under the impact of short dramas, the audience of long-form dramas may continue to shrink and lose, but with the production scale and With artistic value, long-form dramas will be the mainstay of the drama market.
It’s just that the sense of threat that the short drama brings to the long drama is real. When the audience's time becomes more valuable and attention resources become scarcer, and when a variety of entertainment contents including short videos and short dramas compete for the market share of long-form dramas, how should long-form dramas respond?
Some "smart" businessmen have already made their calculations: Can the creative method of short plays be transplanted to long plays? To a certain extent, short drama is not only a concept of episode number and length, it is also a kind of creative thinking. If "short play" is used as a method for long plays, it may be possible to achieve complementary advantages, not only allowing long plays to have the "compression of explosive points" of short plays, but also allowing long plays to retain various advantages that short plays do not have, including image aesthetics, Depth, breadth, immersion and impact.
Using short dramas as creative thinking
If "In the Clouds" is a clear-cut use of short dramas to shoot long dramas, then "The Story of a Rose" has transitional characteristics.
"The Story of Rose" focuses on the relationship between Huang Yimei and four men, Zhuang Guodong, Fang Xiewen, Fu Jiaming and He Xi, but it occupies the largest space (the drama has a total of 36 episodes, with Fang Xiewen as the main character in episodes 13-29, After 30 episodes, Fang Xiewen still appears from time to time), and the most out of the circle is undoubtedly Fang Xiewen's chapter. This chapter vividly embodies the characteristics of "compression of explosive points" - only the best characters and the best conflicts, no logic at all.
Fang Xiewen's character is the so-called "Phoenix Man" who was stigmatized in urban emotional dramas or family ethics dramas in the past. Initially, he gave the impression of being positive, driven, and considerate, but his attitude changed dramatically after marriage. He was twisted and controlling because of his extreme low self-esteem, restricting Huang Yimei's freedom, such as rejecting her job opportunities without permission and installing location software on her mobile phone; he was selfish and often made decisions based only on his personal feelings and needs. , ignoring Huang Yimei's personal pursuit... "Then what do you mean you have to go to Beijing? Who is in Beijing?" "You have the energy to work, but not the energy to have a son" and other scumbag lines are quite out of the circle.
Fang Xiewen’s lines from the industry
Fang Xiewen’s mother and Huang Yimei’s mother-in-law are replicas of the “best mother-in-law” character.She has a strong desire to control and criticizes Huang Yimei's personal choices and lifestyle; she is full of criticism and dissatisfaction with Huang Yimei. In order to maintain her authority, she often criticizes and belittles Huang Yimei; she insists on the traditional distribution of family roles, favors sons over daughters, and expects Huang Yimei to Responsible for most of the housework and childcare...
These plots effectively aroused the anger of the audience, and the number of related short video clips remained high, successfully transforming into the popularity of the show, but its various drawbacks are obvious. How could Huang Yimei, a highly intellectual woman whose parents were professors at Tsinghua University, with a flamboyant and free personality, have resigned herself to such a bad marriage and fallen into long-term passivity? Her persona collapsed. At the same time, oversimplified and stereotyped expressions such as "the best Phoenix man" or "the best mother-in-law" will undoubtedly exacerbate the audience's prejudice against certain groups, intensify conflicts, and deepen estrangement.
Before short plays became popular, the creative method of "The Story of a Rose", which used the best characters to create conflicts, was already widely used. At that time, critics mostly used "suspended", "best characters", "topic first" and "deliberately created" Conflicts" were criticized. Many creators are afraid of this kind of criticism, and "The Story of a Rose" did not dare to portray all four men as top-notch characters. The screenwriter "cleverly" used various female slogans to add value to the show. It looks tall and tall. It is actually false and empty.
These long-form dramas, which have a low style but are really effective in attracting attention, found a better place to be used in the era of short dramas, and were eventually refined into "compression of explosive points" and became a creative thinking. "Mo Yu Yun Jian" is a long drama shot with the idea of a short drama.
Yu Zheng, the producer of "Mo Yu Yun Jian", said bluntly in an interview with "Southern People Weekly", "It's funny that many people still look down on short dramas. In fact, this is the trend of the times. Short dramas are becoming more refined and long dramas are fast-paced. , it is urgent to condense the narrative. I really don’t know what those people who complain are noble about." Ma Shishi, one of the directors of the play, also admitted in an interview with The Paper that he used a lot of ideas in making short plays. "A short play usually lasts ten or twenty minutes per episode, and the whole play lasts about two hundred minutes. Due to space limitations, a relatively complete story must be told in a relatively short period of time, which will train the creators of the short play to be able to A sufficiently exciting and effective plot is given in a short period of time. "
Almost every episode of "Mo Yu Yun Jian" is a "compression of explosive points": quickly advancing the plot, outputting information at a high density, and setting up multiple reversals and suspense. It directly addresses the emotional catharsis needs of modern urbanites, especially those in the workplace... For example, at the beginning of the plot, Xue Fangfei fell into a well-planned conspiracy. She was "caught in bed" and suffered great humiliation and betrayal. The husband took her to a deserted place, knocked her unconscious and buried her alive. Xue Fangfei miraculously broke free from the soil. In despair, Jiang Li rescued Xue Fangfei and gave her the courage and hope to continue living. The good times did not last long, Jiang Li was abused and seriously injured, and her life was in danger. Before Jiang Li died, she told Xue Fangfei the secret of her life experience. This trust became Xue Fangfei's new mission. , buried alive, victimization of legitimate daughter, death, female mutual aid, rebirth, revenge and other hot spots are all covered. When the plot focuses on the accumulation of explosive points, logic becomes quite secondary. The fragile logical chain only connects the plots and puts them in order, and cannot withstand any scrutiny.
Short drama thinking is not a scourge.
Needless to say, whether it is a short play or a long drama filmed with short drama thinking, nine times out of ten, the style is not high. Just like Mao Jian complained about "Mo Yu Yun Jian" on Bilibili, "Movies and TV dramas are not considered upstream or even mid-stream cultural products, but there is no lower limit for downstream copying of downstream products. Chinese film and television dramas can easily be exhausted."
From the perspective of cultural criticism, the thinking of short plays is simple, crude and shallow, which not only results in shallow aesthetics, but also leads to shallow thinking in the audience: distraction, loss of patience for in-depth content, only being satisfied with shallow entertainment, etc. wait.
The problem is that short videos have become the trend of the times. The number of short video users nationwide has exceeded 1 billion, sweeping across men, women, and children. In the era of mobile Internet, many people have too little time, too many entertainment choices, and their attention is generally distracted; Fatigue is the most common emotion of the times. Many people are pent up with strong emotions and need an outlet to relax and vent. Entertainment content such as skits also plays the role of relief/disease to a certain extent...
That is, tired people The need to vent, "Modern people always have bad breath in their hearts and want to spit it out" has created a demand for short dramas rather than the other way around. Short dramas or short drama thinking are just symptoms of the times and not the cause. This is the reason why everyone is laughing at "Mo Yu Yun Jian" while continuing to watch it, and it is also the reason why Yu Zheng is "confident" - you can scold me, my drama is a hit, and people love to watch it.
I hate him very much, but I can't defeat him, which is really annoying. But whether it is a short drama or a long drama shot with the idea of a short drama, we do not have to regard it as a scourge. We are worried that future long dramas will copy the path of "The Story of a Rose" and "In the Clouds", and domestic dramas will be finished. So much so.
Why don’t you worry about short drama thinking poisoning domestic dramas?
First of all, you can't copy a hit. Even if some people copy "Mo Yu Yun Jian", they can't copy a hit. Yu Zheng was right, writing a cool drama is not easy. "Have you ever thought about why there are so few internal entertainments with such a traffic code? The word 'difficult to write'. Because of the routine, the audience has high requirements for the character's personality and path, so everyone must be flesh and blood, and every level must be flesh-and-blood. It must be in line with human nature."
Although "Mo Yu Yun Jian" is just a "compression of hot spots," to become a hit, it also requires the selection of hot spots, the skill of arrangement, the control of emotions, and the immersion of the story. , the appearance and CP sense of men and women, the overall texture of production, etc. Don't look at the third-rate urban dramas that use the best mother-in-law and the best Phoenix man to create conflicts. The one that can invite Liu Yifei to play the scorned daughter-in-law and Lin Gengxin to play the stereotyped scumbag is "The Story of Rose".
Secondly, the general standard of domestic dramas is lower than we imagined. They are already bad enough without the abuse of short drama thinking. There is no need to blame the short dramas. The cruel fact is: The level of "In the Clouds" is already higher than that of most domestic dramas. Most domestic dramas are worse, illogical and more unwatchable than "In the Clouds". Drama critics didn't criticize them because they don't have many people. Look, I didn't even bother to scold it, but "In the Clouds" had the most serious problems, so it was scolded the most.
Thirdly, we don’t need to worry too much about the temporary popularity of entertainment products that have no connotation, because excellent creations will eventually be recognized by the market and loved by the audience. Human beings' desire for high-quality content is rooted in the heart. Good stories, superb acting skills, and profound themes can always touch people's hearts and inspire resonance. Just like last year's " The Long Season " and this year's high-quality drama " Blossoms ", they do not have the characteristics of short dramas, but this does not prevent them from becoming hits. The media, critics, and cultural workers will continue to canonize truly good works. This process essentially guides the public to pay attention to and appreciate works that have artistic value and social significance.
Finally, short play thinking will definitely affect the creation of long plays, and this impact also includes positive effects. For a long time, in order to maximize commercial interests, some domestic dramas have often adopted a "water injection" strategy to extend the length of the series by adding unnecessary plots, dialogues or scenes. "Water injection" causes the plot to drag out, lose compactness and appeal, and the audience gradually loses patience. Nowadays, many people choose to watch dramas at double speed. It would also be an improvement if long dramas could absorb the thinking of short dramas, improve narrative efficiency and rhythm, and get rid of the old habit of "water injection".
So, if short plays are popular, let them be popular. If you want to use short plays as a creative idea for long plays, just do it. Anyway, most of the short plays and long plays produced are very bad. No one watches or discusses them, let alone It’s hard to say that it has any influence. If you spend too much money on the street, you will know that this road is not that easy.
As for popular dramas with low style such as "The Story of a Rose" and "In the Clouds", don't worry about their influence being far-reaching. Aren't we also criticizing their bad aspects? The audience will not stop loving "The Long Season" and "Flowers" just because they have watched them. Just like no matter how delicious junk food is, we know that it has no nutrition. Of course, making junk food look good or taste good requires effort. After all, it has already surpassed most of its peers.
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