text | Shen Xiang, author | Zu Yang
In the past two months, many short dramas with the elderly as the protagonists have appeared on the popular list: "Flash Marriage at Fifty Years Old" and "The Fifty-year-old Taishou Guomen Daxia Songshen Wins All" "Field", "The mother who won the gold list is more valuable than her son", "When people turn fifty, they get married in a flash"... The marriage, emotions and life stories of the elderly have become the "new traffic code" for the creation of current short dramas.
This "aging-friendly" creative trend has also shown some signs in the long video market. In the past, middle-aged and elderly people were regarded as a marginalized group, and the portrayal of the elderly in movies and TV dramas also played a role in highlighting the protagonists. However, in the past two years, films such as "Grandma's New World", " The Long Season " and the recently released "Please Take Care of Her in the Body" have all used the elderly as the protagonists, allowing the elderly to serve as a positive pioneering image, jumping out of the Families and children show their awakening and self-worth.
also portrays the image of the elderly. There are obvious differences between short dramas and long dramas. Short dramas pay special attention to density and refreshing feeling. Many elderly protagonists in short dramas are not absolutely positive, and their existence value is more to stir up the audience's emotions. is an example of a short drama about family love. The mother has been bullied and beaten by her second son, but she will eventually choose to feel sorry for her and forgive her. There is also a drama about an elderly sweetheart who wears the cloak of a boss. The heroine’s awakening and counterattack all rely on the male protagonist. of high status. With the layers of emotions stacked up, the audience is more likely to fall in love with it, and they can't help but pay for the short drama.
It is indeed an inevitable trend for the elderly to become the protagonists of narratives. QuestMobile data shows that in March 2024, the overall network penetration rate of people over 50 years old reached 26.5%, and the population size reached 320 million people, with huge emotional consumption demand. Moreover, the consumption power of the elderly cannot be underestimated. The "China Aging Industry Development Report" predicts that by 2050, the consumption potential of China's elderly population will increase from 4 trillion to 106 trillion. In the eyes of many practitioners, middle-aged and elderly people are “high-quality audiences for short dramas”.
How to tell the emotional stories of middle-aged and elderly people?
Many emotional needs of middle-aged and elderly people are ignored in most cases. In China, the role of parents is "purely giving". When they are young, they work diligently for the family and their children, and pay little attention to "self" consciousness. When they get old and retire, they lose the focus of life and the words of the family. Right, they began to be trapped by emptiness and lack of attention, and needed a carrier to release and carry them. The
short play fills this gap.
On the one hand, the short play itself is a product with strong emotions and fast pace. It can produce content around current hot topics and hot events that the elderly are concerned about. Elderly audiences can project their emotions and see themselves in the short play.
On the other hand, the operating logic of short drama broadcasting platforms such as Douyin Kuaishou is relatively friendly to the elderly. You can swipe up and down to select the content you want to watch, and the platform's algorithm will also gain timely insights into the emotional preferences of elderly viewers and make accurate recommendations. .
observes the current short dramas for the elderly on the market. They are divided into two categories according to labels: male videos and female videos. However, the essence of the stories told is that revolves around emotional trivial matters and incorporates elements such as children's education, growth, family reunion, marriage and career. , these are also the topics that middle-aged and elderly people are most concerned about at the moment. For example, in the short drama "Flash Marriage at 50", which has been played more than 460 million times on Douyin, the two protagonists who are over 50 years old decided to go on a blind date because "I hope to have someone to accompany me when I get older", simple and simple lines It just expresses the sentiments of most elderly people nowadays.
"Flash Marriage at Fifty Years Old"
The basic routine of the short drama is also effective for elderly content.
In elderly short dramas, "torture first and then pleasure" is a common technique. In the early stage of , the evil of the villain was used to highlight the kindness and pity of the protagonist, arouse the sympathy of the audience, and pave the way for the subsequent reversal. In order to stimulate the "abuse point" of the plot, many creative teams often use first-person shooting techniques to allow the audience to immerse themselves in the emotions of the play.
Micron's short drama for middle-aged and elderly people, "The Mother Who Won the Gold List, Is Your Son Worthy" begins with the contrast between the heroine's two sons - the older brother is kind and tolerant, while the younger brother is selfish.In an accident, his brother disappeared. When he went to college and got a girlfriend, he started to change his attitude. He disowned his mother and called her an old beggar. When his mother came to the wedding, the brother was afraid of being exposed, so he took a wine bottle and wanted to kill her. The repeated conflicts between mother and son make the audience constantly feel the terror of the younger brother and the pity of the mother, which in turn sublimates the point of abuse.
should feel "good" after the abuse. When the conflict point reaches its extreme, another positive character appears to save the protagonist from danger and the bad guys are severely punished. The cool point is achieved. In "The Best Mother in the Gold List", the missing and amnesiac brother transforms into a billionaire and attends his brother's wedding as a distinguished guest. He happens to see the scene where his mother is being beaten, and he takes out a whip and beats his brother. Punish evil and promote good. In the comment area, many viewers were "pleased" by this scene, leaving messages saying, "Brother is so handsome, I need to take care of this white-eyed wolf."
"The Mother Who Won the Golden List, Her Son Is the Most Valuable"
A short drama lasts about one minute. A short drama has about 70 to 80 episodes, and more than half of the plot is about creating conflicts. When the audience's emotions are superimposed to the peak, Then use a cool point to release emotions, without giving the audience a chance to jump out. They can't help but click on the next episode to watch, and the value of the short drama is also completed.
However, short dramas for middle-aged and elderly people cannot escape the homogenization routine. A middle-aged and elderly theme has become popular, and countless themes have emerged that "replace the soup without changing the medicine." Just looking at the list, many short dramas even have similar titles: The mother is more valuable than the son, the father is more valuable than the daughter, a fifty-year-old flash marriage, a fifty-year-old new flash marriage, a domineering president dotes on me... The plot and story are also familiar to people, either an older version of "The domineering president fell in love with me", or an old age Version of " is good ". But for many older viewers, the logic of may not be so important, but speaking to my heart is more important.
How to shoot short dramas for the elderly: Experience-based and efficient delivery
From the current point of view, short dramas for the elderly are still the type that leading companies mainly focus on.
According to wetrue data, the related teams behind the middle-aged and elderly short dramas on the list in June and July 2024 are mostly leading companies such as Malt, Jiuzhou, and Dianzhong. They entered the game early and have rich talent/investment resources. Having accumulated rich creative experience, making short plays for middle-aged and elderly people is more of a subdivision and innovation based on the original ones.
Therefore, the creation cycle and production process of short plays for middle-aged and elderly people are not much different from regular short plays.
When selecting actors, most companies tend to choose actors with experience and works, eliminating the need for retraining. There are also many starring actors in short dramas who are extras from previous dramas and movies. Ti Aimin, who has filmed short dramas such as "Dad, I'll Clean Up the House", "Getting Started", "Mother Is Daughter" and "Parasite", has frequently appeared in many movies and TV series before, including the theater movie "我" Hu Yulian in "Waiting for You in Spring", Cui Niang in the TV series "You Junge", partnered with Wang Jinsong in the cultural variety show "The Biography of the Grand Master: Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties", playing the role of Chunmeng Po.
Short drama is a circle society. Most of the time, actors, directors and screenwriters are chosen by mutual recommendations from the circle. For example, an Olympic-themed short drama "I Become a Knight at the Olympics" that was launched recently invited Douyin master "Grandpa Sanxi" as the protagonist. Its producer revealed to "Shenxiang": chose Grandpa Sanxi because of a I know each other in the circle. Grandpa Sanxi usually likes to post some short videos of costumes in ancient costumes. His temperament is particularly suitable for the knight character in the drama, so I chose him.
Sanxi Grandpa Douyin short video
As a fast-paced content product, it is normal for short dramas to be filmed in one week and released in one month. Older actors are rarely tolerated and treated favorably because of their age. An elderly actor revealed in an interview: "Being busy is normal." After finishing work at 6:30 in the morning, he has to rush to another crew to put on makeup at 7 o'clock. It is common to take off makeup and put on makeup at the same time. It is also common to sleep for two or three hours a day.
In April of this year, #半妖的夜播# was a hot search on Weibo. The protagonist of the hot search, Liu Lin, once mentioned that under the tight shooting cycle, he also summed up the trick to "get through quickly"-short The play does not require a large number of scenes. It relies on character dialogue to promote the plot, pursuing explosive points and reversals. The performance must be full of emotions, the anger must be extreme, and the ferocity must be thorough. Therefore, for older actors, plot logic is not the most important, only explosive points and emotions are important. After the
short play was filmed, it came to the streaming stage. During the streaming process, the pitchers held a large amount of materials, matched users with carefully designed test plans, and evaluated who liked to watch and what in the huge traffic pool. This kind of material can become popular, and the casting of short dramas for middle-aged and elderly people also adheres to this logic.
According to the launch data of "Flash Marriage at Fifty Years Old" compiled by Xinzhaner, from June 14th to July 29th, this drama launched a "Time Short Drama" account on Douyin, with an estimated conversion volume of 16.60,000 , the number of material likes is 18.8k, the number of material comments is 513, and the number of material shares is 1318. The conversion effect is pretty good. Looking at the materials it has submitted, it is a mix of various "conflicts" in , such as the conflict between the son and his daughter-in-law in , the heroine being harassed and bullied while dancing in the square, and the male and female protagonists going to a bridal shop and being looked down upon by the clerk. These conflicts are as "Hook" to attract users to click to watch the full episode.
After two years of rapid development, short dramas have reached a mature stage. The producers of short dramas also know the habits of users well - they know what target users like to watch, they know how to use emotions to attract them, and they also know how to rely on them. The material keeps them clicking.
But at the same time, some chaos is also emerging. If you search for "middle-aged and elderly short dramas" on social platforms, you can see complaints from young people everywhere. Parents scrimped and spent tens of thousands on short dramas. CCTV has also reported that some unscrupulous merchants take advantage of the elderly's incomplete Internet knowledge and weak ability to distinguish online consumption to induce unnecessary consumption; some will use low prices to make users pay first, and then default to renewing the check box. The price returned to normal. When the user came to his senses and wanted a refund, he could not find the entrance to the refund.
These may bring temporary profits, but looking at the entire industry, only when creators return to content and platforms strengthen supervision can short dramas develop in a longer-term and healthier way.
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