The 50-minute stereotype has reached 1 billion views, and who has harvested the "digital pickles" micro-short

"Aunt's World" stills

In 2022, micro-shorts are on fire! At the beginning of the year, a "Aunt's World" aroused heated discussions among young people, with an online score of 8.1. An earlier collection of short dramas called "This Male Protagonist is a Little Cold", with a total duration of less than 50 minutes, has been played for 1 billion times. "There has always been a legend of 'getting rich overnight' through short dramas, and many people want to give it a go," said a person in charge of a brokerage firm.
In the past three years, the annual production of mini-series has surged from a few hundred to tens of thousands. These short-term web dramas with exaggerated and clichéd content, the script is only for quick success, the shooting does not talk about aesthetics, and the supporting roles are basically outsourced, becoming "digital pickles", and more used as a drainage tool for the protagonist to bring goods live. Experts said that the creation of short dramas should not only respect the laws of network communication, but also implement platform responsibility regulations.
Plot exaggerated cliché pay per episode
3 minutes, signing a divorce agreement with her husband; 4 minutes, the domineering president of "touching porcelain"; 6 minutes, revealing the true colors of girlfriends in the bar; 9 minutes, the beauty saves the hero... A traditional TV drama can only be told in 30 episodes. "This Male Protagonist is a Little Cold" is condensed into a short 10 minutes, and gathers various elements such as time-travel, rebirth, and giants. "You can never imagine how the script will go in the next second, and what lines the protagonist will say." Citizen Ms. Hu sighed.
The so-called mini-series, that is, a single episode of no more than 10 minutes of network drama. Due to the short time and fast rhythm, and the plot extremely accurately hits the needs of some audiences, the micro-sketches firmly occupy the audience's fragmented time in a rapid, rude but powerful situation, as some audiences said, "It's not a problem to watch a drama in one night."
However, for short-length mini-dramas, the fees are not low. Taking the second season of "Super Security" on the Douyin platform as an example, according to the reporter's query, 10 Doucoin can unlock and watch 1 episode of content, and 40 Doucoin can unlock and watch all content. According to the platform regulations, Doubi can be recharged with cash, 1 yuan on IOS can be exchanged for 7 Doucoins, and 1 yuan on Android can be exchanged for 10 Doucoins, that is to say, it takes at least 1 yuan to watch 1 episode. In comparison, it only costs 6 yuan to watch a theatrical movie on a long video platform.
The ones who are more likely to pay to watch are minors instead. Zhou Xiao, the director of "This Male Protagonist is a Little Cold", revealed that the reason why the mini-dramas are exaggerated and cliché is because users aged 6 to 17 account for more than 60%, "they don't need too advanced shooting techniques and esoteric Connotation, high-level sense will not have much effect."
Low-cost custom scripts are inherently insufficient
According to industry statistics, in the past three years, the annual output of mini-series has surged from a few hundred to tens of thousands. How did these mini-series come about? First of all, we have to start with the script project.
Screenwriter Lin Shuang (pseudonym) revealed that the current price of an episode of a short play is about 400 yuan, which can be provided as a finished product or customized on demand. "If we want to tell a story in a short time, we can only follow a simple and rude style, without foreshadowing, it is all conflict, do not undertake, all reverse, even if we ourselves think the plot is very 'earth'." Lin Shuang Said that the mini-series often present extreme stories that are almost impossible in the real world. "Only in this way can we create a sense of compactness and immerse the audience in it."
Among the 10 short play script proposals presented by Lin Shuang to reporters, "love", "heart abuse", "reversal" and "revenge" became the keywords with the highest frequency.
In addition to originality, more scripts are "washed" by screenwriters. "According to the general framework of the novel, other names and locations can be changed whenever possible to prevent the risk of infringement." Deng Xiang (pseudonym), the director of the short play, told reporters that compared with the millions of yuan invested in TV dramas, a small modern theme 100,000 yuan for a short play is enough. This is because, in addition to the main actors who are fixed team members, the supporting roles are basically outsourced. At the same time, we also tried to simplify the shooting scenes, just two to three scenes in a play.
The intention behind the increase of fans is to live broadcast and bring goods
The reporter noticed that, unlike traditional TV dramas that focus on close-up, medium-range, and long-range scenes, almost all of the short-scenes are zoomed in and close-ups of faces are shot. "It's to force the audience to remember the protagonist. Short videos can't tell the story clearly. My secret is 'establishing people' and not having too many messy sideline content." Zhou Xiao said that doing a short drama does not require professional skills and skills. Knowledge requires more of the audience's thinking, as long as the audience likes it.
The micro-drama focuses on the gameplay of "holding people", which is closely related to making money. The reporter learned that the current business models of mini-series are mainly divided into three types: account sharing, advertising and e-commerce. However, split accounts and advertisements only provide great incentives for the top works with high broadcast volume. Most of the short drama projects rely on split income or directly implant brand advertisements, and the profit is very limited. The more common way to make money is to bring goods through live broadcasts, and episodes are just a tool for attracting fans.
Deng Xiang said that he can't wait to take close-up shots with his face, so that the audience can remember the appearance of the protagonist, and then let users follow the actor's personal account. After reaching a certain number of fans, they can bring goods live, "This is why supporting actors can Outsource casually, recruit temporary workers, but the protagonist must not be changed."
It must be vigilant that, as "digital pickles", micro-shorts are, in a sense, a series of gluttonous illusions created by the new media industry for users with too much "industrial saccharin" added. Huang Zhongjun, a professor at the School of Cultural Creativity and Communication of Zhejiang Normal University, said that the blind pursuit of traffic has made micro-dramas extremely homogenous. "The quality of mini-drama creation at this stage must be improved in real terms. It is necessary to respect the laws of online communication, and to implement platform responsibility regulations. We must resolutely crack down on anti-intellectualism, plagiarism, and vulgar content, and strive to purify the content industry ecology." Huang Zhongjun said. .