The film and television industry is trapped in the "mini program short drama anxiety"

In the hot money trend of micro-short dramas, time logic has become the core of competition, and people are anxiously pursuing quick output and blockbuster hits.

Mini-program short plays "deify" themselves.

#A couple earns more than 400 million yuan a month by making short plays##Recharges exceeded 20 million yuan on the day of launch##Recharges exceeded 100 million yuan in 8 days#, these entries are all using huge revenue figures to highlight the popularity of this field. Although there are some deliberate public relations methods, there is no doubt that short plays have been verified as a gold-digging track.

You can call it the Pinduoduo of the film and television industry or the spiritual lasso of working people. The transformation from a rustic traffic product at the beginning to today's content and quick money myth means that mini-program short dramas have begun to find their place as a cultural copy refreshed in the accelerated era.

Mini-program short dramas are not a new force. But there is a fundamental difference between being considered a "sinking trend" and being identified as a "hot money outlet". Especially when the spring breeze of recovery in the film and television industry is blowing slightly, the "sinking trend" can go up, and the "hot money outlet" disappears and it is unknown when the next opportunity will come.

When a force in the industry powerfully disturbs the steady state, everyone's attention will be unconsciously drawn to it. Changes will cause anxiety.

1. Cut out time anxiety

In the early days, people only used the term "short drama" to distinguish short and sharp content from long dramas. Compared with dramas over 40 minutes long, whether you are 5 minutes or 15 minutes long, you can be considered a short drama. This is also the first stage of the development of short dramas. In terms of the length of the drama, it is significantly different from the long drama, but the main production and broadcasting platforms and operating modes are basically overlapping with the long dramas. "Never Expected" and "Diaosi Man" are representative works of this stage.

When "short dramas" become "micro short dramas", further compressing time will not only change the length of the series. This is a process of qualitative change brought about by constantly squeezing the quantity of the series in the time dimension. The "quality" here refers to the logic of storytelling, the transformation of shooting techniques, the reshaping of lens language, and the development of business models.

According to the definition of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, micro-short dramas, also known as online micro-short dramas, refer to dramas with a single episode length ranging from tens of seconds to about 15 minutes, with a relatively clear theme and main line, and a relatively continuous and complete storyline. The most common length of a mini program micro-short episode is about 1 and a half minutes.

Time logic is the most important basic logic for the success of short dramas, and it is also the underlying core competitive point of a business format. If we use shopping software to compare, choosing Taobao focuses on brand logic, choosing JD.com focuses on logistics logic, and choosing Pinduoduo focuses on price logic.

So the choice of long series may be based on the logic of actors, IP, or subject matter, but time logic will never be the priority. Whether it is the frequently mentioned "sense of excitement" or "feeling of being high", all of them are meaningful only if they are based on the time frame of micro-short dramas.

The top of the mini program short drama hot list usually has names that are very much like online literature. Take "After I Kicked Out the Scumbag, My Three Brothers Spoiled Me" as an example. The beginning of this mini program short drama is that the heroine is betrayed by her boyfriend. Her real identity is the lost daughter of a famous family. Three rich brothers of different types are trying hard to find their sister, but they encounter a vicious second female lead who tries to impersonate her.

In one minute of episode 25, the heroine received the result of the paternity test that she was not her real sister, was humiliated by the second female lead and her boyfriend, the heroine and the second female lead fought for her jade pendant, and a golden phoenix appeared after she cut her hand and blood dripped onto the jade pendant. In the end, because it was the unique bloodline of a famous family, the "true blood of the phoenix", the three brothers finally recognized their sister.

A story that would take three episodes to tell in a long video can be told in a short mini-program drama in just one minute. This "1+N" format is a common method. In just one minute, the plot begins with an emotional push, and then when the villain intervenes, the plot comes to an abrupt end, and the best part is yet to come.

The era of short videos uses users' fragmented time as an opportunity point, and mini-program short dramas go a step further on this basis. It wants to break up the timeline within a coherent story system that does not seek depth, and it wishes that every shot transition would be a thunder point.

This cut in time directly gave rise to anxiety about the time of presentation of the story content.

Compared with long dramas, which are targeted and selected by users, most short dramas are chosen quite "randomly". The key to retention of random consumption lies in whether the 3 seconds that users see are enough to keep them, which depends on extremely high information density.

In the design of the lines in the mini-program skit, almost every line taken out alone has the potential to keep people coming back. To exaggerate a little, when a hundred clickbait titles become lines in the mini-program skit, the mini-program is almost done.

Therefore, the short dramas of mini-programs can be shortened to 3 minutes, 2 minutes, or even 1.5 minutes. Expanding outward, it is not just a short drama of mini-programs.

Even the high-quality micro-short dramas are inevitably domesticated by the length of mini-program short dramas, and users' patience is being increasingly worn out in the micro-short drama track.

Seizing market share while cultivating user habits is the key to the mini-program short drama "surrounding the city from the countryside".

The highly condensed conflict directly leads to the increasingly involuted length of a single episode, and the screenwriters' anxiety has nowhere to hide. It is difficult to say whether absolute "fast forward" is a good thing for micro-short dramas, but if you hesitate, the probability of failure is greater.

But is that all? If we pull apart the chain of mini-program short drama production, time logic overrides every link in the chain. The production time of mini-program short dramas is also being compressed, and the time to decide whether they will be successful after they go online is also being further compressed.

Due to the visible nature of the trend, the expansion of the micro-short drama market has brought about a sharp increase in the number of online releases.

According to Entdata, more than 1,400 short dramas will be launched in 2023, and nearly 300 short dramas will be submitted for filing every month. Faster production time means lower production costs and higher output. In the short drama market with low hit rates, the business model is to simply and crudely win by quantity and in a short time.

A podcast of Sanlian Talk mentioned that the investment in the short drama after it goes online can show whether it will be a "hit" in about 30 minutes.

In other words, there is no need to wait for a long time for feedback in the verification process. In addition, short dramas are basically broadcast in full at one time, and the speed of the inflow of real money is the measure of the potential of this short drama to become a hit.

When one gear rotates rapidly, the other gears that fit closely with it must also keep up with the speed. The anxiety of the short drama market under the logic of time behind the "hot money" is that the content cannot be slowed down, the hot jokes cannot be cooled down, and the bets cannot be stopped.

But the fundamental reason is that if you stop, you will see the money more slowly.

2. Anxiety about the conflict between de-elitism and high-quality products

It takes three days to top up a membership on a video platform for 19 yuan, but it takes only a blink of an eye to buy a 6-episode short drama for 29 yuan. Whose pockets are the short dramas making money from?

From wild growth to regulatory regulation, and now to the encouragement of creation, the fluctuation of the micro-short drama market is accompanied by the change of the paying population it targets. There are several labels that have been extracted to identify the micro-short drama user groups: users in the sinking market who like to watch earthy videos, middle-aged men with boring and monotonous lives, housewives who take a break from their busy schedules, and young workers under great pressure.

It is always "de-elitist".

"De-elitism" means immersion in sensory impact, massage of psychological pleasure, and uncontrollable addiction. Therefore, when users of micro-short dramas pay, what they buy is not "content", but their own "feelings"; what they buy is not "depth", but an "outlet" for release.

Until now, the theory is still the same, but is the target group of micro-short drama still the de-elitised people that were once thought to be? The answer has become no. It is very interesting to study the changes in this kind of stereotyped cognition at the social level. Ning Jing mentioned in "Infinite Beyond Class" that she is a fan of paid micro-short dramas. She used many words "bad" to describe her feelings about watching micro-short dramas, and finally concluded with the point of "addictive".

Therefore, we need to escape from the original perspective of viewing short dramas from the perspective of content genre. The most subtle point is that it does not really choose a certain type of user, it chooses to capture everyone's instinctive desires without distinction. Above this is the division of male and female frequencies and diverse themes. At this step, it is the users who choose their preferences.

The target users of long series are anchored by the content of the series itself, while the target users of short series are not positioned by the content but by the viewing effect.

Therefore, a wider group of people will start paying for paid micro-short dramas.

The anxiety caused by "de-elitism" is reflected both inside and outside the micro-short drama market.

Externally, various roles that have been robbed of attention and revenue have to be wary of the sharp weapon that short dramas hold that hits people's hearts, whether it is the producers and broadcasters of long series or movies. Short dramas are using their genre advantages to impact the film and television market. The 800 million yuan book performance of short dramas during the Spring Festival is enough to illustrate the problem.

Looking inward, the risk of "hot money" turning into "quick money" and "trend" turning into "closed" is always there. Reversals and pleasures will not work repeatedly because of the same stimulus point. The higher the stimulus point, the easier it is to go astray in value guidance.

Faced with the above situation, the industry has worked out a solution to discrimination, which has become a very significant trend at present - the refinement of micro-short dramas.

The high-quality development of short dramas is an inevitable result of the standardized market order, which points to the improvement of the quality of finished content. The victory of short dramas in the sinking market has triggered the trend of short drama content genres to blur the user standards. By grasping the human psychology captured by short dramas in short dramas, high-quality short dramas can also be achieved. After all, when it comes to the most essential desires of human nature, everyone is the same.

This part is not completed by the creators of the mini-program short dramas. On the production side, the changes that have occurred are the entry of practitioners in the traditional film and television industry, and the various platforms have made greater efforts to encourage and support creation. The "micro-short drama + cultural tourism" that has attracted much attention recently originated from the notice issued by the General Office of the State Administration of Radio and Television on the launch of the "Travel with Micro-short Dramas" creation plan.

To a certain extent, the refinement of short dramas can alleviate the above-mentioned anxieties, but it will also open up new problems. The short drama market driven by mainstream forces will definitely make short dramas move from barbaric outbreaks to mainstream, and more resources will be tilted towards this field.

For example, professional actors have joined in. Yang Rong starred in the popular "Twenty-Nine", Liu Yun is the female lead in "Full-time Househusband Training Program", and Xu Mengjie's "New Year's Day" is still the top of the Douyin short drama hot list. At the director level, Wang Jing and Stephen Chow have joined the array of short drama shooting.

When the market accepts micro-short dramas as an equal content format, rather than judging them with tinted glasses, the disadvantages of micro-short dramas in terms of talent will gradually disappear. For many ordinary actors who currently get opportunities through micro-short dramas, their living space will inevitably be squeezed.

Then there is the promotion and marketing. Low cost and high returns have always been considered the embodiment of the money-making ability of mini-program short dramas. However, behind the very beautiful numbers, there are also many practitioners who are disenchanted with this.

The production cost may not be high, but the streaming cost is not a small amount, basically accounting for more than 80% of the revenue. DataEye predicts that the streaming scale of China's short dramas will exceed 30 billion yuan in 2023, 40 billion yuan in 2024, and 80 billion yuan in 2027.

If players with stronger publicity and financial resources join the micro-drama game, the entire micro-drama market will change further. The trend of micro-drama becoming more refined more or less implies the side effect of rising costs. When the reason for choosing to produce and broadcast micro-dramas is not limited by cost and actors, new anxieties will arise as expected.

In addition, it is also worth exploring what form the ideal fusion of the high-quality micro-short drama and its original characteristics should take.

At present, more and more short short dramas are moving towards profound realistic themes. Realistic themes and the Mary Sue pink bubble that deviates from the ordinary are two completely contradictory paths. The pleasure that short short dramas bring to users is mostly based on the latter. If short short dramas are mixed with too many intentions, which weakens its most critical competitiveness in attracting users, will it change the user group that short short dramas are targeting again? Are those designed "pay points" still attractive enough?

Conclusion

There is always a dark side on the other side of the dazzling. Micro-short dramas themselves are the product of an accelerated society and are also being accelerated.

The reason why anxiety is used to describe the feeling that micro-short dramas bring to the film and television industry is because its "speed" always makes people feel that people in this module are on edge all the time, and the extremely mythical amount of money inexplicably makes the micro-short dramas wrapped in a layer of casino noise.

The value of short dramas to users' entertainment life is beyond doubt, but for normal development, we need to face up to the small challenges brought by this new business. The short drama market needs both money and a healthy mental state.

Author: Apia

Source: Media No. 1 (ID: zcfhxy)