Short plays and other "Misty Theater"

At present, micro short dramas are developing rapidly, attracting more and more users and continuously giving positive feedback to the platform and creators. Not only that, the quality and content of micro short dramas have also been visibly improved, especially in the field of suspense. In this article, let's take a look at the development and layout of suspense micro short dramas.

Tencent Video’s Please! Don’t Spoil Me had a revenue share of over 30 million, leading the micro-drama revenue share chart; Mango TV’s The Dark World topped the data charts many times, with a Douban score of over 7 points; Kuaishou’s Princess Is Above had a total of over 330 million views by the end of its run; Douyin’s Night Shift Diary had a 300% revenue share at the end of its run, with a total of 1.06 billion views on the site, breaking the Douyin short drama record…

As long-form dramas are making rapid progress, short-form dramas are also developing rapidly.

According to relevant data, in the first half of 2022, 2,859 short dramas with registration numbers were obtained, with a total of 69,234 episodes, a year-on-year increase of 618%. In addition to the surge in numbers, good news about short dramas has also continued to come from various parties.

According to Kuaishou's short drama business data, as of the end of 2022, the daily active user scale of Kuaishou short dramas exceeded 260 million, and there were more than 100 Kuaishou Star Short Drama projects with annual playback volume exceeding 100 million. The number of short drama creators with e-commerce income increased by 35%; Douyin data showed that from January to October 2022, Douyin launched a total of 329 high-quality serial short dramas, of which 55 had playback volume exceeding 100 million, and the daily deduplication number of micro-short drama users exceeded 100 million.

Kuaishou Douyin Short Drama Channel

Micro-short dramas are attracting more users and giving positive feedback to platforms and creators.

At the same time, the diversity of genres has also allowed micro-short dramas to actively embrace more diverse user needs. In addition to the sweet pet elements that are still popular, "suspense", an element that pays more attention to genre creation, is becoming a new honeypot for micro-short dramas.

Looking at 2022 alone, the fantasy suspense short drama "Night Cat Express Daydream" was nominated for the official competition unit of the Cannes TV Festival short drama; the costume martial arts suspense romance drama "Nian Nian Wu Ming" achieved a certain degree of popularity last year, helping the suspense short drama to be seen by the market and users again; in addition, according to Yunhe data, the effective playback and screen dominance list of short dramas on the entire network in December 2022 showed that the costume suspense detective drama "Chang'an Secret Records", the suspense drama "The Secret World of Wife", the love suspense drama "Wife Under the Cliff" and the criminal investigation suspense drama "Criminal Investigation Files: The Mysterious Murderer" won the first, sixth, seventh and eighth places respectively...

With the birth of good results one after another, the platform's hopes for suspense micro-short dramas do not stop there. Theatricalization, serialization, and "lengthening" are blossoming. With the entry of more and more traditional drama companies and the platform's more and clearer layout for suspense micro-short dramas, suspense micro-short dramas are anxiously waiting for their own "Misty Theater".

1. Elemental Change and Narrative Acceleration

Although romance and sweet pet stories are still the main content types of micro-short dramas, with the more diversified layout of the platform, other types of micro-short dramas are also showing an upward trend in quality and quantity. As a basic category with many fans, suspense and reasoning are the best focus.

Just by roughly combing through the suspense short dramas launched since 2020, we can find that platforms that focus on developing short drama business, such as Tencent Video, Youku, Mango TV, Bilibili, Douyin, Kuaishou, etc., have continuously launched new suspense short dramas, and platforms such as Xigua Video, Toutiao, BesTV, and Kuaidian TV, a short drama broadcasting platform and a short drama community developer, are also entrants in the suspense short drama market. However, so far, Tencent Video, Youku and Mango TV are the ones that can maintain a high frequency of output.

Judging from the elements involved, suspense micro-short dramas present richer space and bolder imagination.

Judging from the keywords related to "suspense" given in Douban, Baidu Encyclopedia or the details of each short drama page, keywords such as thriller, horror, fantasy, etc. appear very frequently.

For example, the suspense and horror drama "The Return of the Snake Girl" broadcasted by Youku opens with a fleeing snake-like monster, and the whole story revolves around the relationship and truth between the snake-like monster and the girl Xin Rui; "The Last Bus on Route 13" launched on Kuaishou opens with a dark tone, a bus with passengers on it, driving on a secluded road, accompanied by a narration similar to the tone and voice of a storyteller, an old lady who suddenly appears and disappears in front of the bus, and then the car is turned off and darkened, and the passengers suddenly become motionless, creating a thrilling atmosphere; "Su Wuming from the Tang Dynasty" launched on Douyin allows Su Wuming to travel through time and space to the Republic of China to solve a bizarre case...

The selection and use of such elements to a certain extent meet the needs of the short drama audience.

After all, if you want to create a suspenseful atmosphere within a few minutes and keep it going, similar elements and atmosphere are one of the best ways. At the same time, it can be different from the traditional long suspense dramas and add a sense of freshness and curiosity, and hit the users more quickly and accurately. To some extent, the size of micro-short dramas is suitable for these elements.

However, with stricter supervision on micro-short dramas and more refined content, suspense micro-short dramas with horror and thriller themes are gradually decreasing or have withdrawn from keyword markings . Suspense micro-short dramas are also moving closer to the style, subject matter and elements of long dramas of the same type.

The length of the micro-short drama combined with the speed, accuracy and ruthlessness brought by the high-quality content will to some extent satisfy the fast-paced and high-density that users expect when watching suspense dramas. "Suspense" can be combined with different types and elements, such as strange stories, romance, comedy, costumes, martial arts, etc., which can bring out more possibilities and imagination space, bring freshness to users, and satisfy more users.

Even though short video platforms have begun to try to launch "long" videos in recent years, long video websites have also been shortening and further connecting the horizontal and vertical screen modes, but from the current perspective, the suspense micro-short dramas on long video websites are still mainly about 10 minutes per episode, or some shorter content of five minutes or less, while short video platforms are more likely to have shorter content of five minutes or less per episode.

This also affects the viewing experience that the two different modes bring to the audience.

Suspense micro-short dramas with a single episode of about 10 minutes are more like traditional long dramas, with richer stories, backgrounds, and side plots; while suspense micro-short dramas with a single episode of five minutes or less are faster, more accurate and ruthless, with relatively less background explanations, and the scenes surrounding the protagonist are more concentrated and prominent.

For example, "Crazy Grandpa and Grandson", which is also launched on Tencent Video with each episode lasting about five minutes, has a first episode length of 5 minutes and 10 seconds. Excluding the opening and ending credits, the main film is only about three minutes. Within these three minutes, the two time transitions two weeks later and one month later explain the general situation of the unsolved case. In the remaining time, through the narration, the image of a retired and somewhat unreliable policeman is brought to the audience, and Liu Jianxiang, played by Gong Hanlin, is the well-deserved core figure among them.

Poster of Crazy Grandpa and Grandson

The ancient costume suspense detective drama "The Book of Immortal Strange Stories", with each episode lasting about 12 minutes, adds the story background, the appearance and encounter of the male and female protagonists, as well as the appearance of related characters involved in many chapters of the story into the main film of the first episode of about 9 minutes, which is more like a condensed, fast-forward version of a long drama.

Similarly, regardless of the length, short dramas are committed to promoting faster speed and rhythm, as well as a high density of high-energy plots.

Tang Lu, the head and producer of the Damang Short Drama Studio, said in an interview with Guduo Network Film and Television: "In addition to strong plots and strong reversals, the biggest difference between long dramas and short dramas is the presentation of extreme character relationships."

However, what cannot be ignored is that after many platforms have called for the goal of creating high-quality short dramas, the quality and content of micro-short dramas have also been visibly improved, especially in the suspense field. Micro-short dramas under five minutes are also beginning to have similar quality and viewing experience as longer videos.

As the "refined" development continues to advance, the development and expansion of "suspense" will have more room for imagination.

2. More urgent "branding"

Whether it is the short video players' continuously strengthened support plans, or the "latecomers" long videos launching more micro-short drama vertical theaters one by one, the battle for high-quality micro-short dramas is becoming more and more fierce.

Douyin launched the "Drama Gravitation Plan", creating three tracks: Dou+, profit sharing, and drama stars; Kuaishou upgraded the "Kuaishou Star Plan" to "Kuaishou Star Short Drama" in 2021, and announced the "Kuaishou Star Excellent Talent Support Plan" in 2022; Tencent Video launched the "Shifen Theater", Mango TV launched the "Big Mango Short Drama", and Youku, Tencent and Mango all set "short drama" in the homepage channel column...

Li La, deputy general manager of Tencent's online video platform operations department, explained "Shifen Theater" by saying: "Tencent Video has a large amount of high-quality content in reserve, and plans to broadcast it in seasons throughout the year, providing users with exciting, diverse and rich content through comedy season, national style season, interactive season and suspense season."

"Shifen Theater" released pictures

The word "suspense" clearly stated undoubtedly carries more expectations from the platform.

However, it is not easy for suspense-type creations to eventually become high-quality series, even if they are placed in the long video track.

After ten years in the industry, long videos have finally made the word "suspense" into a quality theater brand through "Misty Theater". The micro-short drama track, which has been boosted by short videos, is more forward-looking and urgent in its desire to brand "suspense".

Tencent Video's short drama channel offers suspense and brain-burning as a type to choose from; in 2022, the Damang short drama released "Summer Studio" and divided it into three theaters, including "Breaking the Mystery", and such "theaterization" is also directly reflected in the layout of theaters and corresponding types of micro-short dramas on the client...

Even so, the platform's desire is just the beginning, and the suspense micro-short drama has not yet been fully realized to achieve complete "high-quality" status.

At present, the most enthusiastic feedback in the market is the martial arts suspense "Nian Nian Wu Ming", which has been rated 6.9 points by nearly 40,000 people on Douban, and the "Unthinkable" series, which had two works with a score of 7.2 in 2019. The rest of the suspense short dramas are more about maintaining the popularity within the platform, and have failed to reach a consistent level in terms of word-of-mouth and market popularity.

Douban screenshot

Of course, the increased investment from some mature production companies is bringing more hope for the quality of "suspense" genre creations. For example, Free Cool Whale's new martial arts suspense short drama "The Mystery of Brocade Robes" has reached the standard industrial level in terms of quality, judging from the audience feedback. Douban also gave it a good score of 6.9 points, but unfortunately, it is slightly lacking in popularity.

Therefore, some long video platforms have developed derivative micro-short drama series based on the IP of high-quality suspense dramas, which has become an important way for suspense micro-short dramas to gain more popularity . The derivative short drama "Su Wuming from the Tang Dynasty", "Strange Stories of the Tang Dynasty", has once again broadened and implemented the imagination of long and short and derivative content.

Another manifestation of the accelerated pursuit of "Misty Theater" by suspense micro-short dramas is that serialization and IPization are also spreading.

For example, the short drama brand Bu Si Yi mentioned above has been continuously launching the Bu Si Yi series. Works such as Bu Si Yi: Mysterious People and Mysterious Things, Bu Si Yi: Abnormal Species, and three Bu Si Yi: Dictionary have been launched in recent years; The Book of Yu Ji, which contains elements of ancient costumes, romance, suspense, and fantasy, and The Order of the Color Gate, which contains elements of ancient costumes, suspense, and romance, are two of the "Washe Trilogy" produced by Tencent Video and Tencent Weishi; in addition, the fantasy and suspense "Strange Things House" and the light suspense emotional "Strange Exchange" drama "Goddess Hotel" have also formed a seasonal broadcast format...

The extremely sweet and extremely bloody content of Jinjiang online literature still occupies an absolute position in the field of micro-short dramas, and the platform and creators' sprint into the suspense track has injected more fuel into the micro-short dramas to reach a higher level of refinement.

In addition to satisfying the preferences of vertical users and becoming a force to supplement the platform content, suspense micro-short dramas still need to wait for one work after another that can attract greater volume and gain better reputation. Only in this way can micro-short dramas give birth to a "mist theater" that truly has long-term value.

Author: Wang Xinyi

Source public account: Yiyuguancha (ID: yiyuguancha), the telescope and sonar of the pan-entertainment industry.