A five-minute episode of mini-drama has become popular, but ＂making quick money＂ is not so easy for the industry to observe.

Since 2017, the strong rise of short videos has further dismantled users’ time, and the film and television industry has gradually entered the era of "seconds" as the unit of measurement: 50 or 60 episodes of long dramas have faded out, and 12 episodes of fast-paced short dramas have replaced them; The ever-accelerating "double-speed viewing", short videos and Weibo’s dramas have made the so-called drama structure and precise logic being deconstructed and reshaped by "high speed".

The micro-short drama, the product of the combination of speed and content, comes into being with the trend: an episode of 2 minutes to 15 minutes has no unfathomable drama logic, only the rapid cut-in of the plot and the ultimate relationship between characters; Sweet pet, suspense, crossing, soft sci-fi, nonsense, everything … Even if its production is not enough "50 wool standard", it is enough to fill a time of instant noodles.

The data can prove the market effect of miniseries. It is reported that in 2022, only the number of active users of micro-short dramas on the Aauto Quicker platform increased to 260 million, of which more than 50% users watched more than 10 episodes every day; Mango TV has played over 600 million mini-dramas, among which Douban scored over 29,000, with a score of 7.3. Youku’s "The Maid of the Thousand Daughters" has a cat’s eye with a maximum heat of over 7,000, which is longer than the same period. According to media reports, Tencent video "Please! Don’t spoil me, the amount of the account broke through 30 million yuan, setting a new record for the account of micro-short plays …

Is the miniseries with such a strong momentum really a steady business? What is the real ecology of miniseries? Why do miniseries develop rapidly and form a scale? The Beijing News reporter interviewed Zhan Yali, producer of Mango TV’s "Damang Short Play", Bai Yiqi, founder and president of Linghe Culture, Lu Tian, head of the content of Shiershengxiao Media, and Du Hao, founder of sugar-free culture, to dismantle the road of micro-short play.

According to the "network mini-drama" section added by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television in the filing system in 2020, a mini-drama can be defined as an online drama with a single episode of no more than 10 minutes.

If traced back by this standard, the 2013 mini-drama "Never Imagine" can be called "the originator of mini-short drama"-each episode is only 5-10 minutes, with a total of 15 episodes, but it attracts a group of young audiences with nonsense exaggerated plots and has been filmed for three seasons in succession. But at that time, the content of online students had just started, and there was no market environment for micro-short plays to pursue victory.

The "micro-short drama" recognized by most people in the industry sprouted from 2017 to 2019. In the past three years, short videos have risen strongly and users’ time has gradually been fragmented. According to the Survey Report on TV Drama (Network Drama) Industry in China, in 2019, users of short videos in China have spent more time than long videos for the first time. At the same time, long video content is frequently flooded, and 50 or 60 episodes of online dramas emerge one after another, which in turn pushes the audience to pursue compact narrative.

"Micro-short drama" is almost the product of the war between long and short video platforms to seize users’ time. In 2021, Aauto Quicker officially launched the brand of "Aauto Quicker Xingmang Short Drama", hoping to create more head-quality mini-short dramas, and provide a full range of monetization links for micro-short dramas by means of separate account awards, brand investment promotion, live e-commerce and commercial list advertisements.

Iqiyi, Youku, Tencent Video and other platforms have also begun to lay out micro-short plays. In 2019, Mango TV officially launched the "Damang Short Play". In Zhan Yali’s view, micro-short dramas are more focused on the main story and key figures. Although they are shorter than long dramas, they need to release more information in a limited time. "The long drama market is slowly normalized at twice the speed, and micro-short dramas are new products in the market."

Linghe culture is one of the traditional film and television companies that laid out micro-short plays earlier. In 2019, Bai Yiqi found that users stayed in short videos for longer and longer, and many people seemed to have "given up" chasing long dramas, because many long dramas could be edited into short videos. "Everyone has been instilled with impatience." Bai Yiqi said that content creation is becoming more and more "fast". Under the same unit time, users want to absorb more information and get more pleasure. It takes 10 reversals in one second to easily catch the audience’s eye. From this point of view, micro-short plays are indeed superior to long plays. "There are still very few miniseries on the market in 2019, but we think it may become a new model, so we encourage the team to develop and reserve the theme."

In 2012, Lu Tian began to work in film production after graduating from Beijing Film Academy. In 2015, the concept of online drama became more and more popular. Lu Tian turned from a movie to a customized drama and a separate account drama, and served as the producer of online dramas such as Sword Dynasty and Three Thousand Crows Killing. Until 2019, after doing four or five online dramas, Lu Tian found that with the rising production cost and purchase price of online dramas, the market supply relationship of "decreasing and increasing" made the platform continuously reduce costs, and the profit margin and discourse power of the film were further suppressed. "Even if the river dries up, there is no stream to flow." In those two years, Lu Tian also became a deep short video user. In the era of quick realization of content, he began to think about whether it is possible to combine short videos with drama content to find new market development space. So, he joined the start-up company Shiershengxiao, and took Aauto Quicker’s online celebrity account as the publishing port, and began to deepen the vertical screen miniseries.

Lu Tian called Shiersheng Xiao a "small workshop"-there are only a dozen employees, and there is no huge capital flow. He is a representative of a micro film and television company. At present, a customized drama has to invest at least tens of millions, and a sub-account drama has to invest millions in the market. Such companies can often only become nameless victims in the competition of large companies. However, the low production threshold, low capital investment, quick shooting and production, quick cash return, and subsidies and financial support provided by major platforms have brought vitality to small companies: "We will make a small volume, and we will be able to open (the machine) about 1 million. Whether the money is paid by one family or two or three families, it is not a pressure. Moreover, we can split accounts with the platform, have subsidies, and return to the cycle faster, so that we can quickly realize the content and solve the problem of capital flow. " Lu Tian said.

Throughout the current micro-short drama production institutions, most of them are small and medium-sized film and television companies like Shi Er Sheng Xiao. The sugar-free culture created by Du Hao is even smaller than 12 liters, but he has successively launched works such as "Ignorance", "Golden stingy family" and "Don’t run wild with your sister". Among them, "Ignorance" achieved a two-way explosion of word-of-mouth viewing. Du Hao revealed that the trial and error cost of micro-short dramas is relatively low, and short and fast is the core advantage, which also contributes to the entry of other content ecosystems except traditional film and television companies into the micro-short drama market. "Micro-short drama is a product and business with strong vitality for a small company with us as a typical example." Du Hao said.

According to the data of Detawen, in the first half of 2022, there were 2,859 miniseries that were planned and put on record in the system of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (that is, they entered the preparatory production period), and 195 miniseries were put on record (that is, they were ready to be put on the market). Among them, the number of filings in May and June exceeded 400, which has exceeded the number of miniseries filed in 2021. Under the sword of Damocles, the short play goes against the trend.

"In the current environment, many teams have no chance to shoot long dramas. If a company that has been committed to long dramas all the year round suddenly shoots short dramas, is it really innovation? No, many are finding their way. " Bai Yizhen said frankly.

Compared with the gradual cost reduction of the platform a few years ago, the clear "reducing costs and increasing efficiency" in 2022 accelerated the reshuffle of film and television companies. According to insiders, there are only about ten S-level projects that can be passed by the video platform after several meetings in the first half of this year, which is less than the pass rate of the previous meeting. Many film and television projects can only be put into the sub-account pool, and the company’s capital flow is greatly challenged. In order to reduce losses, some companies reduced their production costs, and some companies began to quickly lay out mini-plays.

Bai Yiqin also received a mini-short drama project book from a friend. The investment is less than one million, but there are five or six producers, each of whom has only tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of inputs. "Now a lot of people will do micro-short plays through financing. It is difficult to raise at least tens of millions and hundreds of millions for a movie or drama. But miniseries can only raise hundreds of thousands. Although most of the miniseries are lost, even if the money is lost, it will not be too serious. What is more important for some companies is that the business must move. At least one project is being filmed and funds can be circulated. " Bai Yizhen said.

In April, 2022, Lu Tian wanted to shoot a mini-drama "Hutonger" which is full of Beijing flavor and shows the life of Beijingers.

Usually, the preparation of a miniseries will start with the cost. Lu Tian is expected to spend more than one million yuan on Hutonger-which he thinks is a more reasonable cost allocation in the current market. In the early years, the first miniseries "Mao Xiaoxu’s Electric Shock Life" filmed by Lu Tian once took the route of "holding high and hitting high", with 30 episodes and over one million investment. The machines used were also machines for making TV dramas. The play was well broadcast in Aauto Quicker, but it didn’t make a profit. In the past three years, after Lu Tian "lost money" many times, he found that it was easier to achieve a revenue balance by controlling the cost range of micro-short plays at 15,000 yuan a minute.

After the project of "Hutonger" was initiated, Lu Tian found Yu Zheng, a young Beijinger with millions of fans in Aauto Quicker, and invited him to be the leading role. According to the rules of "Aauto Quicker Xingmang Short Play" at that time, if the playing account meets the design of the play and the number of fans exceeds 1 million, it can participate in the sub-account reward, and the account with less than 1 million fans is more supported by traffic. "We usually choose the talent with its own traffic to star and broadcast it on his account."

Set up the cast and the script will enter the creative stage. Lu Tian revealed that the average creative period of miniseries is 60 to 75 days. After the script is finished, the crew can "seamlessly start" and the shooting period is 6 to 7 days. Modern dramas such as Hutonger usually take 6 days, while costume dramas take 7 days, which corresponds to a single episode of 2 minutes and a volume of 30-40 episodes.

But the hardest part is the shooting process. "Because our cost is low, we must find ways to save costs when shooting." Lu Tian said. First, save the scene cost. Lu Tian doesn’t like to shoot night scenes, especially in outdoor scenes such as parks. "Because we don’t have the money to drive the crane to make the bottom light, we can only find brightly lit places near the shopping mall." Secondly, save the shooting time and cost. Usually, the actors of miniseries have to finish at least 5 to 6 pages of scripts every day. But "Hutonger" and TV series "Summer in Zhang Weiguo" chose the same shooting location, and the scene cost was high, and the cost only supported shooting for five days. To this end, Lu Tian can only centralize the scene and let the actors shoot 7 pages of paper every day.

In the end, after five days of shooting and 14 days later, the first episode of Hutonger, which was only prepared for three months, was quickly launched in July 2022. "Sometimes the audience feels that if there is more money, the content will be good. But in fact, in the miniseries (we) save money and read the content well, and finally it is possible to make money. " Lu Tian said.

In the production of micro-short plays, "being quick and not breaking" is the most powerful martial arts school, and every short player is constantly drifting between "fast" and "province". According to the data of Detawen, in the first half of 2022, there were 37 miniseries that were filed and launched that year, of which 80% were completed within 100 days (that is, about 3 months); The shortest "The Cultivation of the Queen of the System" is only 2 days (it should be planned and put on record at the same time after the filming is completed).

Du Hao recalled that the actors of "Ignorance" had to shoot for about 16 hours a day, and every shooting day of the miniseries was very "precious". Even in extreme weather, they could not easily stop work. "Because shooting one more day, the extra cost is not small in the budget proportion. We must prepare two plans in advance and think of any remedy to ensure the cycle. "

The script is particularly important for the miniseries with limited production cost.

There are two golden creation principles of "the first six seconds" and "the first half minute" in the micro-short drama industry. "The first six seconds" is mainly aimed at short video platforms: its audience either enters with the mentality of watching a drama, or browses quickly and leaves quickly-once the audience’s eyes are not caught immediately in the first six seconds, your content will be scratched away instantly. "But if he can watch one or two episodes and is willing to access your account, don’t worry at this time." Bai Yizhen said frankly.

For example, Ye Mu, a mini-drama produced by Shi Er Sheng Xiao, tells the story of the unexpected death of the group boss half a minute before the first episode. Ye’s eldest son-in-law and youngest daughter are fighting for property at the funeral, but the eldest sister who should have died unexpectedly appears … "We don’t want to make a fuss about the first six seconds, but we can’t help it. Effective playback is high." Lu Tian said.

The long video platform emphasizes "the first half minute" more. First of all, it stems from the fact that its audience enters more with the psychology of watching drama, and is relatively more patient. Secondly, in the face of a 5-10-minute horizontal boutique mini-short drama, the story line is more complete and there is a link between the two, so it is more important to grasp the key points in the first half minute and leave the audience completely in the first three episodes.

Back to the specific content, the creative logic of micro-short plays is also different from that of long plays. Zhan Yali said that she had come into contact with some short plays written by long drama writers, which seemed to be "acclimatized". Long plays can build a complete multi-line story in 45 minutes, but short plays only focus on the main story and the ultimate characters accurately, and don’t even pay attention to complex logic. "Love is love, and points are divided." Many screenwriters of long dramas will lay many processes, and the pace of presentation will be relatively slow. " A screenwriter who didn’t want to be named took the recent "Daughter Maid" broadcast by Youku as an example, which tells the story that the daughter of a chaebol becomes a warlord who sleeps as a maid for revenge. This drama accurately focuses on the relationship between the overbearing warlord and darling daughter, a group of "forced love" characters. There are not too many other content branches, but it is attractive enough. "As long as the micro-short drama has super high topicality or coolness, find a precise point. Just enlarge it, do it to the extreme and get through it."

The realization of miniseries is the most concerned topic in the current market.

Lu Tian revealed that usually, after a mini-short drama is launched, the capital can be returned in three months. Compared with a long drama that can only be returned in one or two years, the business progress cycle is shortened a lot. "Even if I am not profitable, the money is back. I can do the next one. At least my funds are working, instead of spending more than 20 months and then slowly returning to this. "

The profit models of miniseries are mainly platform customization, pure accounting and copyright purchase. In addition to customization and accounting, micro-short plays have many business models different from long plays. For example, people on short video platforms bring goods. Lu Tian said that when the miniseries bring fans’ voices and e-commerce resources to Daren, the filmmakers can negotiate in-depth cooperation modes, such as live broadcast on the day of the drama broadcast, so as to realize the conversion of clicks on the drama; Or the company directly signed a contract with Daren, and after the micro-short drama was transformed into Daren traffic, it opened up the back-end live broadcast and advertising marketing, and then realized multi-channel commercial realization.

It is reported that at present, the support policies of various platforms for micro-short plays are mainly to guarantee the bottom and separate accounts, but the gameplay is quite complicated, and there is also a clear "threshold" for novices who are "ready to move". For example, at present, the sub-account production mode of Aauto Quicker mini-short plays still takes talent as the core, and its rating is "S+/S/A/P". In the recent policy upgrade, Aauto Quicker has added an additional P-level incentive growth model without fan threshold, which is mainly aimed at excellent production teams who are unfamiliar with or have no talent system. The long video platform continues the traditional mode of split-account drama, which is evaluated and priced first, and then divided according to the effective broadcast volume, which also improves the requirements for the content quality of micro-short dramas. For example, Tencent Video classifies miniseries into S, A and B levels, and the unit prices of effective viewing time for member users are respectively 2 yuan, 1.5 yuan and 1 yuan per hour.

Bai Yiqi admits that most of the miniseries on the market at present are lost, and many companies just want to make sure that there is a project to shoot first. Lu Tian also said that in the micro-short drama market, the audience will lose money if they don’t watch it.

If we say that in the past, the cost of micro-short plays has always remained below one million, this year it has achieved "increasing month by month". Du Hao revealed that if the investment in "Ignorance" was put three months ago, it could still be considered a high cost, but now he dare not say so. In his view, micro-short plays are similar to big online movies, and they are all new products based on the development of Internet film and television. The entry of large film and television companies and the strong support of long and short video platforms have enabled the micro-short drama market to quickly achieve "involution".

Bai Yizhen believes that the current cost of miniseries is too low. "If you want to shoot a little bit of quality, the production cost of one minute (excluding actors) needs to be at least between 15,000 and 20,000; In the future, it can be 30,000-40,000 yuan, or even 50,000 yuan. After all, if you put 50,000 yuan a minute into a long drama, an episode will be 2 million, which is not high at all. " Bai Yiqin doesn’t even deny that micro-short plays may have a market of 100,000 yuan a minute. "If the TO C payment market is mature, a micro-short play will have more than 10 million users to pay, and if you pay a dollar for an episode, you can also run out of a paid profit of 100 million. Can the next miniseries be produced with a budget of 10 million yuan? In the end, it is still market regulation. "

It is reported that many platforms have lowered the production threshold, improved the dimension of cash rewards for micro-short plays, and increased other cooperation modes. However, compared with the cost, Du Hao thinks that the improvement of the threshold of miniseries is more at the content level. In his view, for users who are sinking, they pay more attention to the sense of content. Even if the production is not so sophisticated, as long as the content is excellent, they can still achieve huge traffic. But at the same time, there are also a group of audiences who care about the sense of experience, audio-visual effects and content depth. They hope that the production cost of miniseries will be increased and the quality of miniseries will be improved.

Mango TV’s miniseries "Don’t mess with the white dove".

The entry of a number of large film and television companies has also intensified the competition in the micro-short drama track. In addition to Linghe culture, Shaanxi Wentou Yida Investment Co., Ltd., which has produced dramas such as Mr. Good, Little Parting, etc., produced Datang Snacks this year, which won tens of millions of accounts. There have been media reports that the subsidiary of Nothing But Thirty’s "Little Joy" production company, Ning Meng Film, has launched "From Divorce" this year, and the cumulative broadcast volume in Tik Tok has exceeded 220 million. Being in a startup, Lu Tian is happy to see big companies join in. "I think this is a very good thing. Because only the whole people pay attention to this matter, the track will become wider and wider. "

However, the fame, size and investment of large companies inevitably pose a "threat" to small companies; The insurmountable barrier between short drama and long drama also determines whether large film and television companies can go far in the micro-short drama track.

Lu Tian said that small companies have stronger mobility and better execution, and there is no complicated delivery system for large companies, which is suitable for such flexible and sensitive content as micro-short plays. "MCN can’t do miniseries, because there are no professionals, but professional film and television companies don’t understand short videos."

Micro-short plays produced by Lu Tian Company.

Bai Yizhen admits that the advantage of big companies lies in their production ability, but they don’t have enough accumulation in the creation of micro-short plays, and they are unfamiliar with the needs of users. "We all have our own long boards and short boards, and everyone needs time, but we need the market to develop more to drive revenue."

As a platform, Zhan Yali does not deny that the platform will have some traditional standards when choosing partners, but the miniseries are still very friendly to new companies and small companies. "There are thousands of books in our library, and the source companies are big or small, but the degree of homogenization is very high. For example, sugar-free culture is a start-up, with continuous high-quality content output and sincere cooperation mentality, which has enabled us to reach a strategic partnership. Therefore, miniseries do not evaluate a project from the company dimension. "

However, some people in the industry are still wary of the entry of large companies. Ms. L, who has participated in the production of miniseries, said that even if the head film company’s appeal for miniseries is not to make money, but to try new themes and form new product layouts, only actors and IP resources will be much stronger than small companies. "Including they will take some IP to the end and shoot a short drama, they will have strong enough influence. It can only be said that they are genetically different from small companies, and everyone will play differently on the track in the future. "

Before the release of "Fantasy World of a Floating Life" jointly produced by Tik Tok and Linghe, major platforms also threw olive branches to Bai Yiqi. "But we expect the miniseries to be truly TO C in the future." For example, when a film producer shoots a 20-episode miniseries, users can only watch two episodes and pay for the remaining 18 episodes. In the long video platform, users pay for the platform on demand, but short video or bilibili can make users pay directly to the account of the drama party. "I can know how much money I have received, and the platform knows that it is a clear profit. At present, TO C in Tik Tok has not been opened, so this time we can only do a data calculation simulation. If the road TO C goes through, it will be a completely different way of development for the production company. "

In the long run, many people in the industry are looking forward to the arrival of the era of monolithic payment, attracting more traffic with good content and breaking through the grading threshold of platform billing. In fact, last year, Tik Tok tried to pay for miniseries. For example, the first 40 episodes of Super Security 2 can be watched for free. From the 41st episode, users need to pay 10 coins (1 yuan) to unlock the whole drama, and they can also choose 40 coins (4 yuan) to unlock the whole drama at one time (the remaining 5 episodes). Single-chip payment is a market trend, but the lack of explosions and fine content has led the audience to remain in the position of small production, low cost and instant noodles, and the payment for micro-short plays has not yet formed a scale. According to the praise of Super Security 2, the lowest praise of the free part of the drama is around 30,000, while the average praise of the paid five episodes is only 7,000. The payment habits of micro-short drama users still need to be further cultivated.

In addition, more importantly, micro-short plays also need to open up the "content+"business model and realize diversified profit conversion in advertising patches, brand placement, e-commerce live broadcast and other channels. For example, Lu Tian expects to achieve multi-party in-depth cooperation with network experts, brand e-commerce and video platforms. Brands can implant their products into mini-dramas, which provide traffic exposure, and at the same time invite the starring talents of millions of fans to broadcast live on the video platform. In addition, the advertising attribute in the gene of miniseries can also be customized by brands. "We can’t always eat subsidies from the platform, and the subsidies are also capped. Next, we will help the platform make money. We didn’t have this awareness last year, and we will consider multi-channel content realization more this year. "

Du Hao is also very optimistic about the commercial prospects of miniseries. In his observation, big brands still focus on big variety shows and head dramas, but they need to bear the risks of long cycle, large fluctuations in broadcasting and being overstocked due to force majeure. However, the short, flat and fast mini-drama is the core advantage, although it is difficult to produce huge topic volume because of its small size and small size. "For example, if a new product is to be released in autumn, we can cooperate several months in advance, and the short period of micro-short drama can better help the brand achieve timely publicity."

Bai Yiqi plans to shoot the second season of "The Fantasy World of a Floating Life", striving to keep the content quality on the basis of reducing costs and being close to the audience of mini-dramas. Lu Tian is still trying to improve the content and cultivate a young creative team, looking forward to returning to the "ten-minute track" with a better miniseries. The platform is also constantly broadening the boundaries of micro-short dramas, trying to explore explosions in more themes. Zhan Yali revealed that Mango TV is trying to make short dramas with virtual themes, which is expected to be grafted with virtual technology. "The cost of long dramas with such themes may be more than tens of millions, but for short dramas, the cost performance is higher." Zhan Yali said that in the 1.0 stage of miniseries, most of the platforms cater to female users with themes such as sweet pets and love. In the current 2.0 stage, we have begun to try new themes such as suspense, sports competition and soft science fiction. "The future is about to usher in the 3.0 stage. With the regulatory attention of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and the continuous end of excellent teams, the micro-short drama market will usher in the process of improving quality, reducing quantity and shuffling. "

Beijing News reporter Z Ryan

Editor Tong Na

Proofread Zhai Yongjun