Poster News Chief Reporter Li Zijiao reports
"The heroine is standing next to her father in a white wedding dress, waiting for the groom who has not appeared for a long time, and she needs to get a life-saving money......"
The above episodes appeared in the overseas short drama "The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband", which gained a large number of loyal audiences. Similarly, there are many short dramas that have exploded overseas, including werewolves, vampires, wealthy sadomasochism, etc., but the core is very unified, nothing more than "love after marriage", "sweet revenge", "domineering president falls in love with me"......
Source: ReelShort's official Xiaohongshu account
Familiar settings, familiar plot trends, these short dramas that were once popular in China, but they moved the scenes abroad, and the actors changed their nationalities, but now they have become the favorite of "foreigners". Relevant data shows that the video app "ReelShort", which currently publishes these short dramas, has 3 million+ global downloads, 450,000+ daily active users, and a recent monthly turnover of more than 5 million US dollars, once topping the overall iOS download list in the United States.
So, why did the "boss" and "earthy" short dramas become popular abroad? And how were they produced? Poster news reporters had a dialogue and exchange with people in the industry.
The domestic market is too "volume", and going to sea is inevitable
Short dramas, that is, independent, short, and complete drama forms, an episode is generally only a few minutes, with a compact plot and beautiful graphics, which can meet the needs of users in the pursuit of high-quality videos in fragmented time. At the beginning of November 2023, with the combination of live-action short drama and game mode, "It's Over! I'm Surrounded by Beautiful Women!" after the crazy domination of the Steam list, the "boss short drama" with strong Chinese genes has also skyrocketed overseas.
According to statistics, overseas audiences prefer to watch short dramas with the theme of female frequency (girls' channel). At present, in the Southeast Asian market, themes such as forced love and contract marriage are the most popular, while European and American audiences prefer to watch werewolves, vampires and other themes. "I think that the essence is the theme of the domineering president in China, and it is also what we often call 'cool text'. Overseas short drama screenwriter Arthur (pseudonym) believes that what the audience needs is a moment of relaxation and a moment of emotional venting, so even if the plot is old-fashioned, the audience will be addicted and use it to release the stress in life.
"The emergence of short dramas conforms to and conforms to the needs of the audience and the development of the times, and the same is true for short dramas going overseas. Short video director Fang Fang (pseudonym) told reporters that affected by various factors such as policy, cost, and traffic, short dramas are regarded as an all-round "sinking content" in China. "There is a vacuum period in the supervision of overseas markets, and if it can be combined with local shooting of popular content, the market ceiling is extremely high, and the imagination space will be greater. ”
Source: ReelShort's official Xiaohongshu account
Behind the production and production of overseas short dramas
So, how exactly is this kind of "East-meets-West" skit produced?
"Generally, it can be divided into two categories, one is the spontaneous development of short drama IP by film and television production companies, similar to domestic MCN companies, which spontaneously create short dramas and then put them on foreign short video platforms. The other is led by overseas online text manufacturers, providing IP and investment, and then cooperating with overseas film and television teams. Fang Fang introduced that in comparison, the latter model is mature, and the resources that overseas film and television production companies can provide are relatively rich.
"The size of the film and television team is about 15 people, the production cycle is mostly two and a half months, and the studio is used to shoot, and there will be no frequent transitions, so as to ensure the efficiency of shooting, which requires the team to have a certain shooting ability. According to Fang Fang's observation, many Chinese have become important members of this kind of team. "They have the advantage of understanding the underlying logic of the script and being able to mobilize all kinds of local resources. ”
It is worth noting that while overseas short dramas are popular, they have even extended a new business: AI face swapping. In order to be more suitable for local audiences, some technology companies try to provide face replacement services for short drama characters, claiming that as long as the AI face swap is carried out on domestic short dramas, overseas short dramas can be "synthesized with one click", without copyright risk and at a lower cost.
Source: ReelShort's official Xiaohongshu account
The market prospect is good, but the explosion is not necessarily
As an emerging industry, the prospect of short dramas going overseas is generally optimistic: the entry threshold is low, compared with film and television works, the short drama investment is less, the effect is fast, and the return cycle is shorter. Its commercial monetization model is being explored and improved, and it is currently mainly composed of three types: single episode payment, membership subscription, and advertising monetization.
Despite facing a blue ocean, will the short drama that goes to sea definitely break the circle?
"Not necessarily. Fang Fang gave his own answer, "Popular models always follow the law of 28, and if you want to make popular short dramas, you need to find the rules." For example, research content, market analysis, landing experience and technology, etc. ”
Arthur, as a screenwriter, also has the same opinion, he said that in addition to luck and subject matter, it also involves the issue of localization. "Now many teams do not accept Chinese scripts, because machine or human translators cannot accurately express the information in the script, and the staff is prone to ambiguity when they see the script. In addition, some plots and plots that we think are reasonable cannot be recognized by European and American audiences, which is quite a test of the screenwriter's understanding of the customs and customs of different countries. ”