Crazy Skit: Who's Making Your Cool Spots?

Editor's note: The brainless and cheesy short drama that is often complained about has been reborn with the blessing of the algorithm and has become one of the hottest wealth keywords today. Editing "brain evaporation", the audience is cool to the end, how long can the crazy short drama be popular?

"I have lived for more than 20 years, and I have not been able to go to the grave and kneel more than half a year combined, and my knees are always bruised. Zhong Xi said.

In 2022, Jong-hee returned to China from his doctoral studies in acting at Hanyang University in South Korea and began to make short dramas. Zhong Xi has a pair of pitiful big eyes, and the most common role is the heroine in sadomasochistic short dramas. Being choked by the male protagonist, forced to kneel, and slapped are commonplace, and the audience loves to watch it.

As a newcomer actor in short dramas, Zhong Xi has an annual income of nearly one million yuan. Vertical screen short dramas, which have just been born for two years, have a tendency to replace TV series and movies. In 2023, there will be more than 3,000 short dramas launched across the country, and the box office market is expected to be 25 billion yuan, close to the total box office of Chinese films in 2022 (about 30 billion yuan).

The short drama is based on the themes of time-traveling, sadomasochism, god of war, and rebirth, which are common in online novels, with each episode lasting 1 to 2 minutes, and it costs 1 yuan to watch an episode, and the box office of a single episode can reach up to hundreds of millions of yuan. In 2023, "local cool dramas" will usher in a big explosion, and they are also very popular in Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States.

The brainless and cheesy short drama that is often complained about has been reborn with the blessing of the algorithm and has become one of the hottest wealth keywords today.

Slap 1 every 5 minutes

In November 2022, when she stepped into the short drama crew for the first time, Zhong Ximeng, who had studied acting for nearly ten years, did not expect that one day the director's camera monitor could be erected, and the script was adapted from an online novel, and an episode was only one or two minutes. A movie takes months or even years to make, while a skit takes only 5 to 7 days.

In the first episode of the short drama "Gu Shao's Hidden Marriage Wife", the domineering president's girlfriend was sick and lying in the hospital, and the boss asked the nurse to draw blood from his wife and then lose it to his girlfriend. Zhong Xi plays the role of this bullied wife, who was bullied on campus when she was a child, and the boss protected her, so she fell in love with the boss and signed a humiliating blood supply agreement.

Zhong Xi later played more types of sadomasochism, and she had to be choked every few minutes, and once she played the heroine who experienced 28 events such as stomach cancer and being cut off her finger. "I've never seen anyone so miserable when I've grown up so big. Zhong Xi said helplessly.

Sadomasochism and sweet pets are the themes that female audiences love to watch, while male audiences love to watch God of War even more.

Mr. Su, 38, was resting on the sofa after returning home from work at a factory in Suzhou, when an advertisement for a skit about the God of War that he loved to watch popped up on Douyin. In the 10th minute, when he saw the fun, the skit stopped abruptly, and the prompt to pay to watch jumped out, 1 yuan per episode. It costs 70 to 100 yuan to pay to watch a short drama, which is more expensive than going to the cinema to watch a movie.

People over the age of 30 in the eastern coastal areas like Mr. Su are currently the mainstream users of skits. In the past six months, Mr. Su has watched fewer and fewer traditional TV series, but he has to watch three or four short dramas a week. "The plot of the short drama is more compact, not as watery as the TV series", said many skit viewers.

In the finale of "Gu Shao's Hidden Marriage Sin Wife", the abused and bullied "Hidden Marriage Sin Wife" finally turned over, took revenge on the bad guy who got in the way, and got the love of the boss.

The usual routine of short dramas is to promote and suppress first, like a spring to press the ordinary weak protagonist to the end, and then suddenly rebound, counterattack all the way, and harvest love and wealth. But the reality is often only the first half, the spring is pressed to the point that it loses the tenacity to rebound, and it can no longer bounce back.

"You know that this script can't be called "Love with the President after Amnesia", Song Yuan of the short drama company receives a lot of script submissions every day.

"Would it be better if it was changed to "After Amnesia, I Treat the Domineering President as a Son"?" I asked.

"That's a lot better, you know the title of the skit. ”

For both the audience and the actors, the skit is a huge change. "The short play compresses the space and time we feel dramatic to two minutes, which is not only a subversion of the narrative form of thousands of years, but also cultivates a new Xi of reception for the audience. Liu Jun, a professor at Communication University of China, said.

The skit was originally inspired by an advertisement for a web novel. In order to promote the novel, some companies adapt the content into a video of about one minute and put it on the short video platform to attract traffic. After the online advertisements of "Crooked Mouth Dragon King" and "Counterattack God of War" caused repercussions. Since 2020, some people have thought of making online articles into short film and television works.

A short drama is popular for two or three months at most. For example, the plot of "the domineering president chasing the female secretary" is very popular now, but it can only last for two months. Combined with the time for project establishment, script and post-production, there are only 5 to 7 days left for the actors to perform. As a result, the actors had to work 18 hours a day. Everyone in the crew said that filming a short drama was too "boiling".

On June 26, 2019, in Jinhua, Zhejiang, through the filming of ancient web dramas, actor Dandan gained nearly 300,000 fans on the Kuaishou platform and established his own company. (@视觉中国 Fig.)

Zhong Xi's first drama exploded, and the total box office of "Gu Shao's Hidden Marriage Wife" reached 80 million yuan. This result was even in the top 20% of the film market that year, and it was also remade into an English version and released overseas.

Short drama appointments have come one after another, and Zhong Xi's salary has also risen from a few hundred yuan a day in 2022 to 5,000 yuan. Since January 2023, she has filmed 16 short dramas, with more than 2,000 fans.

But skits don't last as long as movies. Two weeks after its launch, a short drama will be forgotten by the audience. At that time, the short drama platform no longer blindly placed advertisements, but let tens of thousands of bloggers distribute them, and the pirated copies of these dramas often appeared on station B.

Everything was too fast. There are 3 turns in 1 minute, 1 slap every 5 minutes, and 10 minutes to bury a "hook" for the audience to pay. finished filming a drama in 7 days, went from popularity to disappearing in two weeks, and changed the hot spot every two months.

It's not just the drama that's getting shorter, it's also the attention and patience of people in this era. This revolution, which originated from fragmented time, drew people's attention to mobile phones and online novels, and finally ignited the fuse in the film and television industry, making short dramas a big business comparable to movies in two years, and also attracting countless gold diggers.

"This is by no means the profiteering industry that people imagine is small and big"

"Wealth and freedom depend on this fight", in the imagination of the gold diggers of the skit, the skit is an untapped gold mine, and the gold that can be picked up by bending down. Stories circulating in Hengdian include that a screenwriter was poached by another company and offered a few million yuan in job-hopping fees, and a luxury car, and the boss who sold props invested 750,000 yuan to make a short drama, with a monthly recharge turnover of nearly 100 million yuan.

This kind of story of getting rich overnight attracts more money and people from all over the world to Hengdian. Advertising companies and wedding photos all came to shoot skits. Bosses who have made money in the retail, real estate, logistics, and financial industries in the past have taken the initiative to invest money in skit companies and crews. Some familiar names appear in the short drama circle, such as Chen Ou, the founder of Jumei, and Mimeng, the first generation of self-media people.

"Some media and institutions estimate that the market size of short dramas will reach 30 billion yuan this year, but we think it is only about 25 billion yuan," said an executive of a short drama company. His company has more than doubled its staff in a year and is about to move into a new building.

Producer Lao Jin sighed: "In two years, the short drama has completed the road of ten years of big online movies and more than a hundred years of movies. ”

But the rule of 28 still applies in the skit industry, where 20% of people take 80% of the money. Everyone felt that they were 20% lucky, including Xu Zhou.

After smelling the wind of the short drama, Xu Zhou will partner with several friends to shoot a short drama in 2023. After bringing in hundreds of thousands of yuan of investment, they are filming the third work in Hengdian.

At first, Xu Zhou referred to many successful short dramas, integrated their stalks and stories, and made two short dramas, but he didn't even get the cost back. Xu Zhou's friend also came to shoot a short drama, "The budget was 400,000 yuan, and 800,000 yuan was spent, and now 1,000 yuan has been returned." But the story of their loss of money will not be circulated in Hengdian, "and many people in this industry still generate electricity for love," Xu Zhou said.

Skits are a bonanza that only huge amounts of capital can leverage. Ordinary players like Xu Zhou actually don't have enough money to invest in streaming, that is, to place advertisements on the information flow of Douyin and Kuaishou.

It seems that there are not many venues and personnel for the short drama, and it only takes hundreds of thousands of yuan to find someone to film, but in fact, the production is only a drop in the cost, and 90% of the money is used to buy traffic.

At 12 o'clock in the evening, the lights of the streaming department of a leading skit company were still on. Evening is the peak of skit viewing and payment, and the staff on duty has to determine how many ads to put on the next day and which users. Behind the skit advertisements that the audience seems to have swiped by chance are the team's complex calculations and sky-high costs.

This is also why the head company of the short drama is not a traditional film and television company, but a former advertising or online text company, and half of the employees are programmers. Half of the stream is based on complex mathematical models, and half is based on experience, "the same video, two accounts are completely different effects". Casting is a combination of science, money, and art.

A skit is like an investment with carefully calculated probabilities and returns. No one can predict whether a certain short drama can be profitable, so the short drama company shoots 50 films a month, and if the signs of any drama are not good, they will suspend the flow and stop the loss immediately. The company can lose 49 times, and only needs to win 1 time to recoup the cost. But Xu Zhou will lose ten years of savings if he loses 3 times.

"A lot of people want to come and make skits now, and I often advise inexperienced people not to come back, because this is not the lucrative industry that people imagine is small and big," said an executive at a skit company.

In the myth of getting rich in Hengdian, the only thing that is credible is the huge advertising fee charged by the platform.

The dream of a "low-level actor".

Crowded Hengdian is not only with money from all directions, but also actors from all over the world who come to make a living and pursue their dreams.

In April 2023, Zhong Xi's company arranged for her to play the heroine of a short drama, but a few days before filming started, she still hadn't received a notice from the crew. She called the director several times before the director asked her to come to the script reading that night.

rushed to the crew, and the director told her that this drama would be filmed in two versions, horizontal screen and vertical screen, Zhong Xi could play the heroine of the vertical screen, but the horizontal screen had to be played by another actor. Zhong Xi felt that this was a hint that she was not worthy of acting in a long drama as a short drama actor.

"Teacher, you may not know, I have a PhD in acting. Zhong Xi told the director. Then she refused to star in the skit.

There is also a chain of contempt between the crew. "Those who make dramas look down on those who make movies, those who make movies look down on those who make TV series, and those who make TV series look down on those who make short dramas", a "Hengpiao" said that this is the tacit rule of Hengdian.

In the short drama "Gu Shao's Hidden Marriage Wife", Zhong Xi played the bullied wife. (Photo provided by the interviewee)

"Who does the skit look down on?" I asked.

"Those who make short dramas don't look down on anyone, and short dramas are the bottom. ”

Hengdian is a hierarchical place, and people do not shy away from calling extras "low-level actors". They live in a 35-yuan one-night hotel on Wansheng Street in Hengdian, and the landlord is reluctant to rent it to them because they have no stable income. During the epidemic, some people even lived in the bridge cave. A kilometer away, the stars live in a mansion with a monthly rent of more than 10,000 yuan.

When he first returned to China, Zhong Xi was a "low-level actor". She has made cameo appearances in several online movies, earning hundreds of dollars a day, but only one or two plays a month. Traditional film and television dramas do not provide many jobs, and most graduates leave the film and television industry to work in sales, teachers or administration. Her worst plan is to become a Korean teacher.

Zhong Xi doesn't care about being a "low-level actor", "The most important thing is that I am an actor, so I should act". If it weren't for the skit, she might have left the film and television industry to become a Korean teacher.

"Only those who have confidence can resolutely not make short dramas", said a "horizontal drifter". Especially since the epidemic, the number of crews in Hengdian has fallen off a cliff, and many group performers have left Hengdian. The skit boom started, and these actors are back. There are actors from non-professional backgrounds who have become the heroines of short plays, and the director who has not received a play for 3 years has filmed more than a dozen short dramas this year.

Wang Lei is 62 years old, playing an uncle with no lines in a skit, he can't even speak Mandarin, he can only speak Shandong's dialect. Before coming to Hengdian, Wang Lei was a retired employee of a state-owned enterprise, with a monthly pension of 8,000 yuan, and often made cameo appearances in small local performances.

In October 2023, he came to Hengdian alone, rented a house, and stared at the WeChat group every day to pick up jobs. He has already acted in seven or eight plays, most of which are short plays, and he can only get a hundred yuan for 10 hours a day. But Wang Lei doesn't know whether he is acting in a short drama or a long drama, and he doesn't care how much he is paid, he just thinks that "acting is fun" and "can learn something".

The audience needs to be cool to the end

Mr. Li, an executive of the skit company, asked his subordinates to play the skit on the big screen. Two minutes later, he looked away from the screen and turned to me and said, "I'm sure we can't see it, we're not the audience for this kind of skit." ”

The accusation that skits are "earthy videos" has always existed. "One second you're still talking well, and the next second you're yelling and stuck, it's not normal logic. There are also a lot of lines copied from online novels, and Zhong Xi sometimes can't say these embarrassing lines.

But the so-called "earthy taste" is the audience's preference calculated and summarized by the short drama company. Using data from Douyin and Kuaishou, skit companies study user portraits, favorite videos, and recent trending. There are "three golden chapters" in the online text, and the short drama also has to bury exciting plots in the first ten episodes as "hooks", such as sudden amnesia, car accidents, revenge, and being beaten, so that the audience has the urge to recharge.

Xu Zhou is a typical academic screenwriter, with a background in related majors, and has worked in film and television and advertising companies for seven or eight years. Before filming the short play, she repeatedly watched the documentary "I Love to Kill Matt", which was her imaginary audience, and she added the plot of self-reflection and care for the bottom of the male protagonist's counterattack to the counterattack script.

As a result, the market response to this short drama was dismal, and the cost was not recovered. "The script of the skit drove the academy crazy," Xu said. The skit taught her a lesson, the audience needs to be refreshed to the end, and there is no need for detours and reflections. Her investor, a retail boss, insisted on writing about her life's struggles in a skit and slapped her every five minutes.

"In traditional movie scripts, a drama can only have one setting. For example, if he can travel through time and space, he can't be a miracle doctor, otherwise the audience will feel confused," this is the screenwriting knowledge Xu Zhou learned in school, "But the protagonist of the short drama can stack many skills, both rebirth and crossing, and he is the god of war, as long as the audience feels cool." ”

After learning Xi several popular short dramas frame by frame, Xu Zhou felt that his brain had "evaporated". This is too far from the aesthetic standards she accepted in the academy, "watching it will lower her IQ", and some friends accused her of making short dramas as "making money and killing people". Some screenwriters believe that short dramas are actually amplifying the dark side of human nature, satisfying the dark psychological needs of unspeakable, and even anesthetizing the mind.

In the skit market in Hengdian, local culture temporarily overwhelmed elite art education. Successful skit writers need to learn to self-exile, say goodbye to the aesthetic education they received in the past, and force themselves to embrace the earthy.

Is the skit a "local video"? No one in Hengdian answered this question positively, "If the audience likes it, then why can it be said that the short drama is earthy and murderous for money?" Xu Zhou's once solid aesthetic and plot ethics standards gradually disappeared.

But some skits are not just dirty, but also break through the bottom line of morality and law.

One screenwriter who received submissions said that he received more than a dozen scripts a day, and only one or two were qualified, and other scripts often had long expletives and distorted values.

The "Black Lotus Upper Position Handbook", which was removed from the shelves in November 2023, is a typical example of this. In this revenge-based skit, the protagonist poisons his biological father to death and burns his half-sister to death in prison. The play is rumored to have a recharge of more than 20 million yuan in 24 hours.

During the same period, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television carried out a one-month special rectification work on online micro-short dramas, and a large number of short dramas were taken offline. Many short drama screenwriters said that they will no longer accept revenge, palace fighting, and crossing scripts in the future.

Zhong Xi has recently been writing the script of a short play, which is a romance film set in the Republic of China, and she hopes to act in a short play written by herself in the future. "It's hard to have such an industry, and it can't be lost because of some low-quality short dramas. ”

(At the request of the interviewee, Song Yuan and Xu Zhou are pseudonyms in the article)