Observation of micro-short dramas
In the past two years, especially since the Spring Festival this year, the popularity of micro-short dramas such as "I Was a Stepmother in the 80s" has attracted more people, and these single episodes are from tens of seconds to about 15 minutes, with a variety of themes, known for their fast pace, high density, strong conflict, and multiple reversals. Through revenge, son-in-law counterattack, wealthy grievances, sweet pet sadomasochism and other cool points to capture a large number of users. According to the "2023-2024 China Micro Short Drama Market Research Report", the market size of micro short dramas in 2023 has reached 37.39 billion, about 10 times that of two years ago.
Based on the observation of vertical screen micro-short dramas, this paper points out that the constantly intensified and amplified "cool" experience, the pleasure of gazing and the reproduction of a large number of similar emotional experiences bring the audience into a cultural collage of repetition and reincarnation, which not only dilutes the sensitivity to real emotions in the alienation from reality, but also exacerbates the time anxiety in reality in the double-speed time experience, making it impossible for the audience who are accustomed to the narrative of "high density and high amount of information" to adapt. It can be seen that the top priority in the future development of micro-short dramas should be to think about how to carry in-depth thinking in micro-narratives, and more fine, vertical, professional, typological and standardized creative production is already a meaning.
Text / Lu Jiajia Li Ruibing
In the era of vertical screen, as a new composite form, the micro-short drama has triggered a new media experience with its unique visual presentation and image rhythm. The so-called micro-short dramas mainly refer to those online short dramas with a single episode length from tens of seconds to about 15 minutes, with a relatively clear theme and main line, and a relatively continuous and complete storyline. In terms of the structure of the film and television industry, it is mainly manifested in the lightweight content and focus communication model, and mainly relies on the account sharing model of each platform, membership payment, advertising profit, video account development, mini program drainage, live streaming and peripheral product development and other models to form a profit ecology. Needless to say, micro-short dramas with vertical screen media as the main form have sprung up and become a new online literary and artistic form of cultural and entertainment creative production, with its unique screen boundary mode, micro-short structure, high magnification rate, interactive mechanism, etc., all of which have triggered a new aesthetic change at present, that is, a vertical screen image experience with both refreshment and pleasure.
01
The magnified vertical screen landscape and the "refreshing" experience
At present, the seemingly non-stop media experience of "always-on, always-connected" has become the norm in people's daily life, and vertical screen mobile terminals are an important factor in accelerating this scene. In terms of media experience, it promotes the achievement of audience initiative, completes the interactive and embedded coupling between the audience and the "mobile screen", and the presence of people is not emphasized all the time. At the same time, the fleeting experience of accelerated time has become the norm in everyday life. As a result, the hidden dominance of the "attention economy" in the mechanism of the cultural industry is more prominent, and the micro-short dramas with vertical screens/small screens stacked on top of the windows as the main form are coupled with the rise of this economic dominance in the creative logic. The paradigm of image language spawned by the new vertical and small screen is mainly manifested in the display of exaggerated physical wonders, such as being more inclined to show body details, and paying special attention to the high-frequency cross-use of medium, near, and special scenes in the lens language, etc., infinitely simulating the social distance in real life, trying to achieve an intimate reading relationship between the text and the audience and a communication pattern of "social presence".
For example, "I Was a Stepmother in the 80s", which is more popular nowadays, also pays attention to the display of physical wonders, and the film adopts the technique of "suspense narrative", so that the heroine and the audience mistakenly think that the male protagonist is a rough man with a "fat head and big ears", but when the male protagonist appears, he is completely a high-quality image with a sense of face and responsibility. In order to highlight this sense of contrast, the film focuses on the close-up display of the male protagonist's handsome facial contours and slender body when showing his appearance, so that the audience immediately has synesthesia with the surprised female protagonist and immerses themselves in the aesthetics of "high appearance". It can be seen that in the image discourse of vertical screen dramas, the body has become the object of gaze very intuitively, highlighting the narrative mechanism of this kind of film that focuses on character building, emotional transmission, and theme expression with the help of the body's audio-visual perception.
▲ Short drama "I was a stepmother in the 80s"
Not only that, the vertical screen micro-short drama also tries to create a kind of "I am the center" gaze pleasure for the audience by isolating the environment. It effectively promotes the achievement of visual focus, so that the audience is unconsciously immersed in it and empathizes with it. The main way to achieve this is to deliberately blur the background environment, put the characters in front and magnify, and exaggerate the expressions and actions of the characters, so that the audience can feel the development of the characters and the plot from an omniscient perspective that is transcendent in real life. For example, in the hit male frequency micro-short drama "Long Wind Song", the main conflict between the male and female protagonists comes from the concealment of one party's identity and the other's suspicion and speculation of his identity. In this way, the audience can peek into the hearts of the characters from an omniscient perspective, and get the pleasure of "I am the center" in mastering the plot and emotional direction.
Compared with the long drama genre, the micro-short drama pays more attention to the fragmented statement of language, the strong dramatic setting of the plot, the strong conflict of the characters, the fragmented construction of the structure, the earthy presentation of the music, and the exaggeration of the actors' performances in the text content. The audience can watch the film in any posture in any state of movement, such as taking a nap, commuting, or even walking, which is integrated with the internal rhythm of the fast-paced and sporty micro-short drama, which accelerates the attraction of the interactive and "refreshing" viewing experience.
02
"Database" Narratives and Postmodern Cultural Representations
▲ The short drama "Oops! The Queen Mother Comes to Work"
In terms of cultural expression, micro-short dramas are full of transplantation and imitation of popular culture or subculture. At present, the content ecology of micro-short dramas is mainly divided into male and female frequencies, and the main content can be divided into several popular story types such as rebirth, crossing, soul piercing, revenge, counterattack, boss, sweet pet, and sadomasochism. It presents a typical searchability or "database narrative" feature in the textual paradigm. This improves the narrative efficiency of this type of drama, and provides a path for the savage growth of some homogeneous instant food micro-short dramas in terms of creation, that is, by connecting various explosive elements together, they can quickly form commodities and put them on the market to seize traffic and capital. In other words, the underlying narrative logic of this "database narrative" comes from the continuation, collage, parody or secondary reconstruction of various hot and hot topics in the field of popular culture. For example, the male frequency micro-short drama mainly focuses on the male protagonist being insulted as a poor boy in the early stage and then returning from a counterattack as the main plot, and stimulates the audience's "cool point" through the replication of similar plots, for example, in the hit micro-short drama "The Year of the Dragon: The Return of the Clothes" and "The Return of the Hidden Dragon", "Rich and Identity" has become the most important turning point of the plot reversal, but the former is biased towards the "poor boy's counterattack", and the latter points to the cliché plot of "The Return of the Amnesiac Young Master". And the female characters in this kind of drama often adhere to the same narrative guidelines, choosing to escape marriage, divorce, and break up before the identity of the male protagonist is revealed, and then get back together after the plot reversal. The target audience for such repetitive episodes is very clear and tried-and-tested, and it has become an emotional outlet for some viewers.
▲ The paid page of the short drama "Senior Sister Fenghua Peerless Young Master Returns from the Hidden Dragon".
Most of the female frequency micro-short dramas focus on emotions, copying and pasting popular plots such as crossing, female rebirth, "tearing scumbag", etc. Some films even achieve the accumulation of this kind of narrative more directly by appropriating and collaging popular film and television series and online novels. For example, during this year's Spring Festival, the popular "Sick Villain Strategy Plan" collages the storyline of the popular film and television drama "Long Moon Embers" and the novel "Black Lotus Strategy Manual", and the plots in the play such as "The male protagonist is punished by kneeling in the cold" and "The female protagonist secretly delivers food and keeps her warm" can be indexed from "Long Moon Embers". In terms of character setting, the film adopts the setting of the heroine "wearing books" in "Black Lotus Strategy Manual", the heroine is entangled with the male protagonist in the form of multiple lives, and every rebirth will attract audiences from different circles with different popular online plots such as "palace infighting", "little mom literature", "chasing wife crematorium" and so on. Another popular drama "Winning the Male Lead After Becoming a Vicious Female Supporting Partner" adopts the setting of "Rebirth Crossing + Vicious Female Supporting Role", and stages the revenge drama of "tearing up the scumbag", the heroine's personality has changed greatly after being reborn, and she began to cut into the original time and space with the female supporting character and omniscient perspective, and control and reset the development trend of this time and space event, and her determination to revenge is very firm, getting rid of the "White Lotus Narrative" that has long been boring to the audience in previous film and television dramas, and making the audience call "happy". It can be seen that these popular micro-short dramas continue to stimulate the audience's new pain points and new cool points under the fast-paced and strong collage narrative guidelines, so as to include new audiences with new narrative singularities in every stream.
▲ ReelShort, an overseas short drama platform founded by Chinese
The micro-short drama for overseas export highlights this discursive expression of postmodernity. Popular dramas such as "The New Wealthy Family's Grievances" and "The Boss Behind the Scenes Is My Husband" broadcast on overseas vertical screen short drama platforms such as ReelShort, DramaBox, Expisode, 99TV, GoodShort, etc., pay special attention to the local mixing of elements such as wealthy families, bosses, and sweet pets that are prevalent in China with elements such as werewolves and vampires in Western culture, so that Chinese-style online dramas quickly go to sea, gain a large number of overseas audiences, and become film and television works "going out" Another way.
Throughout the development of micro-short dramas, the "refreshing" experience, gaze pleasure and the reproduction of a large number of similar emotional experiences that are constantly reinforced and amplified in the vertical screen landscape bring the audience into a cultural collage of repetition and reincarnation, which not only dilutes the sensitivity to real emotions in the alienation from reality, but also exacerbates the time anxiety in reality in the double-speed time experience, making it impossible for audiences who are accustomed to "high density and high information" narratives to adapt. It can be seen that the top priority in the future development of micro-short dramas should be to think about how to carry in-depth thinking in micro-narratives, and more fine, vertical, professional, typological and standardized creative production is already a meaning. In 2024, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television will launch the "Follow the Micro Short Drama to Travel" creation plan, aiming to create a number of high-quality micro-short dramas with both cultural connotation and economic benefits through this theme model, and various platform media have also spontaneously explored new paths for the development of micro-short dramas, such as Douyin adopts the method of "joining hands with famous directors" to promote the high-quality development of micro-short dramas, and the first season of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" in cooperation with Stephen Chow is expected to be launched in May this year. In a word, it should be the proper meaning of the future development of micro-short dramas to continuously explore how to create a high-quality, high-quality content path that tells Chinese stories and builds and disseminates a positive image of China in the field of all-media digital technology.
New Media Editor: Zheng Zhouming
Picture: Short drama data map
i: iwenxuebao
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