In the past two days, the news that the spin-off short drama "Celebrating More Than Years" is about to start filming has been on the hot search.
Although there is the traffic effect of the super IP "Celebrating More Than Years" itself, it has long been an indisputable fact that major platforms and film and television production companies are vying to enter the "short drama rivers and lakes" and expand the production territory of short dramas.
In Q1 of 2024, while dramas such as "South to North", "Ice Hunting", "Walking with the Phoenix", "Flower Order" and "Wind Chaser" are competing for PK and igniting the market heat, many short dramas are quietly reaping praise, traffic and benefits in the cracks, adding another fire to the road of short dramas "on the table".
Recently, Yunhe Data released the 2024 Q1 short drama (long video platform short drama) list, which considers short dramas from three dimensions: effective playback, effective playback for 7 days on average, and 30 days on average on set.
Judging from the 13 works on the list, female frequency has become the mainstream of the short drama track, and horizontal screen short dramas such as "Give Her a Handle" and "Hold the Pen" are even comparable to the popular long dramas in the same period.
What is the traffic password for short dramas to get out of the circle?What kind of plot and character design can catch the audience's attention more?Q1What are the new trends in short drama creation?
Today, we will analyze one or two according to this list of Yunhe.
Female frequency: sadomasochism, revenge, big heroine
Among the more than ten dramas on the list, female frequency dramas are divided into three categories: costumes, era, and modern according to the time background of the story.
Costume dramas show the characteristics of strong atmosphere, eye-catching, fast rhythm and reversal, and more and more sophisticated production.
Tencent's "Give Her a Handle" is the biggest winner in Q1, ranking first with 140 million effective views of the feature film.
The play takes the route of costume sadomasochism, integrating a series of elements such as family affection, love, conspiracy, and conspiracy; In the love line, it is also placed in hot online stalks such as "uncle and sister-in-law sadomasochism" and "stand-in literature"; especially the "crazy criticism" attribute of the second male son, which has a bit of the flavor of Li Chengyin (played by Chen Xingxu) in "East Palace", and the ending of all BE (bad ending) also makes many netizens uneasy.
"Heart Eater" also uses sadomasochism as a selling point, but the abuse here is not the abuse of being forced to marry someone you don't love and then meeting true love, but the abuse of Yan Xun (played by Dou Xiao) and Yuan Chun (played by Li Qin) in "The Legend of Chu Qiao".
The reason why "sadomasochism" can become a traffic password is because of the dramatic conflict, and because the audience always has a reversed expectation of the HE ending (happy ending). Even if it does end in tragedy, the huge emotional impact will make the audience more touched.
Another popular short drama "Writing" is also from Tencent.
Three days after the show was launched, the popularity of the station exceeded 21,000, setting a new high in Tencent Video's micro-short drama station; two weeks after the broadcast, the cumulative account share exceeded 10 million, and the Douban score was 7.6, and finally stabilized at 7.4, with a strong momentum.
From the story to the characters, the adaptation of "Writing" is quite innovative. It does not take the "sweet" style of traditional short dramas, but the high-burning route of the big heroine, with both texture and connotation.
In terms of narrative, it is a typical "anti-vicious female partner" narrative, and within the framework of the character design of "Black Lotus", it injects the modern thinking of "my life is up to me, not to the sky" for the heroine.
In terms of personality, compared with the pure little white flower and extreme love brain, the heroine's strong self-concept and the rebellious spirit of "not accepting fate" are more in line with the taste of the current young audience.
In terms of shooting, the Chinese aesthetics under the combination of red and green tones, the ingenuity of the tone, lens, and art level have all become the plus points of the play.
In terms of period dramas, there is a model for getting out of the circle provided by the short drama "Provocation", and forbidden love and revenge dramas have become the core of the genre.
Although "Fierce Love" is from the perspective of the male protagonist, the emotional pull and the development of the revenge route are aimed at more female audiences.
In the play, the male protagonist who was tragically destroyed because he mistook his sister-in-law for the daughter of the enemy, and after leaving with hatred for many years, he became a warlord major general and returned for revenge. The two constantly had contradictions and misunderstandings under the entanglement of family grievances, and secretly felt feelings for each other in the process of pulling.
In order to find out the truth about the Wen family's annihilation, the heroine Wen Yunong (played by Dai Yanni) in "Spring Love" entered the Qin family under the pretense of identity, but met again with her lover Qin Kewen (played by Dai Gaozheng) three years ago.
During the period of the Republic of China, the nobles of the high families provided natural soil for the legendary stories of talented and beautiful women. The grievances and hatreds between the warlord and the wealthy lady are quite dramatic, and the integration of revenge elements adds a sense of suspense, while "Forbidden Love" satisfies the audience's voyeuristic desires through emotional entanglement under identity dislocation.
In terms of modern dramas, one is a wealthy story such as "Love as a Contract" and "Twilight Heart", and the other is a female counterattack story such as "Housewife's War" and "Attack on the Lady".
Taking "Love as a Deed" and "Twilight Heart" as examples, the protagonists of both are eighteen-tier young actors, the former is the main actor and heroine to help the wealthy male protagonist gain family recognition, and the latter is the actor male protagonist and the president female protagonist become happy enemies.
The combination of "wealthy family + entertainment industry" is a typical configuration of many online articles. The audience loves to watch it, which is nothing more than a strong combination of handsome men and beautiful women, strong men and strong women. The romantic story and the sweet and sadistic plot can be described as earthy and sweet, which makes people want to stop.
"Housewives' War" and "Attack on the Lady" are even more accurate to the pain points and cool points of modern women. The former tells the story of the heroine who turned from a workplace executive to a housewife for the sake of her children, who found out that her husband was cheating and transferred assets, and since then she has started the road of counterattack and completed self-rebirth and life counterattack.
The latter is also the heroine who returned to the family and was betrayed by her fiancé, and then got rid of the scumbag and returned to the workplace to achieve a counterattack.
Tearing up the green tea junior, slapping the face and cheating man, meeting the boss and the little wolf dog after breaking up/divorce, returning to the workplace and turning into a big heroine all the way The narrative routine has been tried and tested repeatedly in modern dramas.
On the one hand, this kind of story mostly focuses on the plight of women in marriage - the mothers are thankless, the scumbags are ruthless and selfish, and the theme of finding oneself is obviously more substitutional;
On the other hand, it returns to the universal values of good and evil retribution, and the coolness brought by the counterattack makes the audience feel comfortable, and it is not difficult to understand the high number of broadcasts.
Male frequency: counterattack, lying to win, new story
The male frequency dramas on the list in Q1 of 2024 can be described as both traditional and innovative.
"My name is Zhao Wudi" and "Accept it when you see it" are the ways of "traditional" male frequency short dramas: the male protagonist with an ordinary identity unexpectedly gets the favor of the overlord-style heroine, or stages the romantic love of marriage first and then love, or faces the sweet choice of "many women chasing one man".
For example, in "My Name is Zhao Wudi", the male protagonist is a small security guard from a special forces, and because the fiancé ran away on the day of the female president's wedding, the male protagonist was selected to replace him in a hurry. After that, the two entered the mode of fake drama and real play, and the male protagonist began to save the female protagonist from danger many times, and the emotional concentration soared rapidly.
"Take it when you see it" is even more gripping. The male protagonist is a master of stone appreciation, he came to Manchester City for the first time to find Bai Yueguang's girlfriend, and unexpectedly gained the favor of the daughter of a wealthy family and the charming royal sister, and was appreciated by many bigwigs in Manchester City.
Money, beauties, adventures, and gold fingers are all complete, from being despised to relying on professionalism to successfully counterattack, "Accept When You See It" takes "coolness" and "burning" to the extreme.
No matter what the identity of the male protagonist is, he can always achieve a leap in status and class, and he can always gain the favor of a lot of beauties.
iQIYI's two short dramas on the list, "Young Master and Me" and "Don't Panic the King", are quite alternative, both of which are from iQIYI's latest label "Little Comedy Theater". They are neither big male lead dramas, nor are they obviously female-oriented, but in terms of story level and narrative depth, they are closer to the quality of long dramas.
On Douban, the former had 21,000 viewers score 7.3 points, and the latter had 46,000 viewers score 7.9 points, which shows that the audience highly recognizes its quality.
"The Young Master and Me" abandons the story structure of "The Young Master and the Housekeeper" in the "Annual Comedy Contest", and presents all kinds of interesting relationships between Long Aotian and Liu Bo in this group of comedy CPs by creating 12 parallel time and space stories with different styles.
"Don't Panic, King" goes one step further. The vivid depiction of the world and the reflection of the "panicked" life of contemporary migrant workers continue to resonate with the audience, and the absurd method of alluding to joy and writing sorrow with joy enhances the thickness and breadth of the content.
The style is diverse, the character design is renovated, the refreshing feeling is big enough, and the trend of high-quality creation is obvious. Horizontal screen short dramas such as "Writing" and "Don't Panic King" have made a good start for the development of short dramas in 2024. However, whether it can continue to output works with market competitiveness and compete with long dramas requires content producers to continue to cultivate.
[Sentence / Moe]