In 2020, short plays will take the lead in the high score list of TV dramas. Where will domestic short plays win？
This year, three major domestic video websites have launched a number of 12-episode short plays, which has set off a wave of short plays. Iqiyi took the opportunity to build a "Misty Theater", and launched a number of popular short plays in succession, with good results. The prevalence of short plays has enabled more audiences to devote themselves to the plot, and also made people notice the phenomenon of water flooding in long dramas. However, in view of the popularity of short plays, there are also various voices in society. Is the popularity of short plays a temporary fashion or a new change in the domestic drama market? In this regard, Sina Entertainment New Wave Forum launched a topic discussion — — Where did you win the short play that braved the wind and waves?
Ying Dai, vice president of Aiqiyi and general manager of self-made drama development center, Ma Lingshan, co-founder of Wuyuan Culture and co-producer of Ten Days Game and Sisyphus, Dan Lu, co-founder of Haoji Film and producer of Silent Truth, and Qi Xi, a new generation actress who plays Sisyphus, were invited as the on-site guests of this forum. The moderator of this forum discussion is Zhang Ben, director of comprehensive content of Sina entertainment drama and director of Weibo star video.
Reject plot water injection and give plot creation more possibilities.
The forum activities are mainly divided into four units, which discuss the rise and characteristics of short plays, the creation and performance of short plays, the marketing and profit of short plays, and the influence and future of short plays. At the beginning of the forum, Zhang Ben, the host, introduced the popular status of short plays this year and asked Ms. Ying Dai, vice president of iQiyi, why she chose to launch short plays in batches in 2020.
Ms. Ying Dai also expressed her thoughts very sincerely, saying that her team’s 12 episodes of "Crime without a Certificate" launched in 2017 had a good reputation, but because there were only 12 episodes, the drama effect was very short. Therefore, the team hoped to make the short drama works to the extreme and play a real short drama effect. Moreover, in 2018, there were quite a few good short drama scripts, which coincided with the idea of making a short drama theater by the team, and the iQiyi team officially opened the first step of the short drama theater.
In response to the doubts raised by the majority of netizens: Recently, short plays are basically linked to suspense, either suspense+science fiction, suspense+society, or suspense+love. Moderator Zhang Ben also asked Ms. Dan Lu about this issue. Ms. Dan Lu said: Suspense is a main clue in any type of drama. With suspenseful clues, the plot can arouse the audience’s curiosity and the plot will be more enjoyable.
In addition, the guests also discussed the correspondence between suspense types and the number of short episodes. Ying Dai pointed out: In the past, all content creators had only two directions to choose, one was a movie and the other was a long drama, but there was no intermediate product. The emergence of short plays makes the plot creation more possible and releases more story volume, which is beneficial to the appropriate story volume in the appropriate number of story sets. Qi Xi, an actress, also said that the short play avoided the prolongation of the plot, which was a good attempt for her. She also showed that in the west, many actors can vividly create a character in more than an hour when performing a drama. The production of short plays, like an extension on this basis, not only enriches the characters’ images, but also allows the characters to slowly enter the hearts of the audience.
Throw away colored glasses and give the new generation of actors more opportunities to show.
During the discussion of "Creation and Performance of Short Plays", how to meet the high standards of audience in details and logic of short plays has become the key for the guests to discuss. Ying Dai told the host that the creation of short plays should mainly have an innovative perspective. Through the particularly solid characters, with the help of good actors’ interpretation, the audience’s heart can be entered, and then with good team performance, the plot itself can be presented at its best. Dan Lu also made a statement: During the filming of the short play, each episode was actually at least one hour long, but in order to catch the user’s eye and ensure the appreciation of the plot, many plots were deleted, only the main plot and plot highlights were kept to avoid the plot procrastination.
In addition, regarding Lu Han’s acting skills, Qi Xi also responded in this forum, saying that in the cooperation with Lu Han, he found that he is a particularly real person. If all other distractions are put aside, he is an actor who wants to be more practical in the actor and performance path and constantly prove himself. Ma Li Lingshan also added: In the first scene of the interrogation room, Xiao Lu received a lot of praise, saying that he performed a lot of layers. She also said that at the scene, Lu Han was under a lot of pressure, and Wang Qianyuan and Qi Xi would patiently tell the deer a play at the scene. According to the guidance of these professional actors, Lu Han will try his best to create a more brilliant role, and sometimes even burst into the energy of many senior actors.
When talking about the production of Fog Theater, Ma Lilingshan said that there are also many places that need to be improved in the production process. Only by accumulating experience can we make the best finished product next time. At the same time, she also responded to the casting dispute between Sisyphus and The Silent Truth. She revealed that when Sisyphus’s first play came out, Lu Han was recommended to play the leading role. But in fact, many people don’t know Lu Han’s audience, and they all have certain prejudice against him. They chose Lu Han to play because they saw Lu Han’s seriousness about the performance, and hoped that through this play, the audience would get rid of the colored glasses of young actors.
Qi Xi expressed her opinion on whether she would watch the drama fast-forward: if the performance rhythm of that scene was accelerated and the viewing effect would be better, she would watch it 1.5 times faster. In this way, actors can also code their lines tighter and the rhythm of the play can be more compact. She believes that sometimes, if the performance is faster, the actors are more nervous and the plot is more compact, it will really give the audience a deeper sense of substitution. In this regard, Ying Dai also said that in Sisyphus and The Silence of the Truth, the team tried to simplify the plot to avoid flooding the plot and affecting the audience’s interest in watching movies.
Advertising soft implantation, opening up new entertainment marketing
In Unit 3, "Marketing and Profit of Short Plays", Zhang Ben, the host, pointed out that compared with traditional long dramas, short plays will be more restricted in marketing mode or marketing cycle. How to solve this problem? Dan Lu said that the fermentation period of short drama marketing is too short, and the benefit period of large-scale publicity and marketing in the early stage is also very short. Therefore, advertising has become the main profit channel of short drama. Ying Dai added: At present, the most important thing in short plays is how to embed advertisements, and it is best to integrate advertisements into the plot, so as not to affect the audience’s emotional immersion because the advertisements are too abrupt. At the same time, she also told the audience that it is really not an era when wine is not afraid of deep alleys, and entertainment marketing is really very important. A good marketing needs teamwork to maximize communication and conduct entertainment marketing, so as to gain recognition and recognition at the user level.
Ma Lilingshan also expressed great support for iQiyi’s advanced on-demand mode. Under this new business model, TV dramas have also shifted from toB to toC, which not only allows viewers to see their favorite TV dramas, but also encourages creators, and even stimulates China TV dramas to move in a better direction. Zhang Ben, the host, summed up this: short plays are generally a cycle, and the production team produces better content and attracts the investment of advertisers; The produced content is broadcast on the video platform, and the audience pays for this content after the platform is broadcast; After getting the benefits from consumers, it will attract advertisers to invest more money again and promote the further development of short plays.
Inject new ideas into the industry and help the future development of TV drama market.
When discussing "the influence and future of short plays", Dan Lu definitely expressed her optimism about the future development of short plays. She said: The Fog Theater is just a starting point, and there will definitely be more short plays in the future. Ma Li Lingshan also agreed, and said with emotion that the spring of short plays has really come! Iqiyi’s Misty Theater is just a good start for the development of short plays, and there will be more innovative themes. In this regard, Qi Xi also expressed her views as an actress. She indicated that in the TV drama industry, the emergence of short plays undoubtedly opened a new outlet for the creation of TV dramas. In this stall, more actors will get new creative opportunities and promote the improvement of their acting skills, which is a very good influence.
Ma Li Lingshan also said: In the future, short plays are bound to be constantly innovative, not only in form, but also in seeking internal innovative expression. Ying Dai agrees with this view, and points out that in the future, short plays will be the general trend. The prevalence of short plays will give more young actors new opportunities and challenges, and also add more possibilities for the whole industry, which will make the development of TV dramas more mature.
By summing up the speeches made by the above-mentioned guests with different positions, we can find that compared with the traditional long drama series, the short drama takes less time and has lower production cost, which provides a platform for more talented producers to show their talents. However, the brevity and pituity of short plays concentrate more time for the participants, which makes it easier to ensure the quality of dramas. At the same time, the popularity of short dramas has further enriched the product matrix of domestic TV dramas, provided a good reference for traditional long dramas, and contributed to the upward development of domestic TV dramas.
The new wave boutique short drama forum launched by Sina Entertainment New Wave Forum aimed at the phenomenal explosion of short dramas at present reveals the attitude of contemporary young people to watch movies to a certain extent, which has played a certain role in promoting the future development of domestic TV dramas. In the future, will the domestic TV drama market be dominated by short dramas or the "Colosseum" of long dramas? We don’t know. However, from this forum, we can find that TV dramas with novel and compact plots and high-quality actors are the most popular among contemporary audiences. It is expected that in the future, there will be more fine TV dramas in the domestic TV drama market.
