We can give you money, as long as you marry Sebastian for me. ”
Because her mother is seriously ill and urgently needs funds, the heroine is forced to marry the "notorious" male protagonist, but she finds that the male protagonist has another crazy and cool bully behind his back, sitting on hundreds of millions of wealth, such a bridge is from the overseas hit short drama "The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband".
Highlights of the overseas hit short drama "The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband" Source: reelshort
Collect the grievances of wealthy families, coquettish wives, bosses, and dual identity ......These genre elements, which are already familiar to domestic audiences and are a bit "earthy", have made foreigners want to stop after "changing skin".
These "earthy" plotsnot only frantically harvested a large number of foreigner "leeks", making them pay for real money**, and even once sent the overseas short drama app Reelshort to the first place on the iOS entertainment list in the United States, and the limelight once overshadowed TikTok.
Open this app, and you will see embarrassing and familiar words such as "spoiled wife", "wealthy life", "I'm married, the object is not you", etc.
According to TechCrunch, by November this year, ReelShort had reached 11 million times on iOS and Android, generating $22 million in net revenue.
Although Reelshort is now ranked in the top 10 on the iOS entertainment list, it is undeniable thatReelshort's brief ascent to the top has indeed made many practitioners see the huge potential of the overseas short drama market, especially in the case of serious involution and increasingly strict supervision in the domestic short drama industry.
In recent months, the overseas short drama market has become significantly more active," Lu Guangzhong, deputy general manager of Shuiye Dashan, who focuses on the customization of overseas short dramas, told Yan Financial reporters, "Companies that hold many domestic short drama projects are actively seeking cooperation on overseas platforms;On the other hand, the demand for overseas short drama production that found us has also increased several times compared with the first half of the year. ”
Domestic industry groups, as well as social platforms such as Moments, Xiaohongshu, and Weibo, can be seen everywhere seeking information that short dramas are seeking cooperation overseas, and relevant film teams at home and abroad are even more busy. According to The Paper,At present, more than ninety percent of the Chinese film and television teams in Los Angeles have filmed short dramas, and the director's schedule is generally scheduled after March next year.
On social platforms, information can be seen everywhere that they are seeking cooperation in short dramas going overseas Source: Screenshot of Xiaohongshu.
Like the discovery of a new continent, people frantically flock to the ocean of overseas short dramas with the longing of "getting rich overnight".
The battlefield has also spread from North America and Europe to Japan, South Korea, Brazil and other places, but they forget that when the ship sails out of the port, it is not always smooth sailing, and more often it may face reefs and wind and waves.
The skit saved itself and rolled overseas
Although the skit only suddenly exploded this year, it is nothing new.
Works such as "Never Expected" and "Life Started on Me" a long time ago can be regarded as micro-short dramas. With the further evolution of the form of short dramas, there are mini-program short dramas with clearer business models and more attractive profits.
This kind of skit is exactly what the name suggests-The carrying platform is mostly WeChat applets or apps, vertical screen format, a single episode is one to two minutes long, the storyline is relatively continuous and complete, the first 10-20 episodes are free, but the follow-up needs to be unlocked for a fee.
In the fast-paced and high-speed content world, this form is greatly welcomed by users in the sinking market, creating one wealth myth after another.
For example, the production cost is less than 500,000, but the recharge amount exceeded 100 million within 8 days of being launched.
It can be said that the skit is like a hurricane in 2023, blowing a lot of wealth away from the market.
According to ** reports, the daily recharge consumption of paid short dramas on all domestic platforms has been about 60 million yuan recently, and the peak of holidays can even exceed 100 million yuan. Huge engine data also shows that as of November 2023, there are more than 4,000 micro-short dramas filed in China, and the average daily turnover of the short drama market has reached 80 million yuan.
However, all of this stepped on the brakes in November this year, a series of online micro-short dramas were rectified, the requirements for short dramas were tightened, and more than 20,000 illegal short dramas were removed from the shelves.
How can practitioners help themselves?
Some people choose to continue to cultivate the country and explore the quality of short dramas.
Others are looking overseas.
"Many companies that originally held domestic short drama projects to be sold at a price are frantically seeking low prices on overseas platforms such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East, Lu Guangzhong said, "The original price of 5,000 yuan may be sold for one or two thousand." ”
In addition to the active short drama copyright trading market, platforms and producers are also actively seeking changes, and have begun to shoot relevant customized dramas at home and abroad for overseas markets.
Suzuye Darshan is one of them.
Founded in 2019, this short drama production team has a scale of less than 40 people, and has previously done the game purchase ** business and the domestic small program short drama business, and began to cooperate with Dianzhong, Jiashu and other *** in April this year, focusing on customizing overseas short dramas, and has completed filming 4 European and American short dramas.
Referring to the reason for shifting the focus of business to overseas, Lu Guangzhong, deputy general manager of Shuiye Dashan, said that it has a lot to do with the change in the cooperation model of the platform this year. "Since the beginning of this year, the platform side is more inclined to let the producer pay half or all of the money to produce short dramas, and the risk is more passed on to the producer, but this year, the domestic market is full of supply, and the popularity rate of short dramas has declined, on the contrary, foreign countries are still a blue ocean. ”
The transformation of the cooperation model involves the distribution of interests and copyright disputes.
For example, the producer has changed from the role of a first-class businessman to a project shareholder, and the revenue model has also changed from a simple production fee to a share, but at present, most of the background data of short drama platforms is not transparent, and it is difficult to judge the reasonableness of sharing income.
For another example, after the producer becomes a shareholder of the project, the capital relationship behind a short drama becomes complicated, and how to distribute the copyright from the script to the production team to the platform has also become a problem.
Compared with the producer, it may be the head online article and short drama companies that smell the crisis under the calm water earlier.
A number of producers with overseas short drama experience mentioned in their exchanges with Yan Financial reporters that the reason why they came into contact with the short drama overseas business before was because in the first half of this year, many head online articles or short drama companies were laying out relevant content, releasing the demand for production, and finding them to cooperate.
The above-mentioned short drama product, Reelshort, was launched overseas as early as August last year. The app was launched by Crazy Maple Studio (Maple Leaf Interactive), an overseas subsidiary of domestic digital publishing company Chinese**, focusing on overseas localized short dramas, and it took nearly a year to produce the hit short drama "The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband". At present, the top ten episodes of this short drama have a whopping 5.88 million times on the platform.
The underlying logic of the short drama is to solve the user's demand for fragmented and fast content. This kind of demand is common to all human beings, and we believe that there will be markets overseas, and the team members have talent resources in terms of production and traffic delivery overseas, so it is natural that after doing domestic short dramas, they began to deploy overseas. Chen Yiyuan, chairman of Hangzhou Irrigation Holding Group, told the salt financial reporter that they began to set up a team to lay out overseas business in June this year, and in October, the self-developed overseas short drama product GGTV was launched, and the number of registered users has exceeded 1.5 million as of mid-November.
Therefore, the production team of the carp that crossed the river began to collect scripts and find overseas projects, trying to get a piece of the pie.
The head and the small and medium waist, ** two heavens
Both at home and abroad,The short drama overseas track has indeed only become popular since the middle of this year.
data.AI Intelligence data shows that the explosion period of overseas short drama apps** will start from May 2023, and as ReelShort begins to carry out advertising and promotion, the number of popular short drama apps overseas in July will approach 3 million, with a month-on-month growth rate of more than 300%.
According to Ye Xin, an overseas short drama producer, this month, when he came into contact with overseas short drama projects, he learned that several leading platforms were beginning to lay out overseas markets, but his peers around him were still studying the track of domestic short dramas, and the momentum was very hot, and few people mentioned short dramas going overseas.
In the second half of the year, a number of overseas production teams told salt financial reporters that the demand for door-to-door projects has indeed become more.
Chen Xiufeng, co-founder and chief producer of Shanghai Fanku Culture Media, also lamented that everyone's enthusiasm is very high after chatting with multiple platforms about overseas cooperation, some platforms are just making apps, and some will be launched soon, while Fanku Culture has been laying out since August, and there have been 2 short dramas launched overseas in only 3 months.
However, in Lu Guangzhong's view,At present, the overseas short drama market is still in the stage of land development, and it is the head platform that is backed by capital that really pays for localized short dramas, and the rest is basically wait-and-seeIt's easy to shoot, most of them are to collect some themes and produce domestic short dramas suitable for overseas markets to fill in the content of their own apps or **.
At present, the business model of overseas short dramas is not very mature, and the shooting cost is very high, and the actual project demand for the production team is not too much, and many small platforms are cautiously waiting and seeing. Lu Guangzhong said.
Rather than spending great effort and cost to shoot overseas localized short dramas, small and medium-sized waist online text and short drama companies are more inclined to revitalize the stock dramas at hand by putting them on the shelves overseas.
Zhang Shanshan, a VSWORK market partner who focuses on online texts and short dramas to go to sea, told Yan Financial Reporter that they are currently making a ** on Google, specializing in domestic online articles and short dramas, and hundreds of short dramas have been launched at present.
However, Zhang Shanshan also pointed out that the payment rate of this kind of translated short drama is low, so they are also considering shooting localization-related short dramas.
Small and medium-sized waist online text and short drama companies have not released the demand for localized short drama shooting, but it is often difficult to reach an agreement with overseas producers because of their limited budgets. Deng Dongli, the founder of Yingmo Creative, said that usually, the market price of a short drama in the UK is 6-80,000 US dollars, and the small platform that comes to the door may only give a budget of 2-30,000 US dollars, and it is difficult to cover even the shooting cost.
In contrast, public information shows that at present, Reelshort updates two short dramas about a month, and there are only more than 20 short dramas in reserve on the entire platform;ShortTV currently updates 3-5 overseas short dramas every month, and has a total of 10 updates.
Chen Yiyuan told the salt financial reporter that there are currently more than 100 domestic short dramas on GGTV, including the translated version of domestic short dramas, and more than 20 short dramas are produced every month, and 10 North American dramas are ready to start filming this month and are seeking cooperation.
An overseas short drama practitioner said that in fact, the demand for overseas short drama projects is limited compared to China, and the reason why the schedule of Chinese directors is scheduled for March next year is because the platform is more inclined to find experienced teams, and there are only a few such teams back and forth.
It seems that the overseas short drama industry is very hot, but there are so many people who actually do it, the project demand and talents are limited, and there are more wait-and-see people.
Is it a good business?
It can be said that the script, actors, and even filming can be localized in order to attract more overseas audiences to pay audiences, which has become the consensus of overseas short drama practitioners. But this also means higher input costs, especially in the current overseas short drama market where the business model is not clear.
According to the feedback of many practitioners, the salt financial reporter learned that the production cost of an overseas short drama is about 10-150,000 US dollars, which fluctuates according to different regions.
For example, the venue fee in the United Kingdom is 2-3 times more expensive than in the United States, but the actors are relatively cheaper;However, the cost of some high-quality localized short dramas may be 3 times that of domestic short dramas, and if you choose to find foreign actors to shoot in China, you can control it below 150,000 US dollars.
However, whether overseas audiences buy the localized short dramas is still a metaphysics, unlike the domestic user portraits and subject matter preferences, the theme that has been verified to run better is still the "werewolf theme" (werewolf, a kind of orc in Western folklore, whose image is widely used in various magical themes), such as the recently popular werewolf short drama "Alpha of Aberdeen".
According to China News Weekly, Jia Yi, founder of Maple Leaf Interactive, said that while Reelshort is out of the circle, 70% of the dramas still can't be pushed, and he and his team still have a strong anxiety about popular products.
Generally speaking, it is easier for the production team that has filmed overseas hit dramas to shoot the next hit drama, but because the overseas short drama market has just started, there are few talents who understand the tastes of overseas audiences, so the shooting cost of many experienced teams has risen.
Chen Xiufeng said: "Especially in New York and Los Angeles, the personal cost of the director of the hit short drama alone has reached 20,000 US dollars. ”
In addition, the high cost of overseas investment has also made practitioners anxious. It is understood that the overseas channel fee is high, and if you cooperate with the app through Google, you need to pay 30% of the cost to the Google platform.
Chen Xiufeng added that with the streaming, the cost of a short drama overseas may be as high as 1 million yuan, which is two to three times that of China.
Overall, the current overseas short dramas are still in the stage of burning money to pay tuition.
Huang Mingxiao, overseas bilingual director of Zhitao Film and Television, said that the short dramas that European and American audiences need to pay absolutely are two completely different products, and many people will be confused when they are disseminated.
In Lu Guangzhong's view, the above high-cost problems are all due to the immaturity of the industrialized system of overseas short dramas. For example, in terms of content supply, there are too few overseas teams that can write localized and original short drama scripts, and there are also very few production teams that understand the cool points and aesthetic needs of overseas audiences, which are the key factors that determine whether the audience buys it.
Another example is the problem of high streaming costs, because the functions of various platforms launched abroad are not perfect. Lu Guangzhong said: "The investment flow is not good, the data is difficult to look at, and the current major overseas channels do not have a more convenient flow function like the domestic one, and there are few pitchers." ”
Therefore, it is common for overseas short dramas customized by the platform to break the battlefield. According to ** report, at the most exaggerated time, a leading domestic platform made 19 consecutive fights, and even some platforms once lost 30 million yuan.
The challenge and way out of the short drama going to sea
Trying to pan for gold overseas is not an easy task, and in addition to the cost, there are still many challenges facing players at the moment.
The first is the content supply level, including screenwriting and filming.
For example, screenwriters, at present, relatively mature screenwriters in China lack pain points in the overseas cultural environment and even English, and it takes time to cultivate overseas screenwriters.
Lu Guangzhong also mentioned that compared with the plot rhythm of domestic short dramas, overseas audiences also have higher requirements for the rationality and logic of plot development.
Actors are another factor that hinders players.
On the one hand, the cost of overseas actors is indeed higher than that of a few hundred yuan in China;
On the other hand, overseas actors pay more attention to life, and the degree of overtime cooperation is lower, and the promised 8-hour work system, even if they increase the money, they may not be willing to stay up late and work overtime, which may slow down the progress of the crew in terms of efficiency.
According to Huang Mingxiao's recollection, when they were filming a short drama in Europe, they obviously felt that the efficiency of the scene was not high, because of the European party culture, the crew here was filming on a click, and the Europeans were partying back and forth, and a small house was crowded with twenty or thirty people.
In addition, the willingness of foreign actors to perform is also a major problem. Deng Dongli said: "Like short dramas, they are actually fast-paced, the plot is gripping, and the performance requirements are exaggerated, but when we go to British actors, they don't want to act very much, they think this thing is vulgar." ”
Then there's the issue of the platform.
Domestic short dramas are actually mostly small programs, which are more convenient to open, and apps with a large user base such as Douyin and Kuaishou also have corresponding channels and paid links.
If they want to ** short dramas, they must enter the app store ** and pay to unlock them, and at present, most overseas short drama apps have a limited number of stock dramas, and it is difficult to retain users for a long time.
In addition to the localized shooting method, there are also a number of domestic companies that have accumulated a large number of first-class IPs and finished short dramas, but they are facing a lack of overseas drama platforms, as well as voice translation, face swapping and other demands. "The number of adapted languages is directly related to how big the market for this drama is, and the voice must be close to the pronunciation of real people, and it cannot be played. Chen Yiyuan said.
In the view of Zhang Yi, chief analyst of iiMedia ConsultingThe skit actually aims at some of the basic demands of greed, vulnerability and care in human natureIn the case of domestic verification, there should be a large market space overseas, but enterprises still need to explore their own content, operation and layout methods to be able to really get a share of the cake in the overseas market.
Can short dramas go overseas successfully replicate the prosperity of China and become a new and good business to make money?
Standing in the present, no one can answer this question with certainty. The only thing that is certain is that the short drama market is a huge blue ocean, and people who have entered the game one after another, like gold diggers, tirelessly harvest in the overseas "leek market", and they all wish that they are the lucky ones who get rich overnight.
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