Nine News.
Text丨Song Chunguang
Edit丨Zhang Muzhi Every day, the editor cuts a large number of ** slices with concentrated "cool points", and the pitcher places the purchase volume on the bidding advertising platform to get more ** and attract users to pay. In the end, a series of mini program short dramas with a recharge of more than 100 million yuan were born. This work is called casting, and it is the most important and secret link in the short drama industry chain. The new content form of short dramas began in 2017, and the industry model matured in 2022. **According to the report, the market size reaches 20 billion. The short drama industry chain has a clear division of labor, including upstream IP acquisition, midstream production, and downstream distribution and broadcasting. Streaming belongs to the downstream distribution link, including editors and pitchers (also known as data optimizers). The former is responsible for focusing the "cool points" in hundreds of episodes into about two minutes**, and the latter is responsible for placing them on different advertising platforms. It can be understood that the streaming of short dramas is like this: a short drama is a complete cake that needs to be purchased for payment, and streaming is the distribution of tasting samples, this step is first completed by the editor to complete the cutting and packaging of the cake tasting products, and then the pitcher will bring the pieces of tasting products to the street to attract passers-by to buy. At the same time, how many passers-by can see it, it also needs the pitcher to exchange money for it. This is a super high-investment, critical and hidden link: because it is essentially a traffic business, the cost of streaming accounts for eight to ninety percent of the total cost of a short drama;This link also determines whether it can "hook" the user and let the user pay for further recharge;Pitchers and editors are like traffic-generating machines that hide behind the scenes. In specific work, they are surrounded by quantity, data, and traffic, facing the pressure of input-output ratio, the pressure of the last-place elimination assessment system, and it is inevitable to cater to certain instincts of algorithms and human nature. Under the grand narrative of tuyere and capital, the story of the screw began like this. 
"Cool", a kind of physical workEditor Zheng Yufei decided to compromise. She tried to edit the "exciting" picture to the beginning, including but not limited to slapping, kneeling, violence, and rubbing edges. In order to attract the audience, the editor needs to skillfully extract the emotional highs in the short drama and collage them together, so that the audience will have curiosity and desire for the short drama. This is the simple working logic of short drama editors. Among them, the most critical time point is the first three seconds. If a short ** cannot attract the audience's attention in the first three seconds, it will be swept away mercilessly, which is called the "** three seconds" law in the industry. **Creators have studied a variety of retention rules that are well versed in human nature: some pay attention to visual stimulation, such as showing money at the beginning and showing **beautiful women;Some pay attention to contradictions and conflicts, and fight at the beginning of the chapter, watching the excitement;Some pay attention to the efficiency of the strategy, such as "three sentences, let the man spend 180,000 for me". Zheng Yufei does not agree with this editing method, her major is radio and television, and she likes to watch movies with classic aesthetics on weekdays, looking forward to her own creation in images. At the end of July this year, 22-year-old Zheng Yufei joined the short drama distribution team in Haikou, which was her first job after graduation. At this time, the mini program skit has been popular for nearly a year. There are various myths of getting rich in the short drama market. When Zheng Yufei walked into this company, he also felt the pulse of the advent of the short drama era. In the public information, a mature team of pitchers is composed of editors and pitchers, with an ideal ratio of 1:1, and each team produces a variety of strategy models. The difference is that in order to reduce labor costs, some distribution companies choose to recruit editors in second- and third-tier cities, while the pitcher team is concentrated in first-tier cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen. Zheng Yufei joined the distribution team like this, the editor and the pitcher worked separately and could only communicate online. In order to save time, Zheng Yufei rented a house near the company. The work starts from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., with an hour and a half break in the morning and afternoon, and at least 28 ** are completed in a day, each ** for about 2 minutes. At 10 o'clock in the morning, the upstream short drama production company will upload the material links of different short plays to the editors. Usually, a mini program short drama has a total of 100 episodes, each episode is one to two minutes, and the team leader told Zheng Yufei to edit with the material of the first 20 episodes first. 
The night scene taken by Zheng Yufei on his way to work. Source: Interviewee.
A short drama may be placed by different distribution companies, and it is difficult to pass the review if the material is highly similar. So, the team leader asked Zheng Yufei and other editors to speed up, be fast, and preemptively create materials for pitchers to put in. Zheng Yufei dragged the footage into the editing software, and quickly dragged the cursor in the image preview bar to find the exciting picture. Finally, leave a suspense similar to a "hook" to attract the audience to jump to the mini program to consume for this series. She's always wrestling with her content values. In the first week of work, Zheng Yufei was a frequent visitor to group chats. The performances and plots in the skits often make her curious, "Who is watching these skits on earth?".Once, she saw a plot of "** bullies sexually harassing the heroine" in the process of pulling the film. There is no space for the vertical screen to be extended, the director close-up the face of a bully with a beard and a gold necklace, Zheng Yufei took a screenshot of this picture to his friends, and several people began to complain about the actor's exaggerated interpretation. Gradually, she lost her desire to complain, and most of the short dramas she handled were similar routines, showing the contradictions and conflicts of various characters in just two minutes, and there was no logic. A drama has impressed Zheng Yufei so far. The background of the story is that the currency is depreciated, the money is worthless, and after the heroine female president goes bankrupt, she only has 100,000 deposits, but she has also become the "billionaire" in that world. Sometimes, she is divided into short dramas with urban themes, in a play, the actress is scantily dressed, and the director's shooting angle almost chooses to show the actress's ** part. "When I edited this drama, it was hard to look at it directly, everyone was a girl, and I couldn't get over that hurdle in my heart. Zheng Yufei said. At that time, even though the team leader kept emphasizing that the "exciting" plot should be edited to the beginning, she silently did not choose these marginal materials as her own little resistance. The compromise occurred after the assessment was at the bottom of the rankings. The monthly assessment requirement of the editors in the group is 700,000 consumption, and the table is ranked every half month. At the end of the first month, Zheng Yufei only ran out of more than 100,000 yuan. There were more than 20 editors on the ranking list, and Zheng Yufei noticed that the girls who joined at the same time as her were in the top few. That girl edited a hit drama, and she ran out of more than 1 million consumption in the first month. The ranking list is starkly contrasting, and Zheng Yufei wants to prove his value in this system. As a result, her editing speed is getting faster and faster, and she has edited more than 40 pieces a day. She also experimented with edging materials. In order to pass the review, Zheng Yufei coded the sensitive parts of the actors, creating a feeling of nothingness, so that the platform will most likely not judge the violation. "Later on, I was numb to the plot and just wanted to accomplish more. She said. Many times, Zheng Yufei thinks that he is doing a screw in the most intense plot, without emotion and logic, only his fingers are left on the mouse, clicking, clicking. 
Coerced by "quantity".Trapped by the "quantity", there is another position in the casting work: short drama pitcher. To a large extent, they are responsible for the "consumption" and ROI of the slices on the platform. Different from the logic of traditional film and television marketing, the payment logic of mini program short dramas is based on bidding ads, and the short drama products are delivered to specific groups of people by spending money to buy volume. The pitcher of the short drama is the person who spends money to buy the volume, and is responsible for the **slice of the short drama of the mini program. In the delivery process, the "bid" is an important value, and this ** is the amount that the pitchers can pay for this ** slice. Auction ads are similar to auctions, if the same kind of material is given by others, the system will give priority to recommend. "Consumption" refers to the amount of money spent by a distribution company after adding money to the bidding advertising platform. If the consumption of a drama is large, it means that the slice put on the screen is seen by more people. It is worth mentioning that in the same batch of materials, the higher the bid, the more likely to increase consumption. ROI, that is, return on investment, refers to if you recharge 1 yuan, **12 yuan, then the ROI is 12。At present, the generally accepted data in the industry is that if the ROI of a certain drama is less than 11, this drama will not be continued. Streaming is an important part of whether a mini program short drama can become popular, and the cost is much greater than the cost of copyright and shooting in the early stage. A number of industry insiders pointed out in public reports that the cost of casting accounts for 8 to 90% of the total cost of a short drama. In the short drama streaming ecosystem, editors and pitchers achieve each other. If you can edit a slice of a "high-quality" short drama with a breaking point, it will increase the chance that the pitcher will "explode" after the launch. At the same time, an excellent pitcher will accurately screen the delivery**, time, and target user portraits, and will help a short drama slice to obtain greater consumption. In September this year, 23-year-old Zhao Yuan joined a short drama distribution company, and her job is pitcher, also known as a data optimizer. This company undertakes the distribution tasks of the head distribution company in the downstream of the distribution chain, and Zhao Yuan is responsible for five or six customers, often changing different subjects to invest in the stream. 
Zhao Yuan's downstairs corner. Source: Interviewee.
After the popularity of short dramas, experienced pitchers are often competed for by various short drama companies, and it is rumored that excellent pitchers can earn as much as 50,000 yuan a month. This kind of wealth myth does not belong to Zhao Yuan. In the three months since she joined the company, she has found that this position is not only a lot of work, but she will even leave at any time because of insufficient consumption or ROI is not up to standard. At the beginning, Zhao Yuan could only complete a few thousand consumption a day. She posted a message on social platforms, not knowing how to increase consumption. At the beginning of October, luck favored Zhao Yuan. A short drama of male frequency in ancient costumes that she voted suddenly exploded, with a daily consumption of more than 60,000, which is equivalent to nearly completing the KPI of a week's consumption in one day. She attributed the result to "luck" and did not publicize it, especially not to let the other groups know about it. Although they are all in the same company, there is fierce competition between different groups of pitchers, and there have been cases of materials that have already been stolen by other groups. For this reason, Zhao Yuan became extremely cautious. That night, Zhao Yuan was busy until three o'clock in the morning, building a new advertising account for this material that could be increased, and building a new plan to continue to launch. At five o'clock in the morning, Zhao Yuan received a message from the team leader, asking her to lower the bid of the "plan", which means that the amount of materials can be used to increase profits at a lower cost. Of course, it's not uncommon for pitchers to stay up all night. For Zhao Yuan, the life cycle of a short drama is only two days. In 48 hours, it is necessary to judge whether the drama is worth continuing to launch according to the ROI data. During this period, pitchers need to keep an eye on the platform data changes from morning to night. 12 a.m. and 5 a.m. every day, the afternoon peak and evening peak are the key time periods. Reducing costs is a principle that must be adhered to in the investment link. Unlike the head company, where one editor is paired with one pitcher, Zhao Yuan's company has one editor for every 10 pitchers, and the first-class materials produced are not enough. As a result, the pitchers also had to edit the relatively simple original cut ** by themselves, without adding dubbing commentary. "Getting on the plan" is something that skis pitchers often refer to, and it's an industry term that is at the heart of pitchers' work. A "plan" includes a cut of ** material and a piece of copy. The pitcher is responsible for delivering this "plan". On the most day, pitcher Zhao Yuan made more than 1,000 plans. Although the company's requirement is 500 per day. In the distribution link of the hidden mini program short drama, "a miracle with a large amount" is a slightly cold way of playing. In order to complete the KPI, many pitchers will try to put as many "plans" as possible in order to increase the number of "explosions". Whether the "plan" can work or not has always been a metaphysics. Some skit pitchers spontaneously built a bright yellow background, and the border draws a zigzag graphic "starting symbol" that will appear when the pitchers talk about the difficulties of their work, praying together, as for whether it has any effect, no one knows. 
"Explosion" is a science
Zhao Yuan still hasn't figured out how her "explosive" ** did it. Of course, unlike the box office income of traditional movies, the income of short dramas, from the pitcher, is quantified as a mathematical problem. On the first day of the short play's launch, pitchers tested thousands of delivery models, and then chose whether to continue to deliver based on ROI. The highest ROI in the industry can be 17。The industry generally has an ROI of less than 11 will decrease, or stop casting. Because the life cycle of each short drama is extremely short, it will consume 80% of the streaming budget in the first week of launch. In order to improve ROI, pitchers will also adjust the delivery materials and models in real time based on data such as 3-5 seconds completion rate and full episode completion rate. Some industry insiders believe that pitching is a job that relies heavily on data, and can summarize a set of mature pitchers**. Pitchers don't need to have a strong background of experience. As long as the delivery model runs through once, it can be replicated next time, and the same type of drama can be reached with a similar solution to users, so as to reduce the cost of trial and error. Zhao Yuan also discovered this. When she put **, she found that different short dramas and similar plots had "exploded" in her hands. Some short dramas directly change the name, scene, and plot of the protagonist, and the rest are copied as they are, and the same amount is also raised. But she didn't figure out how the human (material) factors outside the data affected the effect of streaming. You can only try with a large number of models. Zhao Yuan's feeling is that high-quality and original material content is easier to increase. The system determines whether the asset is homogeneous, repeatable, and creative. Platforms are more inclined to recommend original materials, such as a recent short drama, or unused copywritingIf 20 people brush this **, and a few people are willing to click in and pay**, it may be judged as high-quality material. Often, quality content takes more time, and this conflict often arises at work. Taking the title as an example, Zhao Yuan will refer to the title of a similar short drama on the huge engine platform, and also try to extract the title from the online text**. The system is more likely to determine that the material picked up in the online article is original, so it will vigorously support it. In a short drama with the theme of rebirth, Zhao Yuan collected dozens of texts, such as: The Green Lantern Ancient Buddha has been around for a lifetime, and he thought that Huangquan would see his lover, but he was reborn until his wedding day, hugging his head and crying. However, the supervisor criticized Zhao Yuan, believing that this method was inefficient, took more time, and would affect the production quantity. Yan Min, the founder of "Short Drama Insider", who has been engaged in the short drama distribution business and has been a "short drama insider", told Mirror Studio that the core of streaming is first to evaluate the material of the whole drama, evaluate how many materials need to be edited, how many accounts need to be opened for delivery, and set specific ROI indicatorsThe second lies in the design of card point payment, "If the core personnel of the streaming team have a good understanding of a drama, they can better grasp the rhythm of payment," Yan Min said, "If you find that you can't run later, you have to study whether you need to lower the ** of the recharge panel, or reduce the number of pitchers in this drama." Zhang Le, the screenwriter of the mini program short drama, has been in the industry for two years. Since he entered the creation of short dramas last year, his experience is that popular short dramas are created by writing plots with a sense of humiliation, and then "slapping the face" through the reversal of identity to create a refreshing feeling for the audience. He will also collect real-life materials, such as the news of "Helping Brothers", which will be exaggerated and implanted into short plays. 
Kneeling is a common plot in Mini Program short dramas. Photo source: "Yunshen Doesn't Hear the Deer Song", a film and television drama director who has been in the industry for ten years, feels that the "unreality" of the mini program short drama is very important. Traditional dramas will set rich backgrounds and details for the characters, but most of the mini program short drama scripts rely on dialogue to drive the plot. To a certain extent, the extreme sense of unreality can intensify the establishment of the coolness of the short drama, only dreaming between the square inch vertical screen, and not pursuing the audience to believe that the plot will really happen. These "cool" materials will become the plots specially edited by the editor and put on the online platform. In order to improve the quality of the materials, Zhang Lehui will mark 20 to 30 emotional highs before giving the materials of the short drama to help the pitchers understand the content of the short drama, so as to improve the quality of the materials. But most skit companies, writers, editors, and pitchers, go it alone. Zheng Yufei's team, the pitchers are concentrated in Shanghai, and the editor team is in Haikou, Chengdu and other places. The communication between the editor Zheng Yufei and the pitchers is limited to whether it has passed the review, and never communicates how to increase his consumption. 
Those who stay, those who leave
After the popularity of short dramas, editors and pitchers are facing the pressure of homogenization of subject matter. For half a month, Zheng Yufei edited more than 30 short dramas with the theme of "Meng Bao". The theme of "Meng Bao" refers to the heroine going abroad after pregnancy, returning with the child a few years later, and reuniting with the boss, that is, the child's father, and the child helps the boss chase his wife. The image of children with this kind of theme generally chooses big-eyed cute babies. In the entire short drama industry, "Meng Bao" is not a major theme, and the homogenization of the male frequency of the god of war and son-in-law is more serious. The same storyline, similar shooting methods, Meng Bao with several dramas, or the same child. She doesn't know how to edit a new ** in such a homogeneous situation. Li Tao also sensed the trend of homogenization of scripts, and he was the founder of Xi'an Fengxing Company. As the producer of the popular short drama "Wushuang", the scripts with an internal rating of s and above on the short drama platform will be selected by Fengxing. "In the past three months, we couldn't even choose a single book," Li Tao believes, "It may be that their output is very large, and the script polishing cycle is short, so the quality has declined." To this end, Fengxing Company launched its own original script team. Capital and people are still pouring in. Now, there are nearly 200 vertical screen short drama crews in Hengdian every day, which has far surpassed traditional film and television crews. People even jokingly call Hengdian "vertical store". Zhang Huanyin, general manager of Changxin Media, a film and television company that has created "Tales of the Tang Dynasty", is also optimistic about the industry, "The streaming model that mini program short dramas rely on is a completely different to C payment model from the film and television drama market, and to C payment is definitely a general trend." The next few years should usher in huge markets and opportunities. For pitchers and editors in the downstream link, the situation and feelings brought by the "huge market and opportunity" are more concrete. After working for more than three months, the five apprentices led by pitcher Zhao Yuan failed to stay, and the colleagues around him changed batch after batch. "Volume" has also become the status quo of the industry for pitchers. Zhao Yuan's company has more than 50 pitchers, every group of ten, every half a month or a month to evaluate the performance, eliminate the lowest performance of each group. In terms of recruitment software, the demand for "skit pitchers" has been high. A pitcher recruits extensively in *** and admits that he is helping the company's HR complete the recruitment task. During this year's eleventh long holiday, Zhao Yuan was still busy "planning" every day during the holiday, and he brought his laptop with him when he walked to **. One day, she thought her computer screen was too small and went back to the office. 
Zhao Yuan's company regularly prepares afternoon tea. Source: Interviewee.
According to Huatai** research report, the average daily turnover of domestic short dramas is as high as 80 million, and the consumption of users on the whole platform of short dramas has exceeded 100 million yuan on the peak day of the National Day, and many dramas have exploded during this holiday. The pitchers are extremely busy, Zhao Yuan's classmate is also a pitcher, the other party's company simply does not have a holiday, and the daily consumption can be four or five hundred thousand, according to the consumption of three thousandths of the commission, "Although she is very tired, she really earns a lot." Zhao Yuan said. Zhao Yuan decided to continue to "roll" in this position, in her opinion, the feeling of colleagues getting up early and busy putting in and chasing data is very pure, "There is a feeling of returning to high school." Every night when she comes home from work, Zheng Yufei is depressed, and she can't talk about the creation she is looking forward to. The high emotional concentration materials that he faced all day also broke into Zheng Yufei's dreams. For a few days, she dreamed that people were slapping each other, arguing, and insulting each other, and when she woke up, she shuddered. After a month and a half of work, she decided to quit. Now, she has joined a new ** company, compared to the previous workload of editing dozens of ** every day, now she is editing two or two minutes ** every day. For Zheng Yufei, she finally had time to think. (At the request of the interviewee, Zhao Yuan, Zheng Yufei, and Zhang Le are pseudonyms in the article).
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