Live-action micro-short dramas usher in new opportunities
Among the short dramas you watch, AI dramas already account for the majority. In the first eight months of this year, there were 430,000 micro-short dramas online, 13 times the total last year, of which AI dramas accounted for over 90%. With AI dramas rapidly occupying the short drama track, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television has recently released a major signal: my country will further promote the "Excellent Micro-Short Drama Creation and Communication Plan", and major platforms will set up special areas for real-life dramas and spend real money to support the creation of real-life short dramas.
Why does the policy support live-action short dramas? With policy support, how can live-action short dramas become high-quality products?
It is undeniable that AI has pressed the accelerator button for the short drama industry: production costs have been greatly reduced, the threshold for creation has dropped again and again, ordinary people can also use digital tools to tell their own stories, and short dramas have entered the era of "second-level production and mass supply". But technological dividends are also a double-edged sword. The plots of assembly line AI short dramas are copied repeatedly, the virtual faces are the same, the characters have stiff expressions and empty emotional expressions, making it difficult to create vivid characters with warmth and personality. While a large amount of content is being put online, shoddy and bizarre works are emerging one after another, and the value orientation of some content is biased. The more prominent problem is infringement, such as the private capture of portrait voices and the bulk misuse of ordinary people's facial materials, which pose severe challenges to copyright protection and personal privacy protection.
Lower production costs also bring cruel traffic squeeze. With the advantages of low cost and high output, AI short dramas seize market share and harvest short video traffic. On the other hand, the time-consuming, laborious, and heavily polished real-life creation is subject to long production cycles and high costs. On the contrary, traffic is limited and returns are under pressure.
Policies support live-action short dramas to promptly correct deviations in the industry. It should be noted that live-action short dramas have core competitiveness that cannot be replicated by AI: the actors’ true emotional interpretation, the pyrotechnic texture of live shooting, and the delicate and three-dimensional portrayal of human nature, which make the story warm and detailed, and can better carry realistic expressions and tell vivid Chinese stories.
Policies supporting live-action short dramas are by no means denying the value of AI technology, but clarifying the correct boundaries for industry development. Today, AI has long become an important auxiliary tool for film and television creation. It can significantly reduce costs and improve efficiency in script conception, screen generation, post-production efficiency enhancement and other aspects, broaden the creative boundaries, and inject vitality into the digital upgrade of the industry. But while technology is empowering, the industry must maintain the bottom line of creation. We cannot focus on speed and output, and fall into the misunderstanding of "emphasis on quantity over quality", which will overdraw the reputation of the short drama industry; nor can we stick to tradition and reject innovation, missing the opportunity of digital technology empowering industrial upgrading. Making good use of technology without relying on it, and embracing innovation without losing the humanistic foundation are the fundamental ways for the healthy development of the short drama industry.
Policy support does not mean that live-action short dramas can sit back and relax. At present, the entire micro-short drama industry has long bid farewell to the traffic bonus period of brutal growth, and has entered a new stage of peak traffic, user aesthetic upgrades, and fierce competition for stock. Audiences no longer pay for mindless entertainment and fast-food plots. The content competition has shifted from competing for output to competing for quality, sincerity, and value. The higher the expectations of the industry, the heavier the responsibility and pressure of live-action short dramas. We must not rely on support policies to stay in the comfort zone and repeat the mistakes of shoddy production. Instead, we should actively raise the bar for creation and deepen the quality of content.
Don’t be afraid of slow work, just be afraid of poor creation. AI has enabled unlimited mass production of content, and there is already too much fast food content on the screen to finish. Because of this, those high-quality live-action short dramas that have been repeatedly polished and show humanistic sincerity have become increasingly scarce and precious. AI empowerment improves quality and efficiency, and real-person creation maintains the humanistic background. The two complement each other, so that micro-short dramas can escape from the traffic fast food and achieve an upgrade from "quantity" to "quality".
