The "China Internet Audiovisual Development Research Report (2025)" recently released by the China Internet Audiovisual Program Service Association shows that as of December 2024, the scale of micro-short drama users will reach 662 million, with a half-year growth rate of 14.8%; in just half a year, the average daily usage time of independent micro-short drama applications has increased from 90 minutes to 101 minutes, which has caught up with instant messaging.
In this audio-visual art revolution brought about by the mobile Internet, short short plays featuring simple content and short duration are gradually rising, but they are also facing the dilemma of uneven quality and being at the bottom of the industry's "contempt chain". A number of excellent works that have appeared in the past two years have continued to attract attention from the industry: How to break through the creative logic of "satisfaction first" and lead the short short play industry to continuously explore the path of high-quality production?
Falling back to reality from "suspension"
An old grandmother turns into the head of a wealthy family and introduces her grandson to an ordinary girl who helps her; a noble lady in ancient times is despised by her husband, but turns around and falls in love with the emperor; a "domineering boss" falls in love with a girl at first sight when he meets her, and slaps her "weird" relatives in the face... In the micro-short drama market dominated by short video platforms, most works show a suspended tendency of "pleasure first".
"These 'daydreams' woven by images have played a role in psychological comfort and emotional relief to a certain extent, but they often fail to provide the audience with valuable and lasting emotional thinking and effective connection with real life." Zhang Guotao, a researcher at the Communication University of China, said that changing the tendency of suspension, reflecting on reality, and conveying positive values will help lead micro-short dramas to develop in the direction of high-quality products.
Driven by the competent authorities, more and more short short plays are showing a realistic tendency: "Auntie's World" focuses on the middle-aged and elderly female group, using satirical and humorous methods to show the increasingly neglected life scenes; "The Card Game" explores social issues such as school bullying and original families through a Rashomon-style reasoning story; "Autumn Diary" focuses on women and family issues, showing the diverse emotional relationships and life wisdom in life...
Literary critic Zhong Chengxiang believes that micro-short plays, as a form of socialist literature and art with Chinese characteristics, also bear the function of nourishing the mind with art and shaping the soul with literature, and must also follow the creative principle of going deep into life and taking root among the people.
After three months of staying in Ningbo, he gained an in-depth understanding of the local history, culture, economy and people's lifestyle. He created "Ningbo 144 Hours" to show the development of Ningbo from a traditional fishing village to a modern port. He went deep into Qingxi Village in Yiyang, Hunan, and created "There is a Taste Called Qingxi" to show the charm of the countryside in food and beautiful scenery. He traveled around Chengdu, dug up real people and stories, constructed real life scenes and details, and created "Home and Away" to activate regional culture and emotional memory...
"Micro-short drama creators should bury their cameras in the folds of life, identify social pain points, capture the dramatic tension of real life itself, and transform the emotions of the times into warm images. Only real problems and real thinking can trigger real resonance and real touching." said Wang Liang, executive editor-in-chief of iQiyi.
Ask for topics from all walks of life
The recently launched short drama "Brothers Yan and Qiao" is set in the 1920s and shows the young Communists represented by Chen Yannian and Chen Qiao'nan's iron will to uphold the truth and their revolutionary spirit of daring to fight.
"The lack of high-quality short plays on revolutionary history is an urgent problem to be solved," said Long Pingping, a researcher at the Central Party History and Literature Research Institute and screenwriter of "Yanqiao Brothers." "Short plays on revolutionary history are history that has been artistically processed. They use artistic methods to present history and reveal historical laws."
At present, most of the micro-short dramas dominated by the platforms are concentrated on the "cool" themes such as revenge, son-in-law, counterattack, and wealthy families that are favored by the "downstream market", which greatly restricts the development path of micro-short dramas into high-quality ones.
"The creation of short plays should bravely step out of the comfort zone and have a broader vision." Wang Liang said, "The blue ocean of subject matter is always hidden in the untold truth."
Traditional culture is also an important breakthrough for the innovation of short drama themes. "A Dream of the Starry Sky" is set against the background of Suzhou's development and changes, and incorporates intangible cultural heritage such as Suzhou embroidery, Song brocade, kesi silk, Pingtan, and Kunqu opera; "Escape from the British Museum" uses the anthropomorphic method of cultural relics to tell the story of a Chinese jade pot with twined branches pattern that turns into a cute girl and joins hands with Chinese media people working overseas to embark on a journey home.
Since last year, driven by the "Travel with Micro-Short Dramas" creative plan of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, a number of micro-short dramas have boosted tourism in the filming locations: In "Lovely Little Food Time", the audience followed the food anchor on a trip to explore Shaanxi food, "Lonely Travel Group" gave Guilin's natural beauty the power to heal the soul, and "Back to Chongli" inspired the audience's enthusiasm for skiing in Chongli...
At the beginning of this year, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television announced the implementation of the "Micro Short Drama +" action plan. In addition to the "Travel with Micro Short Dramas", "Learn Law with Micro Short Dramas", and "See Brands in Micro Short Dramas" launched last year, it added "Learn Classics with Micro Short Dramas", "Popular Science with Micro Short Dramas", and "See Intangible Cultural Heritage in Micro Short Dramas" and other creative plans, combining micro short dramas with other fields or industries, driving the quality upgrade of micro short drama content and empowering thousands of industries.
Grasp the aesthetics of "acceleration", "vertical screen" and "AI"
In line with the "micro" cultural context and "short" duration concept of the mobile Internet era, "accelerated aesthetics", "vertical screen aesthetics", "AI aesthetics" and so on are increasingly becoming keywords for the creation of high-quality micro-short dramas.
——“Accelerated aesthetics” emphasizes fast-paced, high-density narrative methods.
"Nowadays, people are used to doing twice or even three times the work in twice the time, and a drama with too long a build-up is difficult to attract an audience." Leng Suo, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that the compact and fast aesthetic experience brings both challenges and opportunities to the creation of micro-short dramas.
"Surpass! A Juan" tells the story of a young man from a small town who came to a big city to open a lion dance hall, combining the growth of a small person with the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage. Each episode of the drama is about 5 minutes long, and with its high plot density and fast narrative rhythm, it has become a typical case of practicing "accelerated aesthetics".
"General micro-short dramas compress the storyline into an extremely compressed package. High-quality micro-short dramas condense the storyline to an extremely high degree, then decompress it at the level of theme connotation, and expand and blur it at the level of value conception," said Zhou Rong, deputy secretary-general of the Film and Television Art Professional Committee of the China Television Art Exchange Association.
——“Vertical Screen Aesthetics” explores the lens language that adapts to the vertical screen of mobile phones.
Li Jingsheng, vice president of the China Radio and Television Social Organization Federation, suggested that the creation of micro-short dramas should find the characteristics of the communication carrier, that is, explore what content is most suitable for expression on mobile phones, and what kind of artistic methods and aesthetic presentations are unique to mobile phones.
"Unlike watching movies and TV series in horizontal format, most users watch short dramas on their phones in portrait mode, so 'vertical screen aesthetics' has become an important topic for our research." Yang Kenan, director of "At Home and Away", found that the vertical screen has the greatest advantage in presenting the status and emotions of characters, but the fusion of character and scene narrative is rather awkward. We can learn from vertical movie posters to study a set of lens language that is suitable for the vertical screen of mobile phones.
——“AI Aesthetics” emphasizes the appropriate integration of technological application and artistic expression.
Xu Wenguang, deputy convener of the Audiovisual New Media Center of China Media Group, believes that artificial intelligence brings a vast amount of creativity and rich imagination to the creation of micro-short dramas, which can break through the limitations of human imagination in artistic creation, make traditional images unfamiliar, and create a large number of visual wonders.
"Chinese Mythology" uses full-process artificial intelligence technologies such as art, storyboards, video, dubbing, and music to expand people's conventional imagination of mythology and show the contemporary echo of national spirit; "Sanxingdui: Future Revelation" uses more than 10 artificial intelligence technologies such as large models and diffusion models to reconstruct the ancient Shu civilization 4,000 years ago and make cultural relics "come alive"...
Some experts have warned that although artificial intelligence technology even "understands creation better than the creators", fundamentally speaking, the creation of micro-short plays still depends on people's aesthetic and sensory experience, and technical means cannot completely determine the quality of micro-short plays.
Yang Zheng, deputy director of the Network Audiovisual Department of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, said that in order to promote micro-short dramas to move towards high-quality development and high-quality development, we should abandon the mindset of traffic supremacy, dig deep into the modern expression of China's excellent traditional culture and the vivid narration of China's modernization practice, and achieve short but not shallow artistic pursuits with a micro but not thin creative attitude.
