The “screenwriter’s mindset” for creating hit short videos

In 2020, the number of creators on the short video app "Tik Tok" increased by 130 million compared to the previous year. This is a huge number, which means that more and more people are trying to get a share of Tik Tok's traffic pool.

The emergence of UGC (User Generated Content) short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou has greatly lowered the threshold for video creation. Anyone who has a mobile phone and registers a short video platform account can shoot and publish their own content.

However, if creators want to stand out from countless content, become the top, and create a hit, they still need to accumulate professional basic skills.

For short video creators, screenwriter thinking is a very important way of thinking. Screenwriters, in simple terms, are people who write scripts. They are text creators. However, unlike novelists, commercial copywriters, graphic and text self-media and other text workers, the final product of a screenwriter's work is not words, but images.

Moreover, once novels and other written works are published, they can directly meet readers, but the works of screenwriters have to go through the transformation and co-creation of various "middle links" such as directing, filming, acting, and editing before they can finally be presented to the audience.

Therefore, for ordinary text creators who want to devote themselves to the field of short videos, it is very necessary to change their thinking, and screenwriter thinking is a very important way of thinking that short video creators need to master. It can help short video creators improve their ability to tell stories, create conflicts, and shape characters.

This article will introduce the common thinking and techniques used in the daily work of film and television editors, helping short video creators improve their basic creative skills.

1. The screenwriter’s toolbox

China is a country that values ​​lyricism and does not attach much importance to dramatic narrative. Throughout the long ancient times, poetry and songs have always been at the top of the literary contempt chain, while the genre of novels has always been despised by the orthodox literary world and has a very low status.

The "Book of Han·Records of Arts and Literature" believes that "novelists probably originated from the miscellaneous officials. Their works are based on street talk and hearsay." "Bieguan" refers to minor officials who are responsible for collecting street gossip. What they write is all hearsay and is considered to be inferior. In real life, many Chinese people have been able to recite a few ancient poems since childhood, but many are very unfamiliar with how to tell a good story.

For screenwriters, storytelling is a very important skill.

As for how to become a good writer, the famous horror novelist Stephen King once proposed a "toolbox" theory. Stephen King's grandfather was a carpenter. He had a huge toolbox filled with planes, saws, hammers and other tools. Without them, the carpenter could not do beautiful carpentry work.

In Stephen King's view, if writers want to write successful works, they also need to build their own toolbox.

For Stephen King, his "toolbox" has three layers. The first layer contains vocabulary and grammar, which are the most basic elements needed for writing; the second layer contains "elements of style", which are the many rules and techniques that writers need to follow, such as using more nouns and verbs, fewer adverbs, avoiding loosely structured sentences, etc.; the third layer is courage, which is the energy to start writing and do it.

Stephen King's writing "toolbox" theory summarizes the qualities that writers need most and the practical skills in writing. For screenwriters, they also need to create their own "toolbox" in order to "dig out" wonderful stories and create excellent scripts.

In fact, more than two thousand years ago, the ancient Greek philosopher and thinker Aristotle provided us with the prototype of the screenwriter's "toolbox" in his "Poetics". He found that a story needs to have some basic elements, namely: beginning, development and ending. In addition, he also filled the screenwriter's "toolbox" with elements such as character, plot, rhetoric, and language.

Following the foundation laid by Aristotle, what kind of "toolbox" should a screenwriter have and what skills should he cultivate? What skills can short video creators learn from this and apply them to their daily creations?

2. What should be in the “toolbox” of short video creators?

Stories are a very important tool in an editor's toolbox. A good screenwriter can design an attractive plot, make the script full of conflicts, and attract the audience to keep watching.

In the age of information explosion, the most important thing about storytelling is: don’t be boring. Because for most people, life is dull and lacks twists and turns. The reason why people are easily attracted by the content on the screen or mobile phone screen is that they show a more exciting and interesting side of the world.

Stories are above life, and screenwriters must abandon those boring clichés and design plots full of drama and conflict in order to firmly attract the user's attention.

For short video script creators, story and plot are equally important. According to Kas Data, funny/drama accounts are the type of content that gained the fastest followers on platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou in 2019, and are also the type of KOL that advertisers love to target the most.

From the feedback of the data, it can be seen that whether it is the creator's preference or the advertiser's preference, "plot" is an excellent weapon, and the popularity of "plot" accounts also reflects people's eternal love and pursuit of stories.

It is very challenging to design a short and exciting short video plot. How can we construct an attractive plot in a few minutes or even tens of seconds? This tests the short video creator's screenwriting skills and his or her understanding of new media and user psychology.

1. From the "eight-point method" to the three-pronged approach of "suspense, reversal, and conflict"

Since short videos are too short to contain a complete plot, the "eight-point method" of traditional storytelling is no longer applicable in the world of short videos. Creators simply do not have time to fully explain the eight processes of "background, trigger, exploration, surprise, choice, climax, reversal, and resolution." For short video creators, if they can create suspense, reversal or conflict in the script, they already have the elements to capture the user's attention.

Suspenseful plots have a strong impact and excitement on the audience, and have strong interactive properties, which can often attract users' attention in a shorter period of time.

The Douyin drama account "Menier" gained 3.37 million followers in one month thanks to its light suspense "detective drama" style. Clicking into the Douyin homepage of "Menier", the visual experience is very unified. The video cover is mainly dark, creating a suspenseful feeling.

Each episode of "Menier"'s video content is about 30-40 seconds long. The theme is usually a series of scenes that users often encounter in daily life, such as staying in a hotel, shopping in a supermarket, taking an elevator, consuming in a bar, etc. In these daily scenes, "Menier"'s videos will embed many small details in the lens that are difficult for the audience to notice at first. For example, in a video of a girl checking into a hotel, the details such as "the next room is empty but there are sounds coming from it", "the door cannot be locked", and "the 'service staff' delivers towels too promptly" are embedded, so that the audience can perceive the various dangers that may be encountered when staying in a hotel through repeated viewings, thereby enhancing their awareness of safety precautions.

It is worth noting that "Menier" leaves suspense in each video and then announces the answer in the next video, which helps to attract users' attention and long-term viewing.

In order to highlight the suspenseful style of the account, the soundtrack of the "Menier" video is also full of suspense. The plot is very compact and rich in details, which can be easily missed if you are not careful. This has also mobilized the enthusiasm of many users to watch the video attentively, greatly improving the completion rate and popularity of the video.

In addition to suspenseful plots, embedding reversals and conflicts into short video scripts can also effectively hit the user's "satisfaction points". The Douyin account "Ma Xiaotiao" successfully attracted 8.7 million fans with only 31 works, which is inseparable from the reversals and conflicts that are prevalent in his short videos.

The plot of the "Ma Xiaotiao" account mainly revolves around the protagonist Ma Xiaotiao and his college classmate Lao Mu. Ma Xiaotiao usually appears in the image of a man dressed as a woman, which is full of contrast. The plot also focuses on the various contradictions and complaints between Ma Xiaotiao and Lao Mu, which is full of conflicts and can effectively attract users to continue watching.

2. Create distinct characters and build a relatively fixed narrative context

Since a single short video is too short to meet the needs of building a full character image, creators can only win by the number of short videos. Only by building a consistent character in each short video can a relatively vivid character image be created.

Regarding creating account personality, Socket Academy once proposed an "RCSC model": role, character, scene and content. To sum up, it means "what kind of content the account outputs with what kind of character and in what scenario".

Through the stable shaping of character personalities and relatively fixed scenes and content, short video accounts can build a narrative context with their own characteristics.

The Douyin account "笑欧巴不脸" with 2.13 million followers steadily outputs a series of hardcore food tutorials. This is an account without any actors, but through the distinctive writing style, the cold narration full of black humor and relatively fixed shot composition, it has still established a very distinctive account personality.

An edible toilet paper, the largest mantis shrimp with popping candy flavor, Wangzai fried milk, and whiskey-roasted pork belly... This is the daily menu of "Shameless Laughing Oppa". Through hardcore food tutorials full of curiosity, users can quickly establish an impression of the account after watching 2-3 videos.

Not only that, the narration of "笑欧巴羞无身" is also very distinctive, "According to statistics, two out of every three lustful women have had improper thoughts about mantis shrimp. They look like abdominal muscles no matter how you look at them." "Spain's most expensive internet celebrity plate-smashing pig. First, prepare for the sense of ritual. Cover the pig's eyes and slowly relax every inch of skin. If you want time to slow down, go to math class." The narration talks nonsense in a serious manner, which also adds fun to the account's personality, allowing users to watch it with interest, thereby boosting the account's completion rate.

3. “Tactical” sound effects and shots are a powerful tool for forming fixed memories

In the era of information explosion, entering the user's memory is a very technically demanding task. In order to improve the memorability of their accounts, many short video creators have racked their brains and tried various methods to add "hooks" to the content that will capture users' memories.

In addition to the previously mentioned personalities, copywriting, and scenes that can help an account establish distinctive characteristics, short videos also have some unique means of building user impressions.

For example, the Douyin account "Menier" has a "tactical camera movement" at the end of each of its short videos, which is a slow-motion close-up of the protagonist from the front. The fixed camera movement mode deepens the user's memory of the account. For example, the Douyin account "Zhu Yici's Boring Life" uses the same background music in most of its videos, which can also help users build an impression of the account.

3. Conclusion

For any craftsman, it is impossible to complete precision work without tools. The same is true for short video creators. Behind every popular short video, there are actually countless tools, skills and experiences.

When chasing traffic, short video creators may need to hone their skills first, enrich their "toolbox", and use higher-quality content to take a sip of the torrent of traffic.

Author: Uma Xiaoman

Source: Wuma Xiaoman (wumaxiaoman)