Tips for writing short videos about drama

Nowadays, short videos have become one of the main channels for people to entertain themselves, acquire knowledge, understand current affairs, and promote companies and products.

The types of short videos are also varied and endless, such as plot interpretation, oral introduction, image display, animation demonstration, etc. Among them, plot-based short videos combine fun and practicality. At a time when social pressure is high, they can not only provide people with entertainment and stress relief in their spare time, but also spread positive energy or practical knowledge through plot stories. Naturally, this type of video has been sought after and paid attention to by many companies and individual bloggers. Now let’s share some tips and methods for writing short story-based video content .

The content of the plot is inseparable from the story, and the structure of the story, as the skeleton of the plot short video, is particularly important. The story structure is composed of three major elements: contradiction and conflict, character characteristics, and prescribed situations. Because short videos are sometimes short and have a fast-paced plot, the traditional narrative method is a process in which emotions slowly brew, accumulate, and sublimate. When they accumulate to a certain point, they will suddenly explode, but the cycle is relatively long and the speed is relatively slow. Obviously, it cannot meet the requirements of short videos to explode quickly. Therefore, this type of content framework is not suitable for use when accumulating fans and traffic in the early stage. Here, we can introduce two of the most common and effective framework types to you...

1. Reversal

A reversal occurs in the development of the plot, where a conventional situation is first created for the audience so that they have a psychological expectation, and then suddenly through lines or actions, the plot develops in the opposite direction of the audience's psychological expectations. Let the audience have a "roller coaster" mentality when watching the video. However, this transformation cannot deviate from the logic of reality, and the development of the plot must be both unexpected and reasonable.

For example, a video from a certain shooting center on Douyin starts with a scene of an actress wearing equipment and operating it skillfully. In the scene, the actress's good looks, cool expression, skillful movements, professional equipment and other elements create an image of a heroic, battle-hardened, and powerful master for the audience, and the audience will have a psychological expectation that the actress will bring a high-level shooting performance. But then, the actress turned her head and her expression turned into an awkward smile. She said to the coach next to her: "No, coach! I'm still nervous..." A change in expression and the performance of a line instantly reversed the actress's image as a master and turned her into a "newbie" who was just learning. This reversal not only brings a certain degree of turmoil to the audience, but also makes the characters in the video fuller and more three-dimensional, which increases the fun of the video to a certain extent and makes the audience look forward to what kind of performance the actress will have next.

For example, a large number of videos on the Tik Tok account "Bai XX" use this reversal type. In one of the episodes about blind dates, the male and female protagonists deliberately concealed their means of travel during the blind date. Afterwards, the two appeared next to their luxury car, creating a low-key but powerful image for the audience. Next, the two met again in front of a car rental company, and the image reversed, which was beyond the audience's expectations and very interesting. Both the fan data and traffic data are very ideal.

Summary of the practical skills framework: explain the situation - raise contradictions and conflicts - resolve contradictions - surprises (turns) - ending

2. Flashback

Flashback, in layman's terms, is to move the most conflicting and attractive parts of a story to the front based on a straightforward story. In other words, there is no need for any preliminary preparation and the story can go straight to its climax.

1. About the beginning:

For example, the playback process of a video can be compared to the process of boiling water. If you start heating from 0 degrees Celsius, it may be stopped before it reaches 20 degrees, because the bland start does not stimulate or attract the audience. Instead, it should start directly from a high temperature of 80-90 degrees and enter a boiling state as soon as it is heated. The biggest difference between short videos and big screens is that short video consumers have no concept of consumers. No one is willing to spend 50 or 100 yuan to watch a short video, so cheap things need to prove their value. In other words, the video must attract the user's attention from the beginning and make him willing to spend time on you. Of course, not all eye-catching behaviors are topic-seeking. The so-called attracting users means that we have to use some extremely controversial topics, topics that users are interested in, or topics that make users have a spectator mentality, so that they can continue watching the video. So no matter how exciting the story is, you must write a good beginning.

For example, in the video of the Douyin account "X奇", which is about office sitcoms, the beginning is a person rushing into the office angrily and asking who is XX! The drama opens with contradictions, making the audience curious about the relationships between the characters and what happens in the drama. It is easier to attract the audience to watch the following story.

2. About the process:

After the beginning, it is time to explain to the audience the background of the story and the reasons for the intensified conflicts. This process is the "cooling" process after pushing the plot to the "boiling" state. This process will slowly bring the audience into the story.

But it should be noted that no matter how complex the time and space structure is, people must be able to understand the story. Almost everyone who has watched a video will give it a thumbs up, and some will even watch it repeatedly. However, the number of people who swipe away before finishing the video does not exceed 20%. This is mostly because although the content is exciting and meaningful, the format is too complicated, which can easily confuse people at first. Research has found that most users like videos that they can understand and tell others.

For example, in the video of "X奇" mentioned earlier, a man came out to mediate and explained the background of the story and the cause of the conflict. Moreover, the cause of the story was something that most people had personally experienced or seen, thus gaining resonance.

3. About the ending:

Don't worry about the completeness of the story, and leave more time for emotions. In order to pursue the completeness of the story, many people divide the story structure into several equal parts. However, what really touches the audience is the emotions and feelings. Only by amplifying the emotions and feelings can the short video stand out. You can choose an open ending, where the story outcome is not really shown. This not only leaves room for the audience's imagination, but also increases the audience's interactivity, thereby increasing the audience's stickiness to the account.

Let’s take the “X奇” video as an example. The communication between several people not only introduced the plot to the audience, but also delivered positive energy to the audience. However, there was no clear ending, which kept the audience guessing about the “attitude of the villain”. This allowed the audience to express their own opinions on the real-life significance of the video, and ultimately increased the number of reposts, comments and likes.

Summary of the practical skills framework: 1. Intensified conflicts - 2. Story background - 3. Resolving conflicts - 4. Surprises - 5. Turning points - 6. Open ending.

Conclusion:

At the end of 2022, we have summarized a lot of methods in the process of video content creation. After all, all our operations are to pave the way for presenting the best video to the audience. The script writing link is particularly important. Here we only select the plot script writing skills from the script type and recommend them to everyone. After reading this, you should have a general understanding of plot script writing. If you don’t have time to do it, professional matters can be left to professionals. Silk Road Academy provides one-stop advertising shooting and promotion services, from 0 to 100, to give your products full exposure, technology-driven corporate digital marketing, so that products from any corner of the world can be sold globally.