Entertainment: I just want to be the boss behind the scenes

Chapter 547 Isn’t this the cultural freedom you want?

After the trailer of "Escape from the British Museum" was aired, it became more popular than anyone expected. The number of views exceeded 2 million on the first day, and climbed to 6 million on the second day, ranking first on the hot search list.

A large number of marketing accounts reposted the video on major short video platforms in order to attract attention, which further fueled the popularity. This short drama, which has not yet been aired, has become a hit with just a two-minute trailer.

Arclight initially reserved a week of warm-up time to build up momentum for the feature film, but looking at the current trend, there is no point in dragging it out any further.

So, under the urging of thousands of netizens, the main film of "Escape from the British Museum" was released three days in advance, and it was broadcast simultaneously on multiple platforms.

In fact, at the beginning, Chen Zhixi proposed to broadcast this drama exclusively on Pumpkin Short Drama, which would also bring a wave of traffic to the platform, but he was later persuaded by Meng Bai with one sentence.

“We want to develop the entire industry of short dramas, not just a certain platform.”

Based on this suggestion, in addition to the free Pumpkin short drama, the drama was also released on platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, Bilibili, Weibo, etc.

Facts have proved that Meng Bai's thinking is completely correct from the perspective of industry strategy.

With the synergistic effect of multiple platforms, the first episode of "Escape from the British Museum" quickly sparked discussions across the entire network as soon as it was aired.

Starting from mid-September, the entire short series was updated at the rate of one episode per day. By the time the fifth episode was aired, the total number of views on the entire network had reached 2 million, and the number of likes exceeded million.

Ten days after the show was aired, the total number of views of the entire series exceeded 4 million, and the Weibo topic index jumped to the first place. Related terms such as "British Museum", "Lost Cultural Relics", "Chinese Thin-Bodied Jade Pot with Entwined Branches Pattern", "The Admonitions of Instructress to the Court Ladies" and so on frequently appeared on hot searches.

In fact, all major drama platforms have new dramas on the air during this period, such as "Light Me Up, Warm You" starring Zhang Jingyi, "The Star Han" starring Zhao Lusi, "The Blazing Road" starring Jin Chen, and "Ode to Joy 3" and so on.

Fans of the main actors of several dramas were arguing over which one performed better. Unexpectedly, a short drama dropped from the sky and directly attracted all the popularity and traffic.

The most excited fans in the fan circle are undoubtedly Chen Yao's fans. They originally felt that their sister had too many resources and was disappointed that she had to film a short drama, but they woke up to find that they had become a "top star".

As the heroine of "Escape from the British Museum", Chen Yao attracted a large number of viewers with her cute and lively appearance when the trailer was broadcast. After the main film was broadcast, the popularity soared.

In less than half a month, her Weibo followers increased by nearly 2 million. Her personal super topic also jumped from no such person to the top ten of the list of actresses.

Of course, this kind of traffic usually comes and goes quickly. When the popularity of the short drama fades, it will naturally drop.

But then again, no matter how much it dropped, there would always be a part left. For Chen Yao, an 18th-tier unknown, this result was already quite good. After all, in this short drama, the male lead was almost a tool, so most of the dividends were eaten by her.

And now this girl has figured it out. If she has the chance, she still has to join a big company like Arclight. They have a lot of resources, and they are top-notch in the industry.

Not surprisingly, Chen Yao accepted ArcLight's invitation and officially became an artist under the ArcLight system.

Seeing the welcome message released by Arclight's official Weibo account, all the young actresses in the same period in the circle couldn't help but feel a little jealous. Who would have thought that an 18th-tier unknown actress could break through the siege with a short drama and have the opportunity to sign a contract with a top company like Arclight?

Really, if I had known that this skit would be so popular, who would have cared about "losing status" or "the skit is too low" and so on, and would have fought hard to get it, but now someone else has taken advantage of it.

Even Tian Xiwei felt a little emotional. She knew that Li Yitong had recommended her to Meng Bai, but it was not suitable for the filming of "Wind Blowing Half Summer" at that time, otherwise she would have been the first choice for "Little Jade Pot".

Of course, she was just thinking about it. She was different from Chen Yao. Chen Yao didn't have many resources, but she had no shortage of dramas to film. Compared to gambling on a short drama, a serious long drama would definitely be more in line with her current development needs.

What's more, as an "informant" directly reporting to the big boss, Mr. Meng, she will never be short of resources in the future and doesn't need to care about such a short drama.

Besides watching short videos and seeing various clips, explanations and popular science about this drama, I still occasionally sigh that this short drama is really too popular.

So far, the short film "Escape from the British Museum" has already achieved what Arclight had expected when it first started this project, both in terms of the value of the project itself and in terms of strategic significance.

Although it was not broadcast exclusively, Pumpkin Drama, as the first official platform, still attracted a large amount of traffic with its comprehensive surrounding behind-the-scenes videos. In half a month, the number of APP downloads increased by tens of millions, and the number of monthly active users exceeded 4000 million.

In the app store rankings, the popularity of "Pumpkin Short Plays" even surpassed major platforms such as Tencent Video and Qiyi TV, and was only ranked behind Douyin, Kuaishou and the express versions of the two.

The entire short drama industry has become more popular thanks to this wave of popularity. Major Internet companies including Tencent, ByteDance, and Alibaba have begun to pay attention to the short drama industry.

As the first and only platform in the entire short drama track, many investors have begun to consult Ruyi about the financing of "Pumpkin Short Drama", hoping to participate in this new trend as quickly as possible.

But the impact of the short play "Escape from the British Museum" is far from over.

On the second day of the National Day holiday, official platforms including Xinhua News Agency, People's Daily, CCTV News and others reposted the full episode of "Escape from the British Museum" and accompanied it with a long commentary article.

Obviously, with the rapid expansion of the short drama market, the government cannot ignore this new entertainment field. In the past, short dramas were basically shoddy and bloody dramas, so they were not suitable to be mentioned.

But this time it’s different. The drama "Escape from the British Museum" perfectly meets the official standards in terms of production quality, plot depth and theme.

In particular, the theme of "Cultural Relics Lost Overseas" hits the core of official needs.

Regarding the issue of lost cultural relics, because it involves the relations between too many countries, there are many things that the official is not suitable to say directly, and the most they can do is a superficial call.

The emergence of "Escape from the British Museum" undoubtedly gave the authorities an excellent means to express their views. By launching this drama, everyone can understand what it means, but the other party cannot use this as an excuse to make trouble -

What, you said this is slander? Hahaha, you must be kidding, we didn't say anything, we just recommended a commercial short drama produced by a film and television company. Isn't this what you often call cultural freedom?

(End of this chapter)