In the vast and boundless galaxy, ancient Eastern myths and legends flow, representing the endless reveries of our ancestors about all things in heaven and earth. When AI meets mythology, it allows the light of technology to illuminate the magical journey of modern science fiction... With the ethereal aura of the primordial chaos and the majestic voiceover, six Chinese mythological heroes, including Nuwa, Pangu, and Chang'e, emerge from ancient times, traverse through history, and engage in dialogue with representatives of modern technology such as "Chang'e 5" and "Tu Youyou."

A month after Sora's groundbreaking debut, the AI full-process (art, storyboarding, video, dubbing, and music) micro-short drama "Chinese Mythology" has subverted traditional AI content creation in China, quickly rising to the top of search trends and triggering a surge in short drama and concept stock prices.

Advertisement

The comment section is buzzing with excitement, with some netizens expressing deep shock, "Upon opening the video, I am willing to believe in myths," and stating their intention to save it for their children to watch. Some netizens believe there is still a gap compared to Sora, as the video is short and appears somewhat mechanical.

"Sora's leapfrogging technological revolution has given an advantage to any team in the world, not just in China. They have the cost to bear risks and a firm belief in technology, some factors that our environment lacks. In the growth process of our AI technology, we also need a healthy investment and public opinion environment. Back to the essence of the matter, what we need to consider is whether AI is helpful to our work and how it helps?" Shenyang, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University and a co-producer of the micro-short drama "Chinese Mythology," said in a recent interview with First Financial Daily.

AI+ is about integrating with industries.

"We have long maintained close exchanges of theory and practice with CCTV. Last year, our teams began communicating," Shenyang said, "The core is what AI can change for us? How to combine AI with China's vast industries, so that we have our own advantages."

From this perspective, creating the Chinese Mythology AI series to promote Chinese traditional culture and intangible cultural heritage is of positive significance.

"Chinese Mythology" is divided into six episodes, titled "Mending the Sky," "Chasing the Sun," "Racing to the Moon," "Filling the Sea," "Controlling the Floods," and "Tasting All the Grasses." It is jointly launched by the CCTV General Station's Audiovisual New Media Center and the General Station's Artificial Intelligence Studio in collaboration with the Metaverse Culture Laboratory of the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University.

"Artificial intelligence, data work is the foundation. The laboratory has been working on it since 2014, with a large amount of data, and CCTV itself has a vast amount of data. The best big data model is to connect public data with the internal data of each unit."

The mutual support allows both sides to refine the details of "Chinese Mythology.""Currently, the technologies for text-to-text, text-to-image, and text-to-video are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and AI-generated music has also made breakthroughs. What is most needed is patience to refine the products. For instance, the initial impression of Nuwa given by AI was that of a beautiful woman, lacking some celestial aura. We provided some directional cues, and after the AI processed them, it added some anti-gravity effects in terms of attire, styling, and environment, creating an atmosphere of ethereal grace," said Shenyang.

However, if AI micro-dramas merely replicate every Chinese mythological story, resulting in visual impact and technical novelty, then the creative development and innovative transformation of AI would not be demonstrated.

"The characters in Chinese mythology are all hardworking and dedicated to building their own homes. Today, in our development process, we still need these spirits, such as China's space endeavors, Mars exploration rovers, and other explorations of the extraterrestrial world. The tools used are different from those of the ancients, but the underlying spirit remains the same. Therefore, we prompt the AI with, 'Think about the past, think about the present, think about the future,' and the AI will generate a lot of content that it deems very reasonable," said Shenyang.

This is also one of the characteristics of the AI micro-drama series "Chinese Mythology." For example, Nuwa, the creator of humans, transformed into a colorful stone to mend the cracks in the sky, and now, in the face of environmental crises such as ozone layer depletion, humans worldwide are collectively "mending the sky." As the ozone layer holes are gradually repaired, humanity sees the dawn of hope again.

The narrative connection between the two stories, combined with video, music, and commentary, has achieved good results. Netizens have expressed that they haven't had enough and that the four-minute-plus content feels more like a trailer, with a desire to see the full film.

AI "Self-creation" of high-quality short dramas is challenging.

"A significant challenge now is that the time for AI technology to generate videos is quite limited—the longer the duration, the harder it is to maintain the consistency of the imagery. Therefore, in this regard, Sora is quite strong, capable of automatically generating one minute of content. Of course, after they emerged, as the industry has come to understand, compare, and learn about their basic principles, such as computational power training and so on, and after a period of research and development, in the field of video large models, everyone will gradually mature," said Shenyang.

This is also the reason why "Chinese Mythology" chose AI micro-dramas, as they have lower production costs, shorter production times, faster dissemination, and are more likely to resonate with people.

First Financial Daily reporters learned that if the "Chinese Mythology" micro-dramas were produced through the traditional process of shooting, editing, and scoring, the cost would be seven times that of the AI micro-dramas.

This means that with the introduction of AI technology, the cost of video production will be greatly reduced. Coupled with the audio-visual effects of micro-dramas, the current popular short drama producers are beginning to consider how to use AI technology tools for the entire creative process."Currently, technologies such as virtual production and AIGC (AI-Generated Content) are widely used. These technologies have significantly reduced input costs and improved production efficiency." Liu Deli, the person in charge of the New Yuan New Culture and Tourism Research Institute, believes that the online audio-visual industry is undergoing a revolutionary change, and micro-short dramas are a dark horse in this transformation, with AI technology bringing new development opportunities for micro-short dramas.

At the 11th China Online Audio-Visual Conference held recently, Tao Kun, the general manager of Gongfu Pictures, told the media that virtual shooting technology has brought a certain degree of cost reduction and efficiency increase to the film and television industry, and has also provided creators with more creative methods.

A research report released by iiMedia Research, a Chinese data consulting company, in November last year showed that the market size of China's online short drama market last year was 37.39 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of nearly 267.65%.

Some experts believe that this year the market size is expected to exceed 50 billion yuan. In the next five years, micro-short dramas may become an important force to drive the trillion-yuan market.

Data from EntGroup shows that in 2023, the number of domestic short drama-related enterprises exceeded 300,000, with many companies at the upstream, midstream, and downstream of the industry chain performing their respective duties.

At the same time, many listed companies on the A-share market have expressed their intentions to actively layout the micro-short drama business and explore a series of "short drama +" new ecosystems.

According to the company's disclosed information, the short drama business concept stock, China Online (300364.SZ), held two investor research activities on November 3, 2023, and November 5, attracting 369 people from institutions such as HaiFuTong Fund, GuangFa Fund, and NuoAn Fund.

With the standardized development and quality improvement of short dramas, production costs have also increased.

The first financial reporter learned that at the beginning of 2023, the production cost of a short drama was about 200,000 to 300,000 yuan; in the pursuit of the audience and the hot market, the production cost of a short drama has now increased by about two to three times.

In the field of production processes, the use of AI technology has been relatively extensive, but the industry still has a way to go to rely on AI to fully automatically generate high-quality short dramas.Zhang Hongzhong, Dean of the School of Journalism and Communication at Beijing Normal University, believes at the China Internet Audio-Visual Conference that the logic and production methods of image creation are being transformed by large models. In the face of rapid changes, creators must fully prepare for the prompts and training of large models. At the same time, aesthetics have become an important basis for selecting content generated by large models, which is also where technology cannot replace humans.