- il y a 2 jours
Director Jen Yeuroukis shares her journey into the Duanju industry, from intimacy choreography to directing for vertical platforms. She breaks down the key differences between short dramas and traditional film, highlighting the fast-paced production, smaller crews, and highly structured storytelling. Jen explores the essence of microdramas as modern-day soap operas—romantic, exaggerated, and designed for pure entertainment. She also addresses common script challenges such as localization, repetitive dialogue, and the growing concern around misogynistic tropes. Looking ahead, she advocates for more diverse genres, stronger female characters, and global expansion, positioning microdrama as a rapidly evolving storytelling format with massive untapped potential.
Catégorie
🦄
Art et designTranscription
00:00My name is Jen Yorokis, and I work as a director in microdrama or vertical drama production.
00:10I work in Los Angeles, but I'm also fostering relationships for productions in Paris, France, and other parts of the
00:19European Union.
00:20And how did you first get involved in short drama industry?
00:24A friend of mine who is an actor and a producer, Casey Esser, he actually had hired me to be
00:33an intimacy choreographer on a couple of his dramas that he had been working on.
00:39And then a friend of mine who's a DP who had been introduced to vertical dramas had recommended me as
00:47a director to Netshorts, and that's how I got introduced as a director into the vertical.
00:54The first time you shoot short drama, what's the difference between shooting short dramas and long-form TV series or
01:03films?
01:03I think the biggest difference is the size of the crew, which is much smaller on a vertical or on
01:13a short drama, and also the speed at which we shoot.
01:17You have much more time on a feature film or a television show than you do on a short drama
01:24series.
01:25Short drama, and how we defined it, and what do you think its essence?
01:30Before I'm pitching the idea of short dramas or verticals, what I usually reference for people is either the South
01:39American telenovela or the United States soap opera genre.
01:44I kind of think that what I'm experiencing with short dramas is that it really has become a place to
01:53resurrect this particular type of genre, which is a soap opera or a telenovela, which is romance.
02:03It's over the top, it's dialogue-driven, and for me, the essence of it is just pure, unadulterated fun.
02:14I don't look to short dramas to bring me really deep, complex storytelling or mind-blowingly beautiful cinematic imagery.
02:30I really look at them as really fun, cheeky, if you know what that term means, it's like poking fun
02:39at itself in a way.
02:40Just fun, romantic interaction between over-the-top characters.
02:47That's how I look at microdramas.
02:50Is there any difference between microdrama or verticals and soap operas?
02:55Well, I think soap operas, the main difference is that soap operas, again, you get a little bit more time
03:03to shoot.
03:04Also, I think the storylines in soap operas are more complex and drawn out because you have, you know, back
03:12in the day when soap operas were a really big genre in the United States, you know, you would have
03:16a storyline that could carry on for 10 or 15 years.
03:19You know, they just shoot every day because it's a daily, you would watch the soap operas every day, you'd
03:25watch a half-hour episode, sometimes one hour, and it could go on for years if people fell in love
03:32with the characters.
03:32It just was never-ending.
03:34Whereas with microdramas or verticals, you're talking about an episode that's only two or three minutes, and it's got a
03:42finite finishing point.
03:44So you'll shoot for, you know, 100 pages, and that'll be divided up, and that's the end of those characters.
03:50That's it.
03:51Those, to me, are the differences.
03:52About creation, what are some common script issues?
03:57Because you will receive some many scripts.
03:59Some common issues that you often need to fix or adjust during production or before the production.
04:06Localization is a big issue.
04:08The scripts are oftentimes not written by someone in the country that the drama is going to be streaming for.
04:18So we look at how each character speaks, what their language is, the types of phrases that they will use,
04:28the colloquialisms that they will use, and we'll try to, you know, maintain the structure because the companies always want
04:35us to maintain a certain structure.
04:37But within that structure, I'll try to, like, individualize each character's voice based on the city that they're supposed to
04:46be living in, or based on their class level, or based on, you know, something very specific in their character.
04:52So that's really one of the biggest that we face is finding ways to hold the structure the way the
04:59company wants the structure, but to find individual voices for the characters that are unique and speak to where they
05:07are living and what they are doing in their lives.
05:10And then the other big issue that we're starting to see is that there is in microdrama a type of
05:18misogyny that's really playing out that maybe is getting pushed too far right now.
05:25I think there's a lot of people who are writing about microdramas right now that are pointing that out, that
05:32maybe we look at other storylines other than, for example, there's one storyline that currently circulated where, you know, a
05:42woman was attacked in a way that the vertical drama community kind of pointed out was maybe going too far
05:50with the misogyny.
05:51And maybe we need to pull back from that a little bit, like still enjoy the fun of the heteronormative
05:57romance, but maybe not get into, like, hurting women unnecessarily.
06:04So that's, that's been a recent issue that I've noticed that has come up that I think we're discussing and
06:10trying to find a way to fix.
06:11More like a shock value.
06:14They were just saying.
06:15Yeah, it is.
06:15It's really like a shock value.
06:17And it's really necessary to the story.
06:20Like you could write something a little bit more interesting that wasn't so hurtful to the female gender.
06:28Have you received any script from local writers, like English writers, original script?
06:34Any issue that needs to be fixed or improvement?
06:38Well, I think with local writers, and I've written some scripts myself, and one of the challenges that we face
06:45as American writers,
06:46I can't speak to South American writers or, you know, I can speak to French writers, and some of the
06:53European writers as well, is that we tend to want the stories to be more complex and the dialogue to
07:00be less, and this is a very American term, on the nose, which means when you write a line and
07:08the character doesn't have any subtext behind it, usually we refer to that as something that's being really on the
07:15nose.
07:15It's just really obvious, and in American writing, and I think in a lot of European writing, we like to
07:22have a lot of subtext, so the character doesn't always say exactly what they mean, and you discover what they
07:28mean later on in the story.
07:29So I think Western writers need to remember that because you're viewing the vertical in two- to four-minute
07:38increments, sometimes you do need to be on the nose, because somebody might have missed an episode.
07:44Also, the writing needs to be a little bit repetitive in case, again, somebody missed a bunch of episodes and
07:51they're hopping in on the middle for some reason, they need to know where they are in the story.
07:55So that's something that I feel the scripts that I'm getting from the Asian American community and the Asian businesses,
08:01they're really good at kind of copying that soap opera dialogue rhythm, where it is a little bit repetitive, because
08:09you're creating stories for people, for audiences that aren't necessarily watching it in chronological order or watching the whole thing.
08:19Maybe they're just watching a piece of it.
08:49Maybe they could be just a little more complex in the dialogue, maybe there's something in the middle, where each
08:57culture could learn from each other and maybe make it just a little bit more interesting, rather than so repetitive,
09:04which is a lot of what the micro drama is right now is very, very repetitive.
09:08You're writing your script.
09:10So for someone who is from maybe film or TV backgrounds, or maybe write novels, who want to write short
09:17dramas, verticals, what's your suggestion to them?
09:21Don't take it too seriously. Have fun. Like it's a fun genre. Like last night I was thinking about our
09:28interview and our conversation and I was thinking, how would I describe it? And I would describe it like, you
09:34know, like cheap candy. Like we know.
09:37Know when you buy a little bag of cheap candy, you know, that it's going to be a little too
09:42sweet. It's not going to necessarily be the healthiest thing that you're going to buy, but you're going to really
09:47enjoy it, right?
09:48Like we all, we all, we all sometimes crave that, that little of junk food and we love it for
09:55what exactly what it is. We're not trying to turn junk food into broccoli, you know, and I think for
10:01traditional writers, you know, have fun with a genre, embrace the structure because the structure is repetitive for a very
10:11good reason.
10:12It's part of what helps itself on with the algorithms and then just make it the best you can within
10:19that structure and remember who your audience is. Your audience is not sitting down to watch, you know, a Steven
10:28Spielberg movie.
10:29They're sitting down to watch something that's just fun and can help them experience a little bit of escapism.
10:36When you mentioned about structure, how can a writer know about structure?
10:40I think you have to read scripts. You have to ask your friends who've worked on microdramas. Can I please
10:44read one of your scripts so that I can see how they pace the script to fit into that tiny,
10:53tiny episode?
10:54That took me a while to write. Like I remember my first microdrama that I wrote. It was very filmic
11:01and I had to go back and just think, okay, I need to have every episode break happen every couple
11:08of pages. And that is a certain skill and it takes time.
11:13You have to practice it. And to maintain the level of drama that you need to maintain in order to
11:20keep your audience interested, um, I think it's a great exercise. Um, it kind of reminds me of like when
11:27film directors, like we're learning how to, this was a long time ago.
11:31When film directors, you know, we're shooting commercials as kind of their practice to learn how to make feature films.
11:39When you shoot a commercial, you have 30 to 45 seconds to tell a story, right? That's a skill style
11:47skill. And I think microdramas are the same thing. You have to really read the scripts and practice writing in
11:54this particular rhythm and this particular scene break structure.
11:59Or maybe they watch the full episode, yeah. I mean, I think you should watch it as well. I mean,
12:07I did when I first offered the opportunity to direct a microdrama. That was the first thing I did was
12:13immediately started watching them because I needed to, I knew what they were because I had choreographed a lot of
12:20sex scenes for them, but I hadn't really taken a deep dive into what 110 pages of a one series.
12:29Feels like to watch it feels like to watch it all the way through. And that is a completely different
12:34experience. Um, you know, then just hopping in for a few days to, you know, help the actors deal with
12:42the intimacy, very different experience. So definitely watch them.
12:47Actually, when me and my writer, editor-in-chief, we kind of do the breakdown. So we write down the
12:54first episode, what's in the first episode, write down second, and then like 65 episodes. And we know the whole
13:00structure. It's like a practice.
13:02Yeah, it is. It's being in high school, when you first learn how to write an essay, they have you
13:07write down a bullet point list of what's the arc of your essay, right? It's, I never thought I would
13:15say this. But yeah, I mean, that's, I think we all did that in school, where you learned how to
13:20write a few pages, and you did that bullet breakdown. And you said, I start here, and then I go
13:25here. It's the same thing. My high school teachers will be very proud if they watch this interview.
13:30What's the core element you always make sure bring out from script to screen?
13:36For me, the core element is really why are these characters here? Why are they here? Because I think if
13:44you can really dial in on the why, it gives the characters a reason to come back for each episode.
13:51And it gives your audience a reason to want to see what they're going to do next, based on their
13:57why.
13:58Why is a character am I here? Why do I keep coming back to this story?
14:03I remember when I was younger, and I was at CalArts, and I was an acting student at CalArts. And
14:10one of my teachers said, if you don't have a why for why character is there, then there's no reason
14:17for you to be on stage, you might as well just walk off stage. You always have to have a
14:22why. Why is character staying in the room and dealing with what they're dealing with right now?
14:28Oh, I saw it. You said it's like a candy, short drama, vertical like a candy. So the ending has
14:35to be always sweet. Or as a candy, is any other feelings like sorrow or bitter?
14:41Well, yeah, I mean, you know, ultimately, your characters go through all of the roller coaster of emotions. That's why
14:48they're so fun. Like we, we see the character wants something has a desire, but then and they close to
14:55getting it, but then they don't get it. Something interacts, something interrupts them and something hurts them. But then we
15:01see them have the opportunity to achieve that goal again. But then something bad happens. And I think that's why,
15:07you know, these, these stories are so fun to watch.
15:11Because we it's like on a roller coaster, you go up and you go down, you go up and you
15:15go down. And, and then by the end, it's such a wonderful relief when you get to the end, and
15:21the character finally gets what they want.
15:23And how do you control pacing of a vertical from directing or post production perspective?
15:30I think the pacing has to do with looking at those highs and lows, and figuring out, you know, emotionally,
15:40how do you do uphill fast at this moment? Are you climbing slow? And are you going downhill slow? Are
15:48you going downhill fast? I think, I think that's a really big part of the pacing is making decisions about
15:54when you're going up when you're going down.
15:56And what's the pace of going up and down. And what's the pace of going up and down in the
15:59emotional arc of each episode. And I think that that really helps. If you know that in advance, you plan
16:06that in advance, then I think you'll have a really nice rhythm to your storytelling.
16:12Do you think there should be emotional ups and downs in every episode, you definitely have to have a cliffhanger,
16:20right? Like you have to have a feeling of urgency to know what's going to happen next. But that's not
16:28necessarily the same thing as up and down emotionally, right? Those are those two different things. Sometimes they're the same
16:36thing. But, but sometimes not.
16:39So I think you're thinking about where your character is in each, each episode is important, but also then asking
16:47yourself at the end of this episode, why the audience needs to come back and making sure that you're creating
16:54a very full emotional moment for them to want to come back and see what's going to happen next.
17:02How do you create emotional resonance with the audience?
17:06Dependent on how well my actors are and how well we work together. The actors are the people who really
17:13bring, you know, that gift of emotion and that gift of being a vessel for the audience, you know, to
17:21come in and feel this emotion with them.
17:25And then visually with my camera, if I can see a camera movement or a camera angle that will help
17:33amplify that emotion, then that's what we do.
17:38And that's, that's, that's really, that's like the biggest part of the collaboration is the emotion that the actor brings
17:44and then the camera amplifying that emotion.
17:50That's, that's really how you at that place. It's not something that one person does. Like to me, that's really
17:57where it gets really collaborative for us.
18:00And right now I found out in North America, short drama still dominated by CEO romance stories. What type of
18:09stories do you think could be explored and why?
18:12Um, I think the romance is a really big part of why it's successful because again, I do feel like
18:20the, the, the short drama style, that genre is really a place for the soap opera genre to come back
18:30and kind of have a resurgence.
18:32So I do think the romance is actually a really big part of the success. I think looking at different
18:39types of characters to experience romance could be a place where they could broaden it.
18:45I think that the CEO trope, um, is really fun and wonderful, but I think there are other romance characters
18:55that, that are just as fun and could be explored.
18:58Um, I know there's been some exploration with some like horror, a type of, of, of a short, um, I
19:05think horror is a really fun place. Um, I think action also is a really fun space. Um, and then
19:12maybe finding romance somewhere in there. Um, I mean, even when you look at like sitcoms, you know, if you
19:19wanted to do something that's, that's comic.
19:21If you look at traditional sitcom structure, there's always some kind of budding romance that never really gets realized in
19:30a sitcom. So I think romance is just, you know, chemistry between characters, the possibility of romance.
19:37romance. I think that that's a big part of storytelling in general. Um, I don't, I don't micro dramas be
19:45successful without, you know, the, the romance angle. I do think the big part of what the audiences are tuning
19:52in for. Um, but it would be fun to explore.
19:57I mean, it would be really fun to do something that's, you know, just over the top comedy. Um, it
20:03would be really fun to do something that is maybe, uh, maybe mystery, you know, something that, that, that aesthetic,
20:13uh, for a mystery.
20:16I would watch documentaries in the short format. Um, that's actually something I would watch because sometimes I don't have
20:23time to sit down and watch a whole like hour and a half documentary. Um, I don't think that that
20:29will ever happen. I think that might be too boring for the short drama world, but I would watch it
20:35just because again, it's, that's something you could divide up very easily into one to three minute increments where people
20:43are, you know, taking in information.
20:45on their work break, you know, or on the Metro or wherever they are in the world. Um, yeah, I'm,
20:51I'm excited to see if micro dramas can, how far they can push outside of that, that romance aesthetic.
21:00Actually in China, we're half male oriented stories and half female oriented stories.
21:05Mm hmm.
21:06So in my opinion, there's still half genre hasn't been explored, especially for male audiences.
21:12Interesting. Yeah.
21:13True. Cause the, the main audience, what I understand is, is female.
21:17I am also curious about the intimacy coordinated. So did you see any changes in the past, like two to
21:26three years?
21:26I think at first, um, maybe the companies didn't know that, that, that intimacy, uh, position that, you know, could
21:33be filled.
21:34And it's nice to see that, that more companies, more producers are bringing a coordinator on, you know, if the,
21:41if the intimate scenes are, you know, requiring some more time and attention.
21:47I think it's always nice to have your actors feel safe and protected because then they always give you more,
21:53you know, the, the safer they, the more willing they are to take chances for you.
21:57So I, I always think that's just a, and it's the same thing with stunt coordinators for the exploring more
22:02stunt physical drama.
22:06Um, you know, you, you, you have a coordinator because you want people to be safe.
22:10You want, you want to know that, that it's okay, perform the actions that they're performing and that, that God,
22:17if somebody were to get hurt or have a problem, that there would be a professional there who could handle
22:23it.
22:23And, you know, protect the actors, but also protect the entire production and help everybody get back on track and
22:31feeling safe again.
22:32As a woman, do you feel you have certain advantages in show drama industry?
22:37If yes, what are they?
22:38Well, if the main audience is female, um, I mean, I think that's the biggest advantage of being a female
22:43director is that might be a little bit more intuitive for me to tap into what the audience will think
22:50is, is interesting.
22:53Um, it's not to say that men don't have that sensitivity.
22:57Um, but I, but I do think, you know, if you've been a woman, you know, it's interesting to women.
23:03I don't pit women against men.
23:06I mean, I think it's, you know, are you talented?
23:08Are you good at planning your shots?
23:12Are you good at executing them?
23:14Are you good at communicating and bringing out the best of your crew and your actors?
23:19You know, to me, that's the most important thing on set.
23:22They have so much time that as a director, you have to be somebody that can really, the emotion out
23:30of them and somebody that can really communicate effectively where people need to go and what people need to do
23:36so that you can do things quickly.
23:38As a woman, have you encountered any challenges while working in the showroom industry?
23:42I personally haven't.
23:44I don't know if anybody's done statistics on if there are more male directors than female directors.
23:48If you know, women are having trouble getting their foot in the door.
23:52I haven't even looked at those statistics.
23:54I've, I've just, I've been just focusing on, you know, creating work for myself that I haven't really taken a
24:03lot of time to look at the gender, if there are gender disparity issues, which maybe I should take some
24:09time to look at that and see if there are.
24:12From my observation, in China's showroom industry is still more male directors than female directors.
24:18And of course, there's so many male audience oriented stories.
24:22I interviewed different creators in North America, or is mostly in North America, more female creators, directors, producers.
24:31I think this time in interview, 70% are females, actually.
24:37So it's great.
24:39Yeah, it's open doors for women.
24:41So from your observation, do you think the way female leads are portrayed in short dramas has any issues or
24:48areas for improvement?
24:50Yeah, I think that takes us back to the conversation about misogyny and sexism.
24:55I mean, I do think that a way to execute a romance story without the women being a victim, or
25:05without the woman being the woman's happiness being solely dependent on the success of the romance that's in question.
25:16I shot one where our lead female character was actually the more dominant, more powerful person.
25:23And what was great about her character is that you got the sense that she didn't need the man at
25:31the end, that she wanted him, that it wasn't about needing him, but it was about wanting him.
25:35And that to me is, you know, I think we could look to make more of the scripts lean in
25:43that direction, rather than the woman being victimized.
25:48If you were to create a female character for a vertical drama, what kind of woman would she be?
25:54I'd love to see like a female character who's like, imperfect and a little klutzy, you know, the most of
26:01the characters that I've seen there, they're just so polished and or they're like, you know, Cinderella, where, you know,
26:07she's, you know, really beaten down and poor or whatever.
26:11And it could be fun to a female character who is, you know, financially stable, but maybe awkward and, you
26:20know, maybe part of her growth into herself is navigating through that awkwardness or that klutziness.
26:29There's some, some sort of, you know, she's, she's not perfect, but she's also not desperate.
26:35Right now you live between US and France, right? Did you shoot any short dramas in France?
26:43So that's what I'm working on right now. I'm, I'm fingers crossed, very close to being able to do that.
26:50My biggest, my biggest hurdle in that has been educating the corporate companies on the cost of doing short dramas
27:01here and,
27:01and helping them understand that budgets in Europe are more favorable to them.
27:07There are plenty of English speaking actors here and that it's maybe not as difficult as it might seem and
27:15not as expensive as it might seem, particularly in a city like Paris, France, where I am right now.
27:20So that's, that's where we're at with that right now is, is really trying to, you know, help vertical companies
27:27understand the concept of tax incentives and how they could save money through tax incentives,
27:34through digital creator incentives that exist in Europe, which lower the budget for them.
27:40But also the fact that we don't have unions here, so you don't have to pay a lot of the
27:45exorbitant fees that you have to pay in the United States.
27:48Those don't exist here because the governments take care of their actors and their crew members,
27:55living needs and health needs in a different way in different structure than the United States does.
28:01So that's been my process here of just educating vertical companies on how it can be economically feasible to do
28:11them here.
28:12And you get, you know, the more opulent locations because historically the buildings are just more opulent and older.
28:21There's, there's a whole world of romance to internationally that, that they haven't explored yet.
28:26Um, and one day, you know, getting them to push into different languages.
28:30French is the second most spoken language in the world.
28:33So why wouldn't you consider that as a location and possibly a language?
28:39So that's been my process and, and fingers crossed.
28:42Um, in the new year, I'll be, um, able to produce and direct some of those here in the European
28:48Union.
28:49How do you see the future of short dramas?
28:51I really see them continuing to grow and I, I really see the film industry really embracing it as its
28:58own genre.
28:59It's not a replacement for film.
29:01It's not a replacement for TV.
29:02And I, I hope that we expand out to things, comedies and maybe reality, maybe reality TV series.
29:10I've been a reality series in the microdramics sphere, um, because I think it works well in that short episode
29:16format.
29:18Documentaries, it just would be really lovely to see it continue to grow and expand into, you know, maybe the
29:24audiences are not as huge as romance, but they are significant enough to create space for that.
29:33Here's a great place for microdramas to expand.
29:35I think right now the cast, the size of the cast in the so big.
29:40And a lot of those cast members are, are really not pivotal to the story arc.
29:45I actually am pitching a microdrama of like, kind of like a, an Emily in Paris copy, you know, like
29:53spoof here.
29:54And maybe we only have, you know, five characters maximum, you know, so that that helps keep your budget more
30:04manageable and could really tease out the relationship between those five people rather than having, you know, 15 characters.
30:13And most of them are only saying one or two lines, right?
30:17Like to me, that's just on the U S side in terms of financing.
30:21That's kind of a waste of money because you have to pay all those people to sit around all day
30:26and say one line.
30:28Um, so maybe that's a place where microdrama writing could improve is like smaller cast, which maybe gives you a
30:35deeper storyline, gives you more room to explore more deeper emotions with those characters.
30:41Sometimes when I develop scripts, I need to go through all the characters.
30:47They design sometimes just they can, can we keep this?
30:51Can we combine those into one?
30:53Yeah.
Commentaires