The Reconstruction of Creative Subjectivity in Micro-short Drama Production Driven by AIGC: From Process Transformation to Value Breakthrough

Bi Qiuling
School of Journalism and Communication, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing 100088

Abstract

[Purpose] This paper examines the transformation of creators' roles in micro-short drama production empowered by AIGC, offering insights into human-AI collaborative cultural content production from the perspective of creative subjectivity. [Methods] Through literature review and case analysis, this study investigates AIGC applications in micro-short drama screenwriting, visual production, and post-production, analyzing how these technologies reshape creators' behavioral patterns, competency structures, and creative motivations. [Results] AIGC has revolutionized micro-short drama production workflows and enhanced efficiency, reshaping creators' behaviors, capabilities, and motivations. While risks of creative value loss exist, the humanistic advantages of human creators remain irreplaceable. [Conclusion] Facing AIGC-driven challenges, creators must fully leverage their humanistic strengths by integrating emotional resonance, cultural insight, and value guidance into their work to construct a healthy creative relationship between humans and AI, achieving a balance between technology and humanism.

Keywords: micro-short drama; generative AI; creative subjectivity; human-AI collaboration; value reconstruction

The reconstruction of creative subjectivity demonstrates AIGC's positive role in creative planning while also harboring profound impacts on artistic expression and value transmission. In recent years, generative AI technology has developed rapidly, fundamentally transforming the production methods and distribution ecosystem of micro-short dramas. Major streaming platforms and domestic short-video platforms have successively launched AI-driven micro-short dramas such as Chinese Mythology and The Legend of Mountain and Sea: Riding the Waves [1], showcasing the perfect integration of algorithm-driven content generation with artistic expression. This technological wave not only broadens the thematic scope of micro-short dramas [2] but also disrupts traditional industry creation and operation models. AIGC applications across pre-production to post-production have significantly shortened production cycles, reduced costs, and accelerated creation in challenging genres like fantasy and science fiction. However, AI tools trained on massive datasets have also led to homogenization in narrative structures and stylistic elements, resulting in over-reliance on algorithmic outputs and diminished creator agency. As AIGC technology penetrates deeper into video production, micro-short drama creation mechanisms and creator roles face new challenges and evaluations.

Previous research has primarily focused on AIGC's promotional effects on industrial structure and technical aspects, exploring how large model algorithms can enhance production efficiency, transform distribution models, or develop new business models [3-5], while paying insufficient attention to creative subjects. As a unique form combining short videos with cinematic narrative, micro-short dramas' integration with AIGC not only accelerates content iteration but also invisibly reshapes the relationship between creative subjects and artificial intelligence. This reshaping reveals both the positive role of AIGC in creative planning and its deep impact on artistic expression and value transmission. This paper analyzes the profound influence of AIGC on micro-short drama creation workflows from the creator's perspective, explores the transformation of creators' roles after AIGC empowerment, and proposes ways to avoid excessive erosion of humanistic expression amid industry transformation. This discussion aims to provide reference for micro-short drama creation in the digital intelligence era and offer beneficial insights for future human-AI collaborative cultural content production, helping micro-short drama creators find their positioning in the new technological context while providing new perspectives and pathways for the innovative development of the entire cultural industry.

1. AIGC's Innovation in Micro-short Drama Production Workflow

The rapid development of generative AI in micro-short drama is completely reshaping its production workflow. Traditional production models relying on manual division of labor and sequential processes have gradually transformed into a new human-AI collaborative paradigm centered on model-driven operations, tool integration, and data invocation.

1.1 Innovation in Screenwriting: Script Generation and Templatized Structures

AIGC has brought fundamental changes to text generation methods and narrative structures in scriptwriting. Traditional film and television creation relied on screenwriters' linear conception of themes and character relationships, a process highly dependent on personal experience and intuitive judgment. AIGC simplifies script creation into parameter setting and template selection. For example, the AI-assisted creation platform developed by Xi'an Film Group's AI Lab, based on a large language model specialized for Chinese cinema, includes three subsystems: initial script generation, script polishing, and multi-dimensional evaluation. The initial script generation system can automatically produce 40,000-60,000 character scripts from input ideas, the polishing system enables rapid revision of completed scripts, and the evaluation system comprehensively assesses character and plot elements from both story quality and market potential perspectives [6]. During script generation, built-in rhythm and content templates play a crucial role. Micro-short dramas' common narrative structures, such as "three-second hook—thirty-second conflict—one-minute climax," are not only widely applied in training data and recommendation mechanisms but also deeply integrated into AIGC screenwriting tools' creative logic [7]. To ensure AI-generated scripts meet micro-short dramas' requirement for high-density dramatic points, SkyReels' AI script generation function has built an ultra-high-quality structured dataset of 100 million micro-short drama scripts (SkyScript-100M). This dataset precisely annotates plot rhythms, dramatic high points, and emotional shifts from massive amounts of excellent micro-short dramas and designs a progressive script generation framework, enabling the model to output highly structured and compelling scripts [8].

Both novice and veteran writers can stimulate creativity through AI and easily create engaging micro-short drama scripts using generation tools. By inputting keywords for specific themes, AI tools can automatically invoke corresponding structural components to complete character setup and plot development within minutes. This transforms narrative creation from traditional single-thread writing by human creators into module invocation based on big data and systematic training results, significantly improving screenwriting efficiency.

1.2 Innovation in Visual Production: From Cinematography to Generated Imagery

Traditional film and television visual production is complex and time-consuming, requiring substantial human and material resources. Every stage—from pre-production scene construction and prop preparation, to lighting arrangement and cinematography during shooting, to post-production special effects and color grading—depends on meticulous collaboration among professionals. Creating an ancient palace scene could take art teams weeks to design and construct, lighting technicians repeated adjustments for optimal visual presentation, and post-production effects teams extensive time for compositing and effects. With AI image generation technology integration, micro-short drama visual production workflows are undergoing fundamental transformation. Mainstream AI video generation systems like Sora, Dreamina AI, and Keling can rapidly output sequences of images through text prompts, automatically generating visual elements including character styling, spatial layout, and atmosphere creation [9]. For instance, the micro-short drama The Legend of Mountain and Sea: Riding the Waves was deeply produced using Kuaishou's Keling large model. The creative team first used text-to-image generation to determine character images and visual styles, then applied image-to-video functions to convert static images into 5-second video clips, which were finally manually edited into a complete film by the post-production team [10]. This workflow not only greatly enhances production efficiency but also provides greater creative freedom in scene and character development.

Compared to traditional cinematography's emphasis on set design, lighting, and staging, creative teams can use generative image models to continuously experiment with different visual styles or scene effects within limited time, further driving content iteration and formal innovation in the micro-short drama industry. However, it should also be noted that AI visual generation, while accelerating content creation and lowering technical barriers, is bringing about a certain degree of aesthetic convergence. Since different creators often use the same or similar pre-trained models, and platforms provide default templates and quick operations, a large number of productions show high similarity in visual style and color tone. How to maintain differentiation and depth in works within an AI technical environment has become a new challenge for micro-short drama creation.

1.3 Innovation in Post-production: From Manual Splicing to Intelligent Integration

In micro-short drama post-production, AIGC technology is leading a transformation from manual splicing to intelligent integration. In traditional models, editors needed to adjust footage frame by frame, manually match sound effects, and repeatedly debug colors, with each stage highly dependent on personal experience and subjective judgment. Now AI technology converts these tedious processes into standardized parameter configurations and intelligent decision-making, allowing users to achieve one-click initial editing, speech-to-text, rhythm setting, and style matching simply by invoking templates, significantly improving final film efficiency. Some large models can also provide functions such as AI-generated empty shots, AI intelligent soundtrack composition, video stylization, AI frame interpolation, AI video matting, and solve subtitle errors and multilingual translation difficulties for producers through AI intelligent subtitles, while achieving AI lip-sync matching for multiple languages [11].

Furthermore, post-processing tools with built-in rhythm judgment and shot-switching strategies often reference characteristic data from high-viewership content, creating technical synergy between editing decisions and recommendation algorithms. Through full-process automation from script-to-shot splitting, audio-visual matching to video rendering, major platforms can output standardized films with clear structure and smooth rhythm. AIGC application has achieved automation, standardization, and stylistic unity in post-production, meaning micro-short drama post-production has shifted from relying on personal experience to following systematic algorithmic logic.

2. AIGC's Reshaping of Micro-short Drama Creative Subjects

In core stages including script generation, visual production, and post-processing, AIGC is driving micro-short drama creation toward intelligent and industrialized collaboration. This transformation not only reconstructs the organizational logic of production workflows but also profoundly changes the role positioning of micro-short drama creative subjects.

2.1 Behavioral Patterns: From Creator to Regulator

The widespread application of AIGC technology has deeply penetrated micro-short drama production, gradually shifting content creation toward the screening and integration of large-scale AI-generated content. Shneiderman (2020) proposed that technological empowerment should aim to strengthen human creativity [12], but in current practice, creators are often engaged in material selection, combination, and optimization of algorithmic outputs, which greatly improves production efficiency. However, this also causes partial transfer of dominance in conceptualization and style shaping to algorithms, resulting in deficiencies in ideological depth and humanistic concern [13].

This phenomenon is not merely an upgrade of automated production workflows but reveals a deep-level reshaping of how artificial intelligence restructures content producers' thinking patterns. With deep integration of AIGC technology, character design and visual development are often achieved through keyword or parameter adjustments for approximate effects. Under a collaboration logic prioritizing efficiency and trial-and-error feedback, creators can quickly piece together plots and visuals that meet requirements, but this model also squeezes creative innovation space and emotional expression tension. The randomness of creativity and uniqueness of thought gradually fade in assembly-line rapid production, leading to works lacking rich cultural connotations. Digital media's "software culture" is redefining content producers' understanding of the creative process [14]. AI-driven creative tools decompose narrative and image production into a series of operable modules, transforming original conception relying on personal inspiration into selection and adjustment of existing materials and algorithmic rules. The boundary between planning and execution becomes increasingly blurred. Creators must not only master algorithmic principles but also artistically evaluate and reprocess generated materials. Micro-short drama production is gradually becoming a complex multi-level human-AI collaborative project. In this process, creators' roles evolve from independent creative subjects to process managers and coordinators, while traditionally individually will-based creative dominance is being reconstructed under the combined influence of artificial intelligence and platform mechanisms.

2.2 Competency Structure: From Artistic Expression to Technical Collaboration

Generative AI's comprehensive penetration into all aspects of micro-short drama has triggered fundamental changes in creators' skill structures. In AI-dominated creative fields, creators must not only master traditional aesthetics and narrative strategies but also proficiently command techniques such as prompt optimization, image generation control, and multimodal material management. Due to current AI technology limitations—such as inconsistencies in characters and scenes, action interaction issues, and dynamic range control—creators must maintain holistic design concepts for characters and scenes, conducting meticulous post-review and adjustment of AI outputs to ensure consistency in action, rhythm, and atmosphere. Some film and television enterprises have begun establishing AI prompt engineer positions, requiring screenwriters to master prompt engineering skills and translate creative intentions into precise technical parameters. This shift signals that the traditional artistic creation model centered on emotional expression and aesthetic judgment is gradually being replaced by a new industrial model pursuing systematic efficiency and content scheduling. Creators' roles in digital media are transforming from traditional language expressers to algorithm operators, with final works reflecting not only artists' creativity but also creators' collaborative operational capabilities with AI.

In this AI-driven transformation, the film and television industry's knowledge system is undergoing interdisciplinary reshaping. Foundational literacy in traditional humanities such as literature, art, and film studies remains the creators' foundation, but now requires integrating computational thinking, symbolic logic, information architecture, and media technology into a holistic vision. In image generation and video production, creators must understand concepts such as diffusion models, style transfer, and semantic embedding to ensure AI-generated content aligns with expected styles. Prompt application has also upgraded from simple descriptive language to strategic technical expression. Moreover, facing integrated multimodal platforms like SkyReels, creators must achieve efficient integration between creativity and technical execution across multiple subsystems including script construction, shot processing, voice synthesis, and rhythm control. It is evident that the contemporary micro-short drama creation environment requires creators to possess both artistic perception and systematic thinking capabilities, necessitating not only aesthetic judgment but also deep understanding of AI generation model operating mechanisms to achieve effective control and technical mastery of works within AI-driven content ecosystems.

2.3 Creative Motivation: From "Intrinsic Expression" to "Data Compliance"

In traditional film and television production, creators often integrated personal experience, social insight, and emotional projection into works' intrinsic expression, demonstrating an art pursuit centered on personal perspective. However, as algorithms transform user preferences into quantifiable data such as click-through rates, completion rates, and trending keywords, creators' theme setting, rhythm advancement, and even character design no longer rely solely on natural emotional flow. Instead, they rapidly test multiple plot versions and determine works' final direction based on market feedback. To some extent, creators have become collaborators with platform prediction algorithms, conducting data validation before works' final formation to maximize network traffic. This "create—test—feedback—recreate" cyclic process transforms creative motivation from personalized artistic expression to technology-dominated data compliance, manifesting strategic responses to user feedback in creative behavior.

This excessive reliance on data feedback reveals profound changes in creators' understanding of content value. Previously, work quality was often measured by aesthetic or social value such as ideological depth, narrative coherence, and emotional authenticity. However, under AI's influence, more intuitive data metrics such as market performance, click rates, and conversion rates have gradually become primary evaluation criteria. This shift in content value assessment standards originates from deep interaction between platform ecosystems and user behavior. In the current stock market stage where user growth has reached bottlenecks, platform operation strategies have shifted from scale expansion to data-driven efficiency optimization, forcing creators to break down content into quantifiable elements such as opening "hook" designs, golden rhythm templates, and interactive formula modules, constituting a new production model. Although this industrialized process improves production efficiency, it simplifies creation into mechanical parameter optimization operations, forming a closed-loop dependency between content value and algorithmic feedback. Meanwhile, users' viewing habits under algorithmic recommendations transform attention competition into a contest of stimulation intensity, forcing creators to prioritize immediate data responses over cultural expression. Through dual strategies of traffic distribution and commercial incentives, platforms shift content value measurement standards from works' social significance to system-quantifiable dissemination effects, ultimately forming a data supremacy evaluation logic. In this logical framework, while technical tools ostensibly provide creators with more means, they actually reshape content value evaluation systems through implicit process norms.

The transformation of behavioral patterns, competency structures, and creative motivations collectively outlines a new landscape of micro-short drama creators' subjectivity in the AIGC era. This subjectivity reconstruction represents neither complete loss of individual agency nor absolute artistic autonomy, but rather a reshaping of human value in the intelligent age, signaling a gradual transformation of the traditional creative paradigm dominated by individual will, creativity, and emotion.

3. Value Reflection and Balance Path

3.1 Risks of Creative Value Loss

AIGC's widespread application in micro-short drama presents new challenges to content quality. In theme selection, AIGC tends to adopt high-frequency narrative patterns and thematic structures from corpora, leading to works concentrated in genres such as costume drama, suspense, time-travel, romance, and rebirth [15], while proving less adept at handling realistic themes, complex interpersonal relationships, or social-emotional expression. This corpus-driven generation method gradually solidifies genre boundaries, reducing content diversity and cultural connotation.

Visually, although AIGC-generated imagery offers unparalleled advantages, it still faces technical and aesthetic challenges. Text-to-image technology shows insufficient precision and naturalness in generating facial expressions and movements, lacking subtlety in character emotional expression, and displaying inadequate coordination between voice and visual emotional tone, all affecting narrative fluency. Meanwhile, the prominent issue of highly homogeneous and monotonous aesthetic styles means most works based on similar pre-trained models result in similar visual styles and color tones. In terms of emotional expression effectiveness, AI models struggle to handle complex emotional conflicts and narrative tension, easily losing thematic depth and social significance in superficial imitation, making form outweigh content and lacking cultural foundation and ideological depth.

While AIGC expands content production domains, ignoring thematic depth, aesthetic diversity, and value richness may intensify creative value loss through large-scale application. Against the backdrop of increasing convergence in narrative structure, visual presentation, and emotional scheduling, users' freshness and aesthetic perception of content may gradually weaken. If users remain in long-term exposure to similar content stimuli, it may lead to aesthetic desensitization and declining acceptance interest. This fatigue effect caused by high content homogenization will further weaken emotional connections between content and users, posing potential threats to the sustainable development of the entire content ecosystem.

3.2 Cultural Return of Subject Value

In a media environment where technology continuously penetrates every creative stage, human creators' aesthetic perception and emotional depth are highlighting core values that cannot be replaced by artificial intelligence. In micro-short drama, a field emphasizing plot advancement and emotional resonance, creators integrate character development, scenario construction, and narrative rhythm based on personal experience, artistic intuition, and social insight, thereby injecting authentic and rich emotional tension into works. It is precisely this aesthetic creation based on individual experience and cultural perception that enables works to retain emotional warmth and expressive depth amidst industrialized production waves.

Meanwhile, human creators play an irreplaceable positive role in social experience dissemination and value guidance [16]. As content producers, they are responsible not only for text or image production but also for responding to social emotions and guiding positions. What truly moves users is often works that can resonate emotionally with audiences and possess cultural identification [17]. In this process, creators' prompts, screening, and revision for AI involve not only aesthetic gatekeeping but also value orientation, ethical awareness, and public issue trade-offs. Especially against the backdrop of increasingly structured content and accelerated visual consumption, creators' sensitivity and judgment become key elements coordinating technical efficiency and cultural significance, laying a unique humanistic foundation for future micro-short drama creation.

In the media ecology of deep AIGC and micro-short drama integration, the interaction between creative subjects and technical tools presents an unprecedented collaborative innovation model. Facing challenges and opportunities brought by technological waves, creators need to re-examine their roles, fully leveraging irreplaceable humanistic advantages such as emotional resonance, cultural insight, and value guidance to construct a healthy creative relationship between humans and AI. This new relationship emphasizes not only efficiency and scale but also enriching aesthetic experiences and deepening meaning construction. In this continuously evolving collaborative creation process, creators will continuously explore new creative potentials within the dynamic balance between technological empowerment and humanistic connotation, enabling micro-short drama to maintain a more imaginative space between efficiency and cultural value.

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Author Biography: Bi Qiuling (1981—), female, from Zigong, Sichuan, Ph.D., Associate Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, China University of Political Science and Law. Research focuses on media and cultural industries.