One Person, Three Episodes: AI Short Dramas Go Global at Near-Zero Cost

This is Cang He's 571st original article!

Hello everyone, I'm Cang He.

This is an overseas short drama I made with AI over the past couple of days. It's in English, and I handled everything from script to final film to English dubbing by myself.

I made three episodes in total. Here's the first episode:

Here's the second episode:

Here's the third episode:

The story of "Pawning the Human World" tells of the deeply hurt Ella, who walks into a mysterious pawnshop and trades her happiness, emotions, and lifespan for a painless and smooth life, only to eventually discover that she has also pawned away her living soul, which she can never redeem.

Anyone following the AI short drama scene recently should feel that the domestic track has become a bloodbath.

In 2025, China's micro-short drama market officially surpassed 100 billion yuan. In the first quarter alone, the entire industry launched 128,000 micro-short dramas.

Image source: Guangming Daily

What does that concept mean? On average, over 1,400 new dramas are competing for viewers' attention every day.

User acquisition costs are also getting crazier. Last December, the monthly volume of ad creatives reached 2.8 million sets, over 80% of which were new creatives. This means everyone is frantically spending money to buy traffic, and old creatives can't survive even a week.

Mass production, account farming, and crude tactics are making it harder and harder to make money.

After all this fierce competition, everyone is asking the same question: Is there still a new way out?

Yes, going overseas.

Let me show you a few data points, and you'll understand:

In 2025, overseas micro-short drama app downloads reached 1.855 billion, a year-on-year surge of 300%. AI short dramas going overseas are even more explosive, with the market size skyrocketing from $100 million directly to $650 million, a 6x increase.

CCTV Finance reported that a Guangzhou short drama enterprise saw its overseas AI short drama orders skyrocket by 5000% for the whole year.

Moreover, over half of overseas users are willing to pay for short dramas made with AI involvement. This acceptance rate is even higher than domestically.

But the problem is also very real: you can't translate, you don't understand overseas platform rules, and you have no distribution channels. These three mountains alone block most people outside the door.

I used to think the same way, believing that going overseas was something only big companies and professional teams could play with.

But a while ago, while browsing the WAIC exhibition, I saw SenseTime release Seko 3.0 at WAIC. There are some new things, and I think it's necessary to share them with everyone.

I've used Seko to make AI videos before and have shared it with everyone a few times.

After 3.0, the changes are quite significant. To sum it up in one sentence:

Seko 3.0 is more like a growth platform for video creators: using Agents, infinite canvas, and top-tier Skills to establish film-grade production capabilities, and connecting the complete path from content creativity to commercial realization through the OPC base, authoritative releases, commercial projects, and global distribution.

Infinite canvas, Agents, and Skills are rapidly becoming the common form of AI creation products, but what creators truly lack is a platform that allows them to continuously improve, be continuously seen, and continuously gain commercial opportunities.

I think this is quite important.

I saw that SenseTime has set up a Seko industry base in Shanghai's Xuhui West Bund. Public reports show that over 40 creative teams have already settled in.

Coupled with AI+ micro-short drama industry support and the OPC entrepreneurial ecosystem, and this office environment—if I were in Shanghai, I'd want to move in.

Policy support, computing power incentives, training courses, authoritative release channels, and even a co-built AI micro-short drama internship base with the Shanghai Theatre Academy.

To put it plainly, if you make good content, it helps you connect with resources so that good content is seen by more people.

For going overseas, Seko provides a full set of support:

The overseas short drama Skill solves "how to make content," the content traffic course solves "how to get traffic," the operations course solves "how to manage long-term," and IP and distribution matchmaking solves "how to enter the market."

It's not just about adding a translation feature. It clears a path from content production to localization to traffic growth to commercial monetization.

Let me mention a few creators who have already succeeded on Seko:

Director Li Rang, principal of RANG AI STUDIO, whose works have over 400 million views across the entire network. CCTV, Xinhua News Agency, and People's Daily have all published his works. He went from an individual creator all the way to a studio label principal.

Chen Ke Studio, whose "Treasure Gathering Immortal Pot" series once topped the Hongguo comic drama chart, with a total popularity value exceeding 350 million. Now Seko has packaged their methods into a Skill that ordinary people can also invoke.

Speaking of Skills, I found that Seko's skill zone gathers a huge number of skills, such as overseas hit short dramas, twist advertising mini-theaters, celebrity biographical documentaries, premium TVC ads, and more.

You can understand these skills as templates that aggregate expert capabilities. For example, if you want to make a TVC ad, using the "Premium TVC Ad" skill allows you to quickly produce a high-quality TVC ad.

These cases illustrate one thing: the ceiling for AI creators is much higher than most people imagine.

Now let me show you practically how I used Seko to make an overseas short drama.

Step 1: Topic Selection and Script

I opened Seko's Agent and input a rough story idea. I selected the "Overseas Short Drama" template.

Seko has a Skill specifically for overseas short dramas, covering everything from overseas theme selection, character relationship design, and visual style to the final film workflow, all co-created with hit overseas drama studios.

It's equivalent to standing directly on the shoulders of "experienced people," without needing to figure out from scratch what kind of content can become popular overseas.

The Agent automatically expanded it into a complete script outline for me, including character relationships, plot direction, and the core conflict of each episode, all clearly laid out.

If there's anything you're not satisfied with, you can directly modify it in the conversation and click confirm when done.

This process took less than 5 minutes.

Step 2: Character Design + Storyboard Generation

After confirming the script, click to generate the canvas, and all characters, scenes, and storyboards are automatically laid out on the canvas.

On the left is the list of characters and scenes, and on the right are the storyboard images. The visual description, camera movement method, and dialogue/dubbing for each shot are clearly marked.

If you're not satisfied with any shot, you can directly modify the description and regenerate it, without starting from scratch.

Step 3: Video Generation

After confirming the storyboard, directly use Seedance 2.0 to generate the video.

Note: Clicking "Generate Video" can generate a video for a single storyboard. If you're not satisfied, you can "Edit Prompt." Clicking "One-Click to Video" generates all storyboards together, saving time. However, the success rate for the draw is very high, so generally, one-click to video is used.

A Few Final Words

Oh right, I almost forgot to mention.

Seko is currently running an anniversary promotion with quite significant discounts:

During the promotion period, non-members can experience Seedance 2.0 Mini for free. First-time monthly member purchases are 50% off, first-time annual member purchases are 60% off, and Seedance 2.0 is as low as 0.42 yuan per second.

If you want to try it, you can go directly to seko.sensetime.com to register.

Back to the main topic.

I've been doing self-media for several years, and I have an increasingly strong feeling:

The iteration speed of tools has become absurdly fast. Today you are still struggling with whether to learn video editing, and tomorrow AI has already finished making the film for you.

Knowing how to use tools is just the basic skill. Those who see the direction earlier and dare to take the first step are the ones who can reap the dividends.

On the path of taking short dramas overseas, rather than competing to the death domestically, it's better to change the battlefield.

The tools are ready, and the barrier to entry has never been this low.

The key is, are you willing to give it a try?

Do you think AI short dramas going overseas is reliable? Would you want to use AI to make your own overseas short drama? Let's chat in the comments.