Jimeng launches a short-drama studio as Seedance 2.5 falls to 0.15 yuan per second

QbitAI published a hands-on review of Jimeng's short-drama studio on November 6, describing a workspace that folds the slowest parts of short-drama production, script, storyboard and preview, into one place.

The article describes the chain as end to end: a script comes first, the script is broken into shots, and the model generates moving images for preview. In a traditional pipeline those steps belong to a writer, a storyboard artist and a shooting or animation crew, with handoffs and rework between them; the studio's pitch is to compress those handoffs into consecutive generation steps.

Cost is the most concrete number in the launch. The article cites Seedance 2.5 at as little as 0.15 yuan per second, which at that floor works out to roughly nine yuan of model cost for a minute of footage. For teams that need many iterations and multiple preview versions, the per-second price decides whether they can afford to render every shot.

A partner programme appears alongside the pricing. According to the article it offers long-term support, aimed at sustained use rather than a single trial. For a platform, keeping creators inside the system matters more than one-off generation revenue, because storyboard habits, asset libraries and team workflows all create switching costs.

Short drama has become one of the densest landing zones for AI video because of its structure: short shots, concentrated sets and fast narrative pacing, with more tolerance for visual consistency than feature-length work and much higher volume demands. That fits the current limits of video models and makes cost easy to compare.

Lower barriers do not automatically produce quality. Character consistency across shots, lip-sync with dialogue, plausible camera movement, plus rights clearance for source material and platform review, still decide whether a finished episode can ship. Cheaper generation raises output and with it the review and rights workload.

What to watch is the studio's real finish rate, the specific terms of the partner programme, and how Seedance 2.5 holds up on longer shots and complex staging. If the end-to-end flow genuinely cuts rework, the effect reaches beyond short-drama teams to the shooting, post-production and distribution chains built around them.