Who is spending 218 yuan to go to Hengdian and be the leading role for once?
The drivers in Hengdian are arguably the most tourist-focused drivers across the whole country.
Every time you step out of Hengdian Station and get in a taxi, the driver will mostly take the initiative to ask: "Heading to the Movie City? Are you here for star-chasing or sightseeing?"
Recently, most of them will add a question: "Are you here to shoot short dramas?"
Located in Dongyang, Zhejiang Province, Hengdian is a small place yet the world's largest film and television shooting base. At its peak, 140,000 registered "Hengpiao" (drifters working in Hengdian's film industry) gathered here, and up to 40 or 50 crews started filming at the same time on a single day.
But the boom did not last long. In the first quarter of 2026, around 128,000 micro short dramas were launched across the whole industry, of which about 122,000 were AI-generated micro short dramas, accounting for over 95% of the total.
In the same quarter, the number of short drama filming starts in Hengdian plummeted by three quarters year on year.
At the same time, Hengdian World Studios took another step:
In August 2026, the short drama shooting experience project for individual tourists was launched. The starting price for individual experience is 218 yuan (excluding makeup and costume styling), and 388 yuan including styling. By late August, the number of participants had exceeded 2,000.
In this issue of Micro Stories, we step into this film city that opens its film sets to tourists.
The following is the true story of spending 218 yuan to be the lead actor for once:
Spend 218 Yuan to Experience the Work of an Extra in Hengdian
Zhang Di was attracted to Hengdian by content creators on social media.
Before that, her impression of Hengdian was stuck at: "There are huge crowds of people, celebrities often show up there, the local area is very wealthy, and even a local town has its own rail transit".
In April 2023, the "Ming and Qing Palace Station" on the Jinyi East Line of Jinhua Rail Transit was opened. Taking the rail transit from Yiwu, you can reach Hengdian in just over half an hour.
She never expected that her first trip to Hengdian would be triggered by several short drama experience notes posted by bloggers from the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai region that she scrolled through on her phone.
This project is officially launched by Hengdian. Users can pick their favorite short drama clips to perform, and finally get a 1-minute or so clip where they themselves are the lead of the short drama.
Meanwhile, the project claims to restore the most authentic crew process, with fees as low as 218 yuan.
Figure | The promotional sign for the 218-yuan short drama shooting experience
"Who wouldn't be tempted after watching so many short dramas? Don't you want to go and act in an over-the-top scene yourself?" So on the last day of the National Day holiday, after paying 239 yuan for the ticket and 388 yuan for the experience fee, Zhang Di went to Hengdian to experience being a "short drama actor" for a whole day.
Zhang Di recalled that after finding the filming location according to the address, she walked in and found it was a small courtyard. The main house of the courtyard was used as the shooting venue, where some tourists were filming at that moment, and the director's voice of "One more take" came from time to time.
Figure | The short drama shooting site
The room on the right side of the courtyard was used as a dressing room, with several rows of clothes and wigs placed inside, and various cosmetics scattered on the makeup tables.
"It is exactly the same as the photos posted online by Hengdian extras that I saw on Xiaohongshu before." Zhang Di said.
Figure | The location of the "film crew"
The makeup and styling process is also similar: first communicate with the makeup artist about whether you want modern or ancient styling, choose the corresponding clothes, and then you can start the styling.
The only difference is: extras start working once they put on their clothes and wait for the team leader to pay them; tourists also start working once they put on their clothes, but they have to pay for it.
The styling process is controlled within 30 minutes. The makeup artist and hairstylist work at the same time, both of them are very fast and finish the styling in about 30 minutes. When Zhang Di asked if she could add a pair of false eyelashes, the makeup artist said "Everyone's makeup look is the same."
This also conforms to the real treatment of Hengdian extras: before they become famous, almost all walk-on actors have the exact same makeup look.
Later Zhang Di learned that both of them are makeup artist assistants from Hengdian crews. They took this part-time job because the number of crews decreased due to the impact of AI short dramas, and the number of people coming to Hengdian to experience short drama shooting skyrocketed during the National Day holiday.
Makeup artists have the most direct perception of how popular this project is. "October 4th was the busiest day, I probably did makeup for more than 40 groups of guests, many of whom were brought by tour groups, ranging from 6 to 60 years old. My hands were numb when I got back home at night."
After finishing the styling, it's time to wait for your turn and start performing. Before shooting, the director will ask the experiencer what plot they want to perform, whether they want to play a positive or negative role, and which clip they want to act out, then find an NPC to act opposite them. NPCs refer to the staff of Hengdian, who are officially called "Dream Makers".
On that day, Zhang Di chose the clip from *The Return of the Dragon King* where the Dragon King's real identity is revealed and he achieves a comeback. The director, lighting engineer and cameraman of this crew used to shoot short dramas together, and they have great tacit cooperation.
Figure | Short drama clips available for shooting on site
The director is responsible for feeding lines beside, telling Zhang Di who has no performance experience where to stand, where to look, and what the next line is. The lighting engineer follows the camera, and casts light on the face of whoever is in the frame.
In less than 20 minutes, the shooting of this clip was completed. Then the director walked to another tourist who had finished makeup and asked: "What clip do you want to shoot?"
"It's just like an assembly line", Zhang Di recalled. The director on the other side smiled and said: "This is much more relaxing than shooting short dramas, no need to stay up late, and as long as everyone is happy, it's all good."
Satisfying curiosity and briefly becoming "someone else" is also the core purpose for many people to come for the experience.
It took less than a month from the launch of the project in early August to the number of experiencers exceeding 2000. Some people on social media called it "completely reversed logic": Being an extra gets you paid, but now some people are actually willing to pay to do it.
But it has to be admitted that this experience project in Hengdian is really a hit.
Self-rescue of a Film City After AI Short Dramas Explode in Popularity
It seems reasonable for Hengdian to launch the paid short drama shooting experience.
After all, Hengdian is facing huge crises at the moment.
In 2025, Hengdian could still be said to be the kingdom of short dramas. That year, 4016 registered micro short dramas started filming in Hengdian. The restaurants nearby stayed open until the early morning, and the photo studios were fully occupied, you couldn't get a shooting schedule at all without making an appointment in advance.
However, in the next year of 2026, everything changed.
At the beginning of the year, Hongguo cancelled the guaranteed payment system for short dramas, and began to vigorously develop AI manhua dramas. The role of the film city was directly sidelined, as any effect can be generated by AI, and there is no need to go to great lengths to build real sets.
In the first half of the year, the number of crews filming in Hengdian dropped sharply, and the decline once reached nearly 40% around the Spring Festival, which led to a large number of actors having no work to do.
A large number of short drama actors told Micro Stories: "This year's workload is less than one third of the same period last year."
Figure | After the crews left Hengdian, Wansheng Street at night is much more desolate
On the other hand, after the rise of AI short dramas, the market spawned a "face selling" mode, merchants buy actors' permanent portrait rights at prices ranging from 100 yuan to 1500 yuan, to build a digital human material library.
Those small supporting roles that cannot push the main plot forward can be replaced by AI with one click at any time.
Under the pressure of survival, a large number of extras left Hengdian, and even the catering businesses that relied on supplying boxed meals to the crews fell into stagnation.
Celebrities left Hengdian, and the young people who came to chase stars no longer came. Not only the local accommodation and catering industry was hit, but the business of equipment leasing companies also plummeted. According to the relevant report from *Huisheng Online*, the business volume of prop leasing companies around Hengdian dropped by 87% year on year.
"In the past, all our houses were rented to people who came to Hengdian to work from other places, but now none of them can be rented out," taxi driver Lao Zhao said: "Some hotels in Hengdian can be stayed for 100 yuan a night."
Therefore, Hengdian, which survives on the film and television industry, had to save itself.
The launch of the real-person short drama shooting experience not only benefits from Hengdian's complete film and television industry chain, but also is related to the inherent characteristics of Hengdian.
In 1996, to support Xie Jin's filming of *The Opium War*, Hengdian built the "19th-century Guangzhou Street of Southern Guangdong", which was converted for tourism reception after filming ended, and received the first "100,000 tourist visits" that year. The Qin Palace built for Chen Kaige's *The Emperor and the Assassin* the next year was also opened as a tourist attraction after filming was completed.
It can be said that what Hengdian wanted to do from the very beginning was tourism.
This idea was fully implemented in 2001, when Hengdian put forward the business strategy of "film and television as the appearance, tourism as the core", that is, to attract tourists with film and television content, then develop the tourism industry, and made the decision to waive all venue fees for film crews at all film and television shooting bases.
Figure | Traces of "film crews" can be found everywhere in Hengdian
After that, crews from all over the country flocked in, the sets were used repeatedly, and celebrities and shooting sites themselves became tourism content. To this day, many tourists still come to Hengdian for the "same check-in spots" from certain film and television dramas.
Since 2004, Hengdian has institutionalized the "celebrity meet-and-greet" activity, and clearly stated that all crews filming in Hengdian in the future will hold fan meetups as a regular tourism activity held periodically.
At the same time, Hengdian also developed "Celebrity Visiting Group" and "Film Experience DV Tour". The latter provides sets, scripts, props and shooting services for tourists to perform a segment by themselves, which can be regarded as the predecessor of the 218-yuan experience of being a short drama actor.
Later, the Dream Valley Scenic Area opened, and Hengdian's tourism format transformed from the "sightseeing-oriented" mode of viewing buildings, crews and celebrities, into a film and television tourism theme park.
In other words, Hengdian has been working on "letting ordinary people participate in film and television creation". Previously, the carrier of this thing was crews and celebrities, now after the wave of AI short dramas hits, the carrier has become the tourists themselves.
Figure | After *The Orchid Remains Fragrant* shot in Hengdian became a hit, Hengdian launched related tourist routes
Therefore, the launch of the 218-yuan short drama shooting project is not abrupt. When the "appearance" of "film and television as the appearance" begins to decline, "tourism as the core" has become Hengdian's next direction.
As one staff member said: "Everything in Hengdian is ready-made. It doesn't matter who you