Make an Overseas Short Drama Solo: A Three-Step Hands-On Tutorial with SenseTime Seko 3.0 + Seedance 2.0

Domestic micro-dramas are brutally saturated: in Q1 2026 the industry released 128,000 new series, with 1,400+ titles a day fighting for attention; in a single month last December, 2.8 million ad creative sets were launched, 80%+ of them new—old creatives don't survive a week.

But the overseas curve is the exact opposite: in 2025 overseas micro-drama apps hit 1.855 billion downloads, up 300% year over year; the AI short-drama overseas market surged from $100 million to $650 million (6x); one Guangzhou company saw AI short-drama overseas orders explode 5,000% in a year; and more than half of overseas users are willing to pay for short dramas with AI involvement.

Even more important: the barrier to entry is now low enough that one person can produce a whole series. This tutorial shows how to use Seko 3.0, released by SenseTime at WAIC (Agent + infinite canvas + top-tier Skills), together with the Seedance 2.0 video model, to produce a fully English-language overseas short drama in three steps.

Before You Start

• Account needed: a SenseTime Seko platform account; register at seko.sensetime.com.
• What the tool is: Seko 3.0 is a growth platform for video creators. It builds film-grade production capacity around Agent + infinite canvas + Skills and connects "creative ideas → commercial execution" (including the OPC base, authoritative publishing, commercial projects, and global distribution).
• Estimated time: script ~5 minutes; character storyboards 10–20 minutes; video generation depends on the number of shots ("one-click to video" is fastest).
• Cost: non-members can try Seedance 2.0 Mini for free; during the anniversary sale, the monthly plan is 50% off first purchase and the annual plan 60% off, with Seedance 2.0 as low as ¥0.42/second.

💡 What is a Skill: Seko's "Skill Zone" gathers expert capability templates, such as overseas hit short dramas, plot-twist ad skits, celebrity documentaries, and premium TVC ads. These Skills are packaged by leading studios—essentially standing on the shoulders of those who came before. The "Overseas Short Drama" Skill used in this tutorial is one of them.

Step 1: Topic and Script (~5 minutes)

1. Open Seko's Agent, enter your story idea, and select the "Overseas Short Drama" template.

2. Example prompt (ready to use):

   Overseas short drama / Based on this story, create a 3-episode short drama for me, about 1 minute per episode, with all-English dialogue and European settings, full of dramatic tension.

3. The "Overseas Short Drama" Skill was co-built by a studio behind overseas hits and covers overseas topic selection, character relationship design, visual style, and the finished-film workflow. Based on this Skill, the Agent will automatically expand your idea into a complete script outline: character relationships, plot direction, and each episode's core conflict are all laid out.

The demo case in this tutorial, Pawn the World, was produced with exactly this workflow—the battered Ella walks into a mysterious pawnshop, trading away joy, emotions, and lifespan for a painless life, ultimately pawning her living soul with no way to redeem it.

💡 Tip: If you're not happy with the script, just edit it right in the conversation—no need to start over. Confirm after editing to move to the next step.

Step 2: Character Design + Storyboard Generation

Once the script is confirmed, click "Generate Canvas", and Seko lays out all characters, scenes, and storyboards on a single infinite canvas.

Interface structure:

• Left side: the character and scene lists. For Pawn the World, you'll see characters like Ella-despair outfit / Ella-relaxed outfit / Shopkeeper, plus scenes like European rainy-night street, Old European apartment, Old-town alley, and Mysterious vintage pawnshop.
• Right side: the storyboard frames. Every shot is auto-annotated with:
  • Scene description (what happens in the shot)
  • Camera movement (push, pull, pan, track)
  • Dialogue / voiceover (the character's English lines)

Operating points:

• Unhappy with any single shot? Edit that shot's description directly and regenerate—it won't affect other shots.
• Once character settings are confirmed, all storyboards reuse the same character appearance, so you won't get "the same Ella growing two different faces."
• This step turns "script text" into "a visual shooting blueprint"—the input for Seedance 2.0 video generation.

💡 Tip: Details at the storyboard stage determine final video quality. The more specific the camera movement and scene descriptions, the more stable the video generation. For example, "the camera slowly tilts up from a close-up of Ella's hands to her glistening eyes" produces more dramatic footage than "Ella walks into the pawnshop."

Step 3: Video Generation (Seedance 2.0)

Once the storyboards are confirmed, use Seedance 2.0 to turn them into video. Seko offers two generation modes at this step:

• "Generate video" button: generates a single storyboard individually. Good for fine-tuning a key shot; if it's not right, use "edit prompt" and regenerate just that one.
• "One-click to video" button: generates all storyboards together. Saves time, with a very high success rate—most people use this for batch production.

Workflow:

1. On the canvas, confirm all storyboards are ready.
2. Click "One-click to video" and wait for Seedance 2.0 to render each storyboard into a video clip.
3. For any clip you don't like, just click "Generate video" + "Edit prompt" to re-roll that one.
4. Once everything looks good, Seko stitches all clips into a complete episode in script order.

💡 Tip: The author's testing shows "one-click to video" has a very high success rate. Batch-produce first, then re-roll individual shots—far faster than polishing one shot at a time.

Results

After the three steps, what you have is: a fully English-language, European-setting overseas short drama, about 1 minute per episode. Three episodes together form a complete story, ready to publish on overseas short-drama platforms.

Using this workflow, the author produced all three English episodes of Pawn the World alone—no editing software, no live actors, no location shooting.

FAQ

• Will the generated characters "change faces"? After you confirm character settings in step 2, Seko locks the appearance and all storyboards reuse the same set of characters, so the same character never looks different.

• What if I can't write an English script? Just describe your idea to the Agent in Chinese and pick the "Overseas Short Drama" Skill—the Agent automatically produces all-English dialogue and European settings. You don't need to write English yourself.

• I want to do this long-term. Is there more support? SenseTime built a Seko Industry Base in Shanghai's Xuhui West Bund (40+ creative teams already onboard), offering policy support, compute incentives, training courses, and authoritative publishing channels, plus an AI micro-drama internship base co-built with the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Overseas support comes as a full package: the Overseas Short Drama Skill (content) + content-traffic courses (getting traffic) + operations courses (long-term operations) + IP and distribution matchmaking (entering the market).

• Are there success stories to reference? Director Li Rang (founder of RANG AI STUDIO, 22 years old, 400M+ total views across platforms, 781K Douyin followers); Chen Ke Studio's Jubao Immortal Basin series (TOP1 on the Honguo comic-drama chart, over 350 million total heat score)—their methods have been packaged as Skills on Seko and can be reused directly.

Links and Pricing

• Registration: seko.sensetime.com
• Seedance 2.0 Mini: free for non-members
• Anniversary pricing: monthly plan 50% off first purchase, annual plan 60% off first purchase, Seedance 2.0 as low as ¥0.42/second

Tools are iterating at a ridiculous pace—today you're still debating whether to learn video editing; tomorrow AI has already finished the film. Knowing how to use tools is just the basics. The people who spot the direction earlier and dare to take the first step sooner are the ones who capture the overseas dividend.