Pulling Back the Curtain on Vertical Videos

By Meta Valentic

“Want to work on a Vertical?”

When a longtime director friend called me and asked if I would produce her latest project, I frantically Googled “Vertical” while saying yes. Vertical videos (also called microdramas), are 60-80 minute shows that are released to phone apps in 1-3 minute “episodes” and are indeed, framed vertically. The format originated in Asia and is wildly popular. In the United States, companies like ReelShorts and DramaBox are pulling in huge audiences raised on TikTok and the Hallmark Channel. The leading US based production company for verticals, Crazy Maple Studios, is clearing $10 million per month and was named a TIME100 most influential company in 2024. The stories are a mix of billionaire CEOs with secret babies, shy girls in love with the school jock, and sexy werewolves. The company that hired me (and US branches of these Asian companies) can’t produce these low budget, non-union videos fast enough. The stories must include cliffhangers at the end of each episode, then the apps require viewers to buy coins to keep watching. The production quality ranges from unwatchable to fine - the common denominator is the addictive content. I was both fascinated and repelled, but after the pandemic, the strikes, and a job market in Los Angeles that’s vanishing before my eyes, I couldn’t say no. I hadn’t worked in months.

The director and I have decades of Hollywood experience between us. I normally work as a DGA assistant director, but also produce indies when I feel passionate about the subject or the filmmakers. We both had reservations about how to achieve a quality show on a super limited budget (isn’t that always the case, fellow producers?), but we were both game to try. Our mission was to impress the company, be a hit on the app, and become one of their “regulars.” Our executives suggested more opportunities if we executed this project successfully.

Before we started prep, the director asked me an impactful question: “What do you want to get out of this experience?” She knew it wasn’t the low salary or questionable quality. So why would I work on something I was jokingly calling “porn-adjacent?” I answered that I wanted to try a new form of storytelling, wanted to see what this buzzy part of the business was all about, and that the possibility of consistent employment (despite not earning a penny towards my DGA health or pension) looked pretty good right about now. I also wanted to teach the next generation of filmmakers in the way I had been taught in the 1990’s and 2000’s (minus the sexual harassment and bullying, of course, #MeToo). I worry that the earthquakes in our business have left crews behind, adrift in the changing landscape of “new media” and “content creation” that often resembles a race to the bottom. I ignored the cognitive dissonance that I could achieve any of this on a 7 day micro budget video shoot.

I entered a world that felt familiar and utterly alien at the same time. Many of the aspects of the shoot were totally normal: hiring department heads, casting, location scouting, script rewrites. Others were not: I was not just expected to be the creative and line producer, but also the location manager, and supporting casting director. Departments on verticals resemble student films: 1 costume person, 3 grips and electricians, everyone doing more than one job and being paid incredibly low wages. The company had codified this process: I was issued a detailed producer’s manual and a fixed budget. They had anywhere from 1 to 4 videos filming at any given time with crew cycling from one shoot to the next. We were an assembly line. I was told in no uncertain terms that every single person we hired must be non-union, and if any unions got involved, the company would shut down the shoot and cancel the project. I shushed the voice in my head that reminded me that this corporate POV wasn’t consistent with my approach to producing. I plowed ahead to make my work the best it could be under the circumstances.

The company employed an in-house casting company to cast the two lead actors. While the director and I had input on our top choices, the final decisions rested firmly with the company and more specifically, their marketing department. Their criteria seemed to rest on a combination of looks and social media followers.

I was a typical producer in many ways: I talked through the shots with the director and DP, strategized the day’s timeline with 1^st AD, signed cast contracts, booked locations, and completed all the millions of tasks we do every day to make a shoot successful. I called in countless favors and lowballed vendors who were slashing their rates just to stay afloat in Los Angeles. I enforced the company’s ruthless manpower mandates to stay on budget.

By day 4, we were finally hitting our stride. Filming 10+ pages per day was a challenge, and we quickly learned that any scenes with complicated blocking (or almost any actor or camera movement) took too long. Stunts and intimacy scenes blew our timeline. The phrase “Citizen Kane in the morning, Dukes of Hazard in the afternoon” ran through my head every day. Through a combination of flexibility, necessity, and sheer will, we were making the show and the studio was happy. I finally understood why these videos looked so amateurish, or in many cases, downright bad. There wasn’t enough time, and everyone was stretched so thin that we just had to settle for good enough and move on. The audience just wanted the instant gratification of romance and drama, and didn’t particularly care if the shot was poorly framed or the actor didn’t hit their mark.

As we were setting up our last scene of the day, a call buzzed through on my phone. An executive at the company told me that they had found evidence that our lead actor had been kicked off another show for sexual misconduct. There were articles in the press and additional allegations on social media. I had missed this, the company had missed this, marketing had missed this, because the actor booked the role under a different name. In the midst of these stunning discoveries, two cast members revealed that the actor had been harassing them on set as well. I remember time slowing to a crawl - my mind struggled to keep up with the tsunami of terrible revelations at the same time I was juggling panicked phone calls from our executives and the looming realization that the shoot was probably doomed.

The company instructed me to wrap the crew immediately, and say nothing about why. Word traveled fast, by the time the crew had gathered in the bar after wrap (we were on location outside Los Angeles), everyone knew. The next day, a company representative addressed the crew and cancelled the show, effective immediately. The crew would not be paid for the days we were supposed to shoot the following week. The crew pushed back, saying it was not their fault the shoot got cancelled, and that they had turned down other jobs because they believed the booking dates we had put in their deal memos.

I agreed with them. We were pulling the rug out from under them, and then refusing to honor the dates in their deals? I knew that the deal memos allowed the company to cancel employment at any time, but this wasn’t their fault. It was mine, it was the company’s, it was the actor’s for not disclosing any of this upfront. They were collateral damage.

In the ensuing quiet, I realized I couldn’t continue working on the show anymore, or try to become one of the company’s regular producers. We were playing fast and loose with production, moving fast and breaking things. People were getting hurt. My last conversation with the production executive went something like this:

Me: “Your producing manual has a section on the company’s mission statement. The company pledged to treat everyone with respect. How does not vetting the cast and shorting the crew their expected salaries fit into that mission statement?”

Executive: Sigh. Silence.

I’d never called out a company like that. I’d never questioned an executive, my boss, in this way. She accepted my resignation. I made peace with never working for this company again.

As for the goals I articulated to the director during prep… it was a mixed bag. I saw what Vertical video/microdrama format was like, and I realized that there was no chance for quality given the budgets and schedules. The trenches were full of film school graduates just trying to work in Hollywood, but were not afforded any health & pension benefits or much upward mobility. My efforts to train and mentor the crew mostly fell flat - they didn’t want someone telling them how things were done on union shows. They were just trying to get through the day.

I also had to reconcile my own actions. Why hadn’t I spent more time Googling the cast? Why hadn’t the actresses reported the harassing behavior to me? What was my part in this debacle? Yes, I missed glaring red flags about the actor, but so did the company, who was ultimately squarely responsible for hiring him. But I also led by example when production went sideways, I stayed professional even when the shit hit the fan. I realized that participating in a system that codifies non-union work, substandard wages, and questionable production processes into their business model does not align with my values. I can hear you say, that’s naive, isn’t that every piece of entertainment? Yes and no. Give me a passion project indie, a short designed to further worthy peoples’ careers, give me a story with social impact - those are the types of projects I throw myself behind.

If I can pass along any advice to fellow producers, it’s to research every cast and crew member you bring onto your sets. Don’t just rely on word of mouth (although that’s critical as well) - do your own vetting. And don’t be afraid to hold the company to account if they are cutting corners. So often our drive to be a good producer keeps us quiet when we need to speak up. Going through this experience allowed me to speak bluntly, but only when there was nothing left to lose.

As for the Vertical video business, I keep telling people that I feel like a canary in a coal mine. A few months ago, I didn’t know what this content was, and today I’m still introducing veteran production colleagues to the concept of microdramas. According to a recent article in The Ankler, “ReelShort, not even three years old, brings in more than $1 billion in revenue annually…(yes, billion with a B), from in-app purchases and advertising combined.” Traditional scripted television and streaming shows, once a boon for above and below-the-line workers, have fled Los Angeles (as of this writing, the California Legislature officially approved a long awaited increase in the tax incentive, which may stem the bleeding). Vertical video productions are employing hundreds, if not thousands, of cast and crew every day. This could be the future of production. As producers, we must adapt or go extinct - and I am trying to adapt. While this particular show was a disaster, I’m still willing to give verticals another try. The microdrama business is still in its infancy, which provides opportunities for producers to grow it responsibly. I’m looking to find productions that better align with my values. I want to think outside the box. And in the end, I’m still trying to leave this business better than how I found it, no matter how elusive a goal that seems today.