Hollywood trend for one-minute TV shows: ‘The kind of thing you watch drunk at two in the morning’ | television

IIf you haven’t heard of vertical dramas, you probably will soon. These fast-paced, catchy series — typically divided into one-minute episodes — have been growing unstoppably over the past couple of years, and now Hollywood is starting to take notice.

Last year, former Showtime executive Jana Winograd announced MicroCo, a studio dedicated to vertical drama, and claimed she was shocked by the amount of high-profile talent that approached her. Two months ago, former Miramax boss Bill Block launched GammaTime, which promises original drama series from CSI creator Anthony E. Zwicker.

“Every studio in Hollywood you can think of is involved or experimenting,” says vertical drama consultant Gene Cooper. “For actors in America, 90% of the jobs are available [major casting platform] Vertical actor access. In fact, in a stagnant entertainment market, verticals are one of the few places seeing real growth – last year Deadline reported that revenue in this sector rose 8,000% year over year.

Vertical dramas get their name from the fact that they are filmed in 16:9 format: they are longer than they are wide, making them ideal for viewing on smartphones. They are usually shot quickly, in about a week, with small crews and actors who are expected to perfect their performances in a few takes. And because their job is to keep you in check (ideally to the point where you start paying for it, and more later), they tend to move forward at an incredible pace. Imagine a movie that switches from cliffhanger to cliffhanger every 90 seconds, and you’ll get the idea.

“They’ve clearly mastered the technique of attracting clicks and hooks that get you past the paywall,” says Cooper. “But the reason it’s so popular is because it serves a hugely underserved audience, which is women who read romance novels. You might watch them and think, ‘That’s not The Godfather — that’s weird,’ but then you look at the romance novels and say, ‘Ah, right, okay.’ They’re serving all this audience that can’t find anything anywhere else. And they’re meeting people where they are, and that’s on their phones. People are paying more attention to segments because they’re not also on WhatsApp at the same time.”

But are they good? If you download a vertical app, like Chinese-owned ReelShort or DramaBox, you’ll find yourself inundated with rabble-rousing titles like (and I promise these are real) My Sister Is the Warlord Queen and Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death from CEO. Everyone in these movies is a billionaire. Most people are horny. It’s like being lost at sea and they are being watched.

For this reason, I ask Cooper to provide me with some sectors that illustrate where the industry is at the moment. Here’s what you suggest…

Break the ice

earlyshort

“This has gone supernova, attracting a lot of new observers, especially in areas like Indonesia and the Philippines,” Cooper says. Since the film is about a sexy ice hockey star, it’s worth noting that it predates the heated rivalry. Breaking the Ice is the story of a rising player who leaves his childhood sweetheart behind, not knowing she is pregnant, before returning eight years later.

It’s absolutely bananas. In the first minute, the heroine discovers that she is pregnant, then she receives a slap from her boyfriend’s mother, who offers her thousands of dollars to break up with him. And in the second minute, he’s calling her a “crazy bipolar bitch” for kissing someone else. Halfway through, the kidnapping begins and is resolved within about 45 seconds. There are countless one-punch fights, as well as a wildly overrated music score. It’s hectic, all over the place and almost pointless. The precision with which Breaking the Ice can use a weapon in its low attention span is frightening. It’s also stupidly entertaining.

However, as soon as there is a shower scene, the paywall starts. This may be where people get turned off. To continue watching, you have to collect coins, as you would in a mobile game. You can do this by watching an ad (usually for Temu) every few minutes, or by purchasing 1,000 coins for £4.49. You can also purchase a subscription to the app, which costs around £200 per year. This is more expensive than a standard Netflix subscription or licensing fee, but Cooper says that for many viewers, the verticals “are a sweetheart. If they’re into live music, sports, or buying wool for their knitting, they’ll spend the same amount.”

How to tame a silver fox

earlyshort

Buoyed by my unexpected enjoyment of Breaking the Ice, I gave this one a go, which Cooper describes as an age-gap romance that went viral on TikTok. It is, by all accounts, a little harder to enjoy.

How to Tame the Silver Fox is a slightly dark love story about a girl who falls in love with her father’s friend. The main problem I have is that her father’s boyfriend is an absolute cluster bomb of red flags. He drives a sports car. He carries a gun. He wears a leather jacket and has a boy doll haircut. His shirt, half unbuttoned and perpetually soaked, keeps being taken off and put back on without any real logic. He keeps saying things (to his friend’s daughter, remember) like “You’re a beautiful woman but I’m bigger than you, baby,” and “You better not test me or I’ll break you.” Worst of all, he’s not actually a silver fox, just a brown-haired man who looks like he’s possessed by Pepe Lou Powder himself with talcum powder. Not my cup of tea at all, but there’s a good chance I’m not the target audience here.

American Sniper: Final Round

ReelShort

Cooper describes this film as “a huge hit towards the end of the year, and part of an attempt to attract a male audience.” Which is great, because I’m a man. This should be a slam dunk.

Except that’s not the case, because the more I watch American Sniper: The Last Round, the more I’m convinced that no one in the vertical drama industry has ever met a man before. Within the first five seconds, someone gets shot in the head. We meet a guy nicknamed the “King of Guns,” which we know because they call him the “King of Guns” about once every 30 seconds. Each scene is accompanied by music that sounds like it was pirated from a pickup truck commercial. It is also very important that this has nothing to do with the Clint Eastwood movie American Sniper. This was about Chris Kyle, a decorated US Navy SEAL sniper who was eventually killed at a firing range. The film revolves around the King of Guns, a man who leaves his military position to work at a shooting range, then shoots a large number of bad guys. It’s very stupid, like the kind of thing you watch while drunk at two in the morning.

Spark me tenderly

My drama

Cooper calls this movie ‘Fifty Shades of Gray’ rubbish, but it was a huge hit,” and that’s accurate. Spark Me Tenderly’s success comes from a massive social media campaign full of TikTok videos that make it look like porn. It’s not, but it’s very Fifty Shades. A young woman gets a job with a handsome pervert who gets her to sign a BDSM contract. There’s a brief battle of wills and some heavy, fully clothed petting, and (spoiler alert) the pervert ends up putting his kink aside because Fall in love, and the woman really gets into BDSM is a bit like Grese, without the flying car nonsense, but there’s a huge audience that would embrace it.

In other words, I love you

Drama Box

“This is one of my favorite sectors ever,” says Cooper, and I’m inclined to agree. This is a young adult story about a poor American scholarship student who is sent to a posh British school and encounters an arrogant British man, feeling that the vertical should probably start turning if they are to shed their reputation as being smarmy.

For starters, the young and largely British actors do a very good job with the material, which isn’t always the case with verticals. Second, the weird need to send the plot in a ridiculous new direction has been simplified, so it feels like an actual movie and not a parade of YouTube interstitials. In the beginning, there is a long scene in which the characters criticize the works of William Golding. This is an industry that knows and trusts its audience, which is what seems petrified of a lot of these things to do. As a result, we’re left with something that’s lightweight, but very well made. Now that actual filmmakers are involved in this medium, this will be the standard by which all other sectors are measured. Joy.

Choice game

talflex

Described by Cooper as “one of the most ambitious segments”, it is an action drama in the form of Squid Game. By that I mean it’s exactly a squid game, condensed into a few hours and done cheaply. However, by vertical standards, it represents a huge leap forward. There are exciting scenes and action scenes, and the story relies more on internal drama than on silly scenes. It’s interesting, and a perfect demonstration of a medium desperate to break out and become mainstream. When you see all the vertical dramas by the end of the year, it will be partly thanks to this.