It seems like every day (even every minute!) there’s another audition posting for a vertical drama. But before you take your hat out of the ring for other jobs and go all-in on trying to get cast in “Being My Billionaire Werewolf Husband’s Secret Office Girlfriend,” are vertical dramas here to stay? Or are they just the latest in a series of media micro-trends?
Whether or not you know the name “vertical drama,” you’ve likely encountered one during your morning doom scroll on your phone. These addictive little videos are vertical, meaning they’re shot in an aspect ratio that is meant to be viewed on a cell phone without turning it sideways, like TikTok videos or Instagram Reels. The format first came on the scene in China around 2018 and then quickly made the move to other countries. Today, the U.S. accounts for the majority of views on platform leader ReelShort.
The vertical drama style is over-the-top dramatic, occasionally silly, and designed to be addictive: Every two minutes or so, these serialized shows end on a cliffhanger meant to get the viewer to click on the next part and eventually pay money to do so. They’re notoriously campy, with clunky dialogue, broad, trope-y characters, predictably absurd plot lines, and even more absurd overly detailed titles. People seem to sincerely watch and hate-watch them with equal enthusiasm―but either way, people are watching.
Vertical Video: The Portrait Revolution You Can’t Afford to MissMajor vertical drama platforms
Here’s just a sampling of vertical drama platforms and some of the wacky titles they’re home to. Only ReelShort has view counts listed on its videos, which we’ve included here to help you gauge just how popular these videos have become.
- ReelShort: “How to Tame a Silver Fox” (295.6 million views across the 72-part series), “Fated to My Forbidden Alpha” (184.2 million views across the 61-part series)
- DramaBox: “Escape With Boss’s Baby,” “Crowned in Love: The Mother of Three Big Shots”
- MiniShort: “Runaway Billionaire Becomes My Groom,” “Rebirth: Revenge on My Family,” “The Masked Singer Queen”
- FlickReels: “1955: Married the Mafia Boss by Contract,” “Love at 50: From Janitor to Billionaire’s Wife”
Many actors are hoping vertical dramas stay around for a while because the work can be fast, plentiful, and exciting.
- A quick timeline: The schedule is notoriously fast, with most projects aiming to shoot an entire series (which may be hours of content) in roughly a week. This can be great for actors hoping to pick up a gig in between longer contracts or to make decent money for a short commitment (these gigs usually pay a couple hundred dollars as a day rate). That said, the fast schedule is a double-edged sword—it’s a short time commitment, but the expectation is that you’ll get a lot of work done in that time, leading to intense filming schedules.
- Lots of gigs: Shutting yourself off from vertical content can equate to shutting yourself off from a significant part of the industry these days, especially for nonunion actors. The industry is incredibly prolific: ReelShort aims to make 200 international dramas a year (and another 200 in China), and that’s just one company.
- Varied work: The quick schedule of vertical dramas can also be an opportunity to beat the monotony of longer serialized television or theater work. In an interview with Filmart, actor Nic Westaway said, “In Australia, I played one character for nearly four years, nearly 400 episodes; but in the last nine months I’ve got to play 14 different characters in 14 different crazy verticals.”
- A built-in fan base: With lots of views comes lots of fans. As the film industry becomes more interested in social media followers (for better or worse), some actors have found that vertical dramas are one way to build a dedicated fan base quickly. In an interview with Rolling Stone, frequent vertical drama actor Kasey Esser (“Fated to My Forbidden Alpha,” “All I Want for Christmas Is a Husband”) shared, “Other actors have one foot in, one foot out, because they want to do artsier movies and TV, which I totally get. But for me, I see the potential in the audience building, the platform building and what this could become. So I’ve really gone all in on the marketing side of it.”
Billionaire Werewolves & Baby-Trapping: What 3 Actors Can Teach You About Acting in Vertical DramasAs Benjamin Franklin famously said, the only sure things in life are death, taxes, and the fact that vertical dramas will be part of the entertainment landscape forever. OK, maybe not that last thing. Obviously, there’s no way to know just how long they’ll be on the rise, but since vertical dramas have hit the sweet spot in our content-craving, short-attention-span-having society, one thing is fairly certain: They’re probably not going anywhere anytime soon.
It doesn’t hurt that these short melodramas are relatively cheap to produce (they use only a few cameras and pay actors modest day rates in hopes of cranking out an entire series in a week), yet they have the potential to bring in a proportionally absurd amount of money. As of this writing, ReelShort charges $20 a week for unlimited access (for comparison, a premium Netflix subscription will run you $25 a month). Money talks—as long as people are subscribing, it seems unlikely that vertical dramas will stop being produced.
Still, the staying power of the vertical drama format and the job opportunities it offers remain unknown. Case in point: The vertical content app Quibi famously launched and then folded within six months in 2020. And the Economist recently reported that two vertical drama platforms had created series entirely from AI, including AI “actors.” Maybe the question is less “Are vertical dramas here to stay?” and more “Are actors in vertical dramas here to stay?” That answer is unclear, but for the moment, the jobs are available and abundant. If it’s something that’s of interest to you, there’s no harm in jumping on the bandwagon—even if there’s no guarantee just how long the ride will be.
