Formats

One-minute vertical chapters: the Chinese mobile phenomenon that wants to reach the world

Vertical dramas have become very popular despite their simple production standards and global giants are looking at them with interest.

BarcelonaThe attention economy—or dispersion economy—has also affected the world of soap operas. In China, they've been pushing "vertical serials" for years: fictions under two hours long, divided into micro-episodes of one or two minutes, and filmed in a way that eschews the landscape format of film or television, adapting to mobile screens without having to rotate them. The business already represents revenues of $5 billion in the Asian country, or, in other words, 70% of the century-old traditional film industry. And by 2027, the business is expected to have skyrocketed to €14 billion. With these credentials, the rest of the industry worldwide is beginning to mobilize. And the Chinese government has activated several mechanisms to ensure that the plots favor the values of its regime, for example in terms of promoting birth control.

The main international ambassador for the format is Netflix, which announced last month that it would begin testing vertical videos with some users. The idea is to offer clips from its films and series adapted to vertical viewing so they can be shared on social media, etc. This, in turn, opens the door to content designed specifically with upright mobile screens in mind. The platform thus seeks to attract users of networks like TikTok, who are accustomed to consuming short content by scrolling vertically. Previously, Netflix had experimented with the format with Fast Laughs and Kids Clips, featuring comedy and children's videos, respectively. Now, it plans to create a "My Netflix" tab, similar to the "For Me" pages on social media.

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Teaser for a vertical drama

The next natural step is to contribute original content to this tab and this is where companies that have specialized in the vertical dramas They can enter the game en masse. Ultimately, they are companies trained in agility of movement. low cost, but they're addictive. And the irrefutable proof is that they manage to make money: the first ten episodes are usually free, but for the rest you have to pay if you want to know the outcome of the series.

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One of the countries that is betting on vertical dramas is the United Kingdom. The country has become a preeminent filming location, as it offers cheaper actors than those in Hollywood and also more reasonable filming costs—at least compared to the US—in addition to a wide range of locations for dramas set in aristocratic environments. In Spain, there are also some initiatives that try to cheat, such as Verticals in Spain, which works primarily for platforms like Reel Short. Among its works, there is an adaptation ofPride and Prejudice, based on the Jane Austen classic, filmed in Spain. These productions usually have a modest budget, ranging between 130,000 and 220,000 euros.

Internationally, Content Republic is one of the most prolific vertical drama factories and aims to produce 400 series per year, divided equally between those aimed at Chinese audiences and those seeking to penetrate international markets. But all this excitement doesn't make us forget the precedent of Quibi, a start-up which took a big risk with these formats and had to close after only six months of operation.

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The consulting firm Sensor Tower, which works with data collected from mobile phones, sees promise in this new form of fiction. According to its calculations, these micro-episodes generated around $1.2 billion in revenue outside of China, 60% of which came from the United States. By comparison, movie ticket sales in the United States that year stood at $8.75 billion. The most prominent company in the US dedicated to vertical series is ReelShort, and it's indicative that it's not headquartered in Hollywood like the rest of the majors, but in Silicon Valley. However, around forty other companies are vying to outshine it, with their own different applications. Beyond the United States, other countries where a growing market for this format is observed are Indonesia, Brazil, India, and Mexico.

Data analysis is essential for this business, which is as technological as it is artistic, as it is often necessary to make variations on old, well-known themes to fine-tune the formula or, simply, to continue milking a specific vein. Thus, Reel Short's catalog includes titles such as The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband (451 million views), Playing by a billionaire's rules (26 million) or Baby trapped by billionaire (33 million). The production company has released nearly 200 microseries in the last year and aims to double that number by 2025.