The Vertical Revolution: Inside the Microdrama Boom

Not that long ago, vertical video mostly meant someone holding their phone the “wrong” way. It was for instagram and TikTok. Not for narrative storytelling format.

That’s not where we are anymore. Vertical microdramas are short, serialized stories built to be watched on a phone. They have turned into a real business and are internationally distributed on a mobile-first video market that is on track to push toward the tens of billions of dollars over the next few years, and microdramas are a big part of that rise.

From Quibi’s Crash to China’s Playbook

Hollywood’s first big attempt at “premium” mobile storytelling was Quibi. You probably know how that went: huge spend, big names, short run. The takeaway for a lot of people at the time was, “audiences don’t want to watch shows on their phones.”

Meanwhile, something very different was happening in China. Platforms there started rolling out duanju — tightly structured, vertical series broken into two-minute chapters. Episodes moved fast. Every moment pushed you toward the next one. Payments were built right into the experience.

Within a few years, that world went from experiment to full-blown ecosystem. Microdramas found hundreds of millions of viewers. Many of those viewers were willing to pay. The format proved it could hold attention and make money, not just go viral.

Our Own Vertical Experiment

Earlier this year, we decided to step into this space ourselves. We produced a vertical narrative piece for ReelShort from the start to live on a phone.

Shooting vertically fundamentally changed how we approached almost everything on set. It’s not just a framing shift, it reshapes the entire production ecosystem. Once we committed, we saw a different approach to how it affects every department. We were suddenly moving through more pages per day, compressing setups, and rethinking blocking so performances played cleanly inside a much narrower visual field. Actors had new expectations placed on them too; vertical storytelling demands tighter emotional beats and less takes. Lighting changed as well. We had to strategize ways to meet our days. Production design had to simplify as there was less that was scene on set. Even camera movement is changing in style as your frame is a lot tighter.

The response from clients and collaborators was immediate: this didn’t feel like a “cutdown” or a social extra. It felt like its own thing — a format people instinctively understood how to consume.

The U.S. Catches Up

As China was dialing in the playbook, platforms like DramaBox and ReelShort started bringing microdramas into the U.S. market. The audience that really took to them wasn’t teenage trend-chasers — it was mostly women in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, binging romance sagas, revenge stories, and messy family dramas between everything else they do in a day.

These platforms did something Quibi never pulled off: they turned a profit. They didn’t aim for “prestige TV on your phone.” They aimed for fast, emotional, easy-to-pick-up stories that reward five spare minutes on a couch, a train, or in the kitchen.

Three Waves of Growth

If you zoom out, the rise of microdramas roughly follows three waves:

Wave 1: Domestic Boom

China builds the engine: short episodes, clear hooks, and platforms that know exactly how to push the next chapter in front of you. AKA Dopamine hooked for the shorter attention spans.

Wave 2: Global Spread

The format starts popping up in other regions. TikTok-era storytelling instincts which means faster, vertical and all emotional based.

Wave 3: Local Originals

Countries and creators begin building their own ecosystems: Korean vertical melodramas, Japanese genre spins, Thai and Latin American experiments, U.S.-driven romance and thriller runs. Production companies like ours can now bring local flavor into a structure audiences already understand.

Why This Stuff Works

On paper, it looks simple: short episodes, low budgets, recognizable tropes. But the craft lives in the details.

Microdramas are built around clean emotional engines:

• Will they end up together or destroy each other?
• Who’s lying, and when does the mask slip?
• What secret is about to blow up the room?
• How far will someone go to win, or to get even?

The writing has to get to the point quickly. The performances need to read clearly in a close frame. Every episode has to end with enough tension that swiping away feels harder than tapping “next.”

Speed, Not Secrecy

Traditional film and TV culture tends to hold ideas tight — long development cycles, layers of approvals, lots of fear around leaks. The microdrama world is almost the opposite.

People reuse structures and tropes all the time. Contract marriages, reincarnated rivals, ruthless bosses with secret soft spots — none of that is proprietary. What matters is how quickly you can write, test, shoot, and adjust. The competition is less about who “owns” an idea and more about who can make their version hit hardest.

AI tools are starting to show up here too — not as a magic trick, but as a way to rough out storyboards, test alternates, localize content, and move faster on the unglamorous bits of the pipeline.

Where This Leaves Creators and Brands

For brands, vertical storytelling is no longer just a place to dump cutdowns. It’s a format where you can build characters, arcs, and worlds that live right alongside everything else people scroll through.

For filmmakers and small studios, it’s a lane where the barrier to entry is lower than a traditional series, but the expectations around the craft and what you're capable of art different.

Our own vertical piece was a first step. It won’t be the last. The more we work in this format, the more we will master it and build stories that stick with people after they close the app.