“Vertical microdramas”

Sometimes known as vertical dramas or mini-dramas (a consensus genre label is sure to emerge soon), these series are filmed vertically and typically have dozens of episodes — or chapters — lasting no longer than 60-90 seconds each.

Elaine Low and Natalie Jarvey sketch a trend. (I’ve only read the non-subscribers part; h/t to my gym-mate Brian Eugenio Herrera.)

I have never considered myself a screenwriter and I’m not interested in the angle of “you only have 6-12 months to get in on this”; as a chronic non-professional I have the privilege of ignoring the market. But the format is interesting.

A 60-90 second vertical video is, in 2025, the culmination of “content marketing”: The content is, one for one, the marketing, each episode something you can drop in as a YouTube short, Instagram reel, or TikTok. Low and Jarvey observe that the dominant microdramas “over-index on billionaires, vampires and werewolves,” “share DNA with Lifetime or Hallmark films and the… romance publishing industry,” and are “soapy, telenovela-style shows,” but the potential that struck me here was in science fiction or horror—the kind of thing where you could tell a bunch of unsettling or mysterious micro-stories around an event or premise, rather than slicing a linear narrative into deli-thin chapters. This feels like it could work for a lot of genres, but might have exceptional potential for horror because you could do it on a budget; you don’t have to show the monster. Video creepypasta, but told as a mess of shards reflecting something, rather than straight linear narrative—the usual weakness of creepypasta, where the portent of the premise collapses under the technical demands of storytelling. Comparables: Angel Hare; Observable Radio; Gone; The Department of Midnight.

Anyway, this sounds like fun. I’d love to see what some low-budget, high-insanity creators can do with it.

Currently reading: ROSEWATER, by Tade Thompson.