And I told my investor at the time, I said this is the new,
the next big thing. We need to get involved.
We have made arguably one of the biggest budget of for vertical
that you can have ever done. Once you convert the audience to
the app, then you are more than halfway to succeed.
Vertical drama has a problem that I I I'm not afraid to say
out loud. Behind the data there are real
people. The real people are paying their
real hard earned money. Hi, I'm Justin Crosby and
welcome to another telecast this week.
My guest is Samantha Sun, an emerging force in the micro
drama space here in the UK. She's the producer at Real Force
Studio focused on high volume data-driven vertical
storytelling for social video platforms.
The work centers on fast turn around scripted micro series
blending creative development with analytics LED iteration.
Samantha, welcome to telecast. How are you doing?
Thank you for having me, I'm doing great.
How are you? I'm all right.
Yeah, I'm okay. This is our new set, so if you'd
have been with us a couple of weeks ago, we'd have been at a
round table that I've been using for ages.
But this is for anybody who's just listening on audio.
We're on nice country sofas now, right?
This is okay. I watched your previous episode
before and yeah, this is this is better, right?
It's a it's a lot more. Coding.
Yeah, exactly. I feel like I'm sort of, you
know, morning TV or something like that on the sofa anyway.
Well, listen, welcome to the show.
Thank you for for joining us. So you've been involved in micro
drama series for a number of years.
One of the people at the cutting edge of the of the industry.
It's obviously a fascinating area.
A lot of people in the traditional TV industry in the
content creation space are talking about this now.
So before we get into that, tell us a bit about your experience,
because I know you're a producer for Real Force now.
Yeah. But actually, you know, before
Real Force, you've you've been established as a as a micro
drama producer. Tell us about what you've done
in your career up to this space. Since 2023, I was at the time
working for another company. At the beginning we were doing
like interactive film, slash game kind of thing.
But at the end of 2023, I personally think at the time we
already seen the, the, the Rising of Drama Box and real
short at the time, those are like maybe the only big two.
And I told my investor at the time, I said this is the new,
the next big thing we need to get involved.
And since then for that company, we were internally developing
our own platform and I was in charge of the the content
creation. So we were since 2023 we the end
of that we were developing our own script and produced arguably
maybe one of the first five vertical that have been made in
UK working with Dan La Winstein who is our amazing director.
Shout out to Dan. I made two, another two in
America, made another two in China and then unfortunately the
platform did not come to life. So I ended up selling all the
show that we have made to Drama Box.
Ever since then I was a freelancer producer that working
with a business partner that we have done a lot of Commission
from platforms like Vertical platform.
And then I joined Real Force last year August, around August
time. And we have ever since we have
made arguably one of the biggest budget of for Vertical that UK
have ever done, right. Yeah.
And it's on air now. OK.
Yeah. Can you talk about what that
budget is? I would say double like a
regular vertical. Right.
Yeah, because. It's a medieval fantasy genre
and there's a lot of costume, big majestic locations and a lot
of post production involved. We have Wig Master on set.
Yeah, like the the on one day we have more than 90 people on set
involved, all Korean cars and we have a real historical castle as
one of our location. So yeah, the scale is different
for that. One, so give it so to in terms
of, I'm not going to ask you to give me a, a real, a full
amount, but are we talking between sort of under a million,
under £1,000,000 in budget? Oh, of course, yeah.
Yeah, but more than half a million.
No. OK.
So it's under half a million,
but you know, but that is still significant, right, if you're
getting into the top end of that.
And half of that, right? Less than half of that.
OK, yeah, OK. Yeah, it's fascinating.
Any drama, any TV drama producers are like listening to
something like, Oh my God, how, how the hell did you do that?
But we're going to come on to that.
Yeah. So how many micro drama series
have you produced then? Roughly up to this?
Point, I would say at this point, more than 10, close to
15, right? Yeah, OK.
And it interesting you, you talked about your one of your
first roles simply sees a lot of parallels between the games
industry and micro drama apps in terms of you know micro payments
etcetera. Was that an important part of
your career? Do you think that informs really
how you approach producing micro dramas now?
Not necessarily like from the the application and yes, the the
monetization is kind of like game fight in a way.
But in terms of how to make, I think the idea from vertical
drama or slash micro drama is that how to make people addicted
to it? Like like how mobile phone a
mobile game made people addicted to, you know, spending more and
more time on their phone on the the the small little game.
So for that I think the the concept is that kind of similar
but not necessarily the same. And my interactive film slash
game experience haven't really brought to life into vertical
yet. But I know there are platform
like real short that have already explored that genre.
But I think because they are charging people more to unlock
more options for that kind of interaction, they're not doing
that well at the time, right in the vertical world at least.
OK, OK. So, well, I mean, let's talk
about micro dramas as a as a genre as well.
I mean, it's obviously incredibly popular in Asia,
really exploded there about sort of 3-4 years ago.
Is it or maybe has it been prevalent a lot longer than
that? I think the, the exploding, the,
the, IT has been, it probably started 2021, but there are
things going on way before that. But I think the reason for that
is my personal understanding is that China got hit by the
pandemic before the rest of the world.
So the industry has been completely shut down for that
reason and have been really quiet for a really long time.
So the investor with the capital, with the money, they
were more, you know, withhold like spectacle when it come to
investing anything like big scale, like traditional long
film and television, that kind of stuff.
So they're looking for something that are more flexible, more.
Quicker turn around for to returns as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and also the idea of TikTok
also come from the, you know, the, the, the Chinese Douyin
like better than it's a, it's a Chinese company.
So I think the the Chinese people already like are so
hooked to the the vertical digital format of as their way
of consuming entertainment. And it's obviously being picked
up in the States as well. We've seen a lot of activity, a
lot of investment coming in now. Fox have obviously invested into
holy water and there's a so a number of different investments
from various different businesses across Europe as
well. We're starting to see what do
you think is really sort of triggered, Is there being a
tipping point you think in the states that made this AI mean?
Obviously, you know, the business model, the amount of
money that a lot of these really successful drama shows are
making, That's probably the trick, the tipping point.
I'm probably answering my own question here.
Do you think there are any shows or is any moments that you can
see that have made a major leap forward in the last couple of
years, particularly in the States?
I think it's the Hollywood turn to micro drama.
It's not only because when micro drama has been done, it's also
about what happening in Hollywood at the time.
If they're doing that well, they probably won't be that
interested. But apparently for whatever
reason, Hollywood is not doing that great.
Even the traditional film and television industry in this
country, in the UK where we were talking about it like it's not
doing that well. So it might be many, many like
different reason behind why it it, it the way it is.
But I think that the people's more hooked to smaller screen
rather than the bigger screen. It's probably one of the reason,
yeah. Yeah.
OK. So, well, let's talk about this
payment model then. And, and we're going to talk a
lot about, you know, how you develop a show to sit within
that payment model. But typically for anybody that
hasn't hasn't watched a micro drama series and gone through
the process of paying, you know, making micro payment.
Tell us about, you know, how that you know, how many episodes
you need to to can you watch on an app before, because most of
them are obviously sat within apps are the you mentioned drama
box and real shorts, and there are obviously lots of others.
Now take us through the typical viewer process of going through
watching free episodes and then being asked to pay to take us
through that a little bit. So it's normally one episode
from one minute to probably 2 minutes and a half, and normally
is from 30 to 70 episode per show.
It really depends on the the platform.
Each platform has their own way to approach it and what the
platform do is that they put their either trailer or like the
first three couple other episodes on social media like
Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube.
So and use paid ad to make it into people's feet.
And when people see that and they get hooked, then then, then
they will find out. They will be asked to jump to
the Apple store where Google Play to download an app and
registered on the app. Then when you turn to the app,
you already you can still see the again, the free episode that
you already watch on the social media, but then you have to
unlock to pay unlock to watch the the the rest of the show.
And when you when it come to that business model, there are
platforms that are doing subscription.
Sometimes the subscription give you like ad free or sometimes it
give you still ad but you can pay to you know, remove the ad.
Or if you can, if you don't want to subscribe, you can also pay
to unlock each episode episode by episode where you can unlock
the rest of all the episode as the package for a discount.
And they also have this game of game byte kind of model that is
like if you, for example, they have the coin system you have,
you can top up and the more you top up, they give you more in
reward. And you can like, like for
example, if you keep logging in for a whole week, they will give
you some free coin for for free to at the at the reward,
encouraging you to spend more time on their app.
Yeah. OK.
And, and presumably that works then, because traditionally, I
suppose, you know, migrating a viewer from a YouTube short for
to downloading an, an app and going to their App Store and
downloading app. This is sort of a clunky
process, right? That's like, you know, taking
them, taking them outside of YouTube, taking them onto the
App Store and then downloading and registering.
And what is it, you know that that that trailer, those initial
traders must be, you know, there must be incredibly attractive to
encourage that. So how do you make them
attractive? We, how can I put it, it's like
this is not negotiatable to us that to make the first, no
matter it's the first eight free episode or the 1st 10 episode,
make it as extravagant as possible.
We spend the most resource on those episodes, the the best
location, the best, the the best post production value.
You know, they the, and because the script also written in that
way, like they spend the 1st 10 episode really like trying to
snatch people's attention and make people hook.
And from the production side of it is that we spend the most
time, we spend the most money on it to make sure the 1st 10
episode always look as best, as good as possible.
And the acting, We spend more time polishing the acting for
the 1st 10 episode always. Right.
Once you convert the audience to the app, then you are more than
halfway to succeed. Yeah, that's it.
But that's the big challenge is converting them.
Yeah, I can imagine. OK, well, well, let's talk about
talent as well. What qualities or
characteristics are there within the talent that you choose to
portray roles in, in micro dramas?
I mean, what? What I mean, obviously, you
know, you just, are they just great actors that you're looking
at? Is there anything in particular
you're looking for the type of talent that you cast in micro
dramas, but you might not cast them in a normal TV drama.
I would say first of all, especially when I work with the
Chinese background platform, they are looking for a specific
kind of kind of look. OK, Yeah.
What is the look? OK.
I'm going to put it really straightforward.
I would say they're looking for Barbie and Ken, right?
Yeah. OK, and there's vertical drama
has a problem that I I'm not afraid to say out loud that is
the lack of diversity is incredibly horrible.
I, I don't think that I have the, the position to say why is
that or how we can solve it because, you know, I'm not like
work for, I'm not ACEO of the big platform.
But I do think that is the, I understand that we need
attractive people, but attractive people, you know?
Yeah. Well, casting, I mean, that's
every TV drama. Yeah, of course.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they probably think that,
you know, the the the majority, the audience are like white
women. So they probably only want to
see white women and white men. But from what living in the UK,
from what I understand, that's not necessarily the truth.
I tried to convince them multiple times, but never never
worked out. But I had, I had.
I can see there's more diversity coming into it from the platform
that have like American background or like Ukrainian
background, let's say my drama. Yeah, that's one thing.
And the other thing is we are looking for talent that really
flexible in terms of like can quickly adapt to a new way of
working because it's really, really fast.
We, we need you to learn your line really quick.
We we need you to get your emotion like as quick as
possible. Like you're on it.
Yeah, action then you are on it. Like give us 100.
So, so give us an idea of it's obviously the production is
really compressed into a series what being shot over a week or
so we could. Yeah.
And we're looking at a script that is like a regular modern
ROM com setting. We will be.
Normally we would do it in eight days for a script that has 100
pages. Right.
Yeah, OK. And how long does the cast have
the script to to work with to to learn their lines?
On average couple of days? I would say if they get the
script a week before, that would be a really smooth one, right?
Yeah. But if they are given the script
like 3 days before, that would be considered not too bad.
Okay, okay, what is it? I mean, it's well, hopefully you
know, you, you're talking about talent and being sort of fairly
stereotypical in terms of this, but I, I guess we're still
fairly young in the evolution of micro drama, certainly in the UK
for Auk audience. So hopefully we'll see that sort
of diversify as as the audience gets bigger.
So talking about each episode we've talked about, you know,
the focus on the first few episodes to obviously drive that
adoption. How about you know that 2 minute
or or or 92nd episode when you're developing the script for
that? And I know you're not a
scriptwriter and that's not your, your area.
You don't. You're not working on the
creative side. I actually went to university to
study script writing for four years in China, right?
Yeah, but I don't do that in. Vertical.
Yeah, I'm a. Producer in vertical.
All right. Sorry.
That was the kind of assumption for myself.
But but but you're more involved in the production side
necessarily than the creative side.
Yeah. What is it within that 90
seconds or two minutes that you have to ensure that every
episode delivers? I mean, are there a number of
beats and number of number of non negotiables that you have to
incorporate in that short amount of time?
What are they and and how many are there?
I would say it's like it's like still like those classic 3 acts,
right? But within every 92nd the.
Beginning, middle and end in every section.
And you end with a cliffhanger. You, you end with a hook.
That's the that's a must. Yeah, so but the cliffhanger,
there's so many ways to do it, right?
Like we can end with the 2 character kiss each other and
the audience will be like, what gonna happen?
And you can end with someone, slap someone in the face and you
can end with someone say something really awful about
another person. And we need to see, we want to
see in the next episode if the other character are going to
fight back or they're just going to take it.
So many. We can do it physically as well,
like someone jump out of the building like we're going to
happen next. We have actually done it before,
like jumping off the off the the rooftop, you know, wedding
dress. Yeah, something like crazy like
that. And.
It's like that moment in in EastEnders with the drum beat
that comes in up on the end. You know, there's always there.
It's that, but obviously, you know, incorporated into nicely.
Sent. It might be corny, but it work.
Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Well, that's it.
It does work. Clearly it does work.
I mean, some of these major drama micro drama apps are
talking about extraordinary amounts of money that that some
of these I mean what we do you get given what are what sort of
figures do you think are the most successful micro dramas
actually generating when it comes to revenue?
But in terms of revenue we are talking about, are we saying the
revenues are generated to the for the platform or to the
production? For the platform.
To the platform, I think one, OK, so here's the same when they
put 100 show on, not necessarily 100 that that would be an
exaggeration. But when let's say they put like
30 shows on their app every single month, not all of them
going to be ahead, many of them going to be flopped.
But one show, if it's really like a head hit, it can cover
all of the the the rest of the flop, the the, the budget, the
cost for all of the the rest of the the flop in your show, but
also still make revenue. So that's how big the number can
get, right? Yeah, right, right, right.
So going back to sort of the story beats and the type of
content, So the it's often, you know, it does play to stereotype
still a little bit, you know, and and I suppose the kind of
Mills and Boon type of romance, you know, the whether it's the
secretary falling in love with the CEO or, you know, we've seen
a number of these different sites.
Cinderella in a different. Way Cinderella in a different
way. I mean, do you see that
expanding a little bit and growing from that?
Sort of You said it was like slightly cheesy, slightly corny,
kind of. I mean, obviously they work for
a certain audience. But in in the UK, do you see new
genres developing, do you think over the next year or so?
Because we're still very early in our in our growth period in,
in micro drama in the UK. And I wonder how sustainable
that is to just create the Mils and Boone type shows for AUK
audience. Surely there is there are going
to be new genres coming through. Yeah, in terms of genre, I, I
believe the audience eventually going to get tired of if we just
keep making romance all the time.
But I think we can try different stuff, like we can try sci-fi,
we can try horror, we can try a thriller, we can try something
with like sport or comedy. Comedies are like quite common
now for vertical drama, but the comedy bits are not.
That's great. That's no opinion most of the
time, Yeah. But there's so many different
things that we can do. But from from my perspective,
you still have to involve a bit of a romance into it based on
who the audience are, based on what the audience want to see.
But it but by doing so you embrace other genre into this
rather than just purely romance story.
You get to attract different demographic of audience into
this new format. But you also get to keep your
current romance audience because there's still some romance
element into it. There's still a man and woman
falling in. Love So romance do you think is
the absolute non negotiable in terms of micro drama?
I'm thinking if there's one platform that's not doing
romance at all, maybe they're just doing, you know, like, I
don't know, Swirler Last day. For action adventure.
Yeah. Then you are facing a different
type of audience and the business format can be
completely changed. Yeah.
But if we're talking about the current base fan base that
already exist, I think woman is still a key.
And who are the current fan base then?
If we're talking about that, I highly shout out to Jen Cooper,
who is the amazing woman behind vertical drama love.
She actually conducted fence survey report that 1600 people
use their valuable time in life filling filling in and she
generates this really detailed report.
Those are the people that behind we always say the vertical drama
is a data-driven industry, which is not wrong.
It's absolutely correct, but behind the data there are real
people. The real people are paying their
real hard earned money, like into to finances.
These kind of things keep going. So I highly recommend that
anyone that are interested in this industry, especially for
production company platform, etcetera, go and download her
her survey report. It's completely free.
So by reading that report from the very beginning to the end,
I, I see there's people in there, you know, probably like
late 20 to mid 40s that are mostly teacher care worker,
housewife, you know, or some even you don't have like
difficulties in lives that are maybe they're disabled or, you
know, they cannot, like life can be a bit harder for some of the
audience that for vertical content.
And then in the survey, there was one saying that I see
someone written down that it really touched me.
And I will keep thinking about what they said because there's a
question that you want everyone to literally write down their
own unique answers say why are you why you watch this?
And this person said, because I'm disabled and I'm in a
wheelchair on a daily basis, but I still have to work.
So I don't have cinema is less accessible for me.
And because I still have to take care of my kid.
And I have I have worked 2 jobs. So I only have the time to watch
something or have some me time like long time my my time before
I go to bed. And that time probably only
going to be like 20 or 30 minutes.
It's not even long enough for me to finish a Netflix TV series,
like just one episode of the Netflix TV series.
It's not enough time for me to do so.
And I don't want to watch something and I would like to
watch something scripted, not like like brainlessly like
scrolling on my on my TikTok. Yeah.
And I see those are the people that are behind the cold number
that the industry have not really talked about or think
about. OK, Yeah, as they deserve.
OK, So what do you think there's, you know, there's a lot
of, I think there's a lot of broadcasters, a lot of
production companies starting to get interested in this space in
the UK in particular. I'm sure that we've seen lots in
the States already. What do you think that UKTV
producers might misunderstand about the economics of micro
drama and the approach in micro drama?
I think by if you watched him vertical drama, you kind of
already know how it looks like. But I think one thing is that
when you look at it from a traditional film and television
background, because I did the same like when I first heard
vertical drama was the thing I was I heard from the Chinese
vertical drama even before real short and drama box.
He did. I look at it and I was I asked
some of work in the industry, what the F is this?
Like I would I wouldn't want to be part of this.
Yeah, so but you need to understand why this thing exists
that that that number one like don't think of it as a
downgrade. Think of it something different
and stay humble in the way that you are willing.
If you want to make money out of it, at least spend your time to
research why this format exists. It makes sense with the
technology development. It makes sense with why the user
want to watch it. It makes sense technologically.
You know how they're designed to get people hooked?
Yeah. The production value.
Yes, there's still you can. The more money you spend, the
more production value you can you can have.
It's not necessarily an unsolvable problem.
And the second thing is understand the distribution game
is not the same as you know how a regular low budget film will
be distributed. Like the whole licensing thing
is played completely differently at the moment.
Maybe it will change in the future, I don't know.
But it had developed since I was doing it for the first time and
then now it had like multiple different way to do it rather
than just one simple way. So I think those are the two
things for someone that have more of a traditional background
that when wanting to get into vertical, those are the two
things that I think they need to like do the research and step in
and then probably learn about it and then figure out how they're
going to approach it. Yeah, yeah.
And you said that the the business wants to changing all
the time in a number of different ways that that the app
businesses are working with producers, Are they
commissioning at the moment or? Commissioning is one way to do
it. Yeah, commissioning.
The good side of it is you're not going to lose your money.
Yeah, they give you the money to do it.
You keep your your profit and that, that that will be it.
Like no matter how how flop the show is, no matter how
successful the show is, had nothing to do with you.
That's not a typical TV industries of transaction.
That's that's a. Tradition and there's another
way is Co finance. Co finance means you put half of
the money, mostly half, but it depends on the percentage and
the platform put half of the money in it.
The the the script can come from the production company or it can
come from the the platform and you get to share the the revenue
that make. Revenue share at that.
Point. Yeah, but that is a high risk
game from what I understand that because the not you as a
production company, you put down your money to cover half of the
production. But for the platform, not only
they going to spend money on the production, they're also going
to spend time on the paid ad on social media to promote the
show. And that is a lot of money,
sometimes even more than the actual production budget for the
show. And when they share their their
profit with you, they have to take that part out.
Yeah, they have to recruit with. You the rest, yeah.
And so for them, the budget is not just whatever spent on the
production. It's actually double, probably
what? W potentially even more.
So think of that and think how much money you can actually get
back. Yeah, yeah.
And the other way to do it is you self finance or you, you
find other investor to do this show and then approach the the
platform say, hey, I'm going to sell this show to you, are you
interested? And you can license, you can
then be in a position to license it and give different windows.
And yes, does it have to be exclusive?
I mean, could you? Could you?
It can do many different ways you can.
It can be inclusive, it can be non inclusive, and it can also
be the first window, second window, third window.
OK. Yeah, as long as the IP is
yours, you can, you can do whatever you want.
But The thing is because there were so many vertical being
produced every single month, how great your showed is for the
platform to offer you a really good deal because they are
predicting their own stuff as well.
If they think that yourself is better than theirs, that's when
they can offer you a good deal. If they don't think yourself is
better than them, they will offer you a really shitty deal
and just just one more show on their their platform that that's
the only thing that it going to mean to them.
Yeah. Yeah, interesting.
OK. Well, obviously we know it's
super low budget. We've talked about that and the
challenges that come with that. But you know, potentially, you
know, really high rewards depending on which way you'll
you'll certainly for the for the apps and maybe for the producers
as well, depending on how you're approaching it.
But AI is clearly really important sort of driver in the
background to the whole micro drama industry.
How do you use AI in the production process?
Do you use it through every different stage of the process?
At the moment we are only using AI for the post production.
Right, OK. And for, I know people like
especially in the western world, we always talk about the, the,
the moral behind the, the, the usage of AI.
And for me, I just genuinely don't believe that people will
pay that much money to watch a completely AI generated show.
So it's not healthy for the, for the environment.
I mean like it's not eco friendly and it's not
sustainable for providing a healthy industry environment as
well. Like long term long run, in the
long run people will lose their job.
We will have less talent that contribute to the growth of the
industry. So I'm highly against that.
Using AI to replace real actors. But for post production, yes I
did a medieval fantasy. I don't have Hollywood budget to
do all the post production, you know, like like how they would
do. So that is the the only way of
us using AI for now. I don't know what the future
going to hold, but yeah, for now that that's the only way.
Yeah, OK. So if you had to give one piece
of advice then to, I can imagine there's lots of UK drama
producers now who are, you know, not getting the opportunities.
The commissioning in the traditional TV industry has gone
away. Opportunities are certainly
fewer. But there are many drama
companies who've got, you know, great experience at making, you
know, really high quality shows. What single piece of advice
would you give them if they're thinking about exploring the
micro drama space? What what what?
What would be your advice to them?
I'll probably have if allowed. Yeah, what is understand the
format. Yeah, the second will be be
smart with your money, where to spend it in doing vertical the
budget that you have, you are not going to be able to do it
all. You need to figure out what you
can sacrifice and what cannot. Yeah.
And make sure all of the money
goes on screen basically that's that's seems to be the key.
Yeah, OK, Yeah. And then where do you, where do
you see the the future of micro drama going now in the next sort
of 2-3 years? Because when you're really
experienced producer now, it's a must be exciting time for you
because everybody's talking about it in the industry.
There's lots of potential for it to go in lots of different
directions when it when it starts to evolve and mature in
different markets. So yeah, where do you, where do
you see it going there? I see.
I think personally I, I really thank vertical drama because as
a, as a foreigner that come to the, the country that before
vertical was the same. The industry is really difficult
for us people like myself to break in thanks to vertical that
that can't really come from the Chinese background that me being
a Chinese person that actually gave me the opportunity to be
aware I am today. It gave me a smooth start and it
helped me grow as I'm helping like have bring in more and more
production here in the UK, creating job opportunity for the
crew and cars and stuff. And yeah, and I think the in the
future as we can see the Hollywood is stepping in.
So from that for that, I think we're going to see a really
interesting thing happening. That vertical will be I believe
will be shipped into a different type of storytelling.
At least they're more type of storytelling going to happen,
not necessarily the only one like we talked about earlier
that I'm really interested in and I I believe it will, it will
be something more like the Chinese vertical and Hollywood
in between. Now it's just like English but
Chinese vertical, but with Hollywood and more people have
like high production value, experience, traditional film and
television, you know, people coming into this genre.
I think it will be somewhere in the middle from the Chinese
vertical type of thing and the Hollywood type of thing, and
somewhere in the middle of that, which is the balance of this
unique storytelling and a more morally correct and more high
end, more diverse type of story. Yeah, telling entertainment
format, which I'm really excited about.
I wonder if one day we'll see a Tom Cruise Mission Impossible
micro drama series. So, you know, I mean, well, we
saw that with Fox Entertainment. They're going to be bringing a
lot of their talent to their partnership.
Yeah, maybe holy water, right. So.
Yeah, if if Tom Cruise is down for it, I would like to be the
runner for that. OK, all right, OK, so let's
let's hope he listens to the show.
I'm not sure if he does, but maybe, maybe he should.
It's time now for a story of the week, Hero of the week and get
in the bin. So let's start with story of the
week. What is the main story in the TV
and broader content industry that caught your own in the past
seven days? Obviously, I'll be focusing on
vertical drama and I saw this piece of news that I think I
would like to share. So basically in the past week
CES 2026 in Las Vegas, Disney announced a major shift in
strategy for Disney plot by planning to introduce vertical
short form video content to the platform later in 2023, in later
2026, Yeah. So yeah, Disney is on it as
well. Yeah, Disney Sonic we also we
actually also saw recently that Tik Tok's launched a micro drama
app as. Well, yeah, yeah.
But I think it now exclusively in the US, yes, Yeah, yeah.
It's called pine. Something pine.
That's right. Yeah.
Yeah, and they also have their own TikTok mini that you can at
the independent production company or producer, you can
upload your own show and people can just pay and watch on TikTok
directly, right. So they don't have to download
any app. And as the content creator, you
don't have to worry about building your own app.
But obviously potentially they're going to take a cut and
Apple Pay and Google Pay that help people make the transaction
on TikTok, they're going to take a cut as well.
But it saves you from. The the the hostel of
distribution and building an app and stuff like that.
So I think it's a really good opportunity for more independent
people that maybe they have lower budget or they don't know
how to reach out to the big name vertical platform, but you can
still find your way to monetize it without having to go through
someone else's app or building your own app.
Or get a brand to fund it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Maybe you can do like a pilot thing and put it out there and
test the the the water 1st and then use that to ask for some
investment or then reach out to the platform.
So they hey, see, I'm doing well now.
Yeah, this is this, this thing have potential.
So TikTok is doing that. So I think it's a, it's a good
thing for independent. It's really, it's really
interesting. We saw recently that talking
about brands, we've seen Popcha and Gamble launching PNG
studios, we've seen Starbucks, lots of other brands that are
launching their own production studios.
So, you know, you would imagine that there's going to be more
and more sort of drama series that may be totally brand funded
as well coming up so. I would love to make a a show
like a like a sitcom kind of vertical that happened like to
barista working at Starbucks. Yeah, yeah.
Well, it could be like, you know what's?
That tubo girl. What is it like in in Friends as
well when they go to the, the, the, the coffee, the what's it
called? The, the, the cafe In, in
Friends. That's it.
Central Pet. Thank you.
Yeah, who knows? You know, there's lots of
different, lots of different formats that can work.
OK, So how about your Hero of the Week?
I think my hero of the week is that the people that even though
they might not have like a platform background or there are
many people that in the UK, they're more independent, that
they're actively trying to breaking in to vertical.
Even though as a production company that we might face some
sort of challenge. But at the same time, I believe
it's a competitive industry. It's a healthy industry.
If no one is doing it, it's about to die, right?
So the more people are doing it, if we have the platform from the
very top to the very end, we have more people that are
building their platform in the UK.
We have more producer working on it, meet more like crew working
on it and more audience from the UK based in the UK that are
watching it, that are consuming it.
We internally can build a healthy industry within the UK
because now the the platform are come from China.
But if they one day decided, you know what, we're not all, we're
all not going to go to UK to do to give them our Commission,
then we have, we are, we have been kicking out of this
industry because we have no infrastructure within the
country ourselves. Yeah.
So your hero of the week is
basically everybody that's working within the micro drama
ecosystem? Everyone that you know, posting
things on, sharing information on LinkedIn, everyone talking
about it on the street or like everyone they're trying to, you
know, network with people, let's say, talk about how we can get
in. Or you know, even like like the
drop media that are, you know, posting article about it, just
just spreading it everywhere so more people hear about it and
more opportunity there will be. Yeah.
And the Digital Video Awards, of course.
Yeah, recognizing that I'm. Definitely going to submit.
Fantastic. Well, we're recognizing micro
drama apps and also series for the first time this year, so
that's exciting. And and finally, who or what
you're telling to get in the bin, Samantha?
That will be, I don't know, New Year resolution.
I don't know already. I I try to do it every year.
And this year I was like, you know what?
I'm not going to do it. Yeah.
Because some you can't.
You can't be so determined to do something and life just hit you
in the face. It does, yeah.
And then you feel like a failure.
Yeah, I feel like a failure and now I'm just like, you know
what, I'm going to try everything, my very best and see
how the future, how the future going to go.
Yeah, without having a set goal and feel like a failure when
something happened and I I wouldn't be able to achieve
that. 100% let's all choke New Year's resolutions in the bin.
Let's let's show a bit. Yeah.
All right, fantastic. Samantha, thank you so much for
joining me this week. It's been really fascinating
speaking to you. Lovely Justin, thank you for.
Having me and I can't wait to hear about the next project
you're working on. Yeah, in micro drama.
If you invite me back again. Yeah, absolutely.
Let's do it. Let's do it.
And maybe we'll do something on the drop as well.
But thanks again for coming in. Lovely.
Thank you for having me. All right.
Bye everyone. Bye bye.
Well, that's all for this week's show.
Telecast was produced by Spirit Studios and recorded in London.
We'll be back next week with another show.
In the meantime, stay safe.