Episode 11. The Writer Is King: Adrion Trujillo on Who Really Runs Vertical Drama

What if the most important person in vertical drama is the one no one's putting in the credits?
Adrion Trujillo would argue that's exactly the case — and he'd know. An award-winning writer, Adrion has shaped standout series and format-defining experiments across Pocket FM, Drama Box, and Pine Drama, from top-performing male-frequency sagas to bold creative swings. His most recent show, Chained to My Nemesis, is currently #1, arriving right off the back of Keep Your Ring, I'm President Now.
In this episode, Adrion takes us from the years of writing specs and entering contests that never materialized, to a single Twitter post that opened the door to Pocket FM — and the moment he realized that "TV on your phone" wasn't a step down from his dream job. It was his dream job.
From there, he and Pauline get into the real mechanics of the format: how a vertical writer's room actually works, why writers pitch from marketing moments before anything else, and why he believes the writer is the true author of vertical storytelling — even though the industry hasn't woken up to it yet. They also dig into the credit and compensation struggles carried over from traditional Hollywood, whether there's any such thing as "life after verticals," and what happens when Hollywood tries to walk into this space and add water.
Adrion closes with grounded, specific advice for directors, writers, and producers looking to break in — and a reminder to stop internalizing the "no's" and build your own path.
Whether you're already deep in the vertical world or just discovering it, this is a rare, candid look inside the machine from someone running at full speed within it.


Connect with Adrion Trujillo:

Instagram: @Trujelloforever

TikTok: @Tru_jello

If this one made you think, send it to someone standing at their own crossroads — a writer waiting for permission, a creator wondering if it's too late to change altitude.

Let's tell stories that connect.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Vertical Reach Podcast. This is where storytelling meets strategy. I'm Pauline Gray, and each week I sit down with the creators, innovators, and voices shaping the world of vertical storytellers. Let's tell stories that connect. Hello everyone. Welcome again to Vertical Reach Podcast. A bit about the show. The vertical reach is that moment when you extend upward, physically or professionally or emotionally, when you want to meet what exists above where you're standing right now, when the same level is no longer enough for you. Vertical reach is the act of rising to meet what's higher, whether it's your body, your work, or your ambition. My show, the Vertical Reach Podcast, is a podcast about people who didn't just pivot careers. They changed altitude. This season focuses on filmmakers and creators entering or thriving in the vertical micro drama space as part of a larger integration or reinvention of themselves and their careers. The goal here is to document and share real-time transitions, not some sort of polished hindsight. And today in the guest chair, we have screenwriter Agent Trujillo, a real trailblazer in the space. Award-winning writer, Agent Trujillo, has shaped standout series and format defining experiments across Pocket FM, Drama Box, and Pine Drama. His work ranges from top-performing male frequency sagas to bold creative trials that broaden the emotional vocabulary of the format. His most recent show, Chained to my Nemesis, is currently number one on the platform. For drama box and pine drama, Jack to Jan vs. Golden Boy, which I'm sure a lot of you guys know about. It's quite the hit. And for shorts, Keep Your Ring on President Now, which I think is still number one, pretty high up on the chart. So back to back. I love it. So Chain to my Nemesis is his current number one coming off of Keep Your Ring and President Now. And Adrian, why don't you just jump in real quick and kind of give us a quick sort of survey of your own interpretation of your meteoric rise and what's a day of your busy life?

SPEAKER_03 2:20

Yeah. In the last two months, I have worked on eight projects for Viglu, shorts, drama pops, and my drama, as well as indie projects for for National Lampoon. So currently, I I don't know because there's not a a good way to measure this, but I'm pretty sure I might be the most like the I might be working the most of any vertical freelancer currently. It's been a wild two months. It's my day today is working actively on both development and active writing on one or two shows at a time. And then overseeing, I have a team of writers that work under me who I hire to co-write shows when I'm at capacity. Overseeing the progress that they're making and doing corrections, giving notes, that sort of thing, uh, so that we can meet a number of clients and their expectations all at once.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Amazing. We're gonna discuss those expectations in a second. Tell us smart about your background. And what was the moment when you realized that your horizontal growth and the space you're functioning most recently had capped out? And you said it's time to reach higher.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Yeah. Uh so I moved to LA in 2019 with my husband when networking in the Portland film industry uh kind of dried up, and I moved down to LA sort of expecting things to be better, uh, only for the pandemic to happen and then the writer's strike. And I mean, even before, between the pandemic and the writer's strike, networking events were abysmal. I I was active, like I was writing spec in in, you know, pilot format, writing spec's features, and I was submitting them to contests, the red list, the blacklist, the page awards, you know, all of these different places. I was doing pretty well, but nothing ever materialized out of any of that until one day on Twitter, I was just scrolling and I saw a post by uh a guy named Christian Rowe who was like, hey, I'm putting together a room of writers circling the drain in Hollywood, out of work TV writers. If you know anyone like that, like submit their CB or their their resume website or whatever to this email. And I wasn't, I didn't fit the list of of qualifications in terms of like being a TV writer and and having worked on a show and stuff, but I submitted just sort of as a whim. And the first interview that he called me in for about three months later, the first thing he said when he got on the call was like, hey, dude, I just want you want to let you know that I have no intention of giving you this job because I don't think you're qualified. You haven't worked on anything. I I can't name any of the things that you've worked on. So, you know, I'm sorry, I know I'm wasting your time, but I just wanted to reach out because there's this guy on your resume website that was in one of my table reads, How do you know Dan? So when I got over this feeling like, yeah, he's wasting my time, right? I we just uh shot the shit for about three hours uh talking about Dungeons and Dragons, where did you go to school, uh Avatar The Last Airbender, how much we loved that show. And when the conversation was over, he was like, you know what, dude?

SPEAKER_01 5:31

You seem great.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

If if you have anything you want to send me, I'll read it. And and if I like it, I'll pass it along to the next guy. But you do not want this job. Everything in vertical sucks. People are getting fired left and right. If they're not, they're quitting. Um, the pay is bad, the return, like the turnaround times are bad, everything is bad, and and basically tried to convince me not to go for the next interview. Um, but three interviews later, I had a job at Pocket FM. And and it was funny because I was I would talk to people about the job that I had and the work that we did, and people were like, Oh, you're working in verticals, you're working in verticals? That's so sad, that's so unfortunate. Like you, you're so much better than this format. And now, like those same people, of course, are like begging to work uh at companies and hitting me up for for connections and stuff. You know, I think it like in terms of like the moment where I decided to reach vertically, I think it was just like saying yes. I mean, I was desperate enough, really, saying yes to something that I didn't know what I was signing on for. I thought I was, you know, just joining a company. Yeah, I thought I was joining this company to write web video, and um, I didn't think it was very special or great, but then the person sitting across from me in my first meeting was uh an assistant writer on Game of Thrones, and several of the other people were in the office. They'd worked for some really, really big people, Mr. Beast. They had worked for television programs. So like I was suddenly feeling like outclassed, and I thought at first I didn't belong there suddenly, and I wrote some show for them, uh, some rom-com. And uh they loved it so much that they greenlit it for production, only for marketing and and these other departments to to eventually flag it and kill it. But they decided they wanted to, they had bought this IP called My Vampire System that they were trying to find a writer who they felt was adequate. And I got added to a Slack channel the my third week at the company, where the first message was from the CEO, and he was like, he was like, I need you to find me a writer who's actually good to handle this four million dollar property that we had just bought. And there was my boss, Stephen Botso, saying, This is Adrian Trujillo, he's the best writer we have. Wow. And yeah, so I had to kill the imposter syndrome in me really, really quickly and just kind of start saying yes to more things and believe that I could do it and believe that I did deserve to be there. And, you know, over time, I've never really lost that audacity. I think some of these companies, they try to kill it in you, the like creative spirit that says, like, hey, we can push boundaries, we can learn this format and then make new stuff, push it further. You know, there are companies who are so terrified of of that that they they try to try to kill it. But I it I think, you know, Jack Janitor is a good example of a show that like is a huge success now. When it were when it released, it was a flop on Drama Box. And, you know.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

Was that marketing, you think?

SPEAKER_03 8:36

Or I can't I can't speculate as to the reason why, but I think probably it had something to do with uh their handling of the ads. Yeah, probably probably. I just I think what's interesting is that you can say that it like you can make a big swing and sometimes it won't, it doesn't work out, and then it gets onto another platform and it flourishes. Yeah, so just this week I found out that that show was on the platform, had been sold to the platform and that it was doing exceedingly well there. So I'm still it's still kind of hitting me because for the last year I've thought we just made a bomb, you know?

SPEAKER_02 9:11

When I first met you, that had just come out.

SPEAKER_03 9:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Yeah, okay, amazing. So what was the biggest surprise about vertical storytelling that you felt you encountered along the journey?

SPEAKER_03 9:24

Um Yeah, I mean, I I think when I started, I thought these things were so soulless and devoid of of creativity. And that maybe is is true of the working environment that we were working under pocket in 2023 or 2024. But I think I when I my first or second week at Drama Box, I had this realization that I was in a writer's room working on what is ostensibly television on your phone, and that television it as it started, as it began, was was considered like a trash medium for, you know, these undesirable audience members.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Because common masses, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

Yeah, the common masses of let's be honest, like it's the common masses of women that part partially that's why people look down on this medium because of who enjoys it, right? And I realized that that was the core foundational demographic of television. That's the core foundational demographic of this stuff. Eventually, it's like a matter of time. It's an inevitability that as you know, we get to year 10 of verticals existing, that there will be people who are specifically fans of vertical and that those fans will grow big enough to have their own cultural movement, this focal point of people who have Instagrams and blogs that talk about it and share their the ones that they like the best, and that those people become this foundational audience for these things at some point in the future. And once that happens, then you start making verticals for them. And this thing has the ability to grow and evolve into something resembling normal TV for women. And then once that happens, things can evolve so that it broadens into other audiences as well. I mean, I'm maybe one of the only people to have like genuine repeated success uh targeting the male demographic. Personally, I think that we could be expanding audiences right now. And it's something I try to convince every company to let me do, but they they don't always. But this thing is just TV on your phones. And when I realized that, I realized that I've been hoping to one day progress out of vertical into my dream job. And when I had that realization, I realized this is my dream job.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

You landed.

SPEAKER_03 11:43

I am in a writer's room working on television. Now we're all working on different shows, but we were breaking story together, we were creating worlds together. That is the the life that I had dreamed of and I had made it.

SPEAKER_02 11:57

Amazing, amazing. So congratulations. Let's acknowledge that. And my question for you now is can we take a moment to discuss the writer's room as it's exhibited or executed in the vertical space? Well, take a moment, if you don't mind, to discuss how an episodic television, TV on your TV, television on your television, I guess. You know, for those entering the space with curiosity, for 90% of the people know in a TV writer's room, of course, jump in that you may have eight to twelve writers, and those writers are supervised by a showrunner. There's definitely a hierarchy of titles within but the showrunner is really the executive vision of the show. And depending on the structure of the writer's room, you may have six, eight weeks, say, would you say, when you break the the season down.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

You know, when we let's say if it's like now, let's say tw a 13 season episode versus the 24 like we had in the past, let's say it's 12, 13 episodes now, and then you would very, I'd say systematically go through and break down the season and then be a writer's assistant. Well, this is the day in person days, you have a writer's assistant at the whiteboard furiously writing things down, you know, and um of course or tracking some way, and then you would have an episode assigned to you as an individual writer for like episode number five, for example. And you would then, after you broke story, you would then maybe be allowed to leave the actual breaking story brainstorming room and like quote unquote go home to write. Broad strokes. And I'm sure there are many variables on that theme. But tell me though, now you're saying that in your writer's room, you are sort of synergizing multiple. You take it from here.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

Yeah, so I mean, every company who has rooms has it does them differently, right? With respect to drama box, the room that I experience is not the same room that exists there now. The people are different, the the structure is different, the job titles are all different. So it you know, I can only speak to what it was like at the time, right? At the time when I was hired, uh, we had a a head writer who was head of the department, head of development, and she assigned genres to us to pitch from specific types of stories she wanted from some of the writers, right? So we would pitch log lines and try to get something done. And we could pitch outside the genre that was assigned to us, that was fine. But, you know, there were certain people who were who she sort of expected werewolf from or, you know, people who were quote unquote experts of one thing or another. So we would pitch a show to her open in front of everyone. She would sort of ask the room's opinion.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

They would talk about it, they would help break down the log line together, right? Punch it up in that moment. At the end of it, she would either say, This needs more work, or we would be good to go on writing an outline.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

And the outline was like, it was like you write the first 10 episodes essentially, like a beat for beat of everything that happens in the first 10 episodes, and then just these broad paragraphs about what happens in every other cycle of the show after that point, which is by the way, not how I run my room uh currently. I think I think it's very important that that when breaking a vertical, you are getting a beat for beat of every single episode. So 70 to 90. Yeah, three beats structure. But anyway, when it comes to this room, it would take like two weeks for us to work through the process of getting an outline approved. And when it got approved, then we were sent to write the full episode. And then when a series got written, um, we would take it back. Everyone was supposed to read it. You know, we would have these weekly meetings where everyone read everyone's scripts and what they were working on, either they're in the outline form or in the script form, and people would give notes, and then we would be responsible to implement those notes within a day or two. And then, you know, then it was sent for grading.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

An A or B or A B C.

SPEAKER_03 16:23

It's Asian grading systems, so they start at S and then end at D. Uh yeah, S for superb and D for defunct. I don't know. But but a D is an F and an S is an A, basically. Uh so when I wrote Jack Janitor, it was an A plus. And then when S plus, it's an S ⁇ . It was an A plus. It was an A plus on at DramaBox. So so a B plus in in American.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

And, you know, it got a pr it got approved for production. It was great. The writers at the time at DramaBox got to like live in the they got to live in the production for far longer. They were we were in charge of informing the marketing, the general thrust and direction of the show.

SPEAKER_02 17:05

We were told feedback, collaborative, suggestive.

SPEAKER_03 17:09

Well, more like directive. We were told to just show, to just write out a document sort of explaining how best to market the show. Even though, you know, some of us might not have marketing degrees or have had any prior marketing experience. We were told to to dictate for marketing what the most important moments of the show were, the important clips, right? And then we would go in pre-production, we were part of casting, we would review the sides that were sent to the actors. In production, we would go to set, we would give notes on set, we were always on call. This is true at Pocket FM as well. We were always on call where the director of the production could call us and ask us a question on how to fix something. And there was a chain of command, like the writer could not usurp the EP or the creative producer. Right. But we were show running is the issue, right? Because we're doing the main thrust of basically every creative decision starts with us on the script page. But then on top of that, we were the ones filling out all of the documents for how these things, yeah, you were EPing, you're executive producing. Essentially, yes. But that's not how we were credited, which, you know, I'm sure at some point someone can tell you about all of the behind-the-scenes drama, but it doesn't matter to me anymore. But vertical writing is interesting because right now, this system of how to do this effectively is so new that people, there are people who are struggling for power and recognition in the jobs that they do. The producers want to be known as the core artists of this medium. The writers want to be known as the core artists of this medium, the directors want to be known as the core artists of this medium. But to be honest, none of those jobs make sense as the Artur, except for the writer, because when we pitch these shows, we pitch them from the perspective of how the ads are going to play on screen. So we're not thinking post-production, pre-production, production. We're thinking of post-post. From day one, we are thinking of marketing. And no other medium of storytelling does that. The writer is king in vertical, but the writer isn't treated like king. That's sort of my core issue with this, with this industry right now is that it hasn't woken up to the fact that the writers are so, so, so important to this process, that almost no one in this process is given enough time to do their jobs effectively, except for the writer. And the writer knows how these stories are supposed to flow better than anyone else because of that.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

What what I was gonna ask, my next question was organically gonna be what carried over from your previous work. But I'm curious now, as someone who's familiar with the traditional Hollywood, even just crediting struggles and history, you know, what you describe to me to a certain extent is sort of a I don't know if it's a residue or a ghost or a leftover of sort of the ongoing struggles between writer, director, you know, now actors are producing and actors are having things written for them. And so what I'm curious about though is how much of you think these current struggles are like sort of an a residue of Hollywood history and how much is there just a new flux of energy and thought that's gonna shift this?

SPEAKER_03 20:38

I mean, no one's gonna admit it, but none of the producers who produce vertical want to produce vertical. Like they they don't want this to be the end all be all of their career, right? So getting a credit like executive producer, it matters to them in a way that like there is like a constant discussion within these companies about credits and what people get to be called because people are worried that if they're not credited correctly, that they won't be able to build a career post-vertical. The the problem is that this ignores the practicalities of the situation. EPs do a lot. I I work with a lot of producers, I love how much they contribute to this space. They do contribute a lot, and especially if they're they have a history in web video or marketing, their knowledge of how to translate a script, like it's invaluable. But but producers spend way less time on these things than the writers do. And the writers carry through everything, through every point in the process. And some companies are learning because they don't have maybe they they create separations where the writer has to be standoff after after a certain point, right? And like like at shorts, you know, the writers don't give input on the edit or or they don't go to set. But these companies are learning gradually that having the writers there is actually not just helpful but necessary.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Real time response, real time changes, real time, you know, just another, another brilliant brain, the mix and they know the material of the best. Right. They can tweak and adjust, you know, nimbly in real time.

SPEAKER_03 22:18

Right. Well think about it from the perspective of a of a director. A director might get three, maybe four, five if they're lucky, weeks of prep time on a show. But those weeks that they spent prepping, they are also, because they're trying to make rent in Los Angeles, spent prepping other shows that they're working on.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

And they're stacking it horizontally and layering it.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

They're stacking work between projects. So they can't focus on everything at once. They when it comes to the day of filming, they are filming sometimes 12, 16, 30 pages in a day. I've I I heard about a production that did 30 page days. I really want to know what those were like because I can't even imagine that. But the the the point is that in vertical in vertical we're always encouraged to direct on the page as much as possible for this reason because because the actors the directors even the producers they don't have enough time to really digest the material and understand it completely like on a more layered or nuanced level than you can when you're filming 30 page days. So so having a writer say like like what what emotion an actor is supposed to be feeling in this moment or or or just spelling out the subtext of a scene in the action line like these help the director yes though that that would be considered bad form in normal screenwriting. It is helpful. I have never had a director complain about that and and I have had companies dictate that we do it specifically for this reason because they the working conditions of verticals are so quick so fast that there is no one who actually has time to sit and think about anything except for except for me.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

Motivates the werewolf.

SPEAKER_03 24:06

Right. They're jumping onto a project yeah there was you know on the National Lampoon show that we just did Cayman Cardiff was filming for two weeks in Tampa, got on a plane back to LA and started his first day on a new production a day later, right? So this is this is how quickly vertical moves. So it's interesting I do think some of it is like the Hollywood the the power struggles you know moving forward. But to be honest I think that writers get screwed in the industry as well in terms of the way that they're credited and the amount of work that they do, especially on television. But but I would say that in a movie in contrast to a a vertical like a director working on a movie has a lot more time to sink their teeth in and really change the narrative and shape it in the way that they they they deem necessary to tell the story that they would like to create right and the reason that they do that oftentimes is is not because what the writer wrote was bad but because the writer doesn't have the same brain as the director so the looking at the same material they're looking at the same thing differently the director needs to put needs to feel comfortable with the material and it really feel like it's theirs right so they they they make those changes and and in in a film I totally agree that a director is like that is that is the author quote unquote of a movie. But in vertical if I am dictating the direction of marketing when I am pitching the log line if I'm talking about the best marketing moments if I have to name my five CPI moments when I'm pitching a show then like everything should be defaulting to the writer we're we're inventing IP in three to five days we're breaking story on an entire season of television. Yes it's only an hour long but if you count the events that happened in a vertical it's basically a season of TV. And then on top of that we are making this very big decision which could be a life and death decision for the show, right? What the marketing is supposed to look like the angle it's supposed to take and if you get that wrong the show could tank and the marketing just blames you the writer so so like we are we have to take on this enormous responsibility and yet we are not paid nearly as much as as some of the other people in this chain.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

reflective of the role and level of respect that writers regardless of medium get. But I think when I think about it constantly you know I think the music industry may well be as far as the monetary compensation the only industry in which the writer of the material their compensation is adequately compensated regardless of how anonymous they actually are. I'm not interested in in her net worth. I'm sure it's massive but the people that she's written songs for are superstars. And they can't go to Trader Joe's or go to the grocery store and just and just grab a milk off the shelf, you know? But sure she could just go and just pump her gas and you know we don't ever know, you know? So yeah as a writer it's very interesting because you do definitely have to kind of ride this sort of dynamic of like I'm invisibly conducting this train and if I go off the rails everyone gets hurt though.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

You know? And so I've got a question for you. This show really is about what happens in terms of verticals being life after producing. In the sense I speak for myself, you know, I'm a 30 year screenwriter you know we talk about doing 30 pages a day I'm a script supervisor. That's my day-to-day bread and butter. And so I can't imagine if the cramps in my hands alone if I script supervise 30 pages in a day. You know, much less as an actor learning the learning the dialogue as a director I mean dressing the set are you dressing the set and are you like are you like how does that even work if you're production design are you busy are you s are you prepping upstairs or shooting downstairs and you and you're switching around you know the logistics of that seems I can't even imagine how that would work logistically but my question for you is I personally went to verticals as life after producing. And you're saying producers are looking at life after verticals. And I personally just my own diagnosis is that given the current industry itself there is no life after verticals. That's it.

SPEAKER_03 28:53

Yeah I agree.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Please I love your insight on that.

SPEAKER_03 29:00

No I mean I think that verticals are are are just going to keep expanding and and becoming more and more relevant. I have meetings with people right now traditional Hollywood people you wouldn't believe I have meetings on the docket that I'm I'm very much looking forward to to discuss making verticals how can Hollywood get into verticals. So it's very interesting to me how this is is shaping. There's two schools of thought I think there are people who want you know to just get their credits so that they can move on and out and up. And then there are people who think this is a new space we are creating for ourselves and they become like these very rigid gatekeepers where they they see Hollywood coming in and and moving into this space as like a huge threat to them. And maybe you know I don't know I can't predict the future I guess that that that this wider adoption of verticals by Hollywood might end up pushing some of us out. But I actually don't think that's true because I think that that Hollywood when is because everyone has a kind of hubris if they've been successful on any level they think that they know how to do everything. So Hollywood is going to jump in and it's going to crash and burn in the ways that I mean we've already seen it crash and burn at some of these American companies who have entered this space just with the the blind ambition of like oh well I I we know how film and television works so we're going to add water and mix in and and and yeah add water and mix. Elevate the medium right and they've not had there's there's been very little success doing that. So they've all just started copying what the Chinese companies are doing. Right. So I do think that there's a great opportunity for people like me or like you know the producers of DramaBox like all of these people who have been in this space for a long time to jump over to Hollywood and teach them, show them the ropes you know I think that this medium is going to keep expanding and become more and more of the mainstream consumption media consumption habit, right? Like the people are going to watch verticals like they watch TV, like they watch anything. Someone said it's the fourth visual medium or something. I just read which I agree.

SPEAKER_02 31:12

Clear the bubble's happening with that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:16

Yeah that was a c that was the tagline for a conference. And I think it's true. That is what this is going to be. So I think it's naive to think that there's going to be a life out after verticals and and honestly if there's anything I have learned in my journey through this career so far is like don't let people say no or don't don't hear the no's that you get and internalize that as like you got to build your own path at some point. Absolutely right say yes to the opportunities that arise and figure out where those can take you. Figure out your next step from there. Don't be another person in your life saying exactly this is really wrapping up lovely.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

I mean because you're getting to the theme of my episode. So let me ask you this Adrian you're killing it in the romance is it boy what what's the correct charm?

SPEAKER_03 32:04

Well Jack Janitor is not a a boy love but I did write my first three boy loves I wrote this month, all me. I didn't use assistant writers on any of these. I I wrote those for the first time but I am killing it in in uh other genres in the space obviously like my vampire system and Jack Janitor are huge successes on Pine drama and PocketFM. So yeah I killed it in the male drama genre. I hate that genre because it's not those are two two totally different shows. But uh I also, you know, Chain to my nemesis is a big hit for shorts right now and that is uh just a romance. I'm very capable of writing anything if any people are watching.

SPEAKER_02 32:41

I I love it. So but Adrian so tell us what is your next swipe up? When I when I say your next swipe up you know and I just hope for those you maybe flipped the space when you're watching the show literally on your phone you swipe up visually experience is swipe up and metaphorically what I mean is that like so now for Adrian what is your next reach? What is your next horizon?

SPEAKER_03 33:03

I think like career ambitions I would love to run a room I run a room right now with the subcontractors that I work with currently we meet on a pretty regular basis to work through um the projects that we've been assigned but I would love to work for a company doing that as head of creative or head of content. But as far as like the next what's what's sort of immediately on the horizon I just wrote two seasons of a show called National Lampoons Alpha Academy for National Lampoon. And I am very excited it's a comedy it's a it's a broad comedy one of the first of its kind in vertical we don't know where it's landing yet they're still looking for a distributor but expect it very soon. As for you know vertical I just wrote one for shorts I wrote shorts first ever boy love.

unknown 33:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:55

And uh I just wrote a uh boy love for Vigloo called uh Bussy and the beast I'm not sure I'm not sure it will get called that when it comes out we'll see title I'm working title yeah uh I can't give a log line for that unfortunately but I think you could figure it out from the title. Yeah and I I you know I have one for drama pops I have two shows for my drama coming out I am working constantly incessantly on a number of things at once and I'm very excited because because you know I I think things were really slow in January and December I left Drama Box in October but you know eight projects under my belt in the last two months you're doing all right that's pretty it's pretty good. I'm doing all right.

SPEAKER_02 34:43

All right so let me ask you this the Vertical Reach podcast this show is really my personal therapeutic experience quite honestly and and I'm loving sharing and learning from my guests what I'm curious about is regardless of whether it's taking from traditional production nutritional medium to verticals whether it's any sort of career pivot, you know, I think you kind of said a little bit a little bit ago about be your own yes and don't and don't wait for someone to tell you no, yes or no about getting permission or conducting a survey but just speaking broadly now if there's someone who wants to make a major life shift to transition it's been percolating for a while they've been kind of wondering should I, should I not, what would you say to them to accelerate their vertical reach?

SPEAKER_03 35:33

Yeah I would say if you are it it depends on what your career path is. If you're a director start directing an independent vertical or direct commercials right and submit those to vertical companies. If you are a writer just put up just go on LinkedIn and say that you write verticals. You will get emails you will get your first shot then before you write that vertical find a vertical writer to help you to teach you the format preferably not someone who you know there are a lot of people in this space who teach classes I'm sure those classes are lovely. Do background research and see what verticals they have watched do you like their style of writing are do have they written a hit you know and then approach a person who has write if you are a producer and you're an end w wanting to produce an independent vertical find a writer who works in this space already. Don't just get your screenwriting friend who's never written a vertical before to write one. They're written the way that they're written for very specific reasons. I was told we're not allowed to do a step-by-step guide so I will forgo that information but but yeah I mean I think I think there are a lot of people who are entering this space and throwing a lot of money at the problem right now and they're finding not good returns especially in the independent space. So I feel I feel very bad sometimes for these these indie producers who enter and and end up wasting a lot of money. So find someone who can actually speak to you know what makes these things successful so that your project is prepped is given the best chance for success. That's you can't guarantee anything in Hollywood especially in vertical right but you can try and give yourself the best foundation to build from that's that's my recommendation.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

Amazing so we're gonna wrap here thank you so much Adrian such so much insight I mean I just feel like I've learned more in this past session about sort of the inner working intricies of vertical political industrial machine complex that I have in a long time that I never have before. And to my audience I just want to say whether you're building something new or becoming someone new, keep checking in here at the vertical reach and remember be swiping up thank you so much. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Vertical Reach podcast. If you enjoyed the conversation make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. If it sparked something for you please share it with 12 storyteller. Until next time let's tell stories that can