Episode 12. From Shanghai to the Screen: Inside the Vertical Drama World the West Is Just Discovering

What does it look like to be inside a revolution before the rest of the world catches on?

Daniel D. Newman found out — not by accident, but by spending 15 years living and working in China, where he watched vertical drama go from a niche format on metro screens to a global industry. Now back in the UK and fully embedded in the Western vertical space, he's leveraging everything he knows to build bilingual stories that travel.

In this episode, Daniel walks us through the birth of vertical drama in China — from the dominance of Hongguo to the ecosystem behind platforms like Drama Box and the mechanics of a market years ahead of the West. He shares what surprised him as a filmmaker making the shift from landscape to vertical: the reframing of space, the dirty singles, the cliffhanger every 90 seconds.

We also get into the real economics of the indie vertical filmmaker — what it means to have platforms willing to pay after a film is made, but not before. And how Daniel is navigating that gap as he develops three new vertical concepts and considers whether to lead with proofs of concept or go straight for the 50-episode mark.

His background is unlike anyone else in this space: bilingual in Mandarin, bicultural by experience, and entrepreneurial by necessity. That combination has given him what he calls a "back door" — direct relationships with both the LA and China sides of the biggest vertical platforms in the world.

If you're watching the vertical space and wondering who's already ahead of the curve, this is that conversation.

Connect with Daniel D. Newman:
Website
IMDb
Instagram
Facebook
TikTok
X
LinkedIn
YouTube

Watch Shanghai Sherlock on ReelShort:
https://www.reelshort.com/episodes/episode-1-shanghai-sherlock-6a05e459cd4097f64401ce53-chbns769vv?play_time=1

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 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 know stories that connect. Hello, everyone. It's Pauline Gray here with the Vertical Reach Podcast. A bit about the show. The vertical reach is that moment when you extend upward, physically, professionally, or emotionally to meet what exists above where you are right now and staying at the same level is no longer enough, no longer resonant, no longer a fit for your spirit. Vertical reach is the act of rising to meet what's higher, whether with your physical body, your work, or your ambition. The vertical reach podcast is about people who didn't just pivot careers. They changed altitude. This season focuses on filmmakers and creators entering the vertical micro drama space. Often, however, part of this entry is part of a large integration or reinvention of the self. My goal is to document real-time transitions, the day-to-day, step-by-step experiences as we respond to shifts in technology, the film industry, social media, and not to sort of give this polished hindsight of what we know now. Okay. And today in the guest chair, we have multiple hyphenates, writer, director, producer. Did I get them all, Daniel?

SPEAKER_02 1:28

I think so. Those are the main ones.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Daniel has an insight on the vertical space that probably the only one of my guests has had so far. He worked in China for 15 years and he witnessed the birth and evolution of the vertical drama industry that's now taking the Western world by storm. Capitalizing on this sort of inside knowledge, he set up Kave Paint Media Doc and created a bilingual series entitled Shanghai Sherlock. He's now licensed that to some of the world's leading vertical platforms. Real short, drama dash, inverted, and he's working on three radically new verticals, and he's determined to expand the range of genres and subjects being support in vertical dramas. Some of his credits, aside from the major hit Shanghai Sherlock, Daniel is best known for How Not to Write a Ron Com and Smoking Fist, and both of which are currently being verticalized by HelloJomedia.com. But of course, you can also find a list of his credits on IMDB. And I'll have that in the show notes as well. But he is Daniel D, capital D, Newman, Newman on IMDB. And so, Daniel, jump in here and tell me a little bit about your transcontinental experience and how did you find yourself in China?

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Um, thank you for the wonderful introduction, first of all. I've got a lot to live up to now. And in answer to your question, I first went to China when I was 18 because I wanted to be a a Shaolin Kung Fu warrior. So I I started doing kung fu as a teenager, and I I thought it looked really cool and and balletic, and so I decided to go to Shaolin, and I lasted about two weeks. It was very painful. So I thought I was going to be the next Bruce Lee. That didn't really work out. And instead I I learned Chinese. I mean, I still do kung fu, but uh, you know, I'm I'm more of a hobbyist than a professional. I learned Chinese during that first trip, and I kept going back to China, and and it's it's almost kind of addictive. You know, China was undergrowing massive change at the time because this I'm very old, so this was back in the year 2000. And so China was undergoing massive change. So every time you went there, it was, you know, you could see all the differences that were occurring. And and so I decided to move there. And so I I lived in China, as you say, on and off for 15 years. I had a walking tour company, so we did ghost tours and gangster tours and kung fu tours, and as well as the obvious, you know, tours of the Forbidden City and and the Great Wall and so on. And then I had a a football coaching company, so we we hired soccer coaches from overseas, and they came in to teach at Xi Jinping's 20,000 football academies that he was in the process of building. And I also did some ethnographic consulting as well. But of course, all of the above sort of fell to pieces with COVID. So when COVID happened, all of my little businesses in China went bust because they all depended on foreigners being able to come into China. And so that's when I decided to get a real job, you know, a s a steady job in the film industry.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Oh, stay able to care. Best choice.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, so I came back to the UK, decided to become a filmmaker. I'd I'd made some documentaries about kung fu when I was in my twenties, but then I'd sort of been distracted by all of the excitement in China. And so for the last, well, is it eight years now since COVID? Uh oh no, I guess it's sev seven years. So then, yeah, for the last seven years I've been I've been films.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Do you only speak Mandarin? Do you speak any other dialects or only Mandarin?

SPEAKER_02 5:06

I can say a couple of rude words in in Shanghainese, because I lived it a lot of the time in Shanghai, so I can say a couple of bits in in Shanghainese, but but it's you know really just Mandarin. I mean, ev everyone in in China has to has to learn Mandarin. So you can if you learn Mandarin, you can speak to pretty much anyone, even if their native, their mother tongue is is a different dialect.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Interesting. I don't try to be a tiger host. I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Ask away.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

I'm really curious about the moment. Bring me to the moment when you first saw vertical in China.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

Well, to be honest, I would struggle to pinpoint a s a specific moment, but I imagine it was standing in the metro. Shanghai and Beijing have the sort of most extensive metro networks in the world. And so, you know, on these metro journeys, you stand next to or sit next to Chinese people looking at their phones, and I started to notice people watching lots of vertical costume dramas and sort of you know contemporary sort of uh office romance dramas in this vertical format. And to be honest, I don't think initially I I I thought too much about it, you know. It was just, well, that's that's what people are watching. But I sort of, you know, I consumed a bit of it, I don't know, vicariously, sort of by sort of looking over people's shoulders. And then I sort of started hearing more and more about it and how it was becoming a a booming industry and you know, an area to watch and to think about. But it wasn't, of course, until I moved back to the UK and started making films that it even occurred to me to try and produce vertical content. And in fact, the first half dozen short films that I wrote and directed were all landscape short films. And then I directed three feature films since then. And then it's only only in the last year or so that I've made my first vertical. So Shanghai Sherlock was my first vertical, and now of course, as you said in your introduction, I'm I'm going back and verticalizing some of my previous landscape films because it seems it seems like I have a better chance of of selling my films, of licensing my films in vertical format at present.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

So I'm really curious then. Are you exploring a juncture of sort of is it more subtitled in Chinese or English subtitled in Chinese or Chinese subtitled in English? Or how are you really sort of sort of, I guess, enjoying and really reaping the benefit of this bilingual cultural ethnographic fluency that you have?

SPEAKER_02 7:47

With regards to the vertical, you know, Shanghai Sherlock is is a bilingual vertical, so it features both Chinese and English actors. And and of course, my character, I I played the part of Sherlock Holmes, and and I sometimes speak to my Chinese assistant in Chinese, and then I speak to Watson in English. So so I'm sort of switching languages, and of course, some of the humor revolves around the fact that Sherlock and Miss Peng, his Chinese assistant, can have sort of secret conversations that no one else understands, and Watson looks rather confused by the whole thing. So the idea was to make something that would hopefully appeal to audiences both in China and the West. And I think we succeeded to some extent because, you know, I I published the first six episodes both on Western and Chinese social media, and we've now, as you say, managed to license the series to to several platforms. Of course, getting it licensed to a platform in China is rather more complicated. So if a at the moment at least, if a if a vertical has any non-Chinese actors in it, then it takes sort of three to six months to get it approved of by the relevant sort of um government department in China. So although you can watch the first six episodes in China, you can't watch the whole thing in China until I until I get my my stamp, my seal of approval. But that's a a work in progress. But yeah, we I like the idea of they're very separate worlds. I mean so of course everyone's heard of TikTok, but what a lot of people don't realize is that TikTok is the western-facing platform that belongs to ByteDance. So no one uses it in China. Everyone uses Doin, which is the the Chinese equivalent, which is very similar, but it it only really functions in China. And then ByteDance, the company that created both of those platforms, also owns Hongguar, which is the most popular vertical app in the world. Uh, you know, it's the it's the biggest app. And and of course, you know, verticals are years ahead of where we are in the West. You know, people have been watching them for years now. So Hongwa's, you know, far bigger than than any of the western-facing apps. So yeah, there's a there's a whole other world of vertical apps and vertical platforms in China. So I was in China recently for for about nine months, trying to build up a following on Chinese social media, just posting all sorts of ridiculous videos of myself in order to try and get followers for the release of Shanghai Sholo.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

So I'm curious and intrigued. Can you tell us a bit about that other universe you just mentioned in China for verticals? Being the birthplace of the vertical, take us into that world for a second and how does that sort of function, structure, um, compare to the US, mechanic just give us a sort of one of your walking tours.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Sure. Um as far as vertical streaming apps are concerned in China, Hongwa is is number one by a considerable margin. They make their money from advertising, so they don't charge a fee. So whereas most Western vertical apps, you can watch the first, you know, 10 episodes, for example, for free, and then there's a paywall and they want you to pay a you know monthly subscription fee to carry on watching. Hongua, on the other hand, is purely advertising based. So so you can watch all the verticals for free. And then the second largest platform is Hippo Theater, or at least that's the English translation. I thought that's kind of a cool name, uh Hippotheater. And so they actually belong to the same company that owns DramaBox. So, you know, there's a lot of in the same way that Byte Dance owns TikTok and Doyin equally, DramaBox owns uh Hippotheatre and uh and and other other entities as well. So a lot of the a lot of your favorite Western vertical apps are actually run by by Chinese companies.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Okay, so um now with this immersive knowledge of the Chinese market, what do you feel carried over from your previous experience running it seems like a several entrepreneurial ventures in was it Beijing or Shanghai or?

SPEAKER_02 12:01

A bit of both, because the main business was the tour business. So I was pinging back and forth between Shanghai and Beijing wherever I was sort of needed. And I mean I had guides in both cities, but I went wherever I was useful.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

So what carried over into your work either creatively, first of all, but also just on the producing side to verticals? I mean, I'm sure that you had a lot of logistical skills inbuilt from your companies in China. So how how is that all bridged?

SPEAKER_02 12:29

That's a good question. I'm perhaps wanting to get things done at a furious pace, because of course China moves a lot quicker than the West does in terms of sort of business practices. You know, they're they're sort of famously quick at getting things done, whether it's building a skyscraper or producing a vertical drama. They get it done much quicker than than we do. And so, yeah, I mean, of course, the reason I perhaps apply some of the things I've seen in China is because I'm working on, you know, with very low budget. So like, you know, the jobs I've made thus far have predominantly been self-funded. And so every second counts, you know, that that my wallet is slowly being emptied, and so I am a bit, a bit sort of hectic.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Yeah. Always like, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

Yeah, so but I mean I think I think lots of indie filmmakers are like that, trying to trying to sort of get things done as quickly as possible. Yeah, and and of course, it might not be a it might not necessarily be a a modus operandi, but the fact that I spent so much time in China means that I have a back door. So interestingly, you know, when I'm talking to people at Real Short or Drama Box or Good Short, I'm fortunate enough to be able to speak to people based in China and and based in LA. So I can annoy twice as many people.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Oh my god, it's funny. So it's funny, I had a one of my really good friends is Chinese and she actually taught me how to say an annoying woman in Chinese.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Okay, try?

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah, go for it.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Tao Yen dinured. Okay. Is that alright? Is that alright?

SPEAKER_02 14:07

Yeah, that's very good. Actually, you said it very well. It's so Taoyen means sort of to hate or or detestable, like a like a detestable woman.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

So Tao Yen. Tao Yen. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Yeah, Tao Yen. Like often you you would often actually see it. That that would be a typical phrase used in a in a vertical drama, in a contemporary Chinese vertical drama. If a woman gets upset with her boyfriend, then she might say, you know, like I hate you in in a sort of series way. So that's yeah, so you you could be an actress in a in a Chinese vertical drama. That's what we should try and make that happen. We should try and get you over to China and get you to tell a a Chin a handsome Chinese man, a Shui Gur, you should say uh Tao Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

You heard it here first, people. Dan, what surprised you at vertical storytelling?

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Well, I guess the obvious difference is the is the width that you have to work with. And so when I acted in Shanghai Sherlock, I remember the the first take that I did, the first scene I was in, I sort of started walking back and forth, you know. And they said, No, you can't you can't do that. And so I sort of you have to eat. You can't sort of um I I and and I'm sort of I like to pace when I'm thinking. I'm sort of, you know, marching up and down whichever room I'm standing in. And so I had to sort of try and you know, use as much height as you like, but try try not to use too much much width. Let's pay Sherlock.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Sherlock paste. You're in character.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Yeah, so you'd imagine Sherlock should should pace while he's thinking and and smoking his pipe. Although we omitted the pipe. I I was worried that if I included the pipe that we might, you know, that might count against us and we might get banned in China or elsewhere, and so I decided not to not to show Sherlock smoking his pipe, which is a bit of a shame.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

But we don't have him vaping either.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

No, it well, well, it of course that particular Shanghai Sherlock is set in the in the sort of 1890s, so that was a bit before vaping. Although I gather that vaping originates in China as well. I think I think the Chinese introduced vaping to the world.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Yeah, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

So so so the framing limitations as a performer in the framing. So you're directing yourself, essentially.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Well, we had four directors for Shanghai Sherlock. So to be honest, I don't really believe that you can direct yourself. It's you know, I mean, I don't know, either that or or I'm not clever enough to do it properly, but I I feel you need uh another at least one other director on set to provide because I mean, how can you put all those hats on and think as a director and act at the same time? So we had we had two co-directors for every episode, in total, four directors. And we tried to have one Chinese speaking director and one Western director at all times was was another of the goals that we had, if for nothing else, but to help me with my Chinese. Because of course, my Chinese isn't as good as Sherlock Holmes's Chinese needed to be, right? Because Sherlock Holmes is a genius, so his Chinese has to be amazing. So there were lots of you know, I I speak good day-to-day Chinese, but Sherlock was saying these rather sophisticated idioms that I had to say a lot of coal. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so I had to sort of learn them all at the last minute. So so yeah, and I I guess the other difference with verticals is, you know, because you can't show a large group of characters in terms of, you know, you haven't got that space to sort of lay them out across the the width of a landscape frame. So so I think another sort of key is you know obviously you have to frame things differently. And I think a key shot in verticals is sort of the over-the-shoulder shot because you end up shooting all these singles of characters, and the audience, I think there's a danger the audience doesn't know who else is in the scene, who else is in the room. And so I think it's always I think you should always shoot dirty singles as we call them, you know, as a single way you're shooting over someone else's shoulder to remind the audience, you know, who it is that's being spoken to. Because otherwise it's everyone sort of feels isolated. So I think that's a another important difference.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Yeah, that's the thing, you know, and you have your master and close-up standard framings, horizontal framings, your wide master establishes the geography. And you know, okay, there's a couch here, there's a person there, there's a door that's gonna come in through the door, come, you know, come into the close-up, come to the medium, the close-up over, over. And see at the vertical world, you know, your establishing shots is just behind the person's face.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you're already, it's almost like everything, generally speaking, is a close-up to start off with, anyway, isn't it? And I mean, of course, you can have a wide, but you have to go a long way back to to shoot a wide. So so I I mean, most of the verticals I've seen seem to, you know, you're you're starting with mediums and close-ups from the offset. And of course, I guess the other obvious difference is trying to have a cliffhanger ending every sort of every 90 seconds, every two minutes, and then having a massive cliffhanger at the end of your your final episode prior to the paywalls. I guess writing a a vertical is also quite different as well. I I co-wrote Sherlock Sherlock with a with a good friend of mine who's based here in in London. So that it was it was certainly a quite an interesting experience writing writing the vertical.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

So essentially, what I think of horizontal growth, I think it's more activity along the same sea up to the same ceiling, same dimensions. Whereas vertical growth, vertical reach, you're making essentially fewer moves with higher leverage, right? So with that perspective, have you had a sort of a redefinition for yourself of success? Or did you have a fluid definition of success when your journey started? Because I know you mentioned that you were looking to become the British Bruce Lee and uh and uh and then your trajectory or path shifted quickly when you landed in China. But what was your original vision of what success would have meant and how would you say that's adjusted or moved through time?

SPEAKER_02 20:19

I think since becoming a a filmmaker, a full-time filmmaker sort of post-COVID, then my my I've had to sort of um almost lower my expectations of what success will be as a filmmaker because it's just so difficult to make money in in the film industry. You know, and of course I've made made lots of short films, the vast majority of which made little to nothing in terms of revenue. So it was just me spending the money I'd made in China to make these short films. That was my film school, if you like. I didn't have a formal training and you know, I I learnt on the job. And and then of course I directed those three feature films, and that was paid, but um, you know, it was a a very modest sum that I was being paid. And it's only now that I've started making verticals that I'm starting to get a sniff of the money. Uh and don't get me wrong, I'm not making lots of money. I'm I'm still yet to break even on Shanghai Sherlock. It's the first time anyone's been able to give me any worthwhile amount of money for anything I've made. And so I'm I'm hoping that, you know, although I'm I'm certainly not rolling in the money yet, there's a sense that the vertical industry, especially in the West, is is growing rapidly. And I'm hoping that I can, you know, it it feels like for once I'm ahead of the curve. I've never been ahead of the curve for, you know, for most things. And so for once I've made a vertical, which I guess not a huge number of people in the West have done, and and I'm hoping to sort of to double down, and if the vertical industry In the West does develop quickly, then I hope people will start hiring me to write and direct on a more regular basis. So that's why I'm now working on new vertical concepts to sort of capitalize on the situation.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Amazing. Well, first of all, let me recognize and say kudos to you because as someone with I guess four years, I'm hearing correctly, in the film industry as a filmmaker.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Well, since 2019. And of course I had made documentaries prior to that. So I mean you could say I've been making films since since the late 1990s, but it but but I've been doing it on a more full-time basis since uh 2019. So that what's that, six, seven years?

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Amazing. Because I have to say that, you know, uh as someone who's been in the film industry only my whole life. So it's all over. For you to have accomplished the pool, the body of work that is monetizable, even at the burgeoning beginning stages, yeah, in this new medium, bilingually, ethnographically, biculturally. I want to just maybe have you actually recognize the rarity of your accomplishment, period. And one of my directors were a lot of directors, and uh, one of them was very clear. He said, You know, Pauline, he said, most directors, this is in the commercial space, mind you.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

He was a d his director was he left the industry, he left directing to become an inventor of other things, another story. But he was someone who worked maybe two campaigns a month, at least one a month for many, many years. And so I had always been around directors with that workflow.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

So for whatever reason, I assumed that was the norm, to the point where I think what triggered this conversation was I said, you know, I was talking to him because we're now personal friends, and and I said, It's so weird. I haven't heard from so and so in a long time. Maybe he got mad at me, or maybe I don't know what happened, he hasn't hired me in a long time. And he said, Pauline, he's probably not working. He said, Pauline, do you realize that most commercial directors do one job per year? That's it. He's a one per year. That's the average.

unknown 24:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

Well, yeah, incredibly competitive in LA.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

Yeah. And I this is actually a German director, but I'd had the fortune to be in this milieu of directors who are working all the time. And so I was like, oh my God. And then I was like, that's right. It's not personal. He just can't hire me. He ain't got nothing going on, you know? But so yeah, back turning back to you though, the fact that you're on such monetizing trajectory and so able to cultivate this niche. I mean, I just see growth, growth, growth. I mean, as a business person overall, as an entrepreneur and a filmmaker as well, I think you've really found an amazing spot for yourself. That's all I'm gonna say. So okay, let me ask you this.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

I hope you're right, Pauline. I hope.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

I'll bet my my I'll bet my tokens on the next game.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Your tokens, I say, oh, your vertical consuming tokens. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Oh, but my tokens. Uh so now, what is your next swipe up?

SPEAKER_02 25:13

My next swipe up. Yeah, so what well I'm doubling down now. So I'm like you, I'm betting my tokens because I don't have very much money left, so that's that's all I can bet. And I, you know, I'm hoping that that verticals really will take off in the West. That seems to be the way things are going. And so rather than just sort of settling for Shanghai Sherlock, I'm I'm now sort of in the process of developing three new vertical concepts. Of course, there's there's the possibility of a second series of Shanghai Sherlock as well, but I I also want to sort of to demonstrate my ability to make a a range of different films. So I I can't at this stage reveal what I'm working on, but I'm collaborating with with several co-writers and other filmmakers to start developing new verticals. That the question on my mind, and I don't, you know, this is this is an open-ended question. If anyone has any thoughts, let me know. But I'm trying to just, you know, because of course I'm in contact with all of these vertical streaming platforms. And, you know, I'm I'm approaching the like a lot of them want the the vertical to be a sort of a minimum, you know. For example, I spoke to someone at Good Short the other day and they said it has to be at least 50 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

Five zero. Five zero.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

Five zero, yeah. TikTok. 40 episodes.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

40 episodes, say? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, 40, at least 40 episodes, yeah, 35, 40 episodes. TikTok, who's just sort of entered the market, they have a requirement at the moment for a minimum of 40 episodes, 40 seconds each, so that's about 27 minutes. And and so, yeah, I mean, most of these companies are looking for something approaching feature length, you know, 50, 50 minutes plus. And so I'm I'm trying to decide do I do I make two or three proofs of concept, you know, the first two episodes of maybe three new vertical concepts, and then shop them round, publish them on my social media to prove that they're my properties and and to sort of get some support and encouragement from our followers, and and then go on to sort of shop them round and try and get funding to turn them into 50 plus minute projects. Or do I just take a gamble and go, you know, choose whatever idea we feel is the strongest and go straight for that 50-minute mark. The problem is the same as in the horizontal film industry, you know, it's really difficult right now to get investment. Of course, I have lots of connections now with these vertical platforms, and I'm you know, I'm I'm sure they're willing to give me money once the film's been made, but that's not really the problem. The problem is getting the money to make it in the first place. It feels like for the most part. Well, that's the thing, there's no guarantee. So it feels like the onus is on the filmmaker. You know, the poor old indie filmmaker is is expected to use their life savings to make a a film, and then maybe if it's the you know, flavor of the month, then you might get uh you might get some of that money back. But and of course there are new startup platforms that are that sort of are willing to offer you a a percentage of of the revenue that your your your film makes. But again, it's the same problem, right? I'm still having to put down the money first and take a gamble. Um, and so that's the big problem, that's the big conundrum that we're trying to figure out right now.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

So uh okay, so your next swipe up, you said, is that you're gonna be exploring expanding genres and experimenting quite a bit, which is what I would suggest to everyone, whether they're in the vertical space or exploring things in life. And we'll wrap up this part of the session. And uh to my audience, remember if you're building something new or becoming someone new, this is the vertical reach, and we're gonna support. And always remember, keep swiping up. Thank you so much. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

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.