Micro Drama: Fad or the Future? | Live from TellyCast Digital Content Forum 2025

Vertical video drama has exploded in the past year – but is it a passing craze or the next big shift in storytelling? 

Recorded live at the TellyCast Digital Content Forum, this session brings together Spirit Studios’ Matt Campion, TheSoul Group’s Victor Potrel and writer-director-producer Katharina Gellein Viken to unpack the boom in micro drama. Moderated by Deadline’s Stewart Clarke, the panel digs into what audiences are actually watching, how shows are being funded and distributed, the role of AI in production, the emergence of new platforms, and why the economics are creating a brand-new content category. A sharp, forward-looking conversation on how vertical drama is being made, monetised and scaled.

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Transcript

Justin Crosby: [00:00:00] Hi, I am Justin Crosby. Welcome to another TellyCast. On this week's show, we are revisiting one of the panel sessions from the digital content forum at the BFI Southbank Micro Drama Fad or the future. Featured a great lineup of experts who're all currently producing in this space. I hope you enjoy the show.

Stewart Clarke: Hi, I am Stuart from Deadline. Got the cue cards to prove it. Um, we got everyone's names up there, but I'll just quickly whiz through so we know exactly what everyone does. Uh, to my immediate left, we've got Matt Campien, who's creative director at Spirit Studios. Next, along the line, we have Victor, uh, who's executive director.

External strategy as Soul group. And then last but not least, we have Ka Katrina who's a a what I had you as writer, director, producer. But I think showrunner is perhaps kind of an all encapsulating, uh, title say, yeah, I know. Let, let's not say that. Um. As Justin says, and by the way, well done Justin, for [00:01:00] building this into kind of a must attend event over the years.

It's, it's great to see it grow and, uh, just become kind of a, a diary date. Um, micro drama, vertical drama. There's a lot of buzz around. Uh, I think we're asking fad or the future should we just agree the future and, and wrap up there. Um. One part of the future, certainly. But let's get into what each of you are doing perhaps, and then we can talk about, I think in half an hour we need to talk about how things are made, what people are watching, how much it costs, and also where it lives.

But maybe let's think about what people are watching through the prism of what each of you are making. So, Matt, just 'cause you're to my immediate left, uh, you at Spirit, you do a ton of stuff. You work with brands, you make kind of traditional telly, uh, you do podcasts, you do a load of social stuff. Now you're moving into, into vertical video, into micro drama.

What, what? Tell us, tell us, we've got half an hour, so we have to be quick. So tell us what you're up to. 

Matt Campion: Glad you got the text. Yeah, 

Stewart Clarke: exactly. 

Matt Campion: Um, uh, yeah. So, uh, uh, in the vertical [00:02:00] space we, we've partnered with NIT train. Um. Partnership that came out of this event last year, actually. Um, we, we previously made, uh, uh, an audio drama, um, with, with some fairly big UK names that did pretty well for us.

And that was sort of began our journey of looking into what does scripted look like in the digital space. Um, we previously made a, a scripted sitcom in the digital space for channel four. And so, um, the vertical drama mi, micro drama conversation, um, started bubbling up very, very quickly in the press. Um, and so I, I reckon about eight months ago we started doing, um, some proper, um, looking into it, um, getting right into the weeds, meeting the right people, gaining the knowledge.

Um, and yeah, I think one of the things that we're, we're doing, um. Straight away is, is, um, producing our first film and not really thinking bit like, a bit, a bit like listening to [00:03:00] Victor. It's sort of the, the way we work in, in anything that we do in digital is to try and be that, be in that sort of MVP model, that minimal viable product where you need to get things up and running pretty quickly, um, and get the results and learn and iterate.

Um, having said that, we've had loads of. Loads of meetings with, with, um, some of the big apps. We have got, um, we've got a team that has began writing our first drama. We're gonna shoot pretty quickly in the next two, three months. The schedule is eight weeks from beginning to end. Really quick. Um, 

Stewart Clarke: and, and, and what is it?

Tell us to, because it's interesting. We saw the clip earlier, I think at that Brazilian show, and I think what was actually interesting, we being honest at the end when that, when that clip stopped, there was kind of a. Kind of people in the, the reaction was interesting. There was kind of a laughter because it's, it was kind of schlocky.

It was kind of, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but, and is that, is that kind of, do you, do you lean into that? Do you [00:04:00] embrace that or do you want to take a, you know, different approach in terms of. Production values and storytelling. 

Matt Campion: I think it'd be stupid not to go with what's worked with what works right to begin with.

I think, I think all of us wanna sort of try and anyone that's a, a creative or a in this space, we always wanna evolve and take things on a journey and see if we can do other things. Um, but we're definitely, it's, we're definitely sort of tongue in cheek kind of. Well, the thing we know that works is, um, we we're working with American apps, so, um, they want sort of very, uh, you know, our, our sort of a whole thing is a sort of period drama time machine, modern to period.

Um, they want that very Bri, you know, that, um. Britishness, uh, uh, and old school, kind of public schools and, um, and old sort of, uh, you know, pride and prejudice has been as a vertical drama has being converted. So we are definitely in that space. One of the things that we are doing is we have got a couple of [00:05:00] really good people on the team I'm really excited about.

We've got Dan Lowenstein, who's, 

Stewart Clarke: who's kind of a name in 

Matt Campion: this. He's a name, he's directed. 25 micro dramas now. So he's part of the writing team. Okay. Three weeks work. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. He's only four. Um, uh, and he, and so he's sort of quite central to to, to the writing and, and, and how we're gonna produce it.

Um, and we've also got a guy called, um, Jack Chalmers, who, I dunno if anyone has seen any of the, the press, um, that has gone out recently about our Ed Geen original Psycho. docu drama. He was the voiceover for Ed Gein and the, um, and the interrogator. And he's a 22-year-old kid from Birmingham who's got 4 million followers on TikTok, who is so unique in what he does that he, he, he reproduced this sort of movie scenes from his bedroom, but he goes to the, the reason why I said to him, I mean, he, he actually messaged me last night saying that he was, he couldn't thank me enough for being a part of this.

It was such a brilliant experience. But I said to him, I, it was the moment [00:06:00] he said to me that he. He would go to lengths of recording the hum of his fridge to, to layer into a movie soundtrack on his iPhone on TikTok. And I was like, I, I need you on my team. I need, you know, I want that experience and that level of detail of knowing what works on, in, in that space.

Stewart Clarke: Okay, great. Hold that Thorn. We'll come back. Um, Victor, so tell us what you are doing, uh, with, with the Soul Group, because I think it's an interesting thing about what's working elsewhere in the world and how that informs. What, what we're doing, pat 

Victor Potrel: over here. So, you know, the Soul Group started as Soul Publishing.

So we are Digital Studio at Herd. So we started, you know, on social media producing content for, for different channels. We grew to become one of the biggest digital studio in the world. Uh, and over time we expanded also to more services. Uh, and we know we're looking, always looking for growth opportunities.

And the, the micro drama, uh, vertical video space, I think we might define what it is exactly. Uh, it's something we looked at maybe two years ago. Uh, we started to see the premise of it. Um, you know, also thanks to like all the kind of data and insights we're able to [00:07:00] access, uh, and we really started to get serious about it, uh, beginning of this year and we launched our own app about two months ago, so, 

Stewart Clarke: so that's interesting.

Yeah. In terms of the distribution piece, but what, what are you actually making? Are you, and again, in terms of kind of what people are consuming. Um, yeah. And what's getting made it, it does seem people kind of lean into sort romance. We, when we were talking earlier, you were talking about kind of almost this, this sort of CEO genre is kind of, you know, a powerful, big Exactly.

An intern. There seems to be some 

Victor Potrel: tropes, I would say. Yeah, romance is, I mean, we produce, so we produce content for the app, so you know, we have the experience in that. We also work with partners as well, so we don't produce everything ourself. We, we do co production as well for, for the app. So we have about 30 shows on our app now.

So, you know, we are looking to expand that over time. Uh, yeah, I mean, romance is still kind of, that's what created the category I would say. Uh, it has a lot of the, of the codes. I mean, you mentioned the trailer. I thought it was interesting. You know, obviously people are a little bit like puzzled, uh, especially these people that have been in traditional media industry for a while.[00:08:00] 

But I think it's a new genre that, you know, you need to embrace and be curious about a little bit like when creators study to immersions, like, oh, this is not, you know, quality. And now, you know, there's the Netflix shows and everything. So, 

Stewart Clarke: and, and do you, do you, Matt was saying eight weeks mm-hmm. To make, to make a show.

Are you seeing similar timeline? 

Victor Potrel: Uh, yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, I know that across different apps there are different approach. We have like a writer room in a way that is kind of constant. In a way it's hard to factor 'cause some script can take, you know, one to two months to develop, but you know, it's on a constant basis as well.

Uh, then shooting is actually quite fast. You, you usually limit your team. Uh, you have like a small group of people and you know, you do it over maybe like a week, uh, depending on the level of production. And then post-production is very important as well, because you saw in the trailer. The editing, uh, the creative, the hooks that you need to, to put in, uh, it's very different than, uh, than like a normal, linear movie where you can have like a 30 minute buildup here.

You, you need like every 45, 60 seconds to have some, some hooks, um, strong [00:09:00] emotion, some kind of, uh, moments of truth. 

Stewart Clarke: That's interesting. 'cause you kind of traditional drama, I guess there's kind of a, you know, there's three acts ordinarily. Mm-hmm. But are you having to build that into every single. Episode it is every kind of, you know, couple of minutes having to follow that traditional.

Yes, I think we, 

Victor Potrel: everyone describe it like it's like that. So, you know, you get like a pick because you want people to watch this 45 seconds. People are, that are watching these kind of shows. They're very busy. Uh, you know, they're usually young. It can be between the break. We actually look at the persona of them and some people they, you know, they do it between shifts, they do it during transport.

It's not convenient to watch. Except if your commute is very long, like an hour series. But if you have like 20 minutes, then you know this is much more suitable and 

Stewart Clarke: always ending on a cliffhanger. 

Victor Potrel: Yeah, exactly. So that, you know, they come back to this specific show, to the app. Uh, we taking, we are looking a lot like when we work with creative and you know, at our own content, at the retention between the episodes, so we make sure that.

People actually going deep into the series and not dropping after one episode of, and that also 

Stewart Clarke: speaks to how you monetize these. But hold [00:10:00] that, pause that in a sec. And Cat Katrina, tell us, 'cause I think you are, in terms of kind of the, the world of vertical drama, you're doing something that's perhaps slightly different.

Um, but tell us, tell us about what you, you are working on. 'cause I know you were in ca, you were at Cannes and, and other places was. 

Katharina Gellein Viken: Yeah, so, uh, my company's Metro Tone Media and we, we were traditional producers, really, uh, you know, traditional IP content house, uh, very small and uh, but we'd done a lot of documentary and I've been out producing one of the European versions of strictly for a few years.

And so coming, you know, to Victor's point, I think unscripted producers are really good in this environment because we know how to turn really fast. We know how to produce things fast. Um, so this has kind of been a natural fit for us, um, that we looked into. Started looking at the beginning of the year.

We also pivoted to being AI native two years ago, which has really helped. So the two productions that we're working on now is a K-pop crime thriller called Rainmaker. Uh, and we actually started producing that with ai, uh, human written normal script, short episodes. So we [00:11:00] initially thought straight away short form episodes to test it with an audience, and 

Stewart Clarke: it's animated.

Katharina Gellein Viken: So animated content. Um, we started by making music videos and then this sort of micro drama pilot that we ended up getting invited by the BFI to show at cam. So, um, that's tested really well, uh, with the audience. And now we have some big partners on board. Uh, we're gonna go for 22 episodes in Spring. Um, but I'll talk in a minute about platform because that's really interesting about micro drama.

Uh, the other one we're working on is a. non-AI completely traditionally shot, uh, creator led production with, uh, three very big comedy names, which unfortunately I can't tell you yet. Um, but that's a mockumentary based on a true story. Uh, I dunno if anyone in this room remembers back in, uh, around 2013. To 1516 in London.

There was A-S-E-I-S-H-M-R-C scheme that made everybody go and make gangster films for 150 k. I was cast in a lot of those. I was the token blonde. And, uh, we, based off of [00:12:00] that story with some very unprofessional production, with some very uninsured, very crazy things that happened. And, uh, making a comedy with viral comedians basically.

Stewart Clarke: And actually let, let's talk about how you, how you. Perhaps can make money from these, these projects, which is about distribution. So, Catherine, staying with you maybe for this because are you. Do you speak to real short or drama box or those existing apps, or do you think that about YouTube? What, what's, what's the plan in terms of where, where do you see this existing?

Where do you see your stuff living and how do you make money from that? 

Katharina Gellein Viken: Well, that, that's, it's a really interesting question and we're actually looking for the right partners for Rainmaker for that reason. Because, you know, everything we've seen today, it's really fascinating. Before traditional producers.

That are crossing over specifically, it's, it's a, it's a really, uh, vital thought because everything doesn't naturally live on every platform. Everything has its own algorithm. A TikTok thing will not necessarily work on YouTube, uh, and vice versa. That pilot the Cogsworth, [00:13:00] uh, that. That really was so well made for TikTok.

It's like that's exactly what works there. And it's not necessarily necessarily the case that I can't take my animated K-pop crime thriller and just put that on real shorts. 'cause real short is optimized for a lot of romance, a lot of CEO drum as we were saying. So you have to really think about. Where you can monetize and um, you know, which platform is going to take it.

And I think we're gonna see a lot more platforms pop up as a result because as people move on from maybe the more lower end soapy, uh, vertical dramas, it's gonna be more quality dramas as well. But you need a new platform for that, or you need to optimize for it. Yeah. So it's a 

Stewart Clarke: victor then, then you are in there, the soul group.

Have you have your own app? Mm-hmm. But I assume that you're not. Your stuff doesn't live exclusively on that. How, how do you, what's the business model? Yeah, 

Victor Potrel: so for us, there are two main angle to launch the app. Obviously it's an investment, but, um, first like, you know, it's a working model because you, those apps are monetized, uh, so usually it's via subscription or it can be [00:14:00] you buy like an episode.

So that kind of goes back into the point where you need to get people in the episode quickly. You want them to purchase additional episodes, 

Stewart Clarke: it's almost a gamification that Yes, the game developers exactly. In-app. Funny 

Victor Potrel: enough, we, we build the app in partnership with a, with a gaming company. Uh, and I mean, everyone maybe has placed super cell or candy creation.

You know how good they are at making you spend extra money. Usually the currency in the app as well is a weird, uh, exchange rates. So you don't really know how much you're spending on that next level. So it's exactly the same thing here. And I think it's sometimes a forgotten piece in the micro drama space is that there's that gamification element where.

You know, you can actually do certain actions as well to watch more things, which doesn't really exist on the, you know, more traditional platform like Netflix and so on. So I think that's, you know, that helps monetize given additional, uh, you know, way, way to monetize. Um, and yeah, that's how we do it. But then the other part is also for us.

We think it's very interesting space production wise. As I say, it's like different way to tell story. It's even more closer to digital production than maybe [00:15:00] traditional production in a way. 'cause you need to have like low budget, you need to stay lean, use ai. Um, and so yeah, it means that first we can actually like learn directly and also with our own platform and data and be really good at that format.

So. So that's the two things. And you know, we, some of our production and we feature them exclusively. We have a window on our platform, but then we would partner with, uh, with other platforms. And you've got 

Stewart Clarke: your own platform, so obviously you've got, you are literally plugged into the data mm-hmm. And you are working out ways to monetize it.

Is this something that, that you see? Kind of being profitable at 6, 12, 18 months is, is this one for the future or is this something in terms of the margin that actually you are, you are already seeing? 

Victor Potrel: Yeah, so definitely it's something that we see as a profitable model, uh, can be a profitable model. Uh, we're still in pilot phase, so right now, like our most important task is to figure out between the content, the creative part, uh, and the users, like what kind of content works, uh, and, and kind of optimize for that.

Uh, it's also very. Still a driven space. Uh, so a lot of the [00:16:00] users come from ad advertising, uh, and you need to acquire them, uh, in a way this way. Uh, of course there's also a general social media platform to acquire other ways, but that's still an important way. So, you know, fine tuning your, your strategies to acquire users in a profitable way.

It's something that we're doing now and we are making very good progress. 

Stewart Clarke: And, and Matt, given that you don't have, uh, as, as yet, your, your own, your own app and you are working with Night Train who are, I know it's the digital bit of that, but they are. I would consider a traditional TV distribution business.

They're used us kind of licensing things in the way that we see a mcom, for example. How do, how do you, and I guess you're kind of you, you said it, you explained at the beginning you're kind of building something to get it to market and then perhaps learning along the way, but how, what's your expectation in terms of.

How you get it out there and how you make money from it? 

Matt Campion: We're actually, we're actually working in tandem. We're, we're, we're talking to being a, a producer with the apps and them acquiring our content. So we're working in a sort of a, in a sort of traditional commissioning sense. And actually, funny enough with, with, [00:17:00] um, with NIT Train, we're working with all three, um, three of their businesses, RA Media, digital and Echo Rights.

So we are, we, um, I, I'd say that we are, we're, we're solely focused. At the beginning on nailing the first micro drama and getting it onto the right app and talking about, uh, the monetization and, and the levels of success. Um, this, some of the, some of the stats that have been touted at us is like a, a good, a good success or an average success is about 15 million views.

Where, um, something like, um. Yeah, there's the Matha boss, which one of Dan's, he said is still trending 18 months later is than 150 million. And the average spend from a user is 50 PE an app. So when you look at that, they're spending 10 to 15 quid. You can go into subscription mode as well. That's, that's a huge, huge.

The 

Katharina Gellein Viken: freemium models are really. Powerful. If you monetize at the point of five episodes, if you go, you know, if you have the platform, [00:18:00] there's, there's a number of ways to monetize that. And the micro drama platforms have made a lot of money. Yeah. 

Stewart Clarke: Is there, so, so stupid question Alert is, but is there a way when you make this is the way that you get it on real short is because they don't Yeah.

They don't have someone in Europe? Well, we're, we're 

Matt Campion: talk, we are, we are in talks with a few different apps. Um. Uh, and advanced talks as well that I think we'll end up on one of the apps and that'll be a 

Stewart Clarke: rev share on, yeah. 

Matt Campion: Yeah. So that'll be a rev share with them. Um, and also as well, I think with Night Train as well, we are also in tandem exploring how we, how we distribute in other ways as well.

Stewart Clarke: And it, and it feels, and each I spoke to individually ahead of time and that it feels like there's also, it's kind of an entrepreneurial. Take in terms of the ancillary opportunities. I know, so I know for example, Rainmaker, you're talking about kind of an album and actually almost having the, actually almost doing it the other way around where you have like the what would be considered the, yeah.

Katharina Gellein Viken: First, yeah, the flow. So we started with music video [00:19:00] chapter of a graphic novel and then moved on to the pilot, and that's what's worked really well because you, you create a bit of an audience, you create a bit of buzz beforehand, and then you can then release the full versions of everything as you go along.

Um, there's also new things in the space of, when you're talking about AI and, and verticals. There's new streamers who are, uh, putting AI content directly on tv. Um, so there's, you know, people who specialize in short form. The, the, the collaboration models there aren't quite worked out yet, I think. Who, 

Stewart Clarke: who are you talking about?

Which platform? So 

Katharina Gellein Viken: there's one platform called Alchemy Stream, for example, outta Chicago. Uh, and they, their thing is they collaborate with, uh, AI creators and they put the short form content directly, um, on. On an app on people's screen, so they, they kind of work like a traditional distributor in that sense.

It would either be a rev share or a exclusive deal. Um, there's also brand collaborations. Obviously, we're, we're heavily looking into that because with AI we can replicate almost any brand now that, uh, it's so advanced. We can, [00:20:00] you know, beautifully represent any brand if it merges solidly with the story and it's a natural fit.

I think 

Stewart Clarke: what's interesting is when you're talking about ai, I mean, this isn't a session about ai, but. Naturally, every session is about AI. Now to note, as it probably should be, but I think each of you also separately mentioned how you are using different AI tools in this space. I mean, is there a. Is that about kind of making sure the workflow is, is super tight 'cause you are producing on a, you know, different to certainly a traditional TV or film budget.

Is it about that or is it about idea generation? Is it where, where, where do the AI tools come in and help? And that's to, so 

Victor Potrel: we, we tested, um, to do AI ads. 'cause sometimes we, we, we do, we work on the trailer before we work on the final product and then we will test it with like, with the users to see if they're actually interested and we test it, you know, in order to shorten that production.

To do it with AI ads, but I would say that it's not yet on the same level in term of, uh, interest of users and, and comparison. So, so like pure AI content might have its [00:21:00] place, but I think for now it's more of a Sora experience where you have a dedicated app, you go there, uh, to, to maybe brain rot a little bit, uh, and, and, uh, you know, you know what to expect, right?

Uh, like. I don't think it's about like, oh, I'm watching a show and then 10 minutes in I'm realizing, oh wait, this is ai. Um, so for now that's the case. Maybe it'll evolve. And then there's a whole workflow production. Uh, part element, which of course, because, uh, budget here are very different. Um, they're not social media budget, but they're not Hollywood budget.

So, wait, 

Stewart Clarke: can we, how, how much, how much does a, does a, a, a micro drum, how much might I would 

Victor Potrel: theoretical say? We didn't mention it yet. That one, uh, one minute of Quibi, uh, show, but Quibi, it would be like a whole, a whole, uh, series, uh, in mic micro drum so you can research it. Uh, but, but I mean. Approximately.

So 

Stewart Clarke: save, save me doing the math. What, what might 

Victor Potrel: that? Uh, I think like a hundred K to 300 k depending on the complexity for like a series. That would be the budget. And 

Katharina Gellein Viken: I would, I would say the same. [00:22:00] And it, it's, so, you know, again, to Victor's point earlier, you, you do things a lot faster. Um, and it is. Partly useful for visualization.

I'm a big fan of hybrid production. I don't have a lot of faith in people wanting to watch all AI content. Uh, ours is certainly voiced by actors, you know, uh, it's written by humans. It's, you want a good story, you wanna watch quality stuff. You don't want to watch a bunch of uncanny things on your screen.

So, um, it's, it's really about speeding up production. A small content house like ours could never produce anything animated. Just two years ago, just no. Question it called cost quarter of a billion dollars to make. So, you know, yes. Huge cost saving, huge time saving, but still retaining creators at the center and the human element.

Stewart Clarke: Mm-hmm. And, and Matt, how about AI using, using AI in terms of idea generational scripting, I mean, versus kind of the old school writer's room, I guess. Y 

Matt Campion: yeah. Not, not, not for ideas, but, uh, I mean, our writer's [00:23:00] room definitely beat out. The shows. Um, but AI is using is, we use it for efficiency and, and to speed up the process really.

We, I think we will use generative video as well in the process. I mean, we're starting to do that in a lot of things that we're doing now, and it's, that's it. We're not replacing people or doing anything. I mean, you get, we get asked this question a lot about ai. Um, I mean, and you've talked about it recently, um, you know about the ethics and so on.

And I, I, I think we're at a stage where if you are. Punch above your weight budget, you know, on a, on a small budget then, and it enhances what you do then great, but also just have taste in how you use it. You know, it's, it's a case of there's, there's, there's really shit AI out there and we've all, we all see it, but if you can use it in a clever way that it, it's additive and it doesn't take away from anyone, then all, all that's changing is the craft, not the tools.

Well, you 

Katharina Gellein Viken: asked about scripting. Uh, yeah. I would go out hard on that and say, absolutely. Don't put your [00:24:00] scripts in or script with ai, because if you are a content house or a content creator, you are handing over your IP to train an ai. We, we've actually built a tool to, to get around that, that's non-AI related, ethical ai.

Stewart Clarke: I think script tools the most used to avoid that, 

Katharina Gellein Viken: not that I know of for scripting. There are video generators now, like Moon Valley, who try to be ethical in, in their training data. But I haven't yet seen, uh, any scripting tools that protect writer's ip. 

Stewart Clarke: And we have a question coming in and given, saying, given the, given the.

Again, you know, by comparison to sort of traditional film and tv, the incredibly tight production schedules when you're actually shooting, when you're actually going in. So you've done all the, the sort of pre-production, you're actually, what, what does the team actually look at look like for when you're shooting live action?

What does a paired down team look like for a micro drama? 

Victor Potrel: So can be like three to five people sometimes, or like that kind of level, the actors and main operators and some lighting maybe, and like a main producer. So it's like very small team, but I think it's, uh, actually like something. Something [00:25:00] good also, like in terms of a lot of new people that wants to be, uh, in those jobs and actors and so on.

I think it's actually an interest intrinsic space for them, because then it's very hard to get role like in more traditional movies. But here, like there's actually a lot of opportunities for, for working and uh, I think it's actually something like, great. And same for script writers by the way. Uh, we get approached by love of script writers, uh, with like, uh, scripts that we review with like kind of checklist.

Uh, but like. We see like a lot of excitement because there's a chance that it might get made. Actually also the genre, you know, is still evolving. It's still kind of narrow, but it's growing because everyone here is doing different genre as well, so, so yeah, I think it's interesting space to that regard as well.

So one role is 

Matt Campion: really important is script supervisor, because you're shooting 10 minutes a day. And you, and you are chopping between different locations and different, and you're outta sequence. If you haven't got a script supervisor, you're screwed. And I wouldn't trust AI to that yet. 

Stewart Clarke: Um, and someone asked, say, um, this has this very kind of UK specific question, I guess, uh, whether the likes [00:26:00] of pact, uh, in independent indies, producer, body and equity, their actors union have kind of caught up yet with micro drama.

Is there a sense where. This is such a kind of a new, we're doing a panel in a couple of weeks. 

Speaker 6: Yeah. Both Matt and I spoken to fact already about, uh, this, so they're very much just, what gonna say? They're on the, they, they're on the board and 

Victor Potrel: in the US I think the association, the mass association started to like kind of, uh, embrace it as well.

Um, so I could tell you, but it'll cost you per sentence. 

Stewart Clarke: Okay. Let's not do that. And then, um, but let's, we're, we're running over time. But I mean, I think if it's fad or future. If we're saying it's not, not a fad, which is what I'm hearing here, let's think about if we're sitting here, what, what might happen?

What are your, in terms of what you are doing, how you see the industry developing between sitting here today and the fifth edition of, uh, of this event. About what, what's, what do you, how do you see the next, is this kind of moving super fast? Well. The landscape look very different. Built 

Matt Campion: once time, like literally like the amount of conversations now you can feel it rapidly just flow into the, into [00:27:00] Europe.

New apps, people are talking about apps, all that stuff. But I don't, it won't just be drama reality. There'll be other there. It's gonna be other other thing, other formats and other genres. In this space, you, you've only got a look. I look at my kids. I've got a 10-year-old and a 14-year-old, two girls, and I, I watch the way they consume YouTube shorts and the games and the, and the types of the way that, the way that they consume content.

And this is only going one way. 

Stewart Clarke: Victor, what's next year look like for you and the, the business? 

Victor Potrel: Yeah, I think I, I see the rapid acceleration, but it will still be incremental in the way that it will happen. So like even for the genre, uh, you still need to stay within the structure. Like there's audience expectations now built in with these apps, so you need to evolve over time.

Uh, the same structure, but like add some elements, you know, fantasy or thrillers. So I think, but these things are happening faster and faster. Like three months ago they were. You know, no big studios looking at it. Now, there are investments. So all these formats are gonna come to friction and people are gonna start to understand what works, works, what doesn't.

There'll probably be some consolidation on the upside as well, uh, because, you know, it's obviously, [00:28:00] uh, there's a lot of them local content too. It's not, it's very English space, uh, and Chinese, uh, but like, there's not like a French micro drama, um, or German. So I think like this, uh, this local content element, uh, will also probably, uh, start to grow.

So. Yeah, that's predictions. 

Stewart Clarke: Thank you Vita. And then Karine, you get the last word. So this time next year, I guess your, your mockumentary gangster flick will be out there and your animated, um. 

Katharina Gellein Viken: Hopefully. And, uh, you know, as you guys say, I think we'll see new platforms and I think just from a content creator's perspective, we have to, writers, producers, smaller content as have to think from the get go.

And even the big ones have to think about, we hate the word 360, but you have to think about multiple formats and multiple platforms from the start. Um, in terms of your script, in terms of your output, does it work on all these platforms? How are you, you have to make your strategy early, basically. 'cause it's that it's not like it's coming that's already here.

Stewart Clarke: And also actually, you all in, we're not, haven't got time to get into [00:29:00] this, but there's obviously this is vertical drama, but also making sure that perhaps it exists. 

Katharina Gellein Viken: So everything we make now, we make sure that, uh, you know, when we shoot and when we think about the edits, it works vertically and it works hard horizontally because one thing is the snackable format on the tube, wherever you're consuming that, but you also wanna catch the evening audience.

It's still a huge audience. 

Stewart Clarke: Brilliant. Thank, thank you. Uh, so please join me in saying a big thank you to our great panel, Matt, Victor Capri, DC. 

Justin Crosby: Well, that's about it for this week's show. I hope you enjoyed it. Next week, I'll be looking back at the year in digital first and revealing the trends that we've seen in 2025, the year the content industry's center of gravity shifted.

Until then, stay safe.