- il y a 3 mois
In this Duanju interview, writer, producer, and StoryPod co-founder Cypress shares his journey into the vertical drama industry, breaking down the art of hooks, cliffhangers, character development, book adaptations, and story structure. He also discusses why CEO romances dominate the market, the untapped potential of rom-coms and sports dramas, and what the future holds for the rapidly growing short-form entertainment industry. Interview by WENWEN HAN
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00:00Could you please briefly introduce yourself and your role in show drama industry?
00:04Hi, everyone. My name is Cypress. I was born and raised in Nanjing, China,
00:09and I came to the United States to pursue a master's degree at Syracuse University
00:15for television and film producing and writing.
00:21So I moved to L.A. in 2013 and I got into verticals in 2022.
00:30I've been writing and producing and executive producing and supervising, supervised producing.
00:38It's all just boring terms, but I've been doing that for the past three years.
00:44Um, yeah. And if you really ask me, I would say that my main goal and my main role in
00:52this industry is like a writer creator.
00:55How did you first get involved in short dramas?
00:58It's actually a funny story because I before before this whole vertical thing even started, I didn't even know what
01:06it was.
01:06Uh, I was in a writer's room here, uh, in Los Angeles, working as the head writer of a writer's
01:14room doing shows exclusively for Youku,
01:18which is a Chinese streaming site like Netflix.
01:22So I met a producer's assistant there.
01:26And then years later, you know, we both left the company at different times.
01:31And then years later, she called me one day out of the blue saying, Hey, I'm at this company called
01:37Good Short.
01:37We're producing verticals and we're going to do the, do an English language one.
01:43And I have a perfect book for it, but no one here can write this one better than you.
01:49So I think you should do it.
01:51So that was how I got into it.
01:54I had no idea what it was because I've been in America for so long.
01:57So I didn't even know that the vertical thing in China has become a whole big industry.
02:02That was the four year mark, I think for three or four, four or five.
02:07I don't know.
02:08The numbers escape me, but, um, yeah, she called me and, uh, I wrote the show, the first English language
02:16show for a good short.
02:18That's how I got into this industry and just, it was just fast learning about the whole concept, structure, industry,
02:28how, how the Chinese shows worked.
02:30And then how can we translate that to the American audience?
02:33It was all like baptism by fire.
02:37It was all happening within a month.
02:39It was April, 2022.
02:42And then it just never stopped.
02:43I think the first one did pretty well.
02:45That's why it just kept going.
02:47And that's why that's when I think it was like, uh, April, I did that show and it was out
02:53in June.
02:54And then by July, I told Jingming, you know what, we should be doing this.
02:59So we started StoryPod, our own company.
03:03What kind of differences for verticals, um, different from traditional films and TV?
03:08Well, first of all, the format is very different.
03:12And I came from, I did production as well as writing.
03:17So I know the very first thing I noticed was, well, you're not going to be able to fit a
03:22lot of people in your vertical frame.
03:24So a lot of the things are going to be concentrated on people probably talking because with your budget, you
03:30can't do shit.
03:31So, um, we have to focus on the drama, which was very exciting to me because I, when I was
03:37in college, when I first started, started to do anything remotely close to writing was reading plays.
03:45Then I became a playwright before I even did screenwriting.
03:48So what was incredibly exciting for me was that, oh, we're just going to boil down every story to the
03:58essence, which is people arguing, basically.
04:00That's how plays were invented.
04:02And that's how, that's how every drama worked.
04:05So that was the biggest difference.
04:07So I thought, okay, we're going to strip a lot of the fancy elements of film and TV, traditional film
04:14and TV, and boils down to humans arguing about things and having right and wrong opinions at the same time,
04:23which is the core of drama.
04:25And then the next thing obviously is you have to do like a cliffhanger every 60 seconds to 90 seconds.
04:36So the pacing of all those shows would become incredibly faster than traditional TV and film.
04:42So you can't really build a whole character, like lay the ground for it or do a world building or
04:48anything like that.
04:49So you just, you just have to get right into it.
04:51So that was the two things that I, I, I just clocked in my mind from the beginning.
04:59So I think if you ask me what defines it, what's the essence of it?
05:04I think it was, we're actually going back to like the origin of dramas.
05:10We're just doing the bare minimum, the thing that just, that just draws people in its conversation.
05:18And it's so much more intimate because it's your phone and it, you can just watch it anytime you want.
05:26No one can know what you're watching.
05:27You don't even have to share it with anybody.
05:29So movies, you have to share with a whole audience.
05:33TV is getting smaller.
05:34You only need to share it with your household for a phone.
05:37You don't have to share it with anyone.
05:39So this relationship between you and the stories and the characters in there becomes so much more intimate.
05:45So there, I realized that you could push it to even more extreme levels than all the traditional TV shows
05:55and movies can't do.
05:56Because if you're really talking about it, I thought to myself, hmm, what would be the ultimate guilty pleasure?
06:05What would be the thing that makes people go, oh, I want to watch that, but I don't want to
06:09tell anybody.
06:10That's the essence of vertical dramas to me.
06:13I'm just curious, for each episode, 60 to 90 seconds, that's the requirement from the platform or what?
06:21Yeah, from the platforms.
06:22Why did they do?
06:23Because a lot of Chinese short dramas, especially for the first episode, it normally can be us lost two to
06:29three minutes long.
06:31I think it came from the budget concern.
06:34Because to produce it in America, using Chinese money would just cost more.
06:41That's just an objective fact.
06:44So, yeah, I even, I kept saying for the first episode, can I have three minutes?
06:50I need five minutes.
06:51Can I do five minutes?
06:52I think the first one, the first episode was about three minutes.
06:58So I would, yeah, the first show I did for good short, I had, I had first episode.
07:03I need those three to four beats instead of just one or two for the later episodes, because I need
07:11to tell them this is why all this is happening.
07:15I really think it's the budget concern because a lot of Chinese shows, their runtime is also longer than most
07:22of the shows in America right now, because some of them are two hours, two hours and a half.
07:29And over here, if you can get to 90 minutes, that's almost a miracle because it's just more expensive to
07:36do that.
07:36Have you write any original scripts that pitch to the platforms?
07:41There's a difference between commissioned shows and original pitches.
07:45I think in my entire career up to now in this vertical space, I have probably pitched and wrote one.
07:56And the other ones are either, here we have a book, do you want to, do you want to see
08:04if you can adapt that into a series?
08:07If you don't, do you want to pick another book?
08:10So a lot of book adaptations.
08:12And for those, I would not be, well, I would still doing, be doing a lot of pitching because usually
08:19those are not novels.
08:20They are not suitable to be even adapted because they're like 2000 chapters long.
08:26They're just not conducive enough for this format.
08:29So I have to basically only keep the premise and the character names and the title and then just redo
08:35the whole thing.
08:36But that wouldn't, that I would not call original and original pitches.
08:42So yeah, our studio have probably done more than 30 by this point, all in different fashion or form, original
08:51or adaptation or a mix of both.
08:56Sometimes it could even be one-to-one.
08:58We're just, we just have the rights to this Chinese hit show.
09:00And we're going to need you to turn this into a viable American series for North American audience, mostly.
09:08Are those Chinese web novels or English web novels?
09:12I've encountered both because I think Good Short, Drama Box, Dreamy Short, a lot of those apps, they came from
09:21online novels.
09:22And they've done some overseas, yeah, they even made their buck doing overseas novels.
09:29So they do have a lot of English language novels.
09:32So we've been getting both.
09:34And now, especially since last year, there's more companies that are not Chinese companies getting into this field.
09:41So we're working with companies from like Germany, from India.
09:46Yeah, so those would all be in English.
09:50How do you do the book adaptation?
09:53What's the process?
09:54How do you keep the correct?
09:56Because of the time crunch, and also I think it's another budget concern.
10:00Those things had to be turned out so quickly.
10:03So sometimes I feel even like a little ashamed.
10:06I was like, well, I'm never going to read this whole novel.
10:09It's just not possible within the time frame.
10:11So let's all be realistic.
10:13I'm going to read the first 10 chapters because those are the first good ones.
10:17And then usually the novelist would just go off a cliff just because their way of making money is to
10:26expand and expand and expand so that it could go on forever and keep charging people.
10:32And that's not how these things can work.
10:35So I would read the first 10 chapters at least very carefully.
10:39Then I would start to skim through chapter 20, usually towards chapter 50.
10:45And then by that point, I should be able to already get the whole main characters, main storylines, main emotional
10:55arcs.
10:56By that point, if I didn't, then that means this novel completely failed.
11:00So then I have to create that.
11:02The good thing is more than half of them actually are able to finish that.
11:07So then I would just go to the ending and see how you end it.
11:11And then I'll just try to thread everything together and make it so much faster and just do that in
11:1660 to 90 minutes.
11:18If you need to give suggestions to platforms for book adaptation or web novel adaptation, what's your suggestion to them?
11:26I have people who've been in the film and traditional film and TV industry to read them because adapt from
11:36novels.
11:37It's nothing new in Hollywood.
11:39You have a lot of readers and then start from there.
11:42So the first layer, the readers would be able to tell you this is a good book to be adapted
11:49into a TV or film or not.
11:52Just start from there.
11:53I think a lot of apps, platforms, they don't even have that first barrier.
11:58So it would just be, oh, this one's popular.
12:01I think it's popular.
12:02So you got to do this one.
12:03Well, there's a lot of problems.
12:05Well, figure something out.
12:07Solve it.
12:09That's how it's been going.
12:10Is there any story that's not suitable for short-term adaptation?
12:15A lot of them are, like I said, online novels.
12:17They follow a very different way of surviving.
12:25So the, and novels and TV and movie, because it's still a very visual media.
12:32So we, there's a lot of barriers to overcome.
12:36You have to evaluate the story as a whole to see even if it's worth, even if it's worth to
12:42do it or not.
12:43So, yeah, it's, it's really hard to succinctly summarize, like what would be a good book and how, how many
12:53are bad or not suitable?
12:56Because it's, Hollywood is still doing that.
12:59You try to adapt some really, really brilliant book series and then you fail.
13:03And then they stuck in development hell for forever.
13:07I have one that's going, it's, it's adapted from a very, very famous book franchise.
13:12And we all thought, oh, it would be great to adapt this for a movie.
13:18And then you realize, wait, this world is so big.
13:21We're going to have to cut out way too much.
13:23Then can we do a TV show?
13:24So it's all about just be able to really judge the, the bones from this medium, online novels, and then
13:34assess, would it be able to fit into this other medium, which is verticals?
13:39How do you usually design a corrective?
13:41Because I'm, I'm from a, we call traditional or horizontal now, horizontal background.
13:48So I, I would start from what I know, what I know is the principle of drama and what conflicts
13:58make people tick and what makes a story compelling.
14:04That's how I start to even think about my characters.
14:08Then because this is something that's evolved from the Chinese drama.
14:14So I also learned that it needs to be, because, you know, the Chinese audience for this medium, they're usually
14:21from smaller cities.
14:24The income level is a little lower.
14:26So their comprehension, their acceptance of certain characters and stories has to be almost like simplified.
14:35I don't want to say that, but it's just a fact.
14:38So I also came to realize, oh, for those verticals that the companies really want to replicate what happened in
14:46China.
14:46So we're catering to this demographics because, you know, as a screenwriter, you have to always know who you're writing
14:53for.
14:53So then I would back away from my, like, prestigious master's degree screenwriting courses and try to figure out, oh,
15:03this is actually going back to the 70s in America.
15:07We are doing daytime soap operas.
15:10I think I even took an interview with the economists when this whole thing first started.
15:16They were like, what do you think those verticals really are?
15:18I said, I think they're soaps on steroids.
15:21So I went from, I want to figure out, I want to do something that's really just going to make
15:27people feel.
15:29That's how I start with the character.
15:30Then I realized, wait, people may not really want real conflicts.
15:35They want a misunderstanding.
15:36So I watched a lot of shows and I realized, ah, a lot of the shows only start with a
15:42misunderstanding.
15:43And then you just don't resolve it.
15:45You just keep making it worse and worse, worse.
15:48And then you finally resolve it in the end.
15:50That's, that's formula for a lot of the ones that I've watched and a lot of ones that are successful
15:56in China.
15:57So then I started to backing away from my, oh, conflict, character flaw.
16:03How do I start this character?
16:04It becomes more, how can I hide what I want to do in this format?
16:10So I did, I think I did do some, some ones that are not very typically verticals.
16:17I did still start with what I felt was right to, which is to put characters in actual conundrums, make
16:24them really, really true.
16:25And they, they've done well.
16:28So I'm, I'm just always torn.
16:31Do I go back to what I know?
16:33Or do I try to adapt to what the apps tell me the audiences want?
16:39Because the characters in most of the verticals that are on a market, they're just comically thin.
16:45They're, they're not three-dimensional people.
16:47They're not grounded.
16:48They're almost like intentionally villainy.
16:52And I think there's some sort of fun and liberating thing in it.
16:57And I talk to my writers all the time.
16:59Just like, I'm just like, don't you miss sometimes you can just slap people and just go, you whore, you
17:06bitch.
17:07Because that was the seventies.
17:08That was daytime soap.
17:10That was, yeah, soap operas.
17:12And American TV has involved so much soaps basically don't exist anymore.
17:20So I think by coincidence or I, I don't know, I think verticals, the surge of verticals actually hit something,
17:30which is people maybe still missing the simple fun.
17:35And I just want to see a misunderstanding.
17:37I want to feel, ah, you, how can you be so stupid?
17:40And then finally gets resolved.
17:43So yeah, I do, I do both.
17:45I do my real hardcore character in an impossible situation.
17:51How do they get out of it and find love?
17:54And I also do, it was just a misunderstanding.
17:58We're eventually going to figure it out.
18:00Do you think that our main characters should be like two or three dimensional?
18:05Can those supporting actors be two or three dimensional?
18:08I think for villains, it's, it's very fun for them to be razor thin, like one dimensional villains.
18:17I am all for it now because I realized the fun in it, in people creating it, not even writers
18:24and also directors, crew, actors.
18:28There's like, oh my God, this shit is crazy.
18:31Can you believe I was, I was saying that using my face?
18:35So people actually enjoy that.
18:37And villains in those very simple stories always get what they deserved.
18:42So it's kind of ultimately feel good for the audience too.
18:45It's like, oh, that stupid bitch got what she deserved.
18:48Justice still exists in this world.
18:51So I think for villains and supporting, sure, do that.
18:55But I do think for main characters, you have to try something a little bit more.
19:03Because, because even though we're finding, or as the data suggests, we're finding that audiences are missing some of the
19:14really silly soaps and just really melodramatic dramas.
19:19But they've also either growing up with the modern television and film, just in this world, not even America, you
19:30have European movies, you have Korean dramas, you have all those influences that are around you and every day playing
19:37at you.
19:38So the audience's understanding, I think, as a whole has just been really progressed from the daytime soap era.
19:49So to really, really hook them and make them stay with really, really cheap tricks and simple misunderstandings and keep
20:01rehashing the same tropes from, again, from the 60s, the 70s, would not be a very good strategy.
20:09I think you have to dig a little deeper for main characters.
20:13And I think that's how, you know, our work from StoryPod, from me, from my partners, from all the writers
20:20that we work with, that it worked because we just, we just get fan letters on no idea this would
20:28make me cry.
20:30And this is probably arrogant for me to say, when I wrote it, I knew exactly when you're going to
20:35either ugly cry or crying through laughs.
20:39Because it's, because it's, it's, it's like, it's a craft, it's something I think traditional writers are trained to do.
20:49Do you think there should be a character arc?
20:51Because in films, there will be a, our main character normally have a big trauma, and then he or she
20:57will graduate role within the process.
20:59Do you think short drama in vertical series, it's the same?
21:02I think, yeah, totally, you have to do that.
21:05But it's, it's, it's, it's almost an obstacle to talk about emotional arcs, because people are like, this is so,
21:11this is something just to make people feel good about it, to fun, they don't really have to think about
21:17it.
21:17But then, like I, I just said, I think the audiences are actually more mature than this already, I do
21:25think the emotional arc is what makes every hook, every episode's mini cliffhangers work, because I have to get into
21:33this character, I identify it, or I despise, despise this character.
21:39But either way, you have to invoke that kind of emotional resonance with the audience through your characters, otherwise, they're
21:48gonna swipe away.
21:49Because why do I watch this one? Even though it's, it's fast, it's still my time, like, I have to
21:55find, either, I feel so bad for this girl, I want her to succeed, I love this guy, even though
22:02he's evil, you know, all kinds of just human, human conditions.
22:07I think you have to, yeah, emotional arc would be the only way to have people really identify with the
22:14characters and stay through the series. And then eventually, hopefully, build kind of like, brand loyalty to certain apps. I
22:23think most apps are missing that because they're not really trying to create some sort of retention yet.
22:31How do you capture the audience attention in the first 10 seconds? And how do you create hooks?
22:37So hooks, I think it's one of the most important thing in modern screenwriting to outside of verticals, it's becoming
22:46more and more important because we have so much, so much content to consume so many different ways to waste
22:54our time on.
22:55So a hook becomes like a lifeline to television networks, film studios, and now vertical apps.
23:02I think this is actually the only part that doesn't really require because people always say writers and creators, artists,
23:12you kind of, you need a stroke of genius, or you need talent.
23:15It's not something anyone can do, but I think in the hook and cliffhanger area, it's a craft that really
23:24can be learned and studied and perfected almost, almost, without the emotional impact.
23:31But practically speaking, plot-wise, you can do that.
23:34And how I do it is actually what I learned from a very established writer that I worked with, who's
23:41my boss for many, many years.
23:43She told me, just imagine that you're always playing a game with the audience because it's a transaction, basically.
23:51When you tell a story on screen, why do they watch it?
23:54So you're just playing with their expectations all the time.
23:58So sometimes you do twists.
24:00Twists is the easiest hooks.
24:02They think this is going somewhere, and then you turn it upside down, and they go, what?
24:08So that's the easy way.
24:09But then if you go a little deeper in that, you can't always just do twists, twists, twists, twists.
24:15Just stories don't work that way.
24:17Characters don't work that way.
24:18You actually lose people where you just keep twisting for twisting's sake.
24:22So then you have to really analyze if I was watching this for the first time.
24:27Because everyone's a little bit judgmental.
24:30When they're watching a show, they're judging the characters.
24:32They're judging what they're doing because it's human.
24:34It's human to do that.
24:36So you have to basically, everything you make the characters do, you have to also think the intention behind it.
24:42What do you want the audience to feel about them at this moment?
24:45So sometimes when you go deeper, because the audience would go, oh, either I know this is where this is
24:53going, but the creators can't be that stupid, right?
24:58So then I do exactly where they think it should go.
25:03And then, so they would go, they would get the same gasp, but not from the twist, but go, no
25:09way.
25:09I didn't, I don't believe they did that.
25:11And then you start turning again.
25:13I think it was like a, like a little dance.
25:16You just have to find the balance between, do I, do I go with what you think it is?
25:21Do I not go with it?
25:23And you just have to find that balance and that pace and always make them just guess what's my next
25:30move.
25:31It's like playing chess.
25:32What, what do you think is going to happen now?
25:35I want you to know a little bit what's happening because then you get a satisfaction going, ah, I was
25:40right.
25:41But then you also go, oh, I didn't think of that.
25:44So it's, it's, it's that, that's how I do it.
25:47I just literally just go in my head, playing this imaginary chess all the time.
25:53How do you create emotional resonance with the audience?
25:56I think for that one, we'd have to go back to what we talked about, which was the character designs.
26:02Like what, especially just for main, main characters, you have to put them in a grounded enough conflict or misunderstanding
26:12for people to be able to relate to that.
26:15Because all you want to do is then this, this could also be a sort of a game.
26:21You're, you're, you're playing with people's emotions.
26:24I want you to be happy about him now.
26:26I want you to be sad about what he did in this moment.
26:29And then I could give you another candy and you're finally happy they're together.
26:34So emotional resonance, I don't know how to summarize it, but, um, so for one of the very early ones
26:43that I did,
26:43that was a massive success was for a dreamy short, I did a mafia story and I have not been
26:51able to do the same emotional arc for my character in that one yet.
26:57But I think that one, why that one worked was, um, I literally made the lead character purposefully fuck a
27:07prostitute in front of the female lead just to make her go away.
27:11And why would he do that?
27:13If it's another vertical, it would be, well, he's a shitty person.
27:18She's going to come back and make him regret his fucking decisions.
27:21But no, it's because he was never able to be loved or feel loved.
27:27So when he felt I'm losing control of myself and I'm falling for you, I have to do something to
27:33stop that from happening.
27:34So I would hurt you on purpose.
27:36So then the tension for the rest of the show becomes, will they be able to resolve this thing that's
27:44basically keeping them apart and what's keeping them apart is themselves.
27:48So he is literally keeping themselves apart.
27:51So that would be a real obstacle.
27:54That should be the real obstacle in every love story because any external forces like, oh, my mother-in-law
28:00doesn't want me to marry you.
28:02Or if I don't marry you, I don't get to inherit my company's billions of dollars.
28:09Those are external things.
28:10Those are very easy to overcome.
28:12So I think emotional resonance for me is to really make the problems the characters themselves so that they have
28:22to face who they are.
28:24And it might lose some audience who didn't really want to feel that way or that real.
28:31But I think, again, just for modern audiences, that's what would make them stay.
28:38They would actually feel this journey because everyone faced the same exact questions every day in every relationship.
28:48That's why love stories are always so easy to sell.
28:52So every drama, if you really, really boiled it down to, there's always some sort of love and relationship struggles
28:59that made the people do things that they do.
29:03How do you design the whole structure of your story?
29:06For example, there is a 65 episodes.
29:09How do you design the structure?
29:10I actually find that very easy because I think I've always, like, I've worked with people, I've worked with writers
29:17and producers and directors who had been nominated for Emmys, won Oscars.
29:24Because from all I can tell, because you can only tell your ability by what other people say about you,
29:30because, you know, you're a creator and people would judge the final product, what you put out.
29:36So from what I can gather over the years and what people say about me is that I was always
29:42a very structural person.
29:44So in screenwriting, you have so many different elements about it.
29:47But structure was always something that I just, I just have to do first.
29:51No one asked me, sometimes apps don't even ask me to do an outline.
29:55I would always do it because I need it.
29:57This is how stories are born.
29:59So how do I design a structure?
30:01For me, it was, I basically just translated the three-act structure from a movie to a vertical series.
30:11Act one, you got to set up the stage and put characters in, have an inciting incident.
30:20And by end of act one, they have to launch on a new journey or start to solve the problem
30:27you gave them.
30:27So that would be the first, that would be the first paywall, usually.
30:33So that would be the first seven to ten episodes.
30:38And then after that, act two is you have to complicate this journey.
30:43You have to add more obstacles, complications to it.
30:49And by midpoint, the story should take a turn, which is usually the second paywall, episode 25 or 30, depending
30:57on how long you want it.
30:59And then the second part of act two, which is 30 to maybe 45, you try to even further increase
31:11the obstacle and complications that make this journey as difficult as possible.
31:15So you reach the end of act two, which is everybody knows darkest night.
31:20You make them at the lowest low and you make people wonder where the fuck do they go?
31:26How do they get out of this?
31:27And then by probably 45 to 60, because I do 60 episodes most often.
31:33So that would be 45 to 50 episodes at that point.
31:38Then you build this climax, how they miraculously overcome all those complications and obstacles and reach a very satisfying ending.
31:48So a lot of things happen there and just go to the end.
31:52Even when I train writers, people ask me, like, how do I how do I adapt to this medium fast
31:58enough?
31:59I was like, go back to what, you know, and translate it.
32:04It's not something new.
32:05People keep saying it's a new thing that was invented.
32:08No, all the new things were invented in the 60s, 70s.
32:13Hooks, cliffhangers, pacing, soapy stuff, melodrama.
32:18That was from like the Asian Greeks.
32:20So you just go back to what you know and the the the golden three act structure in Hollywood has
32:29been working for so many years.
32:30Just use that as a guideline and just do that and divide them up.
32:35So do that kind of structure.
32:37That's that's how I've been doing it.
32:39I think it's effective and it's fast.
32:42It gets more people who's never done this before into this field a lot faster because we just because I
32:48speak the language that they understand instead of creating this barrier, saying this is something you have to learn.
32:55We have a formula.
32:56I would look at the formula because some apps would even try to dissect my shows and create a formula.
33:02I was like, you don't have to do that.
33:04It was already out there.
33:05If a script writer wants from a film or TV background who wants to write vertical dramas, what's your suggestion
33:12to them?
33:12Go back to the basics.
33:15Structural work, like I said, just just really hone in on the three act thing and then maybe watch one
33:24or two shows or read actually reading scripts.
33:28Reading the scripts of one or two shows would be the most beneficial so that you can literally translate what
33:34I was just talking about.
33:35The act structure, because it's three act, eight sequence thing is taught in every film school.
33:41Most people who've been working in TV and film would already know that.
33:45So you just translate that into the new terms and episode breakdowns.
33:50So do that first and then try to get the flair of it.
33:57Try to understand you can actually go more out there in those kind of verticals.
34:02They are not so serious like American TV.
34:06It has to be it has to be deep.
34:09You have every every line people say has to have subtext.
34:13You actually can give yourself a little break from that.
34:17Don't do too too much in the subtext and do more about making it making it out there.
34:25How can they find scripts to read?
34:27I always give writers who ask me what I own the rights to and just just please please read this
34:34and see what what what what was different from the traditional TV and film.
34:39In a sense, in a sense, I would even analyze it for them.
34:43Like normally in an episode one of a TV show, this would this would be how it goes.
34:49But now you see, we have to strip away all those other elements and just go straight to the bone.
34:55Maybe they should just watch the whole show.
34:59Watch the show and really almost like you're in film school again.
35:03You just write down what happens at minute what an episode what.
35:08And then pull the whole structure out for yourself.
35:12Right now in North America, most of the vertical drama is still dominated by CEO romance stories.
35:18And what other type of stories do you think can be explored and why?
35:23That was actually something that I found the most difficulty with when I first started doing those verticals.
35:31I was like, why are they all CEOs?
35:35Do you understand in America, CEO is not a sexy position?
35:40People don't like businessmen.
35:43They're usually the villains.
35:44When I was still working for Good Short as a contractor, I was always just saying, can we just do
35:50some athletes?
35:51America runs on sports.
35:53So I wouldn't say my hockey alpha that I did with them was the very first sports one.
36:01I'm not sure.
36:02But we did see over the years, there's a lot of sports ones that really worked because your audience really
36:10likes watching sports.
36:11Even if they don't like it, their husbands watch it all the time.
36:14I know that for a fact.
36:16So I think sports is still underexplored because even with the sports ones that are out, they don't really follow
36:26through with the industry, with their profession, with the actual appeal.
36:32Because they always just go back to, he's an athlete, but he's also a billionaire.
36:36You're still doing a billionaire story.
36:38And also there's budget concerns.
36:40So if you want to do a football star, you want to do a hockey star, you really can't do
36:45a lot of games.
36:46So it's kind of almost becoming silly and ridiculous.
36:50Oh, this is a hockey player game.
36:52And this is a football star, but we never see a game.
36:55He's never on the field.
36:57So you have all those obstacles to overcome.
37:00So I understand why those are still not the main thing.
37:04But besides CEO romance, I think other ones would be, I don't want to just talk about the character's professions.
37:14I think romance as a whole, it's good.
37:19But romance in America is pretty much synonym for rom-com.
37:28I think we still don't have enough rom-com in this space because comedy is very hard to do.
37:35And a lot of the players are not native speakers, so they don't even understand or can try to imitate
37:44what's American humor.
37:46So those would be very hard to do and to, you know, prove to the bosses, basically, this would work.
37:54So I think the next one, if I were ever able to just make decisions I would do, you have
38:02to do rom-com.
38:03Rom-com is one of the biggest genres in North America.
38:08I was saying verticals found a space where traditional Hollywood is not touching or lost touch with.
38:15So this would be another space where verticals can really, really go in because rom-com movies in America was
38:26like one of the biggest, biggest players in the entire movie industry.
38:33People always go in to watch rom-coms.
38:35Rom-coms taught entire generations how to date, how to flirt, what love is, what relationships mean.
38:42But because now Hollywood is more, is contracting and movies are either solo budget, like $2 million or $250 million.
38:53They have to do superhero or they have to do such visual spectacles.
38:57So mid-budget rom-coms are missing from America.
39:00And people are already seeing that, well, the audience really just wants some feel-good rom-coms.
39:06So I really, really think rom-coms should be a main genre.
39:13What's the future of short drama?
39:14One thing for sure is even from the very beginning, I know this medium is going to stay.
39:21That's the only reason I even entertained being in this for a little while.
39:27I don't know how long I would be.
39:29But watching things on your phone has already become something that people do.
39:36And it's competing with all the other forms of entertainment.
39:40So watching things, content vertically is correct.
39:46It will be staying.
39:47It will never go away.
39:49It would probably even gradually take over other forms of watching content.
39:55But what the content is would determine where the current short drama industry is going.
40:03I think right now, like we were talking about, CEO romance stories are still the most predominant genres on the
40:14market.
40:15And they are managed to find some people to watch it.
40:19Some shows would make, I don't know, a couple million dollars.
40:23But that's not enough.
40:25That's not remotely enough.
40:27And people are always talking about Hollywood is eyeing this industry.
40:32Hollywood is coming in.
40:33Hollywood is not coming in.
40:35Hollywood is interested now.
40:37So I think the future would be, it might be able to stay, those kind of short dramas.
40:45But to have the same content that we have right now, then this industry cannot expand.
40:55I think the only way for it to expand is for the stories to start changing.
41:00And for the stories to start changing is not to make it more highbrow, make it more serious.
41:08That's not the point.
41:10To expand means you have to give it a little bit more soul.
41:16Right now, it is every story.
41:18Every other story is the same.
41:20I have fans asking me, where do I watch this?
41:24I thought it was on Drama Box, but it's on Drama Wave.
41:27What is the difference?
41:28I can't tell you because no one can.
41:33You use the same actors.
41:35You do the same stories.
41:36Some lines are identical.
41:38That's just not sustainable, in my opinion.
41:41To have Hollywood really, really come into this industry, it would still probably take more time, more than two years
41:50at least, to even start considering, you know, the real players would come in.
41:55And then maybe it would be changed or maybe it will be killed entirely.
42:00I don't think the verticals will be killed.
42:02The vertical format, I don't think it will ever be killed.
42:05I just don't know how long it can run on the same type of tropes and stories, because that's how
42:13soaps were killed.
42:14It's not hindsight 2020.
42:15It's something that happened.
42:18American television went from soaps on every channel every hour to now we only have three, three soaps and with
42:28barely any, any rating.
42:30Why do you think soaps are killed?
42:33I think partially by the audience, partially by the studios, just the creators involving a lot.
42:39So I think Hollywood ultimately has the artist mentality a little bit.
42:43So you want to be the trendsetter.
42:45You want to be better because the people who are working in it are always thinking that way.
42:51So then you keep advancing the tropes.
42:55You don't want to do tropes.
42:56We always want to do something fresh, original.
42:59How do you do fresh, original?
43:00You can't be doing the same thing the soaps have been doing for decades.
43:05Then you stay away from that.
43:07Then you start losing a little bit of the audience.
43:09They even tried some fresh and original things in the soap operas and they started losing viewers because they wanted
43:17the same thing.
43:19It's both sides helped making soaps going obsolete.
43:25That's, that's, that's my opinion.
43:27You
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