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Tiny confession: we have a favorite actor now and we do not know his name, only that he owns exactly one leather jacket. The jacket has range. So does he.
James Franco took a vertical lead, under a union deal
James Franco is headlining "Love, Lies & Frank," a 50-episode microdrama streaming exclusively on Shortical. He plays Jimmy Frank, an advertising agency chief squeezed by criminal and supernatural trouble tied to a past he thought was settled. Eric Guilmette and Neela Jolene co-star, Eric Wang Schwager directed, and Melissa Lynn Moore wrote it.
The credit that matters most to anyone working in the format sits further down the sheet. This is among the first productions made under SAG-AFTRA's (Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) new Verticals Agreement, and the production used no artificial intelligence (AI) generated performances. A recognizable lead, a 50-episode order and union terms on the same call sheet.
Note also that the writer and director are named in the trade coverage at all. In a format that has spent years shipping titles with anonymous crews, that is not a small detail.
Why this matters for you: For actors and crew, the Verticals Agreement is the difference between a fast gig and a covered one, and every named lead who signs under it makes that framework harder for the next production to route around. For writers and directors, look at whose names ran in the coverage: Moore and Schwager. The format is starting to publish its authorship, which is how credits turn into careers.
Sources: Variety · TheWrap · Michael Fairman TV
🇺🇸 United States
1. Fifty novelists just signed on to write vertical. Y+X Entertainment added more than 50 authors and screenwriters, several of them New York Times bestsellers, to its LumiCreator network ahead of the fall beta of LumiView, its premium vertical platform; founder and CEO Vivian Yin, previously of Fremantle China, announced it August 11, with Tosca Lee's "Demon" already shooting in South Korea alongside titles from Kathy Tyers, Christy Barritt, Lorie Langdon, Candace Kade and Sara Ella. Yin's pitch is creators as long-term partners rather than content providers, with each story built to run into publishing, gaming and live experiences. A buyer arguing that owning the intellectual property (IP) beats owning the download. Bring the thing you already own. → Señal News · World Screen · Broadcast
2. SPIN puts numbers on the working vertical actor's week. In an August 12 feature, the music and culture magazine reports mini-budgets and roughly USD 500 a day for most of the field, with leads Savannah Coffee and Rhett Wellington describing full features shot in eight to 10 days; Coffee says she first spotted verticals in the casting-access sites where actors upload self-tapes. The glamour is thin, the volume is real, and the door is genuinely unlocked. → SPIN
3. A creator-side argument about how legacy should hire you. In the August 13 Vertical Bloom, Second Rodeo's Franziska Harms makes the case that creators are not a talent booking: they came up as writer, director, editor and marketer at once, and that synthesis is the asset, so the ask is buy-in through creative authority, development, ownership or backend, not just a day rate. Useful language to have in your pocket the next time a deal memo lands. → Open Gardens
Here's what else is new:
The Ankler asks what happens when legacy characters go vertical. The trade's latest looks at six streamers launching short-form feeds inside six months and how something like a Ross-and-Rachel microdrama becomes a real commissioning question. → The Ankler
LA Castle Studios maps who is actually making verticals. An August 7 guide naming the production companies behind micro drama output, useful if you are trying to work out who to send a deck to. → LA Castle Studios
🌐 Worldwide
1. A vertical drama is going to the cinema in Korea. Lee Joon-ik, the director of "The King and the Clown" and "The Book of Fish," made his first short-form series with "Father's Home-Cooked Meals," and Lezhin Snack says it will open exclusively at Lotte Cinema on September 9 before its digital release, the first theatrical run for a short-form drama; it stars Jung Jin-young, Lee Jung-eun and Byun Yo-han, from Gorita's webtoon. Lee's line on the choice: the vertical frame lets viewers see the deepest corners of a character. The format is the format, whatever the size of the screen you project it onto. → The Korea Times
2. India turned the casting call itself into a microdrama. Kuku TV's "Sabse Bada Dramebaaz," billed as India's first acting reality microdrama and co-presented with Meesho and Tinder, ran 50 episodes of about two minutes, drew more than 2,000 audition entries and put 12 finalists through four live rounds in Mumbai in front of judges Rakesh Bedi, Jannat Zubair and Prince Narula; the August 15 grand finale hands one male and one female winner about USD 6K each plus a lead role in an upcoming Kuku TV microdrama. An audition that pays and airs. Every talent pipeline should be so honest about what it is. → Storyboard18 · Indian Television
3. Australia is finally building a room for this. Koala Reels, a division of Tasmania's Star Rae Productions, and South Australia's Dingo Drama are staging the country's first Australian Microdrama Forum on Sunday August 30, an online day of eight panels from 10am to 6pm Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) covering development, screenwriting, directing, acting and distribution, closing with the launch of Vertical48, a free 48-hour microdrama episode challenge open to any Australian creator in September. A local scene starts the day someone books the room. → FilmInk
Here's what else is new:
A Nigerian vertical drama cleared 25 million views in four days. "Billion Naira Bride," 60 episodes on LunarticksUSCA starring Aderonke Onuoha and Jay Charles Ujomu, broke out on TikTok and is being read as a marker for Nollywood's microdrama moment. → The Guardian Nigeria
Sony Pictures Television's first Latin American microdrama leans on folklore. Co-produced with VIP 2000, "No es un Mito: La Llorona" runs 60 episodes of roughly one minute and opens a banner built around the region's urban legends. → C21Media
Today's Pick
A tour of the machinery underneath the AI-made vertical wave, and where the tooling is heading next. → Watch on YouTube
Vertical is quietly collecting the things a real industry has, union terms, owned stories, a theatrical date, local scenes of its own. Build like it is permanent.
Until tomorrow. Stay Vertical.
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