TV's 'wild west' Can the rise of vertical drama rescue Britain's film industry?

Vertical dramas are a Chinese cultural phenomenon that keeps millions of viewers glued to their phones – and now provide an unlikely source of work for UK film and TV crews.

- Dan Milmo Michael Savage

The bite-size melodramas, which have breathless titles such as A Flash Marriage With the Billionaire and My Firefighter Ex-Husband Burns in Regret, are chopped into one-minute episodes for avid consumption on vertically held smartphones.

Britain is an increasingly popular location for these typically low-budget productions. This reflects the appeal of British actors in a genre proving a smash with US audiences as well as lower filming costs than the US and the attraction of UK locations for dramas with a royal or aristocratic theme.

The emergence of vertical dramas has coincided with a dip in the UK’s film and TV industry, with almost a fifth of freelancers saying they are out of work. Dan Löwenstein, a British film and TV director, has shot 16 vertical dramas over the past year including a version of Pride and Prejudice for ReelShort, a US-based platform with a Chinese-backed owner.

Löwenstein spoke on a location shoot in Kent for Obsessed With My Scheming CEO, a remake of a Chinese hit about a relationship between a lawyer and a scion of a crime family.

Löwenstein said vertical drama was providing "income and opportunities" for actors and crew. He added: "For actors, it’s giving the opportunity to have a leading role in a film. For crew, if you’re in with a production company or in with a producer, you could work pretty much full-time at the moment because there’s so many being produced in the UK."

A key difference with conventional drama is production pace. Löwenstein says it is normal to shoot three pages of script a day on a standard feature but with a vertical drama he has gone as high as 25. Obsessed is shooting 77 pages in seven days, cramming in lines like "I’m about to be engaged, you’re about to be married. One last round?" and "Wayne! You and your lawyer bitch are dead – you hear me? DEAD."