I’ve been told by multiple people that a collection of short dramas doesn’t necessarily look different from an independent film or commercial shooting unless everything saves costs faster. Although traditional shooting will be in the past few weeks or months, the entire season of vertical performances is usually shot within two weeks.
Nicole Mattox, one of the vertical stars working with Los Angeles’ reelshort, told me that she usually booked two to three shots in a month, with only two days. She started out as a professionally trained actress from Texas, and she only worked in several small film productions before the stumbled drama industry in 2023. But she said she quickly learned how to remember all her lines – an impressive feat, considering that these platforms usually shoot twelve pages of scripts a day, while traditional movies can only shoot three.
Matoks said her acting coach told her that her performance wasn’t necessarily impractical. Instead, it’s just that every plot development has incredible meaning to her character. For example, in the fictional world of vertical drama, a romantic breakup may be your life. “There’s nothing else to keep going. You have no future. Everything is ruined,” Mattox explained.
Create global stars
Hao, who works at Reelshort to recruit talents, said many of the company’s actors come from modeling or advertising backgrounds and have never played a role in speeches before. Now, they can star in twelve shows in a year and quickly grow their careers.
The third reel production Mattox starred in a romantic comedy about professional hockey, called Break the ice. Mattox plays the role of the personal assistant of an NHL player, and he is naturally his secret baby mom. The show has been out of control, with more than 300 million views of Reelshort.
Matoks said she was surprised by the dedication of her fans, many of whom were in the Philippines. In May, some of them paid a face to celebrate her birthday by celebrating her birthday by putting a face on the billboards on Times Square. Earlier this month, they rented another billboard in Manila to promote her latest work. Your show “makes me a kill,” one commenter wrote on her personal tiktok account, where she amassed 130,000 followers.
What did reelshort do after this Break the ice Become a hit showing the real secret behind its success. The company quickly adapted it into a Spanish-speaking and Japanese-speaking market, but it no longer dubbed existing conversations or simply exchanged actors, changing key aspects of the plot. In the Spanish version, the male protagonist becomes a football player, while in the Japanese version, he is a baseball star. The original series debuted in July 2024; locally filmed adaptations dropped in September and December of the same year.
In Hollywood, this speed is incredible. Four years after the performance of South Korea Netflix Squid Game Becoming a global sensation, there are still rumors that the US’s adaptability is in it. The short film industry is not only growing much faster, not only because of its lower production costs, but also because startups like Reelshort have mastered the art of localization, but after all, they have to export the genre from China in the first place. While Sensor Tower says U.S. audiences still account for about 49% of global revenue, half of this year’s short drama app downloads come from Latin America and Southeast Asia. This explains why Reelshort makes popular English shows My Billionaire Husband’s Double Life In the other five languages, and why it has started working with Colombia’s Legacy Telenovela Manufacturing Company.
Chinese roots
Reelshort’s parent company, Crazy Maple Studio, was previously controlled by Col Group, one of the largest publishers of digital novels in China. The startup now says its founder, Joey Jia, owns the company, although Col Group continues to hold a 49% stake. Even if the genre is global, most people who make short dramas in the United States still seem to be Chinese immigrants or Chinese Americans, mainly because they are more familiar with how it works.
Jay, a skit maker from Los Angeles, China, said the industry is still seeking guidance and inspiration in China. One of the key courses it learns from China is the importance of collecting extremely detailed user data. Which episode made people stop watching the show? Which one makes them register for a subscription?
