By Victor Soares
My first contact with vertical designs took place in 2021. Despite working with content for the internet since 2010, and having followed almost all generations of this transformation, since the beginning of YouTube and the first great Brazilian youtubers, turning the camera vertical has caused me a huge strangeness.
At first, I really thought it would be impossible to make a good photograph or to create, in that frame, a plan that would please me. The first projects I conducted in this format, mostly advertising and content with influencers, did not satisfy me. I looked at the result and felt that something was wrong. It looked like I was trying to put a horizontal image inside a space that hadn't been made for her.
Gradually, I was finding a way to adapt to the vertical the plans that existed in my head. And one thing became clear very quickly: it was not enough to turn the camera and try to reproduce the same frame that would work in cinema or television. What works horizontally does not necessarily work vertically, and vice versa. It wasn't just a change of proportion. It was a change of language.
There was another challenge, too. By producing for the mobile phone, we were not competing with just other movies, series or advertisements. We were competing for public attention with all the content of social networks: fast, direct and built videos to arrest someone in a few seconds. You had to have a strong initial hook and almost always some kind of payoff at the end. Just like it happens in a TikTok video or an Instagram Reels.
Regardless of whether I'm telling a story or selling a product, I've come to bear that in mind. Between 2021 and 2024, I worked with more than 80 brands and conducted almost 300 vertical advertising with some of Brazil's best known influencers. This experience, added to my work with cinema in and out of the country, helped me to begin to understand vertical language. Not knowing, I was preparing the ground for what would appear in 2024, when I had my first contact with ReelShort and the vertical soap operas.
Even after a few years of working with vertical videos, I was quite reluctant in the face of that new narrative. As soon as I read the script for my first project, my reaction was to think, "That's horrible." For me, the text was exaggerated, wide open and unnatural. Nobody talks like that, I thought. No normal human being behaves like these characters. How could that attract the public?
But the truth was in the numbers, and they were saying exactly the opposite of what I had imagined. In China and the United States, this market had already exploded. They were stories that accumulated hundreds of millions of views and moved an ever-increasing industry. I could insist that it made no sense to me or try to understand why it made so much sense to so many people.
I hugged the project. And already on the third day of recording, I realized that I needed to completely change my thinking. That would not be a vertical advertising set, nor a content with influencers, but it would also not be a traditional set of cinema or television. The speed was that of the internet, but there was still a story being told, with characters, conflicts, turns and emotion, as in TV, cinema and traditional novels.
That's how my adventure began in the vertical novels and the attempt to understand a universe that today occupies a huge space in world entertainment.
A language of its own, not a minor version of television.
Perhaps the first mistake of looking at the vertical novels from the outside is to believe that they are just traditional soap operas recorded with the cell phone standing. They're not. The format has its own rules of framing, acting, assembly and rhythm. It requires conflicts presented very quickly, clear visual information and constant hooks. Each episode needs to make the audience want to slide to the next one, or pay to unlock it.
This explains why dialogues are often more direct, the characters are larger and emotions appear more explicitly. It's not just a lack of subtlety. It is a narrative built to be understood in seconds, often by someone who is on the bus, in the interval of work or sharing their attention with notifications and other screens.
That also doesn't mean that every vertical novel is good. There is a lot of content done in a hasty, misdirected way and with little artistic concern. But the problem is not in the format. Saying that a work is bad because it's vertical would be like saying that a movie is bad because it lasts 90 minutes or that a series is bad because it was produced for streaming. Format does not replace quality, but also does not prevent quality.
The market has grown at an impressive speed. Estimates from Omdia's consultancy pointed global revenues of approximately 11 billion dollars to microdramas in 2025. Specialized platforms feed their catalogs on a scale of hundreds of titles and thousands of episodes, while known names of the American industry and large media groups began to invest in the sector. Kevin Hart, Kim Kardashian, Fox, Peacock and other players are already moving in this space. Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video also began testing vertical consumer experiences within their own ecosystems.
Brazil, unlike many other markets, seems to have understood early that this would not just be a passing fashion. Shortly after the arrival of ReelShort's first national productions, Globo and other great Brazilian players began to develop their own projects. In the United States, it took years for part of the traditional industry to look seriously at the format. Here, very experienced professionals jumped headfirst almost immediately.
Of course, getting in fast doesn't mean understanding fast. In many cases, the Brazilian market initially tried to apply the same rules of television, cinema or advertising to the vertical. I did it myself. Learning begins precisely when we accept that it is another narrative, with another timing, another relationship with the public and another model of production, but in which it is still possible to tell a good story.
The fordism of audiovisual.
I usually say that vertical novels are a kind of audiovisual fordism. While a feature film can take years to develop, finance, produce, finish and launch, microdrama platforms need to put dozens or even hundreds of new titles on the air in very short periods. The demand for novelty is constant.
For a producer to remain competitive, it is often not enough to perform a series and spend months waiting for the next project. You have to film three, four, five or even six series a month. For apps, the logic is similar: they need to renew the catalog all the time, test stories, track the audience's response and feed a system based on volume, retention and recurrence.
This scale completely changes the process. It is not possible to require from a vertical novel produced in a few days the same level of finishing a feature film developed for years. Nor does it make sense to expect from a script written in a few weeks the same complexity as a work that has undergone dozens of treatments over months. Different proposals, financial models and production conditions are proposed.
But quantity can't be an excuse for a ridiculously low quality.
Producing fast doesn't mean producing without method. On the contrary: the shorter the time, the greater the organization needs to be. It is necessary to know exactly what plans are indispensable, how to drive the cast within that language, how to build the hooks, how to maintain continuity and where to concentrate the resources so that they appear on the screen. The vertical requires quick decisions, but should not require careless decisions.
Those who work with the Internet in Brazil have seen a similar transformation. Since YouTube started blowing up around here, creators have started publishing content almost daily. Many of these productions were fast, cheap and carried out by very small teams. Still, some were marked in the memory of an entire generation.
Who can forget Fabio Porchat painted in blue screaming "Jude"? Who doesn't remember Fried Rooster and his parody or the first sketches of the Paraphernalia? Those productions did not need to follow the logic of a feature film to create identification, form public and conquer a place in our imaginary. Even if they were made at high speed, they touched us.
I believe the vertical will follow a similar path. In the midst of thousands of titles, much will be forgotten quickly. But some stories will remain. Some characters will go through the screen of the cell phone and enter the memory of the audience. This, however, will only happen to those who truly understand this market, are willing to be a part of it and work to make it grow.
A gateway to the Brazilian industry.
The growth of vertical novels also creates an opportunity that should not be ignored by the Brazilian audiovisual. For small and medium-sized producers, the format can mean a constant sequence of projects and a new possibility of sustainability in a sector historically marked by long intervals between one production and another.
For professionals, the impact can be even greater. Actors, directors, writers, photography directors, art directors, costumers, editors, sound technicians, assistants and so many other departments that could take years before actually entering the dramaturgical market now find the possibility of working in four or five series within a single month, provided they are in the right place, with a producer prepared and under minimally responsible professional conditions.
This creates volume of work, practical experience and training of manpower. An actor who participates in several series learns to understand the camera and rhythm of that narrative. A director can test solutions, err, correct and mature at a speed that would hardly have made a long one every three years. Entire teams can specialize and create more efficient processes. And Brazilian producers can build portfolios capable of competing not only within the country, but in a global market that needs content all the time.
That is precisely why we should not treat the vertical as something passing, inferior or unworthy of the attention of more experienced professionals. He didn't come to replace cinema, television or traditional soap operas. One language doesn't have to kill the other to exist. The vertical came to occupy a space of its own, created by the way billions of people already use the cell phone and consume stories throughout the day.
There is a real opportunity before us. But it won't be taken advantage of just by whoever buys a camera, gets it up and shoots as fast as possible. People who understand language, respect the public and find ways to balance scale, efficiency and artistic care will grow. You'll grow up who's willing to learn, review certainties and do it the right way.
I had to go through this process. First I missed the frame. Then I rejected the scripts. Then I realized I was judging a new language with the rules of an old language. When I agreed to change my perception, I found not just another format, but a whole market.
Vertical soap operas already move billions, attract large companies and create thousands of opportunities. The question, therefore, is no longer whether that market will exist. He already exists. The question is whether Brazilian audiovisual will only produce in large quantities or whether it will take advantage of this scale to develop professionals, strengthen producers and create stories that the public will still remember in many years.
I believe we have the ability to make the second option. And if we do, the vertical will not be just another format within the national industry. He may be one of the tools that will help this industry grow.
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