Shorts fired: Are vertical microdramas the future of cinema?
What are micro dramas? Anne Chan, a Hong Kong-based distributor for the medium, described them as the ’90s soap-opera The Bold and The Beautiful on steroids. She said it in an interview with NPR in February, but it’s a fitting analogy. The videos that swim through our feeds are certainly micro – they last 90 seconds to three minutes. And they pack in the drama – it’s exaggerated tragedy, horror, comedy and romance. But their real calling card is that they’re all tailored to the mobile-screen, a portrait mode that is longer than it is wide, rather than the wide frames of the cinema or TV screen.
The genre took off in China around 2018, spread to Korea and the US and has been popular in Indian regional languages too. No surprise there; our phone has quickly become our primary screen. But some filmmakers are heralding the new format as the future of cinema. Now, that’s the real surprise.
Edge of tomorrow
In March, Mumbai-based Orange Elephant Studios and DOT Media, produced Unmatched, a thriller about a woman who outsmarts her stalker. Each of its 16 episodes ran for only three minutes and ended on a cliffhanger. You went through a whole season in the time it takes to watch one episode of a prestige HBO drama. Unmatched was released only on Instagram, and only on digital creator Sakshi Keswani’s page, (@_BeingSuku_). Keswani has 2.1 million followers and played the lead, Arohi. It was possibly India’s first micro series.
Afroz Khan, director and co-creator, shot it like an ad or streaming show. There were Sony FX9 cameras with car rigs, sound recordists, lighting, spot boys, a post-production team and a total crew of 40. There were storyboards and retakes. Shooting took 16 days over locations as diverse as a bar, a local train and city streets. “I wanted to keep the series Netflix-ready, which meant meeting streaming standards of equipment quality and post-production,” Khan says. “So, if I were to pitch it to a platform as a slightly longer four-part series as opposed to 16 smaller episodes, it would still work.” In other words, he took a risk, but hedged his bets.
Over the last few months, Rocket Reels, Pocket FM, and even Meta, have created short content especially designed for mobile-phone viewing. “The shallow understanding of micro drama is the duration,” says Khan. “What it really means is that unlike a feature film, in which I have 90 minutes to set up a story, introduce conflict and move to an ending, all I have is a few minutes.”
So, filmmakers shrink not just the space and time for the scenes, but the three-act structure too. No slo-mo establishing shot, no zooming in on a chai-making sequence, no lingering over a falling tear. Actors must stand closer to each other or they’ll be cropped out. More close-up and solo shots are worked into the storyboard. Group shots are arranged with people standing in smaller rows or one behind the other. It’s all optimised for intimate, hand-held viewing.
Framing device
Amit Thakur, 22-year-old videographer and producer, has been shooting vertically for brand stories, product shoots and ad campaigns. He’s done tracking shots with bikes and cars and used a drone-camera too. “There is nothing you cannot do in a vertical format,” he says. “It is just about aligning characters or products differently and flipping the camera position.”
Rocket Reels, a new micro-drama app and YouTube channel co-founded by film producer Kranti Shanbhag, has released what they claim is the world’s first vertical-format reality show. Jhukega Nahi Saala aims to highlight and reward extraordinarily resilient individuals. The set, the host, the jury and the audience have all been worked into the vertical frame through a multi-camera set up. They also have a series with actor Sunny Leone out soon, and have roped in Rajpal Yadav, Rahul Dev and Mugdha Godse for other shows.
“Yes, it takes only two months from start to finish for approximately 15-20 episodes of a vertical micro-series, but we will still use the best directors, writers and actors we can,” says Shanbhag. “YouTube already allows for 30-minute vertical videos. Our reality series has 22-minute episodes. So, we are not restricting ourselves to short-form content.”
The long view
In China, the micro drama market is now worth about $7billion. All eyes are on the mobile screen, and big platforms are starting to pivot. In India, Kuku TV, Pocket TV, Story TV and Flick TV are creating micro-drama entertainment. And much of the audience seems to be from smaller cities – Jaipur, Patna, Kanpur, Kota and Lucknow – where cinema halls are few and the TV at home is for family viewing.
Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) is waiting and watching. They released Party of Two, a micro series for Instagram in September. The show follows the lives of two flatmates and their everyday moments over seven 90-second episodes. Then, Meta hit pause, focusing instead on feature-linked Reels, in which users can patch various clips together and create their own episodes – like a series of #IncomingStitch bits.
In June, Instagram US rolled out Anyway, a US campaign that coincides with 15 years of the platform’s existence. “The objective was to inspire creativity among people, bring them together, and highlight how Instagram is a place where you can overcome self-doubt and just create it, share it, do it anyway,” says a spokesperson. “Party of Two reiterates this brand belief.” This means that, while screens shrink, frames rotate to vertical and episodes get shorter, the hand that’s holding the screen may also be the one doing the shooting.
From HT Brunch, December 13, 2025
Follow us on www.instagram.com/htbrunch
