What does it look like to be inside a revolution before the rest of the world catches on?

Daniel D. Newman found out — not by accident, but by spending 15 years living and working in China, where he watched vertical drama go from a niche format on metro screens to a global industry. Now back in the UK and fully embedded in the Western vertical space, he's leveraging everything he knows to build bilingual stories that travel.

In this episode, Daniel walks us through the birth of vertical drama in China — from the dominance of Hongguo to the ecosystem behind platforms like Drama Box and the mechanics of a market years ahead of the West. He shares what surprised him as a filmmaker making the shift from landscape to vertical: the reframing of space, the dirty singles, the cliffhanger every 90 seconds.

We also get into the real economics of the indie vertical filmmaker — what it means to have platforms willing to pay after a film is made, but not before. And how Daniel is navigating that gap as he develops three new vertical concepts and considers whether to lead with proofs of concept or go straight for the 50-episode mark.

His background is unlike anyone else in this space: bilingual in Mandarin, bicultural by experience, and entrepreneurial by necessity. That combination has given him what he calls a "back door" — direct relationships with both the LA and China sides of the biggest vertical platforms in the world.

If you're watching the vertical space and wondering who's already ahead of the curve, this is that conversation.

Connect with Daniel D. Newman:
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Watch Shanghai Sherlock on ReelShort:
https://www.reelshort.com/episodes/episode-1-shanghai-sherlock-6a05e459cd4097f64401ce53-chbns769vv?play_time=1