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

What if the most important person in vertical drama is the one no one's putting in the credits?
Adrion Trujillo would argue that's exactly the case — and he'd know. An award-winning writer, Adrion has shaped standout series and format-defining experiments across Pocket FM, Drama Box, and Pine Drama, from top-performing male-frequency sagas to bold creative swings. His most recent show, Chained to My Nemesis, is currently #1, arriving right off the back of Keep Your Ring, I'm President Now.
In this episode, Adrion takes us from the years of writing specs and entering contests that never materialized, to a single Twitter post that opened the door to Pocket FM — and the moment he realized that "TV on your phone" wasn't a step down from his dream job. It was his dream job.
From there, he and Pauline get into the real mechanics of the format: how a vertical writer's room actually works, why writers pitch from marketing moments before anything else, and why he believes the writer is the true author of vertical storytelling — even though the industry hasn't woken up to it yet. They also dig into the credit and compensation struggles carried over from traditional Hollywood, whether there's any such thing as "life after verticals," and what happens when Hollywood tries to walk into this space and add water.
Adrion closes with grounded, specific advice for directors, writers, and producers looking to break in — and a reminder to stop internalizing the "no's" and build your own path.
Whether you're already deep in the vertical world or just discovering it, this is a rare, candid look inside the machine from someone running at full speed within it.


Connect with Adrion Trujillo:

Instagram: @Trujelloforever

TikTok: @Tru_jello

If this one made you think, send it to someone standing at their own crossroads — a writer waiting for permission, a creator wondering if it's too late to change altitude.

Let's tell stories that connect.

What happens when the cop arresting the actors becomes one?
That's the story Kyle Maddox tells on this episode of The Vertical Reach Podcast. While working as a sheriff's deputy in southern Utah, Kyle spent a night on shift — in uniform, real handcuffs, real squad car — arresting actors for a feature film shooting in his city. Six months later, he'd moved to LA to pursue acting.

Today he's an actor, writer, and police technical advisor who's been working in vertical drama since 2022. In this conversation, Kyle traces his path from law enforcement to celebrity bodyguard to vertical lead — and makes the case that the police genre is the format's most untapped frontier, one he believes will explode once it's done right.

We get into what carries over from the badge (discipline, muscle memory, and the comfort of an on-set command structure), shooting The Duke's Obsession in Beijing, and why he's writing and developing a SWAT vertical with himself in the lead. We also talk about redefining success as fewer moves with higher leverage, and what it really takes to step outside your comfort zone.

Whether you're eyeing your own reinvention or building in the vertical space, Kyle's advice is simple: trust who you've become, and just do it.