Shadow Hollywood: Vertical drama and cross-cultural writing – How new models of drama production are impacting current screen industry practice

‘Vertical’ is a rapidly growing field of digital drama content that has found great success in category/genre fiction for mobile viewers in recent years. In this article, I discuss the background of Vertical, elements of Vertical content and my experience of directly applying findings from my Ph.D. research on cross-cultural writing to co-writing six Vertical series financed by Chinese app providers. I elaborate on some of the techniques and approaches from my research that can easily be adapted to intercultural screen content making. I also consider the value to emerging writers and screen practitioners of becoming skilled in new formats such as Vertical to serve the flexibility required for a career in the ever-evolving field of screenwriting.