EXCLUSIVE: Dan Löwenstein began making microdramas in early 2024 and has now remodeled 20 vertical sequence. With the standard biz laser-focused on all issues micro – fueled by bullish analyst forecasts – Löwenstein provides Deadline a director’s eye view on microdrama and tells us he’s planning to launch his personal app.
The educational curve was steep after Löwenstein was supplied his first microdrama gig. “I went into prep on the script after which the subsequent day we had been taking pictures,” he remembers. Quick-forward to late 2025 and he’s, in microdrama phrases, a veteran, with buzzy initiatives comparable to Pleasure and Prejudice and massive hits together with The Mafia’s Obsession below his belt.
“It’s its personal format, and you may’t evaluate it to something that’s on the market when it comes to the way in which you shoot it,” he says of the burgeoning style. “By way of the tales, they’re so data-driven. The platforms go on what sells. It’s very money-orientated, because the [wider] trade is, after all, however this feels so clear.”
The pile-‘em-high and sell-‘em-cheap enterprise mannequin requires forged and crew to work quick. Every day soaps are perhaps the closest conventional TV will get, however the tempo required to make a sequence spanning dozens of episodes and costing a few hundred thousand {dollars} is dizzying.
Löwenstein says he has motored by 26 pages of a script in a single day earlier than, however reckons the candy spot is someplace between 12 and 15. “Twelve is like taking pictures three pages of a characteristic and has an identical sort of steadiness…and also you’re not spending hours establishing a technocrane exterior to get a shot by a window or one thing. It’s all the time quite simple: Frontal protection of the principle actors.”
Play The Hits: Romance, Wealthy CEOs & Bullies
With the likes of ReelShort and DramaBox main the way in which, microdramas have typically fallen right into a handful of recognizable narratives, principally revolving round romantic themes. Werewolves had been scorching for a minute, whereas the billionaire-CEO-and-intern love story endures. One other trope revolves round a bully and sufferer who reconcile. “That one goes from bullying to like, after which you’ve gotten your sort of payback second, which is all the time actually essential,” Löwenstein explains.
“It’s on the verge of being very tacky lots of the time, so the artwork, for me, and utilizing the expertise I’ve had, is attempting to lower that, however nonetheless do the tropes. I’m locked into what the shopper desires, however on the identical time, there’s a manner of creating it really feel extra actual and extra human.”
In the meantime, the style combine is widening with smaller platforms like Tallflix attempting out new concepts comparable to survival drama Sport of Selection. Within the period of Squid Sport and The Operating Man reboot, survival is well-trodden floor in mainstream movie and TV, however in microdrama it’s an evolution. Löwenstein says: “I’m hoping that the success of Sport of Selection opens up the eyes of the larger platforms, as a result of they will see that it doesn’t need to be a romance associated story.”
Don’t Name My Agent
Fox Leisure lately purchased into Ukraine-based vertical video enterprise Holywater, which operates platforms comparable to My Ardour, My Muse, and the European scene is rising a quick clip. If the U.S. is forward of Europe, lots of bets are being positioned on this facet of the Atlantic, with the likes of Zone of Curiosity backer Entry Leisure and different high-end movie and TV producers surveying the scene.
Löwenstein is working with Spirit Studios and Evening Prepare Media on a brand new microdrama – which we had been first to report on in October – that’s distinctive in being a UK-Germany-financed mission. Based mostly within the UK, the director says he’s getting hit-up by all method of big-name producers, studios and labels because the trade tries to get its head round microdrama. “They’re extra into data gathering at this level. Just a few of them are actually near growing one thing, as extra of an experiment to see if they will put their abilities to work in that format.”
He provides: “L.A. is somewhat bit forward of us when it comes to taking them significantly. Actors within the UK, a few of them anyway, are like, ‘Don’t inform my agent,’ whereas in LA, they’re shouting about them. They’re ‘vertical actors’, they usually’re pleased with it. There are some that actually convey the cash in. When you forged them in your vertical, you’re extra possible to have the ability to promote it to a platform.”
Recognizable expertise is beginning to present up in European micro initiatives. We had been first with the information that Lock Inventory star Nick Moran can be in Swipe!, an upcoming vertical drama from British indie Shogun Movie and native distributor Trinity Content material Companions.
Begin-Up Frenzy
Löwenstein has his personal label, Home of Create, and is making ready to launch his personal microdrama app, hopefully in 2026. “That’s the plan,” he says. “I’ve obtained an amazing group already in place, and we’re in search of funding. We’ve obtained a primary spherical already in for the tech facet of issues, in order that’s trying actually thrilling. We’re fairly shut now.”
The helmer might need a head-start when it comes to expertise, however is definitely not alone in getting a microdrama start-up underway. Final week we had the inside track on Shorties, a brand new vertical studio primarily based in L.A., London and Istanbul, and that counts former Netflix and CBS brass amongst its founders. Not lengthy earlier than, was the information that Invoice Block, the previous Miramax boss, was launching vertical drama platform GammaTime. In August, Terrifier distributor Cineverse and Lloyd Braun’s Banyan launched MicroCo with trade vets Susan Rovner and Jana Winograde taking exec roles.
Micro-Economics
Whether or not in L.A., London, Kyiv or Istanbul, the trick for the newbies can be to harness what’s working within the format with out changing into one other Quibi. They might want to churn out hit sequence for lower than the Jeffrey Katzenberg-backed platform was splashing on a single episode in some instances. The ballpark for a Europe-produced microdrama is $150,000. We hear the primary UK-produced initiatives will see that edge nearer to $250,000. For context, a high-end UK TV drama can are available at $4M an ep. Put one other manner, that’s the price of 16 top-end vertical sequence.
“The primary factor, from my viewpoint, to actually interact the UK viewers is to get UK writers who perceive the format, the tropes, and in addition, embrace what it’s and don’t try to battle it, as a result of as quickly as you try this, it simply turns into one thing completely different,” says Löwenstein.
Having mastered micro, Löwenstein is now going old-school and about to shoot a regular-length film. That can, he says, require a level of unlearning. “I’m about to go and shoot a characteristic in Cyprus, and it’s with some very critical actors, so I’m like: ‘Okay, I must rewire my mind.’”
