From the founder of one of the first social-first studios

VERT

A decade ago, social-first changed how brands made content. This is the version built for what comes next. Director-led, vertical-native production for serialized social, microdrama, and always-on brand work.

75M+
Views in week one.
Screen Time.
Director on our bench.
800M
Impressions.
One Tinder campaign.
One vertical idea.
100M+
Views. Meta.
Always-on social.
Built the model.
$26B
Where the market
is headed.
We're already there.
Scroll
The Work
Vertical. Native. Now.
This is what vertical-native looks like. Built for the phone, made to be watched.
The Series Opportunity

The next wave of
brand storytelling
is already here.

Brands are no longer buying campaigns. The smartest ones are building worlds — serialized, vertical-native content that audiences watch because they want to, not because they're forced to. Roomies ran nine episodes before anyone knew it was a Bilt ad. Screen Time broke TikTok records in its first week. Brooklyn Coffee Shop has 95M+ views on pure deadpan comedy.

This is the format. This is the moment. And VERT is built to make it.

$11B
Global micro-drama revenue in 2025
$26B
Projected by 2030
3
Revenue models — brand-funded, platform deals, studio bets
1
Studio with a director bench and brand relationships doing this. Us.
Brand-Funded Series · Bilt
Roomies

A mockumentary following a 25-year-old from Ohio navigating NYC. Zero brand mentions for nine episodes. Bilt's name never appeared. The audience didn't care — they just kept watching.

3.6M Likes · 2× Webby Winner · Season 2 at Sundance
Watch on TikTok →
Creator Series · Independent
Brooklyn Coffee Shop

Deadpan comedy filmed with cinematic quality. Short episodes built for binge-scrolling. Proof that vertical storytelling can build a real, loyal audience from scratch.

95M+ Views · 409K Followers
Watch on Instagram →
Platform Deal · Hoorae x TikTok
Screen Time

Issa Rae's first micro-drama. Directed by Kristen Brancaccio — who is on the VERT bench. Broke TikTok records. Highest seven-day watch time of any series on the platform.

75M Views · Week One · Top Series on PineDrama
Watch on TikTok →
How We Build Them

From concept to camera.

01
Concept + Writing
Original episodic concepts built for the format. Telenovela-style serialized arcs, microdrama hooks, cliffhanger structure. We can develop from scratch or execute a brief.
02
Director-Led Production
A bench of directors who shoot serialized vertical natively. Fast, lean, built for volume. Episodes in days, not months.
03
Platform-Native Delivery
Cut and optimized for TikTok, Reels, and vertical platforms. Built to be watched because audiences want to, not because they have to.
04
Always-On Engagement
Community management, audience building, and serialized release strategy that turns a series into a following.
Brands want their own Roomies.
We know how to build it.

Brand-funded series. Platform deals. Studio-owned IP. VERT operates in all three lanes — with a director bench that has already proven it can build worlds in vertical format.

$26B
On Our Bench · Screen Time Director

Kristen
Brancaccio

Kristen directed Screen Time — Issa Rae's debut micro-drama for Hoorae Media and TikTok's PineDrama. The series broke platform records in its first week, hitting 75 million views and the highest seven-day watch time of any series on the platform. She is on the VERT director bench and ready to work.

View Kristen's Work →
75M
Views in the first week on TikTok
#1
Top performing series on PineDrama
26+
Episodes — 1 minute each, built for binging
↑
Highest 7-day watch time of any series on the platform
Vertical Series Directors

Built for microdrama.

Directors with real serialized vertical experience. Telenovela-style storytelling, short-form episodic, retention-driven structure built for mobile-first platforms. This is the hardest thing to staff and the most important thing to get right.

ReelShort · 143 Episodes Directed
Alex O'Brien
Director-DP behind two vertical micro-drama series: Saved by the Sexy Cowboy (74 episodes, 48.8M views, interactive branching narrative) and The Virgin Camp Counselor (69 episodes). Telenovela-style, retention-driven, built for the phone.
View Work →
Writer-Director · 19+ Vertical Series
Kristen Brancaccio
A microdrama specialist who writes and directs. Directed Issa Rae's Screen Time (Hoorae / TikTok) plus ReelShort's #1 hits The Senator's Son and Summer Situationship, and ShortsApp's #1 show of 2025. Top 10 finalist on HBO's Project Greenlight. She develops her own material, which is rare and exactly what this format needs.
View Work →
Narrative · Vertical
Maria Cardenas
Narrative director with a strong eye for emotional, character-driven storytelling that translates naturally to vertical and serialized formats.
View Work →
Narrative · Vertical
Jose Rosette
Director working in narrative and vertical formats, with a cinematic sensibility suited to serialized social storytelling.
View Work →
The Bench

Directors who live
and breathe vertical.

Not a traditional roster. A living, growing bench of creator-directors who shoot, edit, and think in the format. Fluent in pacing, hooks, and audience behavior natively.

01
Hannah Varnell
Commercial · Fashion · Documentary
View Reel →
02
Mary Fix
Social-Native · Comedy
View Reel →
03
Kevin Kim
Narrative · Micro-Series
View Reel →
★ SCREEN TIME
Kristen Brancaccio
Drama · Vertical Series
View Reel →
05
Elise Schetz
Social-Native · TikTok
View Reel →
06
Milky Tran
Social-Native · Visual
View Reel →
07
Lanre Danmola
Comedy · Lifestyle
View Reel →
08
Michael Martin
Comedy · Food · Brand
View Reel →
09
Jon Schwartz
Lifestyle · Brand
View Reel →
10
Keith Kennedy
Social-Native · Comedy
View Reel →
Founder
Hope Farley
Hope Farley
Founder, VERT

Over 25 years across traditional production, music video, branded content, and social-first media. Started at Radical Media alongside Tarsem, Dave Meyers, and Chris Milk. Co-founded Adolescent Content, building one of the first Gen Z agencies and content studios focused on social-first campaigns, before that was a category. Now building VERT, the studio she kept seeing the need for everywhere.

Get in Touch →
Selected Work
The receipts.

25 years of productions across every format — from Tarsem and Dave Meyers to TikTok and Reels. The through-line is always the same: culture-first, production-smart, results that hold up.

Meta — We the Culture — A set of digital series highlighting the Black creators who make the metaverse go round

Meta — Always-on social, 100M+ views, 52% engagement lift

Tinder — Gen Z brand repositioning, 800M impressions, 175% increase in downloads

Walmart — TikTok-first e-commerce strategy, 20+ viral videos at 1M+ views each

Music Video — Britney Spears, Snoop Dogg, Pharrell, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, Kylie Minogue, The Black Keys

Brands — Nike, Google, Netflix, Beats by Dre, Pinterest, Adidas, Under Armour, Mattel, P&G

Selected work produced at Adolescent Content.

Let's Build

Ready to make
something that works?

Vertical-first. Director-led. Built for how people actually consume content today.

hope@vert-tv.com