Chris Wicke, founder and CEO of vertical drama studio Ember, joins The Vertical Reach Podcast to talk about vertical drama, micro drama, and how generative AI is reshaping the vertical storytelling industry almost overnight. Chris built Ember from a single $70,000 vertical drama film for Flex TV into a studio behind 22 vertical films with a combined audience approaching 2 billion views, working alongside major vertical drama platforms like ReelShort and DramaBox. In this episode, Chris breaks down "gray boxing," a hybrid production technique where real actors are filmed against blank backdrops while AI generates the backgrounds and world around them, and explains why he expects the current rush toward fully AI-generated vertical drama content to eventually swing back toward live-action vertical storytelling. He and Pauline also dig into how two decades editing reality TV shows like Naked and Afraid prepared him for vertical drama production, the moment he realized vertical drama wasn't a lateral career move but a true vertical leap, and his advice for creators and editors weighing their own reinvention. Before Ember, Chris spent 25 years in entertainment, producing for networks and brands including Discovery, CNN, MTV, Samsung, Sony Music, and the History Channel. He was one of the first American producers to enter the vertical micro drama space, back in early 2023. That leap started with a strange Upwork post looking for "American filmmakers that like making movies very much" — a listing from Flex TV, a company already producing melodramatic, low-budget vertical soap operas in China and Eastern Europe. Chris took the gig, pulled every favor he had in Los Angeles to shoot a film on a $70,000 budget, and watched it earn $10 million in six weeks and reach tens of millions of viewers. That single project changed the trajectory of his career. Chris and Pauline talk through what's actually happening inside the industry right now: platforms moving anywhere from 75% to 100% AI-generated content almost overnight, the current estimate that the U.S. is about 18 months behind China's vertical drama industry, and recent signals — like ByteDance pulling back a large share of AI-generated titles from TikTok — that audiences may already be tiring of fully AI content. Chris explains why he thinks the pendulum will swing back toward live-action and hybrid production, even if the industry never fully returns to the frantic pace of the format's earlier boom years. They also get into "gray boxing," the hybrid technique Ember is using on upcoming projects — shooting real actors in a white or green room with AI-generated wardrobe, backgrounds, and even background characters layered in afterward. Pauline shares her own experience with a similar hybrid technique on a branded commercial project, and the two compare notes on how this approach is essentially replacing traditional CGI at a fraction of the cost. On the craft side, Chris reflects on what carried over from two decades as a reality TV editor and how that background — being scrappy, fast, and comfortable finding story in limited resources — turned out to be better preparation for vertical drama than a traditional scripted film background. He and Pauline also nerd out on the mechanics of reality editing: multi-camera reality shoots, how footage gets organized by camp and by story producer, and how that intense, story-driven editing process shaped his instincts once he moved into scripted vertical work. Chris also opens up about the industry-wide disruption that pushed him toward vertical drama in the first place — a wave of reality TV editors and producers going unexpectedly quiet on work in early 2023 — and the moment he realized this wasn't a lateral career move, but what Pauline calls a true "vertical reach." He shares his "permission slip" advice for anyone standing at their own reinvention point: that it's okay to start over, even at the bottom, and that continuously reinventing yourself is becoming a requirement across every industry, not just entertainment. Looking ahead, Chris teases what's next for Ember, including a shift toward acquiring IP and partnering with investors to produce slates of films rather than working purely as a vendor. He also previews upcoming titles: a branded vertical drama with Fox Entertainment called Saddled with My Nemesis, dropping September 22nd, along with NBA Dropout to Tennis Ace (originally titled Second Serve) on Flex TV, and Rise the Sun Without You on DramaBox. Whether you're following the vertical drama and micro drama industry closely, curious about how generative AI is reshaping entertainment production, or standing at your own reinvention point, this conversation is a real-time look at an industry — and a career — being built as it's lived.
