'Verticals' send Hollywood into steep decline

Tilly Norwood is a young, pretty actor who is causing a storm in Hollywood. She has great headshots, a resumé and apparently genuine interest from the TV and film industry. Her appeal is obvious. She doesn’t argue about contracts or ask for a trailer. She does not need rehearsals and never forgets her lines - because she only has the ones you type in. In fact, she does not eat, sleep or age. She is fully AI-generated.

According to her creator Eline Van der Velden, a Dutch-British actress-turned-producer, agents are circling, which if true says less about Tilly and more about the state of the industry: when an algorithm is taking meetings, human actors are right to feel nervous.

Meanwhile, human actors are filming on these productions in Los Angeles today that have titles like '18-year-old great-grandma', 'Fired, then I won the Superbowl', 'I Married a Criminal who turned out to be a billionaire hero', etc, etc.

No, these aren’t parody titles, porn videos nor intended to be ironic. These are the names of some of the fastest-growing productions in Hollywood and they tell you everything about how the acting world has changed - and why LA, once the centre of world filmmaking, now feels like a fever dream as TV and film productions have fled to cheaper places.

Welcome to the world of 'verticals' or vertical short-form videos - bite-sized, phone-first dramas, usually produced by Chinese companies, shot at breakneck speed, with storylines so melodramatic they make Fair City look like James Joyce. These 'micro-dramas' are absolutely booming, generating $8 billion globally.

Hollywood is no longer Hollywood 

There was a time when Los Angeles was the undisputed heart of global filmmaking. When I first arrived here during Barrack Obama’s inaugural presidential campaign, I felt the energy, buzz and hope of Tinseltown.

Then came Netflix and the streamers followed by Covid-19 pandemic. Productions ground to a halt. Many shows never restarted.

Then came the writers’ union strike.

Then the actors’ union strike.

Even with eventual resolution, the studios’ hardline response - layoffs, cancellations, cost-cutting - were seen by many actors as a lasting form of collective punishment.

Meanwhile, tax incentives in other US states such as Georgia, but also Canada, UK, Ireland, even Bulgaria, pulled productions overseas. They offered deals California couldn’t (or rather wouldn’t) match, assuming the work would always return. It didn’t.

Hollywood stopped being a place and became a brand, a nostalgic sticker on productions filmed in Dublin warehouses and Mayo islands.

The centre of gravity shifted and LA barely noticed until it was too late.

A new industry with no rules

Into this vacuum came the Verticals - short, addictive, hyper-dramatic mini-shows filmed cheaply, edited fast and consumed (vertically) on phones by millions. They pay modestly but offer steady work. They shoot constantly and don’t bother with SAG-AFTRA union contracts. None come with the pay and contract protection of conventional TV/film productions, while now being the single biggest source of acting jobs in Los Angeles.

The Union, slow to understand the scale of the shift, is now playing catch-up. Meanwhile, commercials - once a crucial income stream for actors -  have quietly become predominantly non-union too. A commercial that used to cover your rent for a year might now pay for a week - if you could do it.

Some insiders whisper that the Union’s strike pushed even more productions out of LA. SAG-AFTRA denies it, but the numbers - and the empty sound stages - suggest it happened anyway.

Just as actors adjusted to self-tapes - filming their own auditions at home - with lower paid, non-union work and shrinking opportunities, artificial intelligence can now generate crowds, extras, lighting, special effects and, increasingly, fully generated actors. Digital stand-ins are becoming normal. Entire scenes can be created without a single human on set. What once required massive budgets can now be done by software.

Studios see it. And they’re adapting faster than any union can regulate.

Auditions from your living room - if you can afford one

The old ritual of driving across town for auditions is largely dead. Most industry offices don’t even exist anymore. Today, 99% of auditions are self-taped - filmed by actors in their apartments, between the wardrobe and the bed, when the cat is not looking.

Call-backs? Online. Chemistry reads? Online. Casting director meetings? Online (if you’re lucky). And here’s the irony: you no longer need to live in LA to audition for LA shows, but if you ‘pretend’ to be a local and actually book the job, you must pay for your own flights and accommodation. Cash-strapped productions won’t cover it unless you’re top billing.

Unless you’re wealthy, lucky or supported by a spouse, for many actors acting requires a second job - a 'survival gig'. But survival gigs must be flexible because if you can’t disappear for two days to film 'Teenage Grandma', you’re out of luck. So 40-hour weeks destroy acting careers. But gig work destroys financial stability.

So actors hover in a strange limbo - working constantly, earning little and always on the brink of quitting.

The Irish-American comedian Des Bishop said his actor father could have been James Bond but chose instead to support his family. That quiet choice - stability over dream - is one many actors face today. If pursuing your passion makes life harder for the people you love, is it noble or selfish?

Acting in 2025 is a paradox:

It has never been easier to create content on your phone.

It has never been harder to earn a living.

It has never been easier to audition.

It has never been harder to book a job.

It has never been easier to live anywhere.

It has never been harder to justify living in Los Angeles.

The industry is changing so quickly that no one - not actors, not casting directors, not studios - knows where it’s going next.

And so we return to Tilly Norwood starring in 'The Bees Stung My Baby And She Melted'. Perhaps, in the end, this is just the next cycle.

Once upon a time, Hollywood turned its nose up at soap operas - until they became our cultural backdrop. Their outrageous twists and heightened drama were dismissed as lowbrow, yet they shaped entire generations. Maybe Verticals are just the 2025 version of that same populist, exaggerated storytelling. Maybe Tilly can act alongside her human peers.

Hollywood should remember though: if it keeps neglecting the people who bring these stories to life, it may end up with a title of its own, 'Honey, I shrunk Tinseltown Forever! And grandma killed Hitler's Dog'.

And that would be the biggest plot twist of all  - even with the gratuitous granny thrown in.