The Vertical Buzz

What happens when you stop guessing about the future of entertainment and start looking at the data? 📊📱

This week on The Vertical Buzz, we sit down with Zak Shaikh, U.S. General Manager of Ampere Analysis, one of the entertainment industry's leading data, research, and analytics firms.

Zak takes us inside the numbers behind the explosive growth of vertical entertainment and microdramas, revealing what audiences are actually wat...

What if the future of vertical entertainment looks a lot like the past of cable television? 📱📺

Larry Namer has seen this movie before.

As the co-founder of E! Entertainment Television, Larry helped build one of the world's most recognizable entertainment networks from the ground up. But his story goes far beyond E!. From starting out underground splicing cable in New York, to moving to...

Welcome to The Vertical Buzz, where vertical entertainment finds its voice. This week, host Buzz Leer sits down with Kasey Esser, one of the most recognizable actors and producers in the vertical entertainment space.

Kasey's journey to Hollywood started in an unexpected place. After studying exercise science and building a career in fitness, he made the leap to Los Angeles and eventually discovered microdramas. What started with a ...

Welcome to The Vertical Buzz, where vertical entertainment finds its voice. This week, host Buzz Leer sits down with twin brothers Gary & Edmund Entin, the writer-director-producer team behind 90 Degrees Films.

The Entin brothers have built careers spanning feature films, television, and the rapidly evolving world of vertical storytelling. As co-founders of 90 Degrees Films, they have created 14 ver...

Welcome to The Vertical Buzz, where vertical entertainment finds its voice. This week, host Buzz Leer sits down with British actor, producer, entrepreneur, and technology innovator Richard Cambridge.

Richard has spent more than 25 years working across acting, film, television, and entertainment technology, with credits including Gran Turismo, Hollyoaks, The IT Crowd, and Disney's Suspect: The Shooting of John Charles de Menendez. H...

🎙️ This Week on The Vertical Buzz

Welcome to The Vertical Buzz, where vertical entertainment finds its voice. This week, host Buzz Leer sits down with one of the breakout stars of vertical entertainment, Jackson Tiller.

Jackson's journey to Hollywood was anything but conventional. Growing up in the mountains near Asheville, North Carolina, he initially pursued nursing before making the leap into acting and eventually heading west ...

🎙️ Welcome to The Vertical Buzz, where vertical entertainment finds its voice.

This week, host Buzz Leer welcomes Emmy-nominated director, writer, and producer Scott Brown, founder and CEO of Second Rodeo Productions. With more than 1 billion organic views across projects featuring MrBeast, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Larry King, and major global brands, Scott brings a unique perspective on where digital storytelling and vertical e...

Welcome to The Vertical Buzz, where vertical entertainment finds its voice. Season 3 begins with one of the brightest stars in vertical entertainment, Brooke Moltrum. Host Buzz Leer sits down with the award-winning actress to talk about her journey from the small town of Camas, Washington, to becoming one of the most recognizable faces in vertical storytelling.

Brooke shares how competing at the Jimmy Awards helped launch her caree...

Welcome to The Vertical Buzz, where vertical entertainment finds its voice. This week, host Buzz Leer sits down with acclaimed director Chris Nguyen Campbell, one of the filmmakers helping redefine what premium vertical storytelling can be.

Chris shares his journey from theater and film school to directing for Brat TV before becoming one of the industry's most respected voices in vertical ...

Welcome to The Vertical Buzz, where vertical entertainment finds its voice. This week, we're on location at the legendary Sunset Las Palmas Studios in Hollywood, California, for our first ever episode filmed outside Glendale Podcast Studio.

Host Buzz Leer sits down with Knockout Shorts co-founders Chris Crema and Matthew Ko to explore how they're helping shape the next generation of...

Welcome to The Vertical Buzz, where vertical entertainment finds its voice. This week, host Buzz Leer sits down with Chase Mattson, actor, model, father of four, and one of the most recognizable leading men in vertical entertainment.

Chase shares how he was discovered as a teenager while working at Hollister, how modeling took him around the world, and how early on-camera moments in...

Welcome to The Vertical Buzz, where vertical entertainment finds its voice. This week, host Buzz Leer sits down with Blair Bai, Head of Executive Producers for North America at DramaWave and one of the leading creative voices helping define the next stage of vertical storytelling.

Blair talks about her journey from Beijing Film Academy and USC School of Cinematic Arts to early vertical hits and her leadership role at DramaWave. She...

Welcome to The Vertical Buzz, where vertical entertainment finds its voice. This week, host Buzz Leer sits down with Troy Brookins, actor, producer, former athlete, and one of the driving forces behind MicroHouse Films.

Troy shares the origin story of MicroHouse Films, the new vertical platform he is building with Taye Diggs, Autumn Federici, and Shelby Stone, and why their mission ...

Welcome to The Vertical Buzz, where vertical entertainment finds its voice. This week, host Buzz Leer sits down with Darren Darnborough, an actor, entrepreneur, and tech innovator helping shape the future of casting, auditions, and vertical storytelling.

Darren shares how a Dr. Pepper commercial at 16 opened the door to acting, why he pivoted from acting school into film and media, and how his entrepreneurial path led from nightclu...

Welcome to The Vertical Buzz, where vertical entertainment finds its voice. This week, host Buzz Leer sits down with Nick Ritacco, a Chicago-born actor, athlete, baseball fan, and one of the standout leading men in the vertical drama space.

Nick shares how a high school injury led him from baseball into theater, how New York and Shakespeare shaped his foundation as an actor, and how...

Welcome to The Vertical Buzz, where vertical entertainment finds its voice. This week, host Buzz Leer sits down with Emmy Award-winning casting director Paul Ruddy, one of the most influential casting voices in the vertical space today.

Paul is currently casting at DramaBox and has worked across more than 250 film, television, digital, and vertical projects for platforms including Netflix, Disney, Hallmark, Lifetime, Fox, Paramount...

Welcome to The Vertical Buzz, where vertical entertainment finds its voice. This week, host Buzz Leer sits down with Eric Guilmette, one of the most recognizable leading men in the vertical drama world, to talk about the unusual path that brought him from romance novel covers to nearly 50 vertical films, producing, poetry, and a rapidly growing fan base.

Before vertical storytelling exploded, readers were already connecting with Er...

Welcome to The Vertical Buzz, where vertical entertainment finds its voice. This week, host Buzz Leer sits down with Royce Lundquist, one of the most exciting new leading men in the vertical space, to talk about his fast rise as an actor, his creative roots, and the new ventures he is building beyond the screen.

Royce shares his journey from being a homeschooled theater kid in a Navy family, to studying at the Orange County School ...

Welcome to The Vertical Buzz, where the vertical entertainment world finds its voice. This week, host Buzz Leer sits down with D'Arcy Smith from the University of Cincinnati to talk about a major shift for the vertical space: vertical storytelling is entering academia.

D'Arcy is teaching vertical performance at the university level, which means this format is no longer just something actors stumble into on set. It is becoming somet...