We thought we had seen it all from the rise of fanfic movies like After, 50 Shades and now The Idea of You, but that was just the tip of the iceberg of what murky waters lie ahead.
Vertical films are having their moment in the spotlight, or perhaps more fittingly, their moment in the glow of smartphones.
Apps like ShortTV and ShortMax have brought the rise of this new format for watching films designed for the small screen. The unifying genre on these apps is that what is available to watch on them is all derived from fanfiction without explicitly stating so.
So your guilty pleasure Bella x Jacob fanfic on Wattpad might adapted to the plethora of Aplha-wolf short movies on ShortTV.
These will likely never replace the traditional form of film, but there is something uniquely fascinating about them, and they deserve their time in the spotlight.
The distinction between vertical and horizontal has never been particularly necessary for the majority of cinema. Film has been shot horizontally due to the screens they’ve been viewed on, how cameras are made, and frankly, because our eyes are side to side and not stacked on top of one another.
However, with the rise of smartphones and TikTok the script has been flipped on people’s watching habits. Vertical films cater to our new modern-day needs and habits of doom scrolling through life.
Apps like Short TV have capitalised on this trend, offering a platform dedicated to vertical storytelling. It’s a brilliant idea if you think about it, at least as a concept. TikTok is also no stranger to film content or fanfiction making its way onto the platform, with a small subsection of FYP’s having the good ol’ Y/N POV’s to bootlegged film content cut with a clip of subway surfers. It is truly fascinating watching this genre unfold before our eyes.
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ShortTV’s vertical films are fascinating to delve into. They take what was once a niche hobby—writing fanfic in your teenage room—and adapt it to a low-budget production for others’ guilty pleasure.
Now, these films will not explicitly say they are a ‘Twighlight fanfic movie’ where Jacob and Bella end up. That would be too simple. Instead, the presentation of these Jacob x Bella movies is presented as werewolf alpha male stories. With movies like Call Me Alpha or The Forbidden Alpha, the plots and characters that ensue there are some very blatant connections or inspirations howling to Twilight.
But it’s not just Twilight. You can find low-budget, steamy, off-script vertical films for most fandoms of your choosing, from Harry Potter to Star Wars.
These vertical films are advertised as ‘mini-series’, but that isn’t really the case. These all run about 90 to 100 minutes in length, just spit across scrollable parts. It’s safe to say that they’re better classified as films than as series, mini or not, regardless of how they’re advertised.
If you’re wondering how to be certain that these films are adapted from fanfics, you only need to look at how they’re advertised. They will have a photo shoot to advertise and edit the image to have the name of the movie and the actors’ names. Instead of a ‘written by’ credit, it will read ‘inspired by a story by’, which most often leads to a fanfic author on an array of websites.
Now, there must be some haters of this genre on first appearances. There are probably many who think this is a fleeting fad or is just an absurdly new low level for film. Honestly, though, these are too harmless to get annoyed by. They’re just a bit of fun at the end of the day. It’s perfectly innocent, and it’s fun embracing your inner teenager through these cheesy films.
Vertical fan film content may be here to stay, whether its fan base grows or not. To the sceptics out there, it is genuinely the perfect blend of convenience and creativity that caters to our modern and fast-paced lives. So don’t knock it til you try it. You never know—you might find yourself on the edge of your street or comfortably propped up in bed, watching a vertical masterpiece in your hand.
