Two actors were caught up in a heated argument on the set of the former CBS soap opera “The Bold and the Beautiful” at Sunset Las Palmas Studios in Hollywood.
“Do you want to know where Jack was last night?” actor Skyla Lynne asked with a sly grin. “He was with me.”
The director interjected from behind a monitor displaying a vertically oriented stream: “Can you pause a little longer between these lines? We might want to do a chapter break there.”
The scene wasn’t for an episode of the famous soap opera. It was part of the 40-episode second season of “Hollywood Starlet,” a new microdrama series from “The Bold and the Beautiful” head writer Bradley Bell and his son Oliver.
“I’ve been doing soap operas my whole life, and I felt like there was an excitement around microdramas and it really felt like a natural extension of the stories we were doing,” Bradley Bell said. “[On soap operas] We usually produce two exciting films on Fridays to keep audiences busy throughout the weekend. Here you do this every few minutes. “It’s like stepping up a dance routine, but it’s actually the same in our soap opera strip.”
Microdramas are scrollable, exciting stories created for phone screens. They offer viewers a new way to experience the kinds of stories that once belonged to traditional soap operas and telenovelas. The so-called vertical format originated in China a few years ago and has gained a growing global audience thanks to its short, addictive nature. Hollywood names such as Issa Rae and Kevin Hart are also participating.
Now Bell is heading into space. The 16-time Emmy winner and her son Oliver recently launched a production company, Red Flair Entertainment, to capitalize on the format.
Their first production, “Hollywood Starlet,” premiered Sept. 3 on aTwist, a new vertical drama app founded by industry veteran Jana Winograde, former president of Showtime; Warner Bros. Susan Rovner, former president of Television; and Lloyd Braun, former chairman of WME.
Oliver Bell, founder of Red Flair Entertainment, is producing the microseries “Hollywood Starlet”, which was shot at Sunset Las Palmas Studios in Los Angeles.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Bradley Bell says it was Oliver who came up with the idea.
“I saw this unique format and was fascinated,” said Oliver Bell. “I noticed some areas where we could easily improve.”
Microdramas first appeared on Oliver’s social media feed about a year and a half ago while he was still in college. The 24-year-old said she quickly “fell down the rabbit hole” and became so obsessed with the format that she wrote her thesis on soap operas and microdramas at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.
After graduating in December, he founded Red Flair Entertainment with his father and began developing “Hollywood Starlet,” with Oliver as executive producer and his father as producer.
The series, which costs approximately $175,000 to $220,000 per season to produce, is financed by aTwist. Red Flair has a backend agreement that allows it to share in the subscription revenue the show generates for the platform.
Bells said that after filming two seasons of “Hollywood Starlet,” Red Flair is planning several more series verticals in many different genres, such as horror and romance.
Oliver grew up visiting sets and eavesdropping on writing meetings from under his father’s desk. The family’s storytelling goes back to his grandparents, William Bell and Lee Phillip Bell, who created “The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful.” Oliver says he continues this legacy in a way that is well-suited to Generation Z.
“In a way, microdramas are the natural evolution of soap operas,” Oliver Bell said. “You can trace the legacy through that and the modernization of serialized TV.”
9,911 of “The Bold and the Beautiful,” he told The Times. His father, who worked on the episode, said the vignettes could reach younger viewers who might be intimidated by the show’s decades-long history.
“It’s like opening a book, and it’s hard for people to get into the book to learn the history,” he said. “So having smaller, bite-sized pieces appeals to us.”
“The Bold and the Beautiful” has been running continuously for 39 years, but is now one of the last soap operas on American television. Until the 1980s, 10 to 12 series often aired simultaneously, said Elana Levine, a media professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who studies the genre. Today, there are five left: four on television and one, “Days of Our Lives,” only on the air.
“It makes sense to find a way to take this form of storytelling that’s extremely popular and enduring in the United States and translate it to the mobile devices we carry with us all the time,” Levine said.
While soap operas have historically targeted mostly female audiences, microdramas have reached a much broader audience, said Michael Berry, director of the UCLA Center for China Studies, who has studied the rise of vertical dramas.
“It actually gives us the main beats we could get from the soap opera format, but in a much more compact and addictive way,” he added.
Cameramen prepare for a scene on the set of the microseries “Hollywood Starlet,” filming at Sunset Las Palmas Studios in Los Angeles.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Lou Trabbie, the series’ production designer, had never heard of microdramas before working on “Hollywood Starlet.”
“Everything is going in a different direction. You just adapt and move forward, and that’s what we’re seeing here,” said Trabbie, who has worked in the industry for 38 years. “It’s really cool to see how these things are done with smaller teams. I feel like things are heading in that direction.”
“Hollywood Starlet” is filming on the same Sunset Las Palmas sound stage as “The Bold and the Beautiful,” which was filmed during the show’s monthly dark week.
The first season, consisting of 45 short episodes, was shot in six days in early summer with a non-union cast and crew of 45. Less than a week after its release, much of the same team began working on the second season.
Oliver Bell said the series used non-union crew due to “budget constraints”.
At a time when major film and TV shoots are pulling out of the state, microdramas are one of the few growing areas of production locally.
Vertical video is expected to generate $150 billion in worldwide revenue this year, according to consulting firm Owl & Co. Most of this revenue comes from TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels.
Sunset Las Palmas Studios, where the first two seasons of “La La Land” and “I Love Lucy” were shot, devoted its entire soundstage to standing sets for vertical arrays in June. The sets include a courtroom, a bar/restaurant, an apartment, an office and a hospital.
At left, “Hollywood Starlet” executive producer Paxton Fuller walks with Las Palmas Studios VP of Sales and Business Development Sean Griffin through the courtroom on stage designed specifically for microdramas.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Still, the Bells don’t think microdramas will replace soap operas. They suggest that the two formats “can coexist.”
“Soap operas that found their way into someone’s living room or bedroom were almost like an extension of their family, with the same cast they could rely on for years. The same families who have been watching since day one,” said Bradley Bell. “It’s a different kind of audience for microdramas.”
Oliver Bell added: “We’re trying to capture the attention of the scroller, not the ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ audience… Micro-dramas are inevitable through social media. [It’s] conditioning our brain and how we process media.”