TrueShort
Original movies and series made for your phone.
Loved the video, great storyline + problem statement. Little hype would have got a lot more traction and attention on this launch.
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Katzenberg on the cap table for vertical shorts has a delicious Quibi-shaped irony to it. Hopefully the lesson sticks this time.
Hot take: the actual moat here is taste, not tech. Anyone can generate slop, very few can edit it into something you finish watching.
Curious what the day-30 retention curve looks like before I get excited. Vertical originals tend to spike on novelty then crater once the algorithm stops feeding new viewers.
The launch video's first 1.5 seconds did all the work, smart cold open with the face close-up before the logo hit. Most founders bury the hook under their own name.
ok wait, 'hire the next generation of filmmakers' is doing a lot of work in this tweet. Are we talking staff writers rooms or three kids and a Runway subscription?
Worth noting that Bordwell's work on screen ratios suggests vertical framing genuinely changes blocking, not just cropping. If they lean into that as a constraint there's something here.
The thumbnail on the announce video has the title text fighting the subject's face for attention. Move the wordmark down 40px and it sings.
Guitarist in Pink Roses to vertical Spielberg pipeline is a wild bio arc and I respect it.