Angelina Barbieri is a first-generation Latin American actress with a career spanning film, TV, and comedy, including Transporter 2, HBO's Ballers, NCIS: Los Angeles, Anger Management, NBC's The Night Shift, Rosewood, and HBO's How to Make It in America. After an eight-year break from the industry, she returned two years ago and pivoted into vertical drama, booking eight roles since October 2025 across platforms including ReelShort, FlareFlow, Shortical, GammaTime, MicroCo (aTwist), and PocketFM — and winning the Visionary Award for her role in Santos. In this episode, she talks with Pauline about reinvention, the immigrant hustle behind her career, the rise of brand integration in vertical storytelling, and what success looks like now.

Connect with Angelina:
IG Handle : @angelina_barbieri

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Doug Vermeeren: Building the Cannes of Vertical Drama in Las Vegas

What happens when a lifelong love of movies turns into building the biggest event vertical storytelling has ever seen?

Doug Vermeeren has been on movie sets since he was a kid — from background extra work to stunt performing, from indie documentaries shot on Betacam to vertical dramas streaming on ReelShort. In this episode, Doug traces that path: growing up broke and sneaking snacks into the movie theater, learning the business from the inside while renting a room from a studio executive, and eventually building a career that's spanned drama, action, and horror across both traditional film and the emerging vertical space.

We talk about what drew him to verticals — the speed, the built-in audience, the sense that this is a new format sitting alongside cinema and TV rather than replacing it — and why he believes the genre is only beginning to expand beyond its early "melodrama" roots into horror, comedy, documentary, and more.

The heart of the conversation is Doug's newest project: the Vertical Micro Drama Market (VMM), a first-of-its-kind event taking over the Sahara in Las Vegas. Doug walks through what makes it different from the smaller festivals and educational panels that have served the space so far — a full trade show floor, major distributors ready to acquire projects, live casting sessions, and investors (including Doug's own Real to Real Capital) with real capital to deploy.

Doug also shares hard-won advice for actors and filmmakers: how casting decisions really get made, why "tell, sell, and service" matters as much as talent, and why the smartest people in the industry are the ones who show up as collaborators rather than egos. He closes with some of his favorite origin stories from film history — George Lucas, James Cameron — and a challenge to anyone sitting on an idea: stop waiting for permission and start making something.

This is a conversation about movies, about reinvention, and about what it takes to build something the industry hasn't seen before.

Let's tell stories that connect.

Connect with Doug Vermeeren:
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IMDb

Jessica Burkhart went from publishing 30 novels to writing full-time verticals in a year. She shares her pivot from books to games to screenwriting, how she learned to work within tight budgets, and why moving vertically—not horizontally—changed her entire definition of success.

In this conversation, Jessica walks us through her creative journey: from middle-grade and YA novels to mobile games (Pixelberry's Choices, Chapters app) to becoming a Silver Telly Award-winning vertical drama screenwriter with 17 produced shows on DramaShorts, Shorts, and ReelShort. We talk about the biggest challenges (relearning pacing and economy of language), the biggest surprises (creative freedom without traditional boundaries), and the real work of balancing creative ambition with shoestring budgets.

Most importantly: we talk about permission. Permission to try. Permission to pivot. Permission to move up instead of across.

If you're at a creative crossroads or you've hit a ceiling somewhere, this conversation is for you.

GUEST

Jessica Burkhart is a Silver Telly Award-winning vertical drama screenwriter, best-selling author of 30+ novels, and mobile game writer. Her vertical drama series have been featured on most-watched charts across major platforms. Recent credits include The Sweetest Challenge (DramaShorts) and The Quarterback's Secret Princess (Shorts).

Website
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