As the conversation about YouTuber-made box-office hits 'Obsession' and 'Backrooms' rolls on, one of the many takeaways being kicked around is that platforms like YouTube and TikTok have basically become the new training ground for talent. And TikTok just made a move that fits the moment, aiming to turn its own creators into writers.
The scoop: TikTok is teaming up with the Sundance Institute on a new micro-series writing program, head of entertainment partnerships Dawn Yang shared this week:
- It's a free, four-week live online course, run through Sundance's learning platform, Collab.
- A selected cohort gets walked through scriptwriting for the format, with the tools, frameworks, and industry guidance to build serialized, story-driven content.
- The idea is that TikTok's creators already get pacing and audience better than just about anyone, so writing for the format is a pretty natural next step.
It's a play for homegrown talent, and the Sundance partnership is telling. Building on an earlier initiative that brought TikTok creators to the festival, it signals that Hollywood is taking creators and microdramas more seriously as the format matures into a legitimate medium of its own.
The momentum’s building: Everyone from legacy TV execs to major studios is piling into microdramas now, and TikTok's gone so far as to build a whole app for them, PineDrama. The platform also financed Issa Rae's production company, Hoorae, to make 'Screen Time,' a tense little thriller about a stranger who crashes a couples' movie night. It nearly hit 75M views in week one, the best seven-day run of any series on the platform.
The big picture:Â Hollywood spent years underestimating YouTube as a real entertainment player, and it paid for that: the platform now commands the single biggest share of all TV viewing per Nielsen (ahead of Disney and everyone else), is widely seen as Netflix's toughest rival, and its creators are minting box-office hits. It's trying not to make the same mistake with microdramas, and TikTok's getting a head start by training its own.
