Forty Dramas, 25 Pages a Day and a Pay Gap: Vanessa Schwarz on Vertical Fame
The actress told PEOPLE that vertical recognition is real but that male leads often earn more. VPAA asks whether productions should publish rate ranges.
Forty vertical dramas. Five-to-seven-day shoots. Up to 25 script pages a day.
That is the workload Vanessa Schwarz described to PEOPLE in a profile that gives one of the clearest public accounts yet of what a working vertical lead’s life looks like. Schwarz said vertical fame is becoming real; she is now recognized in public. She also said a significant gender pay gap remains, with male leads often receiving more.
The numbers behind the story
Twenty-five pages a day is three to five times the pace of a network drama. A five-day shoot for a full season is a schedule traditional television would consider impossible. Those numbers are the reason vertical can produce so much so cheaply, and they are also the reason the question of pay cannot be separated from the question of conditions.
The gap
Schwarz’s account of male leads earning more is consistent with what the association hears from performers. It is also consistent with the format’s economics being opaque. Most vertical productions do not publish rate ranges. Most performers negotiate alone, without agents, against platforms that know exactly what everyone else is paid.
What the association is asking
As vertical dramas generate larger audiences and revenues, should productions publish rate ranges and guarantee equal pay for equal billing?
VPAA’s answer is yes on both counts. Published ranges do not cap what a star can negotiate. They set a floor and remove the information advantage that produces a gap in the first place. Equal pay for equal billing is a principle the rest of the industry fought for decades ago. Vertical can adopt it in year two instead of year forty.