The Garden Harvest: 6/27/25
Your weekly digest on the intersection of the Creator Economy and Legacy Media.
Welcome back to the Garden Harvest.
Each week, we gather and curate the freshest insights from the worlds of Creators and Legacy Media, so you can stay rooted in what matters and spot new opportunities where others can’t.
Let’s get into it…
FRESH CLIPPINGS
A trailer or a creator: which do you pick?
Sam Widdoes has been floating ideas about how independent film could tap into the creator economy's massive audiences. Kudos.
In his latest post, he lays out a vision for what creator marketing could look like, and it’s far more than just TikTok stunts or last-minute promo posts. He suggests a deeper, more strategic partnership between independent filmmakers and digital creators: one where creators aren’t brought in at the end to hype a finished product, but embedded from the beginning as executive producers with real equity and creative input.
By involving creators early, filmmakers can tap into not just reach, but real audience investment. It’s a shift from treating creators as marketing tools and instead embracing them as collaborators who bring storytelling chops, distribution infrastructure, and direct access to fan communities.
The challenge is turning those parasocial relationships into paying audiences, but the opportunity to build a model that propels independent film is well worth the try.
Wait… what’s a Micro-Series?
Jon Stahl beat us all to write the first publication to describe the micro-series as a construct. But boy we’re glad he did.
He explains: Micro-series are ultra-short narrative videos, typically 1–2 minutes long, designed for quick, snackable viewing. They can be serialized or episodic but always maintain a consistent tone, story, or character focus. Unlike nonfiction shorts or commentary, micro-series are fictional and often distributed in vertical format on platforms like Reelshort, My Drama, and TikTok.
And no, he’s not talking about micro-dramas (read the post to see why).
The lesson we like here is that these are powerful “minimum viable concepts”, or low-cost, quickly produced creative projects designed to test ideas with an audience and gather feedback. By sharing it early, you can learn what resonates and improve your process and product with each iteration.
Small contained episodes let creators cycle through this loop rapidly, gaining insights much faster than with traditional short films.
Creator Camp update
We’re big fans of Creator Camp here at Open Gardens, so much so that we dedicated an entire feature to unpack their vision. The takeaway? They’re building something genuinely exciting.
This week, they shared a major milestone: opening their first office and studio, a physical space to continue their mission of bringing the internet to the big screen.
As they put it, “there’s no A24 for YouTubers, no Disney for the digital generation.” But they’re trying to change that.
Keep an eye on them. If you ask us, they’re onto something…
GARDEN VIEW
For a while now, the idea that streamers embrace short-form content to compete with the company that ate everyone’s lunch (YouTube) has mostly lived within industry circles. Heck, even we’ve talked about it.
But now, it’s Wall Street who’s beating this drum. And that changes everything…
Why?
Because if Wall Street analysts raise what they think your stock price is worth, and they openly say that the path to get to that higher valuation is by giving big creators overall deals and hosting their content, what do you think will happen?
HARVEST QUOTE
“Not all consumer attention is created equal”
- McKinsey partners Kabir Ahuja and Marc Brodherson in their new report: The ‘attention equation’: Winning the right battles for consumer attention.
Media businesses have been fighting a war for attention given the ridiculous amount of options available to consumers nowadays. But are hours watched or eyeballs reached actually good indicators? Kabir and Mark say no.
They argue that most media companies focus on quantity while ignoring the stuff that really matters: the quality of time spent. Chasing views is a thing of the past, what matters now is ensuring that your views are focused and intentional, not just a passive scroll.
See you next week…