Inside Dhar Mann Studios

BURBANK, Calif. — At the expansive Dhar Mann Studios last month, between more than 60 sets ranging from a shopping mall and a jail to the interior of an airplane, I watched a group of actors film a scene about a celebrity disguised as a homeless woman delivering moral lessons to a vapid and cruel influencer.

The resulting video is emblematic of the studio’s signature style of content: a brief, fast-paced parable-like storyline that starts with a conflict to hook social-first viewers without patience for exposition or rising action, followed by a resolution that offers some sort of emotionally-charged moral lesson. It’s that type of content that has won the studio, which opened in 2021, more than 170 million followers and made it one of the largest creator-led media companies in the world. The studio works with around 2,200 actors a year, with a staff of 200 and nine crews shooting simultaneously. 

Now, the studio is adapting to a new era with co-developed programming — like Samsung TV Plus’ first original scripted series, which premiered last week — and a slate of 40 scripted microdramas with Fox Entertainment and a new podcast hosted by Dhar Mann. I visited the sets and interviewed Mann and the studio’s head of production Toni Gray to learn more about how they are adapting to working with traditional media companies. 

Here are takeaways from our conversation:

Creators and legacy media are converging. Mann said that initially the studio struggled to attract brand deals and that companies didn’t understand how to work with them, recalling that it took explaining that, according to his data, his audience is 12 times more likely to purchase something if a Dhar Mann video tells them to, compared to the brand itself. 

“We speak in terms like ‘television is dead.’ … It's just in this weird position right now, where it's morphing into other areas of content and storytelling, and in the creator space, we have this ability which is so empowering, to kind of bring this fractured, broken world back together again,” said Gray. She left her job in linear TV, first to work for MrBeast’s Beast Games, then for Mann.

The studio’s increased collaboration with traditional media and brands is emblematic of the broader industry’s convergence. Creator journalists Johnny Harris and Jorge Ramos won News Emmys last month, and six YouTube creators are submitting their shows for Emmy consideration. As Assistants Vs. Agents founder Warner Bailey put it at Substack’s Once and Future Media Forum that I attended last month, “I don’t know that there’s that much difference now. … People are building distribution, building it online, and then either selling it back to traditional media or co-building it with them.” 

Creators are now creating with big media rules in mind. At Dhar Mann Studios, I noticed on set that certain brand names were covered up, like on items on the shelf of a fake convenience store, so that the content produced doesn’t accidentally promote a brand’s competitor. 

“We want to open up our doors to a whole bunch of different brands coming in. And in the YouTube world, you were able to kind of use any music, any logo, any labeling,” Gray said. “But as Samsung TV is coming to us and these other larger entities are coming to us, we're starting to become a little bit more protective of what we have, because we don't want to go like, oh, I can't air eight of those videos because they're covered with Nike, Adidas, and we just did a deal with Fila.”

Now, “the line between traditional media and creators is disappearing. So you're starting to see creators having to act a lot more like traditional media entities, and part of that is being very cognizant of all the different rules that could be required,” Mann explained.

Creator production moves fast and can respond quickly to audience feedback. Unlike in traditional television, Dhar Mann Studios can much more quickly adapt to that feedback or make changes mid-production, which typically takes 60 days.

“We can test ideas in real time, and then we can scale what works, so we can go from idea to production in days, whereas in traditional media it can take months or years,” Mann said. Gray said they have a team that reads and responds to comments that gives them feedback within 24 hours, and "If there's anything in the pipeline that did not resonate well, we just pull it out and reshoot it.”

One example that didn’t go well was Mann’s experiments with AI. “When we did try to actually incorporate VFX shots that were created by AI, or maybe an entire environment, our audience they called it AI slop, and for us, honestly, it was kind of reassuring, because I like doing things the old-school way and shooting it practically,” Mann said.

This story is part of Verified, a newsletter that is published by Washington Post Creator, a team outside The Washington Post’s newsroom that is focused on the creator economy and content partnerships with independent creators. Learn more about Washington Post Creator.