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Lots of task-tracking software is costly and comes with more features than you need. I built a dynamic task tracker that does everything I need in three quick steps—and if you have Excel for Microsoft 365 or Excel for the web and a spare 10 minutes, you can too.

Microdramas aren't so micro anymore, at least when it comes to their audience.

Microdrama content on YouTube surpassed 6.5 billion views globally in the first half of 2026, according to new data YouTube shared Wednesday at its annual Made on YouTube event in New York City. Watch time for the bite-sized, serialized shows grew more than 50 percent year over year during the same period.

And despite a format practically engineered for the vertical smartphone screen, people aren't only watching on their phones. YouTube says views of microdrama content on TVs increased by more than 90 percent year over year during the first half of 2026.

YouTube is now giving creators more tools to capitalize on that appetite for short-form, episodic storytelling. The company announced Shorts Series, a new feature that lets creators organize individual Shorts into structured series, complete with custom thumbnails and sequential playback.

SEE ALSO: MeganPlays has been on YouTube for 13 years. Here's what she's learned.

The idea is to make Shorts behave a little more like episodes of a show. Instead of viewers encountering one video in isolation and having to hunt for the next installment, creators can package them together so audiences can discover a series and keep watching in order.

That could be particularly useful for microdramas, which depend on viewers following a story across multiple short episodes. And with audiences increasingly watching those stories on their TVs, the distinction between scrolling through Shorts and sitting down to watch a show is starting to look a little less clear.

Shorts Series is available globally in YouTube Studio for creators and across web, mobile, and TV for viewers.

Featured Video For You "How Online Are You" ft. Taryn Delanie Smith & Kay Poyer Everyone wants a piece of the microdrama boom

If you've suddenly started hearing a lot about microdramas, there's a reason. There's a lot of money in them.

Omdia estimates the global microdrama industry generated $11 billion in revenue in 2025 and will grow to $14 billion by the end of 2026, with the U.S. expected to account for roughly $1.5 billion of that this year.

The format also appears particularly good at holding viewers' attention on the devices where they're already spending much of their time. According to Omdia's analysis of mobile usage data from late 2025, U.S. ReelShort users spent an average of 35.7 minutes per day in the app, more daily mobile viewing time than users spent with Netflix, Prime Video, or Disney+.

Microdramas are relatively cheap and fast to produce, designed around constant hooks and cliffhangers, and built for the way audiences already scroll through short-form video.

It helps that microdramas borrow some of the most addictive mechanics of social video. Episodes typically run only a few minutes, move quickly, and end on cliffhangers designed to send viewers straight into the next one. They're also relatively cheap and fast to produce compared with traditional television, allowing studios to test lots of stories and quickly double down on what audiences actually watch.

And traditional entertainment companies want in. NBCUniversal's Peacock launched its first original vertical microdramas this summer, including Campus Confidential: Miami, built around the company's existing Bravo fandoms. WEBTOON followed with Short Dramas, a slate of six live-action vertical series adapted from popular romance webcomics, including Maybe Meant to Be, Love Bites, and I'll Marry Your Brother. Even late-night franchises like The Daily Show and The Tonight Show have gotten in on the format, producing their own satirical vertical soap operas.

YouTube has been experimenting, too. Earlier this year, the company announced a slate of creator-led programming that included HopeScope's I Acted in a Microdrama, a series of 60-second Shorts in which creator Hope Allen tries her hand at the genre.

Part of the appeal is obvious: microdramas are relatively cheap and fast to produce, designed around constant hooks and cliffhangers, and built for the way audiences already scroll through short-form video. But YouTube's new data suggests the format may be stretching beyond its mobile origins.

A 90 percent jump in TV views doesn't mean viewers are abandoning their phones for the couch. But it does suggest that the distinction between "short-form mobile video" and more traditional episodic entertainment is getting blurrier — just as YouTube gives creators more tools to make Shorts behave like television.

From YouTubers and TikTok stars to streamers and podcasters, Mashable talks to creators about how they built their platforms, the gear they swear by, and the trends they see coming next. Read more of our creator coverage, sign up for our Trending Now and Top Stories newsletters or get Mashable push alerts to discover the internet's most exciting voices.

Unlike some other social media platforms, YouTube is actually pretty good at finding relevant content for users. The platform's recommendation algorithm reviews your watch history, channel subscriptions, and other relevant metrics, then serves up more engaging content to keep viewers entertained and watching.

At YouTube's annual Made for YouTube event on Wednesday, the company announced a slew of new features for users that'll make it even easier to find what they want.

One feature, called Custom Feeds, will allow users to customize the type of content they see on their YouTube homepage for the first time. Users will be able to create a Custom Feed, telling YouTube, in natural language, exactly what kind of content they want to see in this feed. 

For example, a user can tell YouTube that it wants a Custom Feed with "long documentaries" or "new DIY creators," and a Custom Feed tab will appear on their YouTube homepage serving up that content.

Setting up a Custom Feed Credit: YouTube

Custom Feeds will live inside tabs at the top of the YouTube homepage, so they'll continue to see the usual YouTube homepage recommendations if they choose to do so. Users will be able to create multiple Custom Feeds with varying content requests, and they will all be accessible in those tabs on the homepage.

Your Custom Feed is ready! Credit: YouTube

According to YouTube, Custom Feeds are rolling out to users in the U.S. soon.

Along with Custom Feeds, YouTube announced new features for "Ask YouTube," which will let users ask YouTube questions about products in review videos. This new feature will give Ask YouTube the capability to provide more information about products and serve up video recommendations to go more in-depth on your product questions.

YouTube also announced a new podcast-related feature that will provide users with a personalized, AI-generated audio guide presenting their podcast lineup and recommending new podcasts and episodes based on their interests.

Posts on YouTube are getting an upgrade, too. Viewers will now be recommended Posts from the Shorts feed. Posts will also be added to YouTube's TV apps soon as well.

Livestream viewers have never been content to just sit back and watch. They chat. They donate. They subscribe. They clip. They make memes. They tell the streamer what to do next. Sometimes, they even feed cats thousands of miles away.

Barbara Macdonald remembers that last one particularly well. Macdonald, YouTube's product manager for Live, has worked on the platform's livestreaming products for more than a decade. Years ago, after YouTube opened an API that let creators connect Super Chats and channel memberships to real-world effects, someone hooked a livestream to a cat-feeding station in Russia. A viewer could send money from their own home and watch as food was dispensed for the cats on screen.

"I would say Live has always been really focused on how audiences are able to participate and control the action," Macdonald told Mashable. "That's what makes live stand out from asynchronous video."

Now, YouTube wants to give creators and their communities a lot more ways to do exactly that.

At its annual Made on YouTube event in New York City on Wednesday, the platform is unveiling more than 30 new products and features for creators and viewers, including a slate of updates aimed specifically at livestreaming. Among them are Live Showdowns, timed competitions between creators in which audience participation can influence who wins; an expansion of Watch With, which lets creators build live commentary around other YouTube content; and a pilot that brings YouTube's Auto-Dubbing technology to live video.

SEE ALSO: The Mashable 101: The creators defining the internet in 2026

The announcements arrive as YouTube makes a bigger push into a live format it has supported since 2011. But the company's bet isn't that livestreaming is suddenly becoming interactive. It always has been. Instead, YouTube is building more of the behaviors that already define livestream communities — collaboration, competition, fan funding, and audience participation — directly into its products.

And with more than 600 million logged-in viewers already watching live content on YouTube every day, the company now wants to give more creators a reason to go live.

YouTube wants more creators to go live It's time for a Live Showdown. Credit: YouTube

Macdonald has watched YouTube Live change dramatically since she first started working on the product. Around 2019, she said, livestreaming began moving away from its more desktop-heavy, high-production roots toward something increasingly mobile and casual.

YouTube has responded by investing more in mobile live creation and discovery. Looking toward 2027, Macdonald said her team's priorities can essentially be reduced to two things: reach and monetization.

"When you go live to an empty room, you're there doing a stream so you can engage with an audience and riff back and forth with them," she said. "We want to get you as many relevant eyeballs as we can."

One way YouTube hopes to do that is by making collaboration easier. An update to Go Live Together will introduce smart matching, allowing creators who are live at the same time to find one another and link up. From there, they can choose to launch a Live Showdown.

Let's Go Live Together, shall we? Credit: YouTube

During a Showdown, activity from each creator's audience contributes to a competition displayed on screen. Free participation counts, meaning viewers don't have to pay to influence the result. But paid interactions — including Super Chats, Super Stickers, gifts, and gifted channel memberships — count more. That's another potential revenue stream for creators. It also raises an obvious question: At what point does participating in a livestream start to feel pay-to-play?

Macdonald, who previously worked on YouTube's fan-funding products, including Super Chat, said it's a tension the company has considered for years.

"We do want to make sure that every viewer, no matter their means, is able to participate in some fashion," she said. Showdowns are designed so everyone can contribute, she added, while viewers who want to financially support a creator can have a larger impact on the outcome.

YouTube is also expanding Watch With, which allows creators to react to and provide commentary around other content on the platform. The idea addresses another problem Macdonald said YouTube frequently hears from creators curious about livestreaming: They simply don't know what they'd do once the camera turns on.

By giving them something to react to, YouTube hopes to make that first stream less intimidating. "We're really hoping it will open up the funnel and allow more people to dabble and to try live," Macdonald said.

Featured Video For You Creators Taryn Delanie Smith and Kay Poyer on the insecurity no one talks about after going viral What happens when viewers become stakeholders?

Creator and conservationist Maya Higa already knows what can happen when a livestream audience is given something to do. Higa began streaming in 2019, the same year she started bringing the wildlife education work she'd previously done in person as a zookeeper online. She quickly realized livestreaming allowed her to reach far more people without transporting animals to schools, birthday parties, and other events.

In 2021, she founded Alveus Sanctuary, a nonprofit wildlife sanctuary and conservation education center that isn't open to the general public. Instead, viewers can visit virtually through cameras livestreaming from its animal enclosures around the clock.

And the community doesn't just watch. Alveus is funded in large part through crowdsourced donations. Higa said her community has helped build the sanctuary from the beginning, creating a relationship she describes differently from a typical creator-fan dynamic.

"Not only are they a part of building it — I mean, they did build it," Higa told Mashable. "That also makes them stakeholders in it in an interesting way."

Sometimes that participation is financial. Alveus auctions paintings made by its animal ambassadors. Viewers can donate to activate an automated feeder that dispenses treats to the sanctuary's cow and herd of emus. Another feature lets them turn on a splash pad for the emus. Fans who send toys or enrichment items to Alveus can later watch the animals encounter them on the sanctuary's livestreams.

"I guess by definition, it is a little bit transactional, but it's never felt that way," Higa said. "It just feels really good and really special. It feels like we're all doing it together."

But money isn't the only way Alveus has figured out how to turn viewers into participants. Higa recently launched a citizen-science project around the sanctuary's pollinator garden. A pan-tilt-zoom camera lets viewers search the garden for insects and other pollinators, submit their observations, collect points and stickers, and compete on a leaderboard.

"It's kind of like playing Pokémon," Higa joked. Except that the Pokémon are real, and the observations could potentially become useful scientific data.

SEE ALSO: Google wants you to listen to coral reefs. It just might help restore them.

The idea came to Higa after attending an invertebrate conference where she heard about a citizen-science project that had collected roughly 400 observations from members of the public. Alveus, she realized, routinely has between 1,000 and 2,000 concurrent viewers watching its live cameras. "We could get 400 observations in half a day," she recalled thinking.

On the viewer's end, it's effectively a game. On Alveus' end, Higa hopes the project can generate information on which pollinators visit which plants at different points in the year and eventually share that data with conservationists.

"Our community is so invested in what we're doing, they always want to do something," she said. "They really want to make an impact, and they want to be involved in any way they can."

Livestreaming is increasingly global, too

YouTube's ambitions for Live don't stop at getting more people to participate. It also wants creators' communities to cross borders more easily.

Macdonald said more than 40 percent of watch time on YouTube Live comes from viewers outside a creator's home region. Now the company is piloting Auto-Dubbing for Live, an extension of the Gemini-powered technology it already uses to translate uploaded videos into other languages. Since launching in 2023, YouTube's existing auto-dubbing system now supports 27 languages.

For live video, translated audio will be made available as a separate audio track that viewers can select in the YouTube player while a broadcast is happening. Doing that in real time presents a much harder technical problem than dubbing a finished video, particularly when livestream conversations move quickly. Macdonald said YouTube's infrastructure team is working to deliver the translated audio with the low-latency live video required.

Higa sees the potential for conservation, a subject whose audience is inherently global, but she's also more cautious about what technology can replicate. Her ideal, she said, would be growing Alveus' education team to include educators from different parts of the world who can speak directly to audiences in their own languages.

"There are things that they understand and things that they could say in a language that I could never convey auto-dubbed," she said.

A viewer, a fan, or something else?

The question at the center of YouTube's new features is one that livestreamers have been navigating for years: How much agency should an audience have? YouTube's answer increasingly seems to be: quite a lot.

Showdowns allow audiences to influence a competition. Watch With turns watching someone else's content into a communal event. Smart matching is designed to put previously separate creator communities in the same room. Fan-funding products allow viewers to financially affect what's happening on screen. Auto-Dubbing could eventually allow those communities to form across languages.

But Higa's experience with Alveus suggests the most meaningful outcome of all that participation might be harder for a platform to quantify.

Since Higa began streaming in 2019, she estimates her platform has generated around $8 million in crowdsourced and other fundraising. She's also watched members of her audience decide to study environmental science or conservation biology and pursue careers dedicated to the planet. That experience has changed how she thinks about the people on the other side of the screen.

"I never say fans," Higa said. "I sometimes say viewers. I almost always say our community."

Some have been watching her since 2019. They've grown up alongside one another. Higa has watched their interests, values, and even career paths change. "It does feel like a movement of these young people that are growing up together," she said.

And that might be the more interesting bet behind YouTube's latest updates to Live. The platform doesn't need to teach viewers how to participate in livestreams. They've been doing that for years. The opportunity is figuring out what creators and their audiences can build once they do.

From YouTubers and TikTok stars to streamers and podcasters, Mashable talks to creators about how they built their platforms, the gear they swear by, and the trends they see coming next. Read more of our creator coverage, sign up for our Trending Now and Top Stories newsletters or get Mashable push alerts to discover the internet's most exciting voices.

Raspberry Pi has always been associated with tinkering, modification, and making hardware do things it wasn’t designed to do. Now, the company has publicly confirmed that it has been quietly locking its boards to factory-configured RAM capacities through firmware. So, if you were planning a RAM swap—whether for a repair or an upgrade, the message is now on the record: it won’t work.

TL;DR: Physical preorders for Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake are already $10 off at Amazon. Preorder for $59.99 and get a pre-order price guarantee.

Opens in a new window Credit: Nintendo The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time $59.99
$69.99 Save $10.00   Pre-order Here

We're edging closer and closer to the Nintendo Switch 2 remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The official release date is Nov. 5, but Zelda fans are already buzzing thanks to the first-look gameplay footage.

Preorders for both the digital and physical copies are already available at Amazon. The digital version costs $59.99, while the physical edition was initially priced at $69.99 but has been reduced to $59.99 — great news for those of us who prefer to have the actual game in our hands.

There's another good reason to order from Amazon, as the retailed is offering a pre-order price guarantee. That means if the pre-order changes between now and when you're charged, you'll pay the lowest price point between when you order and when you receive the game.

If you're a serious Zelda fan, it's worth getting that preorder in soon.

Nintendo has revealed that the first print run of the physical edition will come with "special packaging that features textured foil cover art." That's one for the collectors, who will also love the Legend of Zelda-themed hardware coming this fall to mark the franchise's 40th anniversary. That will include a special-edition Switch 2 console, a Pro Controller, and a carrying case, all out Oct. 29.

The best deals this week, hand-picked by our shopping experts

• Apple iPhone 18 Pro — free at T-Mobile 

• Paramount+ — $0.99 for 2 months with code p2mcs26prem

• Apple AirPods Pro 3 — $199 $249 (save $50)

• Apple iPad Pro — $1,899 $2,099 (save $200)

• TCL 85-Inch Class QM8L Series TV — $2,497.99 $3,999.99 (save $1,502)

A new lens might be tempting, but a new lens isn't always what you need. Lenses can cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. For under $600, you can buy an amazing 3D printer that will help you upgrade your Sony camera setup in ways a new lens never could.

TL;DR: The latest Stuff Your Kindle Day takes place on Sept. 23-26. Gotta Get 'Em All, hosted by Indie Author Collective, is a series book blast with 100+ free titles on offer.

Where have all the Stuff Your Kindle Days gone? That's what we've been shouting into the abyss over the last few weeks.

It wasn't so long ago that we couldn't go a week without a free book giveaway, but the schedule seriously dried up over the summer. Fortunately, Stuff Your Kindle is back to boost your TBR pile ahead of fall and winter.

Gotta Get 'Em All, hosted by Indie Author Collective, is offering free books until Sept. 26. Everything you download is yours to keep forever, so you can get greedy and really stock up without a care in the world. That's what these popular events are all about.

SEE ALSO: T-Mobile is giving away the 2026 Motorola Razr for free — how to qualify

Looking to make the most of the latest Stuff Your Kindle Day? We've lined up everything you need to know about this popular event.

When is Stuff Your Kindle Day?

Gotta Get 'Em All takes place from Sept. 23-26. This four-day giveaway gives you plenty of time to assess your options and stock up ahead of the winter months.

Which books are free?

Gotta Get 'Em All is a series book blast, offering (you guessed it) books in a series. There's a helpful hub page with filters for price (free or 99 cents), platform (Kindle or Kobo), representation, and genre. With the help of these filters, you can find exactly what you want to read.

Is Stuff Your Kindle Day the same as Amazon Kindle Unlimited?

Everything you download on Stuff Your Kindle Day is yours to keep forever, and there's no limit on the number of books you can download. Stuff Your Kindle Day downloads don't count towards the 20 books that Amazon Kindle Unlimited subscribers can borrow at the same time.

The best Stuff Your Kindle Day deal Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Kindle (16GB) + Kindle Unlimited (3 Months) $149.99 at Amazon
  Shop Now Why we like it

These popular e-readers let you take your entire library on the go. With weeks of battery life and an anti-glare display, you can read anywhere and anytime with the Kindle. Plus, you can get three months of Kindle Unlimited for free with your purchase for a limited time.

There has never been a more exciting time to get into (or maybe get back into) 3D printing. 3D printers are fun and useful tools for everything from weekend hobbies and printing parts to creating products for small businesses.

Streaming devices tend to have a longer shelf life than phones, but like everything, they get slow over time. You don’t have to banish your old Android TV, Chromecast with Google TV, or an Onn device to the tech graveyard just yet, though.

SAVE $600: As of Sept. 23, the Apple MacBook Pro (M5 Max, 36GB RAM, 2TB SSD) is on sale at Amazon for $3,499. That's down 15% from its $4,099 list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Apple Apple MacBook Pro M5 Max $3,499 at Amazon
$4,099 Save $600   Get Deal

When Apple refreshed its MacBook lineup, it delivered massive processing power and higher price tags across the board.

The base 14-inch M5 Max model normally costs an eye-watering $4,099 at full retail, making any steep discount worth grabbing immediately. Amazon just knocked $600 off the flagship 14.2-inch MacBook Pro with the M5 Max chip, bringing it down to $3,499.

The standard M5 chip handles daily tasks fine, but the M5 Max is a totally different beast made for heavy lifting. It handles local AI models, complex 3D graphics, and multi-track 8K video editing without breaking a sweat. This setup packs an 18-core CPU and a 32-core GPU with dedicated AI cores built into the graphics chip.

The M5 Max features faster unified memory and upgraded SSD storage that reads and writes up to twice as fast as earlier models. The 14.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR display pumps out 1,000 nits of sustained brightness and 1,600 nits peak brightness for editing HDR content, backed by a studio-grade six-speaker setup with Spatial Audio and a 12MP Center Stage webcam.

Apple doubled the starting storage for this generation, giving you 36GB of unified memory and a massive 2TB high-speed SSD out of the box. You also get a bright 14.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR screen, WiFi 7 support, three Thunderbolt 5 ports, and enough power to run up to four external displays at once.

Even with all that power driving four external monitors at once, macOS keeps everything running smoothly and securely with built-in virus protection, seamless iPhone Mirroring, and all-day battery life, whether plugged in or running on the go.

Grab the M5 Max MacBook Pro for $3,499 on Amazon before the $600 discount disappears.

The best deals this week, hand-picked by our shopping experts

• Apple iPhone 18 Pro — free at T-Mobile 

• Paramount+ — $0.99 for 2 months with code p2mcs26prem

• Apple AirPods Pro 3 — $199 $249 (save $50)

• Apple iPad Pro — $1,899 $2,099 (save $200)

• TCL 85-Inch Class QM8L Series TV — $2,497.99 $3,999.99 (save $1,502)

Netflix has released the trailer for Ray Gunn, the upcoming film from The Incredibles and The Iron Giant director Brad Bird.

SEE ALSO: Brad Bird takes us behind the scenes of 'Ray Gunn's massive sci-fi city

For Bird, the moment is decades in the making, as he's been working to bring Ray Gunn to the big screen since the '90s. The long-gestating passion project is a blend of sci-fi and film noir that transports viewers to the massive city of Metropia, a world of mile-high skyscrapers, flying cars, and aliens and humans alike. It's a world full of intrigue and corruption, and trying to get to the bottom of all that is the city's lone private eye, the down-on-his-luck Ray Gunn (voiced by Sam Rockwell).

(Not to be confused with Australian breakdancer Raygun, who's also found a home on Netflix in the form of a documentary.)

Ray and his alien associate Eyera (voiced by Tom Waits) need a job, fast. Otherwise, their business will go under. Luckily for them, a high-profile case lands in their laps, involving volatile media superstar Venus Nova (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) and a grisly murder. But is Venus truly the dangerous femme fatale everyone suspects her to be?

Check out the full trailer above to watch sparks fly between Venus and Ray, as well as some serious flying car chases and blaster action.

Ray Gunn also stars Alan Tudyk, Matt Berry, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Chernus, Kether Donohue, Michelle Rodriguez, Aasif Mandvi, Matt Jones, Kathryn Hunter, John Ratzenberger, Justin Peck, and Patton Oswalt.

Ray Gunn opens in select theaters Dec. 4, and premieres Dec. 18 on Netflix.

The moment your Linux PC powers on, it begins a silent conversation on your local network under your nose. Background system processes are checking in with servers, applications are on the hunt for new updates, and other devices on the network are signaling that they are up.

TL;DR: As of Sept. 23, the DJI Power 1000 V2 portable power station is available for $419.99 at Amazon. That's a saving of $30 off the regular list price of $449.99.

Opens in a new window Credit: DJI DJI Power 1000 V2 $419 at Amazon
$449 Save $30   Get Deal

OK, so there's nothing sexy about a power station. They can be bulky, ugly, and expensive. But they're also one of life's essentials in this increasingly-connected, device-driven world — particularly if you like to take road trips and get into the great outdoors.

The fact that they're expensive is one reason many people put off buying one. It's a whole lot of cash to drop on something this un-sexy — an item that's an essential rather than a luxury — which is why you should always check out the power station deals around a sale like October Prime Day.

Yes, we know it's early — October Prime Day officially runs Oct. 6-7 — but Amazon is already supercharged with early deals, including a discount on the DJI Power 1000 V2 portable power station. As of Sept. 23, the DJI Power 1000 V2 portable power station is available on Amazon for $419.99, a $30 savings from the list price of $449.99.

The DJI Power 1000 V2 is a multi-purpose power station that will power pretty much any device you can throw at it, whether it's a phone or laptop, power tools, a microwave, or even a mini-fridge.

It's quiet, fast-charging (via the grid or solar power), and offers 11 ports, including AC and various USB ports. In addition to that, it's super portable, allowing you to throw it in the trunk and take it anywhere you need power.

Pick up the DJI Power 1000 V2 portable power station while it's discounted at Amazon — now just $419.99.

While ads everywhere on your phone can feel annoying, they may start to feel embarrassing as well at a certain point. To implement advertising-related tracking at the OS level and serve targeted ads, every Android phone with Google Play Services carries a Google Advertising ID (GAID). It acts somewhat like a cookie by providing an identifier that can be used to serve targeted and personalized ads.

The first character you meet in Brad Bird's Ray Gunn isn't the titular private eye (voiced by Sam Rockwell). Nor is it his alien colleague, Eyera (voiced by Tom Waits), nor even pop superstar Venus Nova (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). Instead, it's the film's setting: the massive, retro-futuristic city of Metropia.

Ray Gunn's opening sequence zips viewers through the canyons between Metropia's mile-high buildings. Flying cars and elevated trains transport hordes of humans and aliens alike, but commuters could just as easily rent a jetpack for quick travel. For them, it's business as usual, but for viewers, it's a rollicking introduction to an astounding city.

SEE ALSO: How 'Ray Gunn's Venus Nova, pop star of the (retro) future, evolved

Bird has been working to make Ray Gunn since the '90s, and he's stressed Metropia's importance from the very beginning. In an introductory note on a script draft from 1996, he wrote that the one character he couldn't adequately capture on the page was Metropia. In this world, he wrote, "Cities are gargantuan jewels that stretch into the heavens."

As Ray Gunn moved from page to screen, how did Bird and his team manage to bring the jewel of Metropia to life? At a press day at Netflix's animation studios, Bird and his collaborators broke down the influences and techniques behind the finished version of Metropia, as well as the importance of getting it right.

"The movie took place almost entirely in that city, and if the city wasn't a character, it would be an empty experience," Bird told Mashable.

According to Ray Gun art director Wendell Luebbe, Bird wanted to combine two different styles for the look of Metropia. One was the work of early 20th century architect Hugh Ferriss, who dreamed up tall, stepped buildings. (Fittingly for Ray Gunn, he also wrote the 1929 book The Metropolis of Tomorrow.) The other was Streamline Moderne, a sleeker take on Art Deco that took off during the 1930s. While Ferriss' work is defined by height and blocky geometry, Streamline Moderne is all about curves and aerodynamics.

Concept art for the city of Metropia. Credit: Netflix / Skydance Animation

"[Bird] wanted to meld those two together into something we've never seen," Luebbe told press. "So we took a lot of the ideas of Streamline Moderne and then grafted them onto the monumental Hugh Ferriss buildings."

As Ray Gunn's team developed Metropia's broader visual style, they also made sure to give its many neighborhoods their own distinct feel. The city's entertainment district is "like Times Square on steroids," Luebbe said. But you can find quieter, Greenwich Village-type areas with smaller clubs as well. Elsewhere, the city's aliens live in the Maze, a labyrinthine space whose organic structures drew inspiration from Dale Chihuly's glass sculptures.

When it came to putting all these ideas on screen, Ray Gunn's VFX team faced a challenge in building Metropia.

"To my team, that was very scary, because it's gigantic," VFX supervisor Adel Abada told Mashable. Rather than building a full digital model and moving the camera around it, they built out parts of the city to match certain sequences. This better allowed the team to follow the needs of the storyboards until they got the right shot composition.

"When you look at it as a whole movie, you would believe it's a city that exists, because that's the goal," Abada told press. "How can you create the illusion of a city that exists without going through the entire process of building it piece by piece?"

Concept art for the city of Metropia. Credit: Netflix / Skydance Animation

Abada and his team knew that the camera movement in Ray Gunn was going to be dynamic, especially in a particularly challenging sequence he described as "a vertical chase." That meant they couldn't rely on digital matte painting to create backgrounds. They needed to actually build out the geometry and depth of the buildings so the animators could know where everything was.

Part of designing Metropia also involved figuring out how it functioned as a city. How does Metropia's sheer height impact how people move around? For example, people using elevators have to strap themselves to the walls, as they move at top speed to ferry people up mile-high buildings.

Inspiration for the latter idea struck Bird as he directed Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, which features a tense climb up the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building. (For reference, it's just over half a mile tall, making the buildings in Ray Gunn twice its size.)

"You press the elevator to go up to the top floors [of the Burj Khalifa], and your ears pop. It takes a few minutes to get up there," Bird recalled. "If you lived in a world where there were a lot of mile-high buildings that were taller than the ones in Dubai, people would not want to spend that much time in an elevator, so the elevators would be made really fast."

The elevators are just one of Ray Gunn's many world-building choices dictated by Metropia's astounding height, but they're far from the only ones. Scenes set in Metropia's airborne traffic lanes burst with rich detail about how inhabitants interact with this streamlined beast of a city.

As Bird told Mashable, "You want to give the audience a visual trip."

Ray Gunn premieres Dec. 18 on Netflix.

Travel costs for the production of this content were paid for by Netflix. The judgments and opinions of Mashable are our own.

In 2025, fictional girl group HUNTR/X took over the world thanks to Netflix's KPop Demon Hunters. Now, the streamer is bringing a new fictional pop star to our screens in director Brad Bird's Ray Gunn. Her name? Venus Nova.

SEE ALSO: Fall movie preview: All the 2026 films you need to know about

Voiced by Scarlett Johansson, Venus is the biggest star in Ray Gunn's sprawling, retro-futuristic city of Metropia, reaching the kind of media ubiquity we'd associate with Beyoncé or Taylor Swift. Even if you wanted to escape her reach, you couldn't: Holographic ads for her next album, Welcome to the Future, top skyscrapers and stand several stories tall.

However, Venus' superstar status comes with a high price. Her public outbursts and tumultuous relationships are catnip to Metropia's frenzied press, and they're enough to land her at the center of private investigator Ray Gunn's (voiced by Sam Rockwell) murder investigation.

Venus Nova welcomes us to the future (and her new album). Credit: Skydance Animation / Netflix

For Venus to be a larger-than-life icon as well as Ray Gunn's second lead, Bird and his team had to construct both her pop persona and her troubled personal life. At a press day at Netflix's animation studios, Bird was joined by art director Wendell Luebbe and VFX supervisor Adel Abada to discuss crafting the latest entry in a long, illustrious line of movie pop stars.

Instead of being inspired by pop stars of today, Venus' look draws on screen legends of the 20th century, emphasizing the "retro" in Ray Gunn's retro-futuristic setting.

"She went through all kinds of permutations, but ended up [with] a Lauren Bacall meets Veronica Lake look," Luebbe told press.

According to Luebbe and Abada, costume designer Neysa Bove designed 23 looks for Venus, including the gown she wears in her introductory performance. As Venus rehearses a tongue-in-cheek number, one of several songs written for the film by singer-songrwriter Kimbra, her gown shifts from angelic white to devilish red, complete with a light-up headpiece that mimics a halo and horns.

Concept art of Venus Nova's looks from "Ray Gunn." Credit: Skydance Animation / Netflix

One of the most challenging elements of the sequence was getting Venus' sequined dress to a blinding, pop star-level of shine. Abada recalled Bird's biggest note being, "Get me the sparkle."

"If it's sparkly enough, it reminds you of Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," Bird said, noting that the sequins on the dress for Venus' stand-in are much less sparkly, to emphasize she's not getting the quality fabrics.

But while Venus' onstage image is undoubtedly glamorous, Ray Gunn emphasizes that life in the spotlight isn't all glitter and rainbows. Metropia's media loves to paint Venus as an uncontrollable diva, but as Ray gets to know her better, he learns that Venus' fame is almost like a cage, and that she's hiding painful secrets of her own.

"What was more interesting to me — that was an idea early on — is the idea of someone who's really talented who is also a train wreck," Bird said of Venus' character.

Bird has been working on Ray Gunn since the '90s, and in the time since then, he and the rest of the world have watched young stars like Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse get devoured by invasive media scrutiny and public ridicule.

"You'd see a picture of [Winehouse] with a bloody nose in front of a pub at 4 a.m. and you'd go, 'Why is this woman looking for trouble?'" Bird said. "Then after she died, I saw the documentary, and I was sitting there feeling terrible, because she was so talented, and it was impossible for her to function with the people who were not looking out for her. So, that became an empathetic point when I was writing the later drafts of this."

These stories of pop stars battling the negative side of fame reverberate today, exacerbated by social media discourse. Look no further than the internet picking apart Ariana Grande's body. Or the fervor over Lola Young's collapse at the All Things Go music festival and her subsequent break from performing. Or relentless speculation about the hiatuses of KATSEYE members Manon Bannerman and Sophia Laforteza. People would just as soon tear a star down as they would build them up, and even though Ray Gunn's Venus doesn't draw direct inspiration from these modern stars, her story still speaks to our warped relationship to celebrity.

"I felt empathy for that character and people put in that position where they're just thrust into the spotlight, whether they're ready or not," Bird said.

Ray Gunn premieres Dec. 18 on Netflix.

Travel costs for the production of this content were paid for by Netflix. The judgments and opinions of Mashable are our own.

The best early Prime Day trading card deals: Best Pokémon TCG deal Pokémon TCG 30th Celebration Elite Trainer Box $89.99 (save vs. market price) Get Deal Best MTG deal Magic: The Gathering The Hobbit Bundle $59.99 (save $10) Get Deal Best one piece deal One Piece Card Game Starter Deck ST-35 Red Black Sabo $22.44 (save $2.01) Get Deal Best Disney Lorcana deal Ravensburger Disney Lorcana TCG Illumineer’s QuestPalace Heist Cooperative Adventure Against Jafar $23.99 (save $36) Get Deal Best Kpop Demon Hunters deal Kpop Demon Hunters Collectible Trading Cards Energy Edition $49.95 (save $4.04) Get Deal

Prime Day might not have started yet, but trading card discounts are already piling up at Amazon — with plenty of offers in the Pokémon TCG, Magic: The Gathering, One Piece Card Game, Disney Lorcana, and even KPop Demon Hunters card markets.

We’ve also found plenty of dedicated Pokémon deals, but if you’re a card collector who’s out to save money on Oct. 6-7, keep this page bookmarked as Mashable will be updating the latest deals in the build-up to the main event.

Here are the best early Prime Day trading card deals we’ve found so far. 

Best trading card deal Opens in a new window Credit: Magic: The Gathering Magic: The Gathering The Hobbit Bundle $59.99 at Amazon
$69.99 Save $10.00 Get Deal Why we like it 

Magic: The Gathering's The Hobbit Bundle is a great way to explore the newer Middle-earth set, and this all-time low price (which we uncovered last week) represents incredible value ahead of Prime Day.

Now $59.99 instead of its $69.99 list price, saving you $10 at Amazon (its lowest-ever price, confirmed at price tracker camelcamelcamel). This box is below market price — with dedicated trading card marketplace TCGplayer still estimating it at exactly $61. What’s more, actual listings on the site only go as low as $63.58 plus shipping.

For that price, you're getting nine 14-card The Hobbit Play Boosters alongside an alternate-art Traditional Foil promo, 34 Land cards, an oversized Spindown life counter, two reference cards, and a storage box. That works out to about $6.67 per booster before even counting all of those extras, making this a strong all-in-one option if you've been waiting for a cheaper way to jump into The Hobbit expansion. 

More early Prime Day trading card deals

Pokémon TCG

• Pokémon TCG: Mega Lucario ex League Battle Deck — $18.51 $21.45 (save $2.94)

• Pokémon TCG: Mega Evolution Chaos Rising Triple Pack — $24.58 $29.99 (save $5.41)

• Pokémon TCG: Mega Evolutions Perfect Order 3-Pack Blister — $26.99 $29.99 (save $3)

• Pokémon TCG: Mega Moonlit Tin (random) — $37.98 $39.99 (save $2.01)

• Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet Journey Together Booster Bundle — $53.95 $59.99 (save $6.04)

• Pokémon TCG: 30th Celebration Elite Trainer Box — $89.99 at Amazon, available by invitation

Magic: The Gathering

• Magic: The Gathering Avatar: The Last Airbender Beginner Box — $31.80 $34.99 (save $3.19)

• Magic: The Gathering Marvel Super Heroes Gift Bundle — $79.95 $89.99 (save $10.04)

• Magic: The Gathering Marvel Super Heroes Jumpstart Booster Box (24 Packs) — $119.98 $139.48 (save $19.50)

• Magic: The Gathering Marvel Super Heroes Play Booster Box (30 Packs) — $124.98 $209.70 (save $84.72)

• Magic: The Gathering The Hobbit Play Booster Box (30 Packs) — $189.99 $213.99 (save $14)

One Piece Card Game

• One Piece Card Game OP-07 500 Years in the Future Booster Pack (Japanese) — $9.80 $14.99 (save $5.19)

• One Piece Card Game ST-35 Red Black Sabo Starter Deck — $22.44 $24.45 (save $2.01)

• One Piece Card Game The Adventure of The Island of God OP-15 Booster Box (24 packs, Japanese) — $109 $119 (save $10)

• One Piece Card Game Final Battle OP-16 Booster Box (Japanese) — $122.60 $136.98 (save $14.38)

KPop Demon Hunters Collectible Trading Cards

• KPop Demon Hunters Collectible Trading Cards Energy Edition — $49.95 $53.99 (save $4.04)

• KPop Demon Hunters card-Energy Edition-001-NA-Series 1-A — $49.99 $53.88 (save $3.89)

Disney Lorcana TCG

• Disney Lorcana TCG Archazia’s Island Ruby & Sapphire Starter Deck — $9.95 $16.99 (save $7.04)

• Disney Lorcana TCG Azurite Sea Emerald & Sapphire Starter Deck — $9.95 $16.99 (save $7.04)

• Disney Lorcana TCG Illumineer’s Quest: Palace Heist — $23.99 $59.99 (save $36)

• Disney Lorcana TCG 2-Player Starter Deck — $29.95 $34.75 (save $4.80)

• Disney Lorcana TCG Azurite Sea Stitch Collector’s Gift Set — $39.90 $49.99 (save $10.09)

TL;DR: As of Sept. 23, Apple AirPods Pro 3 are available for $199 at Amazon. That's a 20% discount from the regular list price of $249.

Opens in a new window Credit: Apple Apple AirPods Pro 3 $199 at Amazon
$249 Save $50   Get Deal

For Apple-loving bargain hunters, things don't get much better than a major sale event such as Amazon's Prime Day. This is the time when you can find significant discounts on the very best Apple devices.

October Prime Day is very nearly here, with the two-day event set for Oct. 6-7, and we're already seeing some deals worth knowing about.

That includes a generous 20% markdown on the Apple AirPods Pro 3. As of Sept. 23, the Apple AirPods Pro 3 are priced at $199, representing a $50 saving on the list price of $249.

This is a deal not to miss. But what makes them Apple's earbuds? It's not just the sound quality, access to Siri, and synchronicity across Apple devices — it's also the active noise cancellation, some of the very best ANC technology around, and spatial audio. They also have built-in heart rate sensing, which works with Apple Health to track your heart rate and calories burned with up to 50 types of workouts.

With $50 off, they're an absolute must-have for dedicated Apple users. Pick up the Apple AirPods Pro 3 for just £199 as part of the early October Prime Day deals.

If you've ever used an X-shaped tire iron to remove lug nuts on your vehicle, you know how strenuous it can be. Most mechanics and DIYers use a breaker bar or an impact wrench instead, but a common question online is whether a Ryobi impact wrench can remove wheel lug nuts. After testing two of them, the answer is clear.