Descendant Films Appoints Vedant Dave as Director of Photography for Dual-Format Series 'Rivals to Lovers'

Descendant Films, LLC has announced Vedant Dave as Director of Photography for the upcoming premium television series 'Rivals to Lovers,' scheduled to enter production in early 2027. Directed by Erik Lu and produced by Karpit Patel, this ambitious project represents a groundbreaking approach to television production through its dual-format strategy designed for both traditional streaming platforms and mobile-first vertical viewing.

The series follows Ananya, a bold entrepreneur in the tech-fashion industry, and Daniel, the charismatic but ruthless CEO of a competing startup. Their intense professional rivalry evolves into an emotionally charged relationship, exploring themes of ambition, betrayal, and the complex intersection between competition and personal connection. The narrative blends romance, business rivalry, suspense, and personal transformation to create a multifaceted viewing experience.

What distinguishes 'Rivals to Lovers' from conventional television productions is its innovative simultaneous capture in both horizontal (16:9) and vertical (9:16) formats. This approach enables the series to maximize its global reach across traditional streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+, while also catering to mobile-first platforms dominating Asian markets such as Tencent, iQIYI, and Youku. This dual-format production strategy represents a first-of-its-kind endeavor in long-form television, potentially setting new standards for cross-platform content distribution.

As Director of Photography, Vedant Dave will lead the visual development across both capture formats, ensuring aesthetic consistency and emotional resonance regardless of screen orientation. His responsibilities include defining the show's visual identity, supervising lighting design, lens aesthetics, and camera movement for both the grand scale of Silicon Valley innovation and the intimate emotional subtleties of romantic drama. Dave will employ multi-camera setups including the ARRI Alexa 35 for cinematic visuals and the Sony FX3 for mobile-oriented framing.

Director Erik Lu emphasized Dave's critical role in the project, stating that the series is built around contrasts between love and rivalry, intimacy and ambition, and big-screen spectacle versus mobile immediacy. Dave's approach will emphasize modern color palettes, reflective surfaces, and evolving visual motifs that mirror the protagonists' power struggles and emotional arcs throughout filming in iconic Los Angeles and San Francisco locations.

The production's technical innovation extends to post-production, where parallel editing workflows will shape both horizontal and vertical versions concurrently. Dave will closely supervise this process to preserve performance nuance and visual coherence across formats, employing sleek corporate hues, naturalistic lighting, and emotionally tuned framing to serve as the visual backbone of the series.

Production for 'Rivals to Lovers' is scheduled to run from January 16, 2027, through January 23, 2028, with post-production concluding in early 2028. The series is positioned as a flagship cross-market production designed to engage both Western premium streaming audiences and the rapidly expanding Asian serialized drama landscape. Descendant Films, led by Erik Lu, continues to push boundaries in cinematic storytelling for global markets, with prior collaborations spanning the United States and Asia recognized for aesthetic discipline and technical innovation. Additional information about the director's work can be found at https://www.eriklu.com/ and his professional profile at https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3208624/.

The appointment of Vedant Dave and the innovative dual-format approach of 'Rivals to Lovers' signals a significant shift in how television content is produced for global audiences. This production model could influence future industry standards by demonstrating how stories can maintain artistic integrity while adapting to diverse viewing platforms and cultural markets. The series' success may encourage other productions to adopt similar multi-format strategies, potentially reshaping content distribution and consumption patterns worldwide.