Joshua Bowen, founder and formerly Managing Director of Look Mom! Productions, and Carly Sacks, former Director of Production Finance at Blue Ant Media, have teamed up to form Cutting Class Media to focus on the development, production and distribution of long-form animation and live-action content. The Canadian company will announce its initial slate of greenlights in the coming months.
“We want to tell fresh stories and build something great together. We see the current industry climate as a real opportunity to find a talented team and carve out new ways to develop and finance content. Life’s too short not to cut class sometimes,” said Sacks.
Building on his extensive adult animated comedy background, producing and selling shows such as Gary and His Demons (Prime Video [Canada]/Freevee [U.S.]) and Doomlands (Roku), Bowen will lead the new company’s original adult animation division. Bowen and Sacks will also share the role of CEO.
Cutting Class has also welcomed Bracken Burns, who is turning her acting career in projects such as Viggo Mortensen’s Sundance, Cannes and TIFF-selected movie Falling, Frankie Drake (CBC) and Watch Dogs (Ubisoft) in a fresh direction as a Partner in the studio and Head of Scripted. Burns began producing in the U.K. and has since been championing Canadian talent through projects such as Canadian Screen Award winner peopleWatching and an upcoming CBC Doc Channel feature.
“One of the most compelling parts about this team is that each member has produced their own original content,” noted Bowen. “It’s rare to find talent with equal parts creative and business minded and we think this is one of our company’s biggest strengths.”
Burns added, “After meeting Josh and Carly and hearing their vision, I knew that my days as a lonely producer were over. Greenlights are going to be so much more exciting when shared with this powerhouse team.”
