Bryn Mooser, CEO and founder of nonfiction entertainment studio XTR, said he would like to see more work on Los Angeles’ East Side, a historic film location.
“Echo Park is a great place to be at the center of the creative community, especially for documentary filmmakers,” Oscar-nominated producer ( LIFEBOAT SAY, BODY TEAM 25). “This neighborhood used to be called Edendale, and that was where the first Hollywood studios were. Charlie Chaplin’s studio, Keystone Studios, Mary Pickford, everyone was here The first walkie-talkie was probably filmed a mile or so away. So there’s a history of making things here, and that’s really exciting.”
That’s how the Mooser that attracted the fifth-generation Angeleno turned on Reason for new XTR ,- square foot production facility and headquarters in a cul-de-sac in Echo Park (the former home of BelleVarado Studios). The studio was established in 2019, formerly located in a warehouse loft on Sunset Boulevard, and recently opened in a building The Spanish Mission Revival-style building is adorned with vintage wooden tables and salvage doors with embedded stained glass windows that Mooser himself found and tailored to fit. Every corner of the campus feels human and organic, never fabricated or hollowly curated, which is ultimately a sanctuary suitable for real-life documentary productions.
XTR produces, distributes and finances documentaries, series and podcasts. They Call Me Magic , Documentary on Magic Johnson on Apple TV+; Oscar Nominee for MTV Documentary Ascension ; Menu on HBO Max: Forever Young ; National Geographic’s Territory , and Emmys and Peabody Awards
make up Some of the company’s roster exceeds 78 documents. I didn’t see you there , this year’s feature film about people with disabilities, which won the Documentary Director Award at the Sundance Film Festival, will be released in theaters at the beginning of the year October.
Mooser recalls his first job in the entertainment industry, working for the Fox lot at NYPD Blue , and how it was Be the template for the type of work environment he wants to set up in his new home at XTR Studios, including work and meeting spaces, soundstage, recording studio, and production and post-production facilities.
“I think when you walk in, you feel the energy of people creating things, that’s what got me so excited about going into entertainment. It’s something I always wanted to get back to, ‘ Mooser mused. “I want this space to be a place where ideas can come, it can help lower barriers to entry and allow people to make things.”
Kathryn Everett, company film director Bryn Musser and executive producer Produced by Lydia Keeves. XTR: By TREVOR Provided by TRAYNOR
XTR’s new home includes work and meeting spaces, soundstage, recording studio, and production and post-production facility. -The company currently has about 12 film and television projects in production. In addition to this, the operation of XTR’s Documentary+, a free non-fiction film and TV streaming platform, started at 2021 launched, also contained within the vaulted corridor of the workspace.
“We created it to provide a platform for passionate non-fiction fans. We started with the on-demand genre side, we’re on the web, we’re available as iOS TV, Roku, etc. on the app. Then we launched as a fast channel, and now we’re on 75 percentage of connected TVs in the U.S. that we have all over the world,” said Justin Lacob, head of development and production at XTR and co-founder of Doc+. “It’s really a place where people can watch 8592 documentaries for free anytime, anywhere.”
Available at 76 With millions of households in the US alone, most of Documentary+’s original content will be produced live on XTR’s soundstage, which can be fully virtualized, allowing them to produce documentaries at a cost – whether the film requires a sit-down interview or Atmospheric entertainment in a controlled setting.
“We’re not trying to compete with Netflix, but we’re a value-added platform,” Lacob said of the platform, which combines feature-length and short-form directors from two well-known films and Filmmakers are on the rise. “A lot of our documentation on Doc+ isn’t available anywhere else, so we’re operating our own way in the streaming wars.”
Courtesy of Trevor Trainer
XTR’s studio facilities are also available for rent for other companies’ productions, non-fiction or commercial works. “I want this space to be a place where ideas can come, and it can help lower the barrier to entry for people to make stuff,” Mooser said. Given the new and larger audience for documentaries that have grown due to the easier accessibility that streaming platforms offer , Mooser expects the space will be in demand. “The genre could never really reach a mass audience because it was limited to film festivals, or only a few theaters that would show documentaries. But now they can be presented in the same way [as a narrative feature]. That means you not only have new audience, which of course creates new business, and you also have audiences who are new to documentaries and want to be creators themselves. So there’s a whole new class of filmmakers with perspectives and backgrounds that have long been The people who make documentaries are completely different. It’s in this context that you have new audiences, new filmmakers and a thriving business, and I think there’s an opportunity to build a studio, and hopefully at the center of it, it’s for It was built for this moment, not the past for this moment.”
Part of Mooser’s vision for building the studio rests on collaboration and creative inspiration, a necessary part of the storytelling process. By doing post-production in-house, editors were able to collide and exchange the energies of ideas—like when atoms and their waveforms closely overlap—in the comfort of their environment. Making this a priority is one of the elements that makes XTR Studios unique in the industry. Another is the company’s focus on working with a range of filmmakers (thanks in large part to the insight of XTR film head Kathryn Everett).
“Historically, documentary studios have been focused on the documentary maker, you know? Like, a person. It’s just that director’s unique vision,” Mooser said. “It’s important to us that we’re going to build something that doesn’t have a single voice, and we’re really working with a lot of filmmakers.”
This story First appeared in September. The Hollywood Reporter issue. 8592Click here to subscribe.
