Wise Owl Films has formed a new “youth-skewing” division, called Hoot.
Hoot has been founded to celebrate the North as the “urban, youthful, curious, culture-filled place that it really is” and promote Northern creators.
It will be headed up by Wise Owls Films’ and Hoot’s Head of Development, Lucy Smith, alongside a development team Nathalie Mayer and Kariim Case.
“Yorkshire is home to exceptional young creators taking centre stage in the Northern creative revolution,” said Smith.
“I couldn’t be prouder to launch Hoot and empower this entrepreneurial generation with the confidence, technical skills and pitching opportunities to get their ideas made.”
Hoot will be aiming at 16-34 year olds across a range of broadcasters and digital channels. It has already been selected by Channel 4 as one of 4 indies charged with finding the next generation of on-screen talent from diverse backgrounds.
“Yorkshire in 2022 is a very different place to how it’s often portrayed on telly – it’s urban, youthful and culture-filled, not just whippets and flat caps! We’ve launched Hoot to shake up the status quo, shape the future of the content industry and counter the media image of the North of England simply as miles of countryside,” added Case.
Leeds-based Wise Owl Films is the non-scripted off-shoot of Lime Pictures.
“We are now approaching the fourth anniversary of Wise Owl’s foundation, and even in that short time, television and content has changed enormously,” explained Mark Robinson, Creative Director of Wise Owl Films.
“While still committed to producing the wide range of factual and factual entertainment programming that Wise Owl has become known for so quickly, we also wanted to adapt our identity and development goals to recognise the rapidly-changing times. We feel that launching Hoot as a label within a label will clearly brand this bespoke, innovative output so we can best serve the growing thirst for youth-skewing content across many different platforms”.
