The decision to embrace vertical storytelling wasn't simply about adding another line of business, it fundamentally changed how Casa NoHo Studios thought about the campus itself.

At first glance, Casa NoHo Studios looks like what you’d expect from a modern production campus tucked into North Hollywood a sprawling 26,000-square-foot facility with multiple homes, flexible outdoor locations, and enough production infrastructure to support everything from documentaries to television. Spend enough time talking to the people behind it, and a different story begins to emerge. Increasingly, the conversations taking place across the property aren’t about traditional Hollywood productions. They’re about vertical microdramas.

In an industry searching for its next chapter, Casa NoHo has quietly become one of the places where that future is being written. Producers are finding a home base, creative teams are building relationships, and a growing number of vertical productions are choosing the campus as their launch point. What began as a production facility has evolved into something larger: a gathering place for one of entertainment’s fastest-growing formats.

“When we found out about this vertical space, it was about a year ago for me,” says Ben DeJesus. “I went to a panel on a Saturday morning at the LA Film Festival, and I heard one of the executives from ReelShort up there. I heard one of the stars on stage. Then I heard a couple of producers who were really killing it in the space, and just like that, the light bulb went off.”


At the time, construction was already underway at Casa NoHo. The campus was being built to support traditional film and television production, but DeJesus realized the industry’s newest storytelling format would demand something different. Rather than treating vertical as a side business, the team made the decision to rethink the space while it was still taking shape.


”We were doing construction at our property in North Hollywood,” he explains. “We decided to pivot and make it even more vertical-friendly and production-friendly. Now we’re reaping the benefits of that effort and that vision.”

That decision has proven to be more than a timely business move. As studios, platforms, and independent producers race to meet the demand for mobile-first storytelling, Casa NoHo has positioned itself as a campus designed around the realities of modern production where speed, flexibility, and collaboration matter just as much as soundstages and equipment.

It’s a reflection of a broader shift taking place across Hollywood, one where the next production boom isn’t being defined by bigger sets or longer schedules, but by a new generation of filmmakers building stories for the screen millions of people already hold in their hands.

Designing a Studio for Vertical Storytelling

The decision to embrace vertical storytelling wasn’t simply about adding another line of business, it fundamentally changed how Casa NoHo Studios thought about the campus itself.

When DeJesus returned from the LA Film Festival panel, construction was already underway on the North Hollywood property. Rather than waiting to see whether vertical microdramas would become a lasting trend, the team made the decision to adapt the campus while they still had the opportunity. The goal wasn’t to build a studio for vertical productions after the fact. It was to create a production environment that could support the speed, flexibility, and workflow the format demands from day one.

That meant thinking beyond traditional soundstages.

“Essentially, Casa NoHo Studios is a production company. It’s a culturally driven production hub where stories are developed, produced and brought to life,” says DeJesus. “We have a 26,000-square-foot production and event compound in North Hollywood that features four distinct houses, a ton of outdoor versatile spaces, and the infrastructure to take projects from concept to screen.”

Every part of that description reflects how vertical productions operate. Unlike traditional television or feature films, where productions may occupy a single location for weeks at a time, vertical microdramas often move at an accelerated pace, requiring multiple environments that can quickly transform between scenes while keeping crews working efficiently. A campus with diverse locations and built-in production infrastructure isn’t simply a convenience, it’s an operational advantage.

For Casa NoHo, the investment was also about preserving flexibility. While the campus continues to host documentaries, television series, feature films, and commercial productions, its layout has allowed it to evolve alongside one of the industry’s fastest-growing formats rather than competing with it.

“We’re focused more on the legacy side of the business because that’s where we come from, so we’re doing television projects, documentary feature films,” DeJesus explains. “Then we wanted to obviously lean into this vertical opportunity. That was where the genesis of Fuego Shorts came from. We wanted to make sure that we have our production company and our facility as a standalone entity, but we were like, ‘Wow, this vertical space demands more attention’ and a completely new and solely operated division.”

The result is a campus designed to accommodate two worlds at once. Traditional productions still have a home at Casa NoHo, but the studio has also become purpose-built for an emerging production model, one where efficiency is measured in days rather than weeks, and where the physical design of a campus can have as much impact on a production schedule as the script itself.

How Casa NoHo Became Vertical’s Gathering Place

The physical transformation of Casa NoHo Studios was only part of the story. As more companies entered the vertical microdrama space, the campus began attracting something that can’t be designed into a blueprint: an industry community.

What started as a production facility quickly became a place where creators, producers, platforms, and talent found themselves crossing paths. Productions were choosing to shoot on the property, industry events were filling its calendar, and conversations about the future of vertical storytelling increasingly seemed to begin or end at Casa NoHo.

David Chitel describes the shift as something that happened naturally.

“Casa NoHo Studios has become sort of a lightning rod within the vertical microdrama space in multiple ways,” he says. “A lot of them are shooting at that location. Some of the vertical festivals and platforms are hosting events at Casa NoHo. People from within the industry, talent and producers, are spending a lot of time at Casa NoHo just creatively meeting each other and connecting.”

In an industry that’s still defining itself, those informal connections matter as much as the productions themselves. Vertical filmmaking has expanded at a pace that has brought together veterans of television and film, emerging creators, mobile-first platforms, and independent producers, all searching for collaborators while the rules of the business are still being written. Rather than existing solely as a rental location, Casa NoHo has become a place where those relationships are formed between projects, panels, and productions.

The momentum has been difficult to ignore, even outside the vertical ecosystem.

“We actually were contacted by The New York Times, who said, ‘What is this Casa NoHo facility you guys have? Everyone’s talking about it,'” Chitel recalls.

For Chitel, that’s a reflection of something bigger than the studio itself. Casa NoHo has become the front door to a broader ecosystem that extends well beyond a single production campus. It’s where creators meet producers, where platforms discover new partners, and where conversations about the next generation of mobile-first entertainment continue long after the cameras stop rolling.

As Hollywood searches for its next production model, Casa NoHo’s greatest asset may not simply be its sound-ready spaces or flexible locations. It may be the community that’s grown around them, one that has transformed a North Hollywood campus into an increasingly important meeting point for an industry still very much in motion.

Why This Bet Is Bigger Than One Studio

For Ben DeJesus and David Chitel, the story unfolding at Casa NoHo isn’t simply about one production campus or even one emerging format. It’s about recognizing that every generation of entertainment eventually finds a new way to reach audiences, and that the people willing to adapt early often help define what comes next.

DeJesus sees the current moment as one of those rare inflection points.

“I think what we’re looking at is almost like Hollywood maybe 100 years ago,” he says. “There was this transition between silent films and the talkies. I don’t want to belabor the point or overexaggerate it, but it is a shift in the industry of how people consume content, and it can’t be denied. Rather than looking at it like the sky is falling… we’re taking the other approach. We’re saying, ‘Wow, this is a shift in the entire paradigm, and there’s opportunity here.'”

That optimism extends beyond content and technology. For DeJesus, the growth of vertical production represents something tangible for the people who make Hollywood run. Throughout the interview, he returns not to algorithms or platforms, but to the crews, craftspeople, and creative professionals who are finding consistent work in a rapidly evolving industry.

“I’ve personally seen a shift that people are embracing it,” he says. “People enjoy the quality of life that we have in LA… I’ve spent a lot of my career traveling, and it’s such a beautiful luxury to be able to wake up in my house and go to work in my city without having to get on a plane.”

That perspective reframes Casa NoHo’s role in the vertical microdrama boom. The campus wasn’t built because the format had already become the industry’s dominant force. It was reshaped because its founders believed production itself was changing, and that the studios supporting it would need to change as well.

Today, that vision can be seen not only in the productions moving through the property, but in the creators gathering between shoots, the platforms hosting events, and the crews helping define what vertical filmmaking looks like in Los Angeles. Casa NoHo has become more than a production campus; it has become a reflection of an industry learning to reinvent itself once again.

Hollywood has always evolved alongside the way audiences watch stories. The screens may be smaller today, the production schedules faster, and the workflows different, but the ambition remains the same: create compelling entertainment for the next generation of viewers. At Casa NoHo Studios, that future isn’t something being discussed in meeting rooms. It’s already in production.