EXCLUSIVE: Four Canadian entertainment industry veterans have pooled resources to launch a production house, Paper Route Studios.

Dave Harris, Corey Russell, Jamie MacKay and Blair Vermette – who have collectively made shows and films for the likes of Prime Video, Netflix and Crave and managed major music acts – are behind the Toronto-based company. Paper Route quietly launched in June, we hear, and is now fully operational.

The firm will focus on premium documentary film and series, commercials and brand campaigns, branded stories, and full service Canadian production for U.S. and international studios and producers. Canada offers lucrative federal and provincial tax credit systems, which Paper Route plans to offer third-parties, along with the scope to hire experienced crews and production capabilities from development through to delivery.

Developing and producing original IP will be central to the business model. Doc projects are in development or production with Canada’s CBC, ESPN and Hulu, its founders said, with team members also delivering programs to Prime Video, Netflix, Crave and NHL Original Productions. Also delivered was The World Lives here, a cinematic campaign for TSN connected to the FIFA World Cup, with Kiefer Sutherland narrating.

“We’ve each spent decades doing this work at the highest level,” said MacKay, Papaer Route’s COO. “Paper Route is about bringing that experience together under one roof, with the relationships, the craft and the ambition to tell stories that travel.”

“Documentary storytelling is changing quickly, but audiences still respond to the same thing: Stories that feel honest, specific and emotionally true,” added Russell, exec producer at Paper Route. “We want Paper Route to be a home for ambitious filmmakers and partners who care as much about the substance of a project as they do about its reach.”

Russell’s credits include Prime Video’s All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs; the Critics Choice Award-winning The Go-Go’s, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival; the Canadian Screen Award-winning Rush: Time Stand Still; Killing Patient Zero; Hot Docs entry Beautiful Scars; and Blue Rodeo: Lost Together. He also helped launch GameTV and served as Head of Programming for GolTV, Canada’s first 24-hour football channel.

Harris has worked for more than 25 years across music, film and brand storytelling, working in artist management for BMG and Sony Music for the likes of the Foo Fighters and John Mayer, and then founded hybrid agency Shed Creative, which run campaigns for Samsung and Intel and made docs such as Long Time Running and Shawn Mendes: In Wonder. Shed was sold to Universal Music Group in 2022 and Harris then the music-focused production is 86 Media House.

Vermette, Paper Route’s Chief Creative Officer, is a director and creative with two decades of experience in commercial and TV production. He has sold series to Ovation and co-founded Rabbithole, a hybrid studio focused on next-gen visual production. He has produced creative work for the likes of Vice and SharkNinja.

“A strong idea should never be limited by the way things have always been done,” said Vermette. “New production technologies give us more ways to explore an idea and expand on what is possible, but it still takes creative judgment and craft to turn that possibility into something audiences will remember.”

McKay is Paper Route’s COO. He has more than two decades of experience in the founder and entrepreneurial space, and fpcuses on developing the operational framework for creative ventures.

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