Building the infrastructure for filmmaker-owned cinema.
February 2026 New York, NY Confidential
SMWR LLC is a New York-based independent production company operating three distinct labels across features, documentary, and mobile-native cinema. Founded by Stephen Small-Warner and Sasha Small-Warner, the company is built on a single thesis: filmmakers who own their work and control its distribution create compounding value — creative, financial, and cultural — that no studio relationship can replicate.
The company is in active development across seven projects, with its mobile-native label Vertical Motion Pictures building the distribution infrastructure that will make filmmaker ownership the default — not the exception — in the vertical drama market.
The Labels
SMWR Pictures
Features & Television
Narrative features and television development. Emotionally grounded, character-driven work exploring guilt, redemption, and unseen perspectives.
Stoop55
Documentary
Non-fiction storytelling rooted in community, culture, and lived experience. Currently in production on a feature documentary.
Vertical Motion Pictures
Mobile-Native Cinema
Filmmaker-owned production and distribution infrastructure for vertical drama series. Studying the format since 2014. Making it since 2018.
Current Slate
Vertical Motion Pictures
KOL — Killa of Laverne
The night before his court hearing, Alton questions his sanity after killing a teenage home intruder. A six-part vertical drama set in one motel room over one night. Written, directed, shot, and edited by Stephen Small-Warner.
Post — Sound
Vertical Motion Pictures
SPADES
A two-season vertical drama series adapted from Marcus Callender's acclaimed stage play. Set in Harlem, following young Black artists navigating relationships, ambition, and identity. Platform partnership in active conversation.
In Development
Vertical Motion Pictures
Milk Cream Sugar
A coming of age vertical drama series set inside an ice cream shop. Fifteen episodes drawn from the director's lived experience. Warm, character-rich, and visually intimate.
First Draft
Vertical Motion Pictures
Royals
A girl wakes up to discover she must learn the secrets of five powerful families who have frozen time to replenish the earth. High-concept vertical franchise with serialized mythology.
When a stay-at-home mom gets a rare week off from motherhood, a quiet favor for her neighbor leads to an emotional entanglement that forces her to reckon with the woman she was, the one she is, and the one she longs to become. Written by and starring Sasha SmallWarner.
A feature documentary produced under Stoop55, the non-fiction label of SMWR LLC.
In Production
The Platform — Vertical Motion Pictures
Filmmaker-owned distribution for the vertical drama era.
Vertical Motion Pictures is building the infrastructure layer that production studios cannot — a direct-to-audience distribution platform where filmmakers release vertical drama series, connect payments without a platform intermediary, and own every part of the user experience.
KOL is the live proof of concept. SPADES is the flagship content deal. Milk Cream Sugar and Royals are the pipeline that proves VMP is a studio, not a single project. The platform opens to other filmmakers once the content model is validated.
The vertical drama market crossed $11 billion in 2025. Vertical Motion Pictures is building the filmmaker-owned alternative to the factory model — where the director controls the UX, owns the audience relationship, and keeps the IP.
$11B
Vertical Drama Market 2025
4
VMP Originals in Slate
7
Total Projects Across Labels
2018
Vertical Production Since
Production Architecture
Three cadences. One company. Each format serves a distinct function — verticals build audience and generate data, features and documentaries build prestige and depth, television validates the entire ecosystem.
VMP
Vertical Series
3 to 4 seasons per year
The engine of SMWR LLC. Each vertical season builds owned audience, generates platform data, and validates the VMP distribution thesis. Fast, filmmaker-controlled, and compounding.
KOL S1Milk Cream Sugar S1SPADES S1Royals S1
FT
Feature / Documentary
Every 2 to 4 years
Prestige markers that deepen the company's creative reputation. Features and documentaries operate on a longer development cycle, opening festival circuits, critical attention, and cross-format opportunities.
Open HouseAgandiJunior (dev)
TV
Television
Every 3 to 5 years
The long game. A television series validates the full SMWR LLC ecosystem — the vertical pipeline proves audience demand, the features prove creative depth, and the TV show is where both converge at scale.
YOTD (pilot)
Production Cadence — Phase Orbit
Every project orbits the same core. Format determines how fast it completes a cycle. Phase determines where it sits right now. Projects migrate inward as they move from concept to greenlit to production.
Active / Post
Inner orbit. In production or post. KOL, Open House, YOTD pilot.
Writer-director and co-founder of SMWR LLC — parent company of SMWR Pictures, Stoop55, and Vertical Motion Pictures. Small-Warner has been studying vertical cinema since 2014 and producing it since 2018, nearly a decade before the format became a market. He is the author of Vertical Filmmaking: An Innovation in Cinema, a Tribeca Filmmaker-in-Residence, and has produced branded content for Amex, Fendi, and BET. His work is guided by a single creative thesis: empathy must be structurally protected in the next era of storytelling.
Tribeca Filmmaker-in-ResidenceHoward UniversityNYUAmex / Fendi / BETVertical Filmmaking (Book)New York, NY
S
Sasha Small-Warner
Co-Founder & Executive Producer, SMWR LLC
Co-founder and Executive Producer of SMWR LLC, leading business development and operations across all three labels. Sasha Small-Warner is the operational backbone of the company — managing the infrastructure, relationships, and systems that allow the creative work to move. Her partnership is foundational to how SMWR LLC functions as both a business and a family.
Business DevelopmentOperationsExecutive ProducerNew York, NY