Senior appointments support the production company’s global expansion strategy
(Los Angeles, CA – January 23, 2020) – Asian production powerhouse Beach House Pictures (BHP), a Blue Ant Studios company, has added four more members to its executive ranks. Suzy Hounslow (Executive-in-charge of Production), Rob Sixsmith (Head of Factual), Geraldine Orrock(Head of Unscripted) and Susan Zhao (Business Director, China) will join the production company’s senior management team as they oversee BHP’s expansion into global markets, while meeting the demands of streamers and cable networks for premium content.
In a newly created role, Suzy Hounslow will supervise and provide quality control of BHP’s considerable international output. Hounslow joins BHP after 10+ years at Australia’s Seven Network Studios where she oversaw 500 hours of factual, reality and scripted shows annually, including the hugely successful My Kitchen Rules. Hounslow will report to founders Jocelyn Little, Managing Director and Donovan Chan, Creative Director.
Head of Factual, Rob Sixsmith is a BAFTA award-winning showrunner from the UK who has excelled at the development and production of a diverse range of factual genres, which includes topics ranging from survival to science. Sixsmith has directed global talents, Bear Grylls and Levison Wood and helmed Discovery US’s factual entertainment phenomenon, Gold Rush and the BHP & Discovery International flagship series Ed Stafford: First Man Out.
Also joining BHP is Geraldine Orrock, who has a reputation for being one of Australia’s most highly regarded entertainment showrunners. She is the driving force behind some of the most popular award-winning programmes in the country, developing and managing shows including The Voice, First Dates and My Kitchen Rules. Orrock started up the Australian office of Warner Bros International Television and was integral in developing a slew of successful shows. As Head of Unscripted, Orrock will spearhead BHP’s development of original formats and exec key shows.
In China, BHP has enlisted Business Director, Susan Zhao and her extensive experience as an award-winning producer and branded content expert across the industries of film production, advertising and marketing. An ex-Ogilvy and Leo Burnett senior executive, Zhao served as CEO of the production company that produced Mystery. The series was directed by critically acclaimed Chinese director Lou Ye which won a Golden Horse and earned a nod for the Cannes Palme d’Or Award.
“Beach House Pictures is proud of its legacy as one of Asia’s largest indie producers and we have an incredibly diverse team of talent here in-house,” said Jocelyn Little, Managing Director and Co-founder, Beach House Pictures. “With this impressive addition to our roster of production executives, we are ready to aggressively grow our business in the U.S., China and beyond.”
“To succeed in our rapidly changing global media landscape, it is vital to attract the best talents from a wide range of countries and cultures, to produce the most unique and exciting ideas,” said Donovan Chan, Creative Director and Co-founder. “These new appointments level up our production capacity, bringing us into a new era of content creation for global markets.”
About Beach House Pictures
Beach House Pictures (BHP), a Blue Ant Studios production company, is one of Asia’s largest indies. Headquartered in Singapore and operating in the US and China, Beach House Pictures specializes in factual and unscripted programming for international streamers and cable networks, creating the high-profile series Ed Stafford: First Man Out, Wild City, Masterchef Singapore, Raffles: Remaking an Icon and China From Above. Other BHP divisions include children’s arm Beach House Kids who are behind scripted series My Buddy Bonemasher and the live action puppetry show Teddies; Beach House Entertainment produces formats and general entertainment programs like Record Rides and Cesar’s Recruit; Beach House Labs who experts in digital and branded content; and Beach House Academy, which offers outreach programs and skills training to established and aspiring producers throughout Asia. BHP launched its foray into scripted production in 2019, acquiring the rights to iconic Asian properties such as the 1970s action heroine Cleopatra Wong and Mr. Midnight, a best-selling kids horror fiction book series.
Blue Ant Studios is a leading international studio and production business. The business’ production companies are based in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore and produce content in multiple genres, including Scripted, Documentary, Kids, Adult Animation, Factual Entertainment and Natural History. Blue Ant Studios works with all the major international streaming, cable and broadcasting companies as well as regional players in the markets it operates in. Blue Ant Studios, a subsidiary of Blue Ant Media, is based in Los Angeles with offices in New York.