Shorts Greenlights First On-Location Hamptons Microdrama — SkimNews
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- Shorts has partnered with Full Moon Artists (FMA) Productions on "Love in the Hamptons," launching a new FMAxShorts-branded strand, with principal photography set for the end of the month in East Hampton, New York.
- Sarah Moliski and Rebecca Stoughton are producing the romantic drama, with writers Marc Cotter and Bilella of Water Street Films (Rival Hearts), and Moliski calling it "a love letter" to the East End inspired by her own roots and community.
- The producers are billing the series as the first vertical drama ever filmed on location in the Hamptons, betting on setting as the differentiator.
- FMA Productions — formed this year when horror producer Charles Band teamed with Moliski, Stoughton, Felix Merback, and Eric Guilmette — is making "Love in the Hamptons" its first show with Shorts, following two prior Reelshort microdramas, "Dungeons of Ecstasy" and "Models vs. Werewolves."
- A.J. Letterel, Shorts' development chief, framed the series as "a bet on place and time" and "a bet on a story that lives on after the last episode," saying Shorts aimed to keep holding the standard for live-action vertical storytelling.
- Moliski has built a reputation as an arch villain actress in the vertical space and is one of the medium's most sought-after casting producers, while Stoughton has appeared in more than 40 vertical soap operas and dramas.
Why it matters: By claiming the title of first vertical drama filmed on location in the Hamptons, FMA and Shorts are using place-based authenticity — a setting Letterel called "a bet on place and time" — to differentiate in a crowded short-form market where Reelshort already hosts FMA's prior work. For Charles Band's newly formed FMA Productions, the partnership marks its first collaboration with Shorts and its first vertical project that is not horror, broadening the company's microdrama footprint beyond its Full Moon catalog roots.
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