A purpose-built studio for Newcastle's creative community has been inundated with demand since opening its doors in Mayfield earlier this year.
The appropriately named Newy Studio has filled a gap in the market for the region's content creators, catering to everyone from local Instagram influencers and real estate agents to major fashion labels and recording artists.
The space is the brainchild of Toby Tull and Elliot Swift, and features an industrial-standard podcast studio, a photography and video suite with production lighting, and a content studio for social media creators.
The Newy Studio provides in-house services, but has a philosophy of collaboration and regularly connects with other creative agencies.
The space is open to be rented out and big-name Newcastle identities have passed through its doors including Knights centre Bradman Best, who was modelling for men's mental health organisation Talk2MeBro, and women's fashion icon Brittany Saunders promoting her fashion label Fayt.
Indigenous musician and Triple J artist Maanyung recently filmed a music video at the studio, while one of the original Wiggles is booked in for a shoot.
When Hunter Means Business dropped by Colby Shaw was wrapping an episode of What's Your Why?, a podcast that does a deep dive with local minds from the region's business and creative scenes.
Although Mr Swift was relaxing on a beach in Italy and sent his regards, the other half of the dynamic duo was on hand to give a tour.
"Every person who comes and first walks up those stairs, their instant reaction is always 'wow', because they've never really seen a setup like it, because Newy hasn't had it," Mr Tull said.
"The creative scene in Newcastle is evolving to the point where we can support cool spaces like this."
Joel Wagner, owner of JT Creative, is also based out of Newy Studio and collaborates closely with Mr Tull and Mr Swift, often working together on projects or referring clients to each other.
"We were all working out of our spare bedrooms, but this gives us a space to all be together and we're seeing some real magic happen by being together all the time," Mr Wagner said.
The trio want to use Newy Studio as a place to connect people within the creative community.
"We want to be seen as a space, but the idea is to be that conduit with other creatives - it can be a pretty lonely world as a freelancer sometimes, but we've flipped that on its head and it's working," Mr Tull said.
"For example, we had some people come through for a protein powder product they wanted to launch and they wanted to do product shots. We could do that, but I know someone who specialises in that, so I connect them.
"He rents out the studio for the shoot, he does a great job, the client gets a great product and everybody's happy.
"That's the way we want it to be going forward. This space wouldn't work without other creatives and we want to do everything we can to connect them with each other."
Hunter Means Business is a weekly column proudly flying the flag for the region's economic sector, published every Tuesday. Got a tip? Email jamieson.murphy@newcastleherald.com.au
