Company Profile

Shaun Axani has always wanted to do his own thing. He and his brother started their own landscaping company when they were eight and five years old as a way to “balance the market in Mansfield, Ontario” where neighbourhood farmer Alex was the only one in the business. Through hard work and undercutting Alex by 40 percent, they managed to gain nearly half of the market in their subdivision. “Alex never even took a weed-eater into the corners of the properties!” Shaun recalls. “Everyone in town knew we did a better job.” Nearly twenty years later, Shaun’s business principles haven’t changed. He’s driven to provide a better service than his competitors at a fair price.

Little City Media began after Shaun learned all he could from Radio and Television Arts at Ryerson University, on the television sets of YTV shows and Canadian Idol (among others) and after a stint as a multimedia manager at Nortel, where he managed the end-to-end production of corporate videos and webcasts. He’s worked professionally as a director, producer, videographer, photographer, editor, web encoder, and sound designer, and felt it was time to find his own clients. With a stint helping his father manage his advertising agency (as it grew during the recession!), Shaun learned about business and what it takes to offer superior customer service. Under his own roof, he was able to manage all aspects of production, and he felt he could offer customers this little city worth of knowledge.

As Shaun began working as a technical instructor in the Radio and Television Arts program at Ryerson University , he teamed up with former schoolmate Yoav-Kogan Bales. They worked together planning a large-scale multi-camera concert shoot for Honey Jam, a celebration of Canadian female artists. They found that they complimented each other’s technical knowledge and creativity, and Yoav became a member of the Little City Media team. His hard working attitude and impressive career accomplishments add another facet to the company.

Shaun was a social and motivated student at Ryerson, and thus he got to know all of his fellow students, and was sure to remember the ones with exceeding talent. He’d team up with them to shoot webisodes for fun, or enter film challenges, and now,he has gotten them involved for different Little City Media projects. Though they’re always busy working on some of Canada’s most-watched television shows, they enjoy working with Shaun and Kogan, and are always coming back for more. He’s recruited the greatest animators, editors, videographers, sound designers, and writers from his years of university, and has put them under his company umbrella, making his Little City that much bigger.

Little City Media isn’t just a company—it’s a mentality and a youthful energy. Everyone involved brings a vigor that exists less and less in the television world. While the aging industry is set in its ways and quite cynical about the state of media in Canada, the Little City team are excited to be creative and offer clients a quality product using the newest, most innovate aspects of technology. Whether it’s mowing lawns where Shaun grew up, or perfecting a title sequence in his now-hometown of Toronto, he’ll always find a way to exceed expectations, and offer value to the other residents within his little city.