A City Llama Production

Film.
Strategy.
Cut.

We stay in the room from the first page of the treatment to the last minute of the color.

4 Emmys · Est. 2025 · Brooklyn.

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Platinum / Civics

Reel 01 / In Production

Platinum

A narrative podcast in production, written and scored in house.

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Reel Data
Format
Narrative Podcast
Status
In Production
Score
Written & Produced In-House
Reel
01
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Reel 02 / Shipping

Civics

A free study app that teaches the history behind the U.S. citizenship test — not just the answers to memorize.

Visit civicsapp.com ↗
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Format
Study App
Status
Live · Private Beta
Source
Original Concept
Reel
02

Password-protected for BETA — email us for access, or rewatch National Treasure for a hint.

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§ 01 — About

On Making Less.

A short essay by the founder, reprinted from the 2026 spring quarterly.

We started City Llama because of two things we kept seeing, and not seeing each other. Brands hiring agencies that didn't really understand story. Filmmakers pushed out of the room the moment the word strategy entered it. Both rooms full of smart people. Neither room talking to the other.

So we built one room.

Our rule is small. We take on a short list of films each year, some under a brand name, some under their own, and we stay in the room from the first page of the treatment to the last minute of the color. The people who write it, shoot it. The people who shoot it, cut it. We don't hand work off.

Strategy belongs in the same room. The AI tools we build are not a separate offering. They are how we listen. To audience, to archive, to the language of a place. We use them the way a cinematographer uses a light meter. Quietly. Before the take. Not to replace the eye. To check it.

What we will not do: work we'd be embarrassed to screen in a room of filmmakers we respect.

What we will do: read every brief, reply within the week, say no often, and yes with our whole weight behind it.

Brooklyn is a city of small rooms doing serious work. We're trying to be one of them.

— Alex Argilés Acevedo, Brooklyn, 2026

“The gap between a great story and a scaled content operation isn’t creative — it’s infrastructure.”

Alex Argilés Acevedo · CoFounder, City Llama
Name
Alex Argilés Acevedo
Title
CoFounder & Creative Director
Recognition
4X New York Emmy Award winner
Studio
City Llama, Brooklyn, NY
Notes from the Studio

I started City Llama because I kept watching good ideas die in the handoff. A strategy deck goes one way, a production company goes another, and the thing that finally airs has almost nothing to do with the argument that justified it.

So we built the studio to hold both ends. The person who writes the positioning is on set. The person who cuts the film sat in the audit. It sounds inefficient until you watch how much time gets returned when nobody has to re-explain the point.

Most of our work looks like a system rather than a single film: a set of rules for how a brand moves, sounds, and cuts, so the next twenty pieces don't need us in the room. We would rather build that than sell you another campaign in eighteen months.

We are four Emmys in and still small on purpose. Brooklyn, since 2025.

Story Systems
01

Audit

A full audit and review of the story you are telling now: existing footage, decks, site, and social, scored against what the work is supposed to do. You leave with a written read and a ranked list of fixes.

02

System

We build the motion graphics system: type, color, transitions, lower thirds, titling, and sound cues, delivered as working project files and a short usage guide. Your team ships on it without us.

03

Execute

Full execution: we shoot it and we build it. Treatment, crew, direction, edit, color, and the finished system around it, from the first page to delivery.

Get in Touch

info@cityllamamarketing.com
That's a Wrap. Print is struck. See you at the next screening.