Director Chace Strickland, known for his authentic lifestyle and warm family oriented work, has returned to Backyard Productions for commercial representation in the U.S. The move reunites him with his longtime friends, original founder/managing director Roy Skillicorn, EP Kris Mathur, and Backyard’s Midwest rep, Nathan Skillicorn (who represented Strickland’s own production company a couple of years back).
Strickland signed with Roy Skillicorn and Backyard in the mid-’90s as one of the company’s first directors and was a major contributor to its success for many years. He left Backyard after Roy Skillicorn sold his ownership in 2011. Strickland then started his own company, Room Service, and hired Roy’s son, Nathan Skillicorn, to handle representation.
Strickland began freelance directing again in 2018, and had always kept in touch with Nathan and Roy Skillicorn. When the latter agreed to return to Backyard and join new president Kevin Allodi, Strickland began sending them his newest work that exhibited a fresh, developing look and style. Both were impressed, as was Backyard’s sales teams.
“When I first signed with Backyard, it felt like I had been adopted into a family as soon as I walked through the door,” recalled Strickland. “The place and people had a positive, nurturing and caring energy. Kevin, Kris and Roy have done it again–and it’s good to be home.”
Strickland added, “My path has always been the same…trying to find and capture honest and visually genuine realism. Sometimes it just happens…sometimes you have to re-create it, but either way, the viewer knows it when they see it and it touches them emotionally.”
SCHROM x Yacht Club and Be Electric Studios Launch Electric XR for Virtual Production
SCHROM x Yacht Club, a full-service live-action, tabletop, and postproduction company, has teamed with Be Electric Studios, a soundstage, equipment rental, and virtual production company, to launch Electric XR, a virtual production collective.
Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XR’s offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role he’s held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossano’s expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the company’s creative talent network. Rossano’s career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that company’s inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More