Production house Backyard has added commercial director and documentary filmmaker Paul Stone to its roster. He has helmed spots and content for a wide range of brands, notably Airbnb, Verizon, P&G, Fidelity Investments, PNC Bank, DeWalt, American Family Insurance, Bayer and Pfizer. Stone recently directed the Fearless Dreamers series for the Huffington Post which drew millions of views on YouTube.
Stone’s work has scored on the festival circuit with three of his documentary shorts–Man Under, Mulberry, and Big Elvis–making their respective world premieres at the Tribeca Film Fest in 2015, 2016 and 2018. His films have earned Vimeo Staff Pick and Short of the Week distinction multiple times. Recently he completed production on his debut feature documentary and has two more feature documentaries in different stages of production.
Stone hails from years as the founder/director of Firebrand Films, a boutique film production and editing company that he ran out of Ridley Scott and Associates’ New York office in SoHo. “The years I spent at RSA took the place of film school–being mentored by really great people in what was literally a close-knit family environment. I was seeking a company with a similar family sensibility, and found all that and more at Backyard,” said Stone who as a director had earlier been repped for broadcast commercials by production company Spears & Arrows.
Stone was drawn to Backyard, striking up a rapport with the Culver City-headquartered shop’s managing director/partner Roy Skillicorn, president Kevin Allodi and EP Kris Mathur, and having known its reps on both coasts for more than a decade. “I was looking for a company that is a one-stop shop and has the capabilities to seamlessly handle any type of project from shoot to delivery. My work runs the gamut from traditional 30-second spots to branded short films, as well as feature length narratives and documentaries. It was important to find a company that had an interest in developing new opportunities within all of these genres.”
Stone joins a Backyard directorial roster which includes Greg Popp, Xander Strohm, Kevin Fitzgerald, Anthony Furlong, Jeff Lable, Jesper Ohlsson, Steph Green, Shyam Madiraju and Patrick Creadon.
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