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.
