Backyard Productions, Venice, Calif., has named Kris Mathur as its executive producer. He will share executive producing duties with Backyard partner/executive producer Blair Stribley.
Mathur has line produced, primarily for Backyard director Rob Pritts, over the past five years—the last three and a half as a Backyard staffer. His promotion fills the void left by the departure of former Backyard executive producer Sheila Stepanek, who recently went over to bicoastal/international Partizan (SHOOT, 1/15, p. 7).
Stribley related that because of Mathur’s familiarity with the shop and his extensive line producing experience, promoting him was a natural decision. "Having been in the trenches for us, Kris knows the company and the other directors, and knows our philosophy," said Stribley. "He knows L.A. like the back of his hand in terms of production resources, and he knows a lot of people. I think he was an integral part of helping us get established and building our reputation out here in California … [with regard] to a group of suppliers and crew."
Additionally, Stribley observed that Mathur has demonstrated boundless energy, which was needed given the high volume of jobs he’s handled. "We’d do back-to-back-to-back jobs and Kris would juggle them all," said Stribley. "A lot of very busy directors might have a couple producers working for them, but Kris was able to handle them all. Kris might have a couple different production teams working simultaneously, but he’d be the guy overseeing all of it."
Mathur said that when Stepanek left, he pitched himself as the best replacement. Company partner/head of sales Roy Skillicorn, as well as Stribley, agreed. "Backyard has always had a tradition of homegrown talent and bringing people up from within the company," noted Mathur. "And I’d often talked with Blair about the next phase—what we should do next. I was very interested in … what’s going to happen with the company in general."
Mathur has had occasion to produce jobs with other Backyard directors since Pritts took a hiatus six months ago to direct a feature for Touchstone Pictures. This experience, Mathur observed, helped him see Backyard and understand it as a whole, thus, better preparing him to serve as an executive producer.
Among the projects Mathur and Pritts collaborated on are spots for American Express featuring Jerry Seinfeld via Ogilvy & Mather, New York; M&M Mars/Twix, out of DMB&B, St. Louis; Paris Las Vegas Hotel via Temerlin McClain, Irving, Texas; and numerous spots for Bud Light via DDB Chicago.
Other Pritts-directed/Mathur-produced spots include "PSA" for M&M/Mars via BBDO New York, which spoofs political correctness in touting M&M’s name change from "plain" to "milk chocolate" (SHOOT Top Spot, 7/14/00, p. 12); and "Commuter" and "Bar Scene" for Uproar.com via Grey Entertainment, New York, which show everyday situations infused by a sense of fun (SHOOT, 11/5/99, p. 18).
In the 1980s, Mathur started out as a line producer for music videos; his notable clip credits include Aerosmith’s "Janie’s Got a Gun," directed by David Fincher in ’85, which won a number of MTV Video Music Awards. Mathur eventually shifted to commercials and freelanced for such production companies as the now closed Harmony Pictures and Beverly Hills-based Shadowrock Productions, where he worked with directors Howard Deutch, Chris Blumm and Mikael Salomon. (The latter is now at bicoastal Flying Tiger Films.)
Mathur started to work regularly with Pritts—at one point, producing some 70 of the director’s jobs back-to-back—after Pritts’ former producer/First AD Don Rase decided to fully focus upon his own directing aspirations; Rase is now a Backyard director.
"Rob is a loyal individual; he needs to know who he’s working with," observed Mathur. "So I worked with him on a couple of jobs and we really bonded. Then, when Backyard was bidding on a couple of key spots for Rob’s career, I met with Blair and told him that it was important that we really do these spots well. It became more than a line producer [job] then. I jumped in and really helped work with Blair and Rob to boost his reel."
Backyard’s directorial roster comprises Kevin Smith, Chace Strickland, Eddy Chu and Shaun Conrad, as well as Pritts and Rase. In addition to head of sales Skillicorn, the company is repped on the East Coast by New York-based Zander Reps, in the Midwest by Chicago-based The Connor Group and on the West Coast by Santa Monica-based Howell & Associates.
