Directors Joe Otting and Adam Sobocienski’s Fiber Films may well represent the next business model of commercial production.
“We’re remote,” Otting says, “and nimble. There’s no permanent staff or physical office, hence no overhead. They go where the production is and rent office space as needed. “Keeping overhead down means we deliver a much higher end product.”
And in the year they’ve experimented with their model, they’ve experienced no shortage of clientele.
This week’s project is a spot for agri-agency Rhea & Kaiser client, Bayer Corp Science, shooting at a large DeKalb farm.
Their regular DPs are Pete Biagi and Dave Kessler, but since neither was available, they brought in one of the L.A.-based shooters, Eric Trageser. Joe Doria is their permalance line producer.
Otting and Sobocienski first talked about their vision of a production house when they were editors at Red Car and later at Swell. Otting pioneered the post house combo role of director/editor at Swell and Sobocienski also directed and edited.
Otting left Chicago after the fall of Swell and spent a couple of years in Hollywood where he directed two features. The first he had developed while at Swell with Joe Chappelle, who has since become a prominent TV series executive producer of shows like “The Wire” and “The Fringe.”
Chappelle wrote the action-thriller screenplay for their 2007 $2.5 million movie, “Already Dead,” which was produced and distributed by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Trageser was DP and Sobocienski edited. It starred Christopher Plummer, Ron Eldard and Til Schwieger.
“It was released worldwide and was dubbed in ten different languages,” Otting says.
Otting directed his second feature, “Under New Management,” as a Showtime $2 million-budgeted comedy romance. Shot by Pete Biagi and starring Dylan Baker and Kelly Overton. The DVD is due out shortly.
When Otting returned to Chicago, “I loved the commercial side of production and I wanted to model myself like Ridley and Tony Scott and the guys who do both great commercial and feature work,” he says. And so far he’s been successful in the combo role, as there’s no slowdown in the work the partners have been enjoying.
