Nick Piper is returning to Backyard. The highly inventive director, who previously spent eight years at Backyard, re-joins after a 15-month stint at B-Reel (Creativity's '2012 production company of the year'). Piper is an expert in visually driven storytelling, performance direction, and all aspects of visual problem solving. He is also creative partner at Santa Monica-based VFX studio Chemical Effects, and plans to take advantage of the studio's talent in his Backyard work whenever appropriate.

The reunion between Piper and Backyard grew out of a recent encounter with Backyard founder Blair Stribley and longtime Backyard East Coast sales rep Chris Zander at the Backyard office where Piper was excited to share his newly-assembled reel with the two of them.

"I was blown away when I saw the body of work he had completed during his year away," said Stribley. "Nick has always been a passionate and talented director, but he had completely upped the quality of his work on every level.

"As a strong problem-solver, he's still able to work with other top-level effects companies when the situation calls for it, but as a hands-on talent, Nick is at his best when he can jump in and work on all aspects of a job, so his relationship with Chemical Effects has given him the toolbox he needed to push his career to the next level. How many directors can go away for a year and come back with a completely different reel? I've never seen anything like it."

Zander agrees. "We are all energized to be working together again. Even though there's an 8-year history of friendship and collaboration, this relationship feels completely fresh to all of us. Nick explored new and interesting directions during his 'sabbatical' year that really surprised me. I can't wait to show off his new work!"

"In the past 15 months, I decided to approach every one of my projects with a fresh perspective," said Piper. "I worked on all kinds of different films across the US, as well as Canada, India, Dubai and Malaysia with all kinds of different, crazy crews... I had a lot of fun. I also made the most of opportunities to capture human moments (one of my untapped filmmaking passions finally realized)... and I partnered up in my own visual effects company, Chemical Effects, to redefine one of my core strengths - as a problem-solving director with my own unique toolkit".

"Now this move to Backyard feels like a completely fresh start to me," continued Piper. "I'm moving forward, not looking back, and I couldn't be more excited to have the drive and enthusiasm of this team behind my career right now. They understand me, and have the energy to fight as hard for me as I fight for my own work. It feels great to be collaborating with such an incredibly passionate group of people I've always loved doing business with."

Piper and Backyard have already collaborated on a recently wrapped Olympics spot for P&G. Piper's reel also includes imaginative commercials for GMC, Chevrolet, Lysol, Behr, Toyota, and Kawasaki.