About Us
TIM OBERG
Owner/Creative Director
Ever since I saw Jurassic Park in theaters (I’m 26, so that was when I was around 10, I guess) I knew that moviemaking was my calling. That summer and many after, little home movies with my toys grew more and more elaborate: firecrackers for pyrotechnics to blow up a velociraptor, or a radio next to the camera’s microphone for a much-needed musical score. By my senior year, I talked the cooler teachers into letting me film cinematic assignments instead of writing papers whenever possible. (My Python-esque “Macbeth” was legendary: no other kids thought to borrow the drama department’s real metal swords, or to use fake arms and heads and blood in as many scenes as possible.) When I graduated from high school in 2001 I lobbied, and won, for the use of the “2001: A Space Odyssey” theme song at the commencement ceremony (knowing full well that the administration was too mundane to realize the millennial and cinematic implications of such a year to graduate in).
I went to Southern California (Biola University, 2005) to get a degree in Filmmaking (officially, a B.A. in Mass Communication-Film/Television/Radio) but quickly found out how many other wanna-be Spielbergs (myself included) are crammed into that one small town of Los Angeles. I also learned a lot about the reality of the business, and how I’d have to stick it out for 10 years (at least) doing things I barely enjoy to one day have an opportunity to be creative. Making coffee and photo copies…No thanks.
So in August, 2008, I quit my steady job – precisely one month before the onset of the credit-default-swap induced financial crisis. The news was full of layoffs and rising unemployment statistics. Way to go, me.
But I survived, and in January, 2009, I moved into a shared space at a photography studio as my post-production headquarters. With rented equipment, I started calling myself “Monkeyraft Studios” (there’s a vague SNL skit reference in there somewhere) and found some independent organizations and businesses who had some media needs to be my first clients.
So far, I’ve been able to stay alive, make mortgage payments, and upgrade to owning my own awesome equipment. My new studio is located in a hundred-year-old bank building (that’s on the National Register of Historic Places) in the town of Reedley, California. My office has an awesome red theater curtain and an old director’s chair, but most importantly, I really really like what I get to work on there. The moving image and a great soundtrack is just as powerful to me now as it was for me back in that dark theater with an island full of dinosaurs.