We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Abraham Howard. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Abraham below.

Abraham, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

In 2020 I started work on a film that snowballed into the most ambitious project I’d developed, and pulled it all off with my family and old hometown friends. Lockdown had sent me from living in Brooklyn back to my hometown in Maryland, where I realized the how important the place I grew up in was to my creative identity. The winding country roads, awkward years of grade school, the generations of family that are rooted in the state. My entire family was back in one house, and I began ideating with my younger brother, a finance guy, who took the time back home to invest himself in my creative world. We dreamt up a ridiculous, dry, earnest, sci-fi film, and infused our farm town childhood into the DNA. We settled on using my brother as the main character, and found the honesty that the film needed in using his real life story as the foundation for the character he’s playing in the film. Suddenly we could use old yearbook photos to show his dramatic weight loss in high school, an old mug with a picture of his face on it as a gag, and his real songwriting as a defining characteristic of him in a film – all things that would require way more work and money with an art director and casting director to fabricate into a film with an actor pretending to be this person. My family all had small parts in the film, and I shot it with an group of filmmakers from my high school days who were also back in town.

Looking back on it all I am just astonished at the magic spark that occurred when the people in my life could all come together and take on bites of this project. I got to watch these people tap into their creativity, express it honestly, and make the film happen before my eyes. Paul Thomas Anderson has a quote where he says its a miracle when any film gets made, and I have that experience to back that statement up. I learned that anyone can make something special and if the circumstances are right, it wont be forced out. As long you’ve done your job tuning your collaborators into the heartbeat of the project, the freedom you give them to move through the process can lead to perfect things you never saw coming.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a filmmaker based on the East Coast. I find great joy in pushing the medium and creating things that people can connect with and be entertained by, while also striving to make something that nobody has ever seen before. I enjoy the novelty of new experiences and am always chasing that feeling of discovery when you see something special. I want to create films that gift that feeling forward. When I direct music videos, I can explore, experiment, and find satisfaction in fulfilling a collaborative vision between myself, the music, and the artist. In my narrative work I can focus on creating a film that serves the story being told, and use the medium in creative ways to disarm and open the hearts of the whoever’s watching.

I really just like seeing something that makes me stop and go “holy cow”. I want to add more things to the world that do just that.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I think one thing to remember about the creative journey is that its just that – a journey. The constant “what’s next?” can wear you down, and its important to remember that at the end of the day, as long as the time is right and you’re making something special to you and those who matter to you, there is no need to look like you’re hustling, or constantly grinding. Those times are inevitable and will find you regardless. There will be some lulls and down periods because progress is not a straight line.

Creatives in your life could be at any phase in this journey – maybe something they made isn’t your favorite, or doesn’t really wow you, but trust me its probably not wowing them either. The fact they made something at all is just another step towards something bigger and that’s whats worth celebrating.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Dog Day Afternoon (and many more) director, Sidney Lumet wrote a book called Making Movies. Reading it felt like tapping into a well of sacred knowledge. Logistics are a pitfall of mine, and Lumet was one of the masters of running a tight ship. He was a director that never went over budget, and always finished every shoot on time. His book is a detailed walkthrough of how to get a project made from start to finish. Of everything I’ve read on filmmaking this had the largest impact on me – when I made a film with my finance-degree brother, I had him read it and he was immediately ready for the process. Film school taught me how to be creative, but this book taught me how to get a film made in the business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://abrahamchoward.wixsite.com/abraham-howard/film
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abraham.c.howard/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abraham-howard/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbtsJ8ZhtZ63Tsb6Z2L9XdA

Image Credits
Evan Davis, Adam Bowen.