We recently connected with Adam Assad and have shared our conversation below.

Adam, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I believe life is the best teacher a writer/creative can have. I’m definitely a better writer and filmmaker now than I was when I was younger and I don’t mean from a technical aspect. Even if I had the necessary technical skills back then, I didn’t possess the life experiences that allowed me to tell interesting stories. Great art is born from great struggle. The obstacles in life are there for a reason and only make you a stronger person/storyteller. I don’t think you can speed up this process. Patience is vital and when it is your time it is your time.

Adam, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

It has been a long and complicated road for me personally. I didn’t get accepted into film school so I had to enter through the back door. I first got onto a film set in Baton Rouge in 2010 (some low-budget Sci-Fi movie directed by Sean Connery’s son). I knew this was something that I always wanted to do but didn’t know how to make it happen. The movie industry isn’t like other industries where you follow a straight path to your career. I was working consistently on large-budget films and television series throughout 2010-2011 because there was an explosion of work in New Orleans around that time. I got derailed again until I landed in Los Angeles in 2014. A few breaks and doors opened that allowed me to work on a lot of films in the art department. I learned a lot on these sets and even worked my way up as a production designer for about ten films. I finally felt like I was ready to write, direct, and produce my first film which I did in 2020. I released “The Sea Was Never Blue” at the Worker’s Unite Film Festival in New York City at the end of 2022 which won “Best Narrative Feature Film.” The film is currently streaming on various platforms such as Amazon Prime Video and Tubi. My work tends to focus on the struggles of working-class people.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

“The Sea Was Never Blue” was written at one of the lowest points of my life. I was delivering food and driving for rideshare companies barely eking out a living. Rather than lie down and throw in the towel, I wrote a script loosely based on my own experiences and decided to “greenlight” myself. The shutdown in 2020 gave me a unique opportunity to save money and put it towards financing this indie feature. The road to getting to this point has been a series of unfortunate mishaps but I refuse to give in. The current state of filmmaking is pretty bleak (strikes, untenable streaming revenue, A.I., oversaturation, et al.) but I still refuse to give in.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Yes, I’d like to make a film that kicks class consciousness into high gear.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.theseawasneverblue.com
• Instagram: xadamassadx
• Youtube: marbleryeproductions