We were lucky to catch up with James Abrams recently and have shared our conversation below.
James, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?
I am deeply in love with being an artist. It’s challenging, of course, but it’s important to remind myself that despite needing money to survive, it doesn’t equate to being fulfilled. Candidly, the hardest part of choosing a life as an artist is being able to support yourself, but if I had a regular job that had a more lucrative salary, I would simply desire to turn around and invest in my projects and friends’ projects. That innate drive to create helps me censor comparison and doubt in my mind. I love being a filmmaker and am lucky to have been able to find creative ways to support that artistry for a while now.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I grew up as a child actor in New York City with a pair of (luckily) very supportive parents. Acting was a fun craft to discover and the future of my career was truly left in my tiny hands. As a result, I chose to explore natural science in my adolescence when my family moved to Vermont, but quickly double-backed to filmmaking when I was given my first camera. I built a portfolio of short films with my high school friends that helped me enroll to the School of Film and Animation at R.I.T. University. From there, freelancing was a natural progression of my network thus far. At first I worked in the grip and electric department, but found that I was more successful and happy in the props department. In the past five years I’ve worked on almost twenty feature films and prop mastered for two.
And so I’m a filmmaker! In between freelancing I’ve produced and directed small ads and music videos for clients and friends as well as my own short films that have gone on to film festivals across the country. I’ve also written many feature length screenplays (five and counting). I love to explore all different kinds of stories, but I’d identify my brand as surreal expansions of the human condition. This means that from horror stories to coming-of-age tales I like to zero in on how absurd our lives in this universe can be. I’m a fan of the “slow-burn” and descents into form where a story can blossom into its most crazy permutation. I’m a firm believer that an audience will follow a story to any lengths with the right directing and don’t really like “shock value” or overt sentimentality. One of my key principles as a director is to respect your audience, but to never be afraid to push their familiarity. As Bugs Bunny one said in the 2003 blockbuster Looney Tunes: Back in Action; “I think when you go to the movies, you should learn something.”
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
This is an important question because as consumers it often feels like there’s a sea of distance between audience and product. Major studios have reached a breaking point because their budgets are insanely inflated as a result of union-wage standards applied to blockbuster scale stories. There’s a reason major animation studio films are all targeted towards children – they make their money back! Blockbuster studio films inherently play it safe story wise as a result. By no means is this leading towards any sort of boycott suggestion; if you like your superheroes and Star Wars, then you should go enjoy those films – but your money does a lot of talking. Go see as many independent films as you can. Not only will you challenge your viewpoints on movies, but it lets large studios know that unique and original ideas can be profitable. Even enormous films like Barbie and Oppenheimer are important because they are still HALF the budget of your average Marvel Cinematic Universe project. When those films succeed it has rippling consequences that can be felt in the short film and film festival community, allowing those platforms to be ACTUAL platforms for a more diverse industry of perspectives. I’m no economist, and am sure this may be a gross over-summarization, but it’s true.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
This is a cute answer, but seriously my greatest fantasy is to be successful enough at my filmmaking to be able to place in my contract that a percentage of every film’s box office earnings be contributed to animal conservation. I’m pretty much making the films I’ll be making my whole life, but if they ever found solid distribution and did well enough commercially – that’d be my thing, man.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.caramelhippostudios.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caramel_hippo_studios/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CaramelHippoStudios
- Other: https://vimeo.com/caramelhippostudios
Image Credits
James Abrams + Bruce Wills on Gasoline Alley by Daniel Shippey Flip the Script Proof Concepts Cast Photo by Dan Chase Abrams on the red carpet for Festival of Cinema: Photo by Ron Adar/SOPA Images/Sipa USA (Credit: Sipa USA/Alamy Live News)