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

Ryan , appreciate you joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

Man. I think it hit me when I was around five years old. My mom and dad were always showing me cool movies. My mom got me into horror movies, specifically the 2004 Van Helsing. I remember watching the behind the scenes DVD special for that movie on repeat, constantly trying to learn what exactly it was they were doing to make the film. It showed me that its possible to take your imagination and show it to everyone else. I always had images and stories popping in and out of my head just aching to see the light of day.

Then when I turned six, my mom got me into Phantom of the Opera, which sparked my love for anti-heroes and misunderstood characters. I’ve always had an interest in exploring the human condition. Villains and antagonists were the most fascinating characters to me because they always seemed to have the most depth… and they always dressed the best or had the coolest looks.

Then came my addiction to vampires. Then slasher films. And then at age eleven, I wrote and directed my first short horror film, which was a 15-minute story about Bloody Mary’s origins. I round up some of my mom’s friends and my cousins to help produce it. I shot it on my dad’s camcorder. We worked with a shoe-string budget of $my-hopes-and-dreams.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Ryan Henry Knight. I’m a filmmaker, writer, and Creative Director from Northern Virginia and currently based in Atlanta, GA. I first took my foray into the creative industry when I was fifteen years old.

I founded a digital magazine called Cut x Sewn Magazine that centered around highlighting talented creatives from across the globe, including but not limited to fashion designers, filmmakers, musicians, and creative directors. While running the magazine, I worked with a team of 20 staff writers and creatives from around world. The magazine did pretty well, reaching millions across platforms and getting about 50,000 monthly visitors in its prime. I met a lot of cool people in different industries and brushed shoulders with some of the most important creatives working today. In hindsight, running that magazine was kind of like a prologue to my life, setting the stage for my career down the line.

And now fast-forward nearly eight years later, and today I’m an award-winning independent filmmaker. When I was about seventeen, I had an epiphany that I should focus on filmmaking. So I paid less attention on the creative empire I was building with Cut x Sewn, and started screenwriting again. By that time, I had met my brother and best friend Ahab Mullick, and we had started our independent production company, HÖMA Motion Pictures.

In 2018, I started school at SCAD in Atlanta, where my life really started to change. I took advantage of every film assignment I had, and with each project, I was able to get into multiple festivals around the world. I met some amazing people who introduced me to more amazing people, and next thing you know, here I am.

Today I’m getting my feet wet in the industry, developing projects in TV/film, traveling all over the place, and working with some of the most talented people. I wrote and directed my first feature film with Ahab, and we got it picked up for distribution, and now we’re diving into our next projects.

The journey is just beginning.

: Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My mission is to guide people in some way and introduce new perspectives on our human condition. That’s been my goal since I’ve started.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A major lesson I had to unlearn was the idea that getting into the industry would be “selling my soul” as an artist. It’s a concept a lot of young artists grapple with, and it builds a fear of the entertainment industry. It’s simply not true. In order to make work and even get your work seen by the right people, you need partners. And those partners include agents and managers, and locking in an agent as a writer/director/creative is one of the most important things one can do. It’s how you get through the door. And this is primarily for the people who aim to make a living with their art. It’s not impossible to stay independent, and it’s even a blessing if one can sustain a living while independent, but it typically is a very hard route to go. Not to say that securing an agent and getting into your first meeting with Universal will be a breeze either, but if you put in the work, make the connections, and stay true to your vision, everything will eventually fall into place.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ryanhenryknight.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/ryanhenryknight
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanhenryknight/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanhenryknight

Image Credits (in order of appearance):
Ahab Mullick, Noble Pryor, Luigi Thomas, Still; Ludere (2019), Still; Sing for the Trees (2022), Still; Body (2021), Xavier Thompson, Xavier Thompson, Still; You Almost Saw Me (2019), Still; Two Thousand Hours (2020).