Check Out Adam Murray’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Adam Murray.

Hi Adam, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I grew up in New Jersey in the town that’s famous for being the town where The Jersey Shore was filmed. After dropping out of college twice, I ended up at University of the Arts in Philadelphia and then moved to Los Angeles shortly after graduating since there wasn’t a big film industry in Philly. Got to LA and started working on sets pretty immediately thanks to friends who had been out here for a couple of years before me. I got burned out pretty fast from being on set for twelve hours a day five days a week, and end up falling into animation for a few years. During all this, I was writing, directing, and performing in sketch videos (they’ve mostly been scrubbed from the internet because I hate looking at myself). I ended up returning to live-action by working for some new media companies, and then proceeded to make my first “legit” short, Jo and the Pirates, in 2015. Since then, I’ve directed a handful of commercials, a couple of music videos, and five self-produced shorts. My latest short is Gabby made its premiere at Chattanooga Film Fest in 2020 and is still circulating through festivals through the rest of this year.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
I don’t really want to complain about struggles I’ve gone through to get to where I’m at. Things haven’t been easy, but I’m very fortunate to be where I am and doing what I’m doing. Do I wish I was at a different stage of my career? Totally. But I’m also a bearded white dude who’s trying to make movies in LA. Who cares?

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I love to work mostly in dark comedy and “sad shit”. I’m a pretty happy person, but really love wallowing in some form of sorrow or frustration when it comes to stories. Or at least that’s what I’m drawn to. That and monsters. Sometimes I find a way to put a monster in something. Like, obviously I’m depressed, but yeah. I don’t know what I’m known for, honestly. I’ve seen people describe my stuff as “mumblecore” and other people have used the term “genre-meshing”. I pull from a lot of different influences, which is a cliche answer, but I really don’t know how I’d describe my work. Lynne Ramsay, Spike Lee, Sidney Lumet, The Coens, and Kelly Reichardt are directors who I pull a lot of influence and inspiration from. Being surrounded (not literally, because of the pandemic) by friends like Megan Rosati, Isaac Ruth, Lawrence Mercado, and Brodie Reed who are super talented artists helps a lot too.

The project I’m most proud of is the short film Gabby! that I directed and my friend, and amazing writer, Alexis Quasarano wrote. It’s one of the few things I’ve directed that I can rewatch and not hate. Towards the end of 2019, I was coming off of a couple experimental shorts (one with no dialogue, and a professional wrestling short done in one take) and wanted to go back to making something comedic before trying to focus on getting a feature made. Gabby is a project I can look at and see parts of it where those experiments paid off and it’s closest to what I love, tone and style wise as a filmmaker, which wouldn’t have been possible without Alexis, our awesome crew of nine people, and our amazing cast. Deanna Rooney, Davey Johnson, Tom Sibley, and Orson the cat. It’ll be online later this year when it finishes its festival run.

Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
I think it’s extremely important to surround myself with good people, especially people who have come from a different place than you. I’ve been able to make shorts and music videos and whatever weird experiments I’ve wanted to because of friends. Most of the crews on my shoots are no more than a dozen people, all friends, and when you’re self-producing, that usually means they’re working for a nice lunch and very little pay. Be kind. Listen to people. Have compassion. Learn about others. I’m an independent filmmaker with no agent and only a handful of credits, but the friends I’ve made and kept through all my years out here is so much better than anything I can think of.

Also, if any agent is reading this, hi. I have no clue how to get representation. Please hire me. I’m tall, if that helps?

Contact Info:

• Website: atommurray.com
• Instagram: @atom_murray
• Twitter: @atom_murray
• Other: https://vimeo.com/atommurray