5 Questions with Brad Abrahams
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
When I was a youngin' my local video store clerk would stop me from renting trash and instead give me Lynch and Herzog and Von Triers. While possibly inappropriate for a child, it kindled my desire for visual storytelling of esoteric subjects. Since then my path has been: film school -> animator -> commercial director -> farming in the tropics -> independent filmmaking.
2) What’s the backstory here - what was the initial idea and how did it evolve from there?
I have an outsized interest in conspiracy culture, and the history and psychology behind the beliefs. What led to this particular idea was the real "Conspiracy Cruise" that set sail from South Florida in 2016, ferrying a cadre of about a hundred conspiracy theorists among thousands of normies on a cruise through the Caribbean. Journalist and author Anna Merlan wrote a fantastic article about it for Jezebel. The article made my imagination run wild, paying out what it'd look like if the conspiracies started coming true.
I also have some mild trauma from a commercial shoot on a cruise ship that went horribly, horribly wrong.
3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And generally what part of the creative process do you enjoy the most?
Outside of commercial work, I've been exclusively making documentaries, with the last narrative being in film school. This was hugely outside my comfort zone, which was the point. Creatively, writing was the most difficult part of the process. I'm slow and like to try seemingly infinite permutations. Logistically, budget and time were the hindrance, as I'm sure they are for everyone. We had to squeeze what should have been a 4 day shoot into 2.
Working with my DP (Ava Benjamin Shorr) and production designer (Paula Zimmermann) was absolutely my favorite part creatively. But coming from the doc world, editing has become my absolute favorite part of the creative process.
4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
Two recent ones I loved were Bacurau and On Body and Soul. They're totally different, but both employed solid world-builidng of the bizarre alternate reality they took place in. They're also windows into very different cultural POVs (Brazilian and Hungarian).
5) What’s next for you?
A feature length doc about cryptozoologists. A docu-series on small town/community folklore. A short doc about a conspiracy theory artist. A short fiction based on Canada's first Bigfoot abduction story (it's steamy).
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http://bradabrahams.net
IG: bradwtf