Chad Murdock is a freelance film director, writer, editor, creative director, and composer currently based in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from the School of Visual Arts with his BFA in Film Directing.

The multi-hyphenate artist spent his formative years in Philadelphia, PA, before moving to New York City to pursue a Bachelor’s Degree in Film Directing at the School of Visual Arts. After graduating in 2019, Chad worked as an in-house filmmaker at Wieden + Kennedy, where he learned how to stretch his creative legs in the advertisement space. He then added more skills to his arsenal when he worked as a Creative Director at Laundry Service.

In 2021, Chad founded the independently owned Studio Murdock™, a home for all of his personal narrative work. From there, he crowdfunded $25,000 to produce and direct his first feature-length film “Fingers In the Wind”, which now serves as the inaugural film under the Studio Murdock™ brand.

 

Cinemacy: What or who inspires you, both professionally and personally? 

Chad Murdock: A lot of people both in my professional and personal circles tell me to stick to my guns. That means a lot to me because it’s very easy to become fixated on what I might perceive as a popular mode of contemporary filmmaking. My work fits in its own world, and I need to respect that, the way I respect other filmmakers who are constantly inventing language.

What was the film that inspired you to enter filmmaking?

I don’t think there was one specific film that inspired me, at least not consciously. If I have to be honest, I actually think my growing up watching anime–in particular the older, more intimate ones from the 80s and 90s like Maison Ikkoku–really influenced my style of image-making and storytelling.

I got interested in the cinema while in high school because I felt really dissatisfied with the photography I was doing at the time. I’m not sure if I’d feel the same way now, but back then I really felt the limits of capturing a still image as opposed to a moving one. Around that time in my life, I was also doing choir, opera, and theater, which I think all had a heavier influence on me than the films I was watching.

Is there a studio that you’d love to work with?

I don’t think there’s a better studio in the world than Studio Murdock. Shameless, but I really feel that way. Obviously, there’s so much for me to learn and I have a long journey ahead of me, but that’s where my heart is. A lot of my favorite filmmakers of the past and of today created their own production companies. There are studios I’d work with for sure because I love making movies, but what we’re doing here is remarkable to me and I want to keep pushing.

Whitney Houston once said, “I’m a gospel hearer. I like to hear words of meaning, and of sweet melodies”. I think about that quote often. When it comes to cinema, I am impressed by films that illustrate meaning in their structure, movement, and concerns.

How did you start out in filmmaking?

I went to film school. I had to make a short film to apply, so I made a short silent film about falling in love in Brooklyn. It’s a horrible film. I had no crew, so I would press record on the camera and then walk into every shot with my actress–who was just a friend I met that summer–and we’d walk around Brooklyn. That was literally it. We’d walk around Brooklyn and fake smile at each other. And then I recorded a score for it with a zoom microphone on top of an old piano and edited the whole thing on Photoshop. It was a mess, but it got me in. It was my first film.

“A lot of people ask me to explain the film’s meaning. I get a little disappointed when that happens; not because I’m afraid they don’t understand it, but because they think anything I say has more validity than their own initial impression.”

What stories are you drawn to telling? Are there any questions or themes that you are most interested in exploring?

I’d like to think that everything I write is going to be completely different from each other, but as I get older and develop an actual body of work, I can’t help but notice the similarities in my works, and how much they reflect me as a person. I’ve learned so much about myself through writing and watching. Even the films I’m working on now have similar concerns, but explore those concerns in different ways.

It seems I’m drawn a lot to questions about memory, friendship and love, sexuality, parent and child dynamics, and religion. To some, that may seem all over the place, but all these things seem to go hand in hand with me. They’re the makings of me, beyond even just my thoughts.

What was the origin of your feature film debut, Fingers in the Wind?

I was living in Portland, OR at the time and was yearning badly to make a film. I had just graduated from SVA and was working my first adult job. I was so depressed. I was watching movies every day after work and not really speaking to anybody. When the pandemic started, I began writing a short film about a young man who bought flowers for himself for the first time and didn’t know what to do with them.

We planned to shoot it just before I had plans to move back to my family’s home in Philly, but the week we were set to shoot the entire state of Oregon caught fire. It was the most incredible thing I had ever seen. Smoke and ash filled the air, the sun was blood red, I couldn’t breathe let alone make the film, and my love life was in a peculiar transition. It was incredible, and to top it all off I had lost my wallet a couple of days before my flight. So I kept the script and moved back to Philly.

When I moved back, it was the first time I had lived with my parents since I was 17. I felt strange. So I decided to write another short film. Suddenly, I had two ideas and wanted to make a feature that involved three stories that were only connected by the film’s movement. It didn’t necessarily work out that way, but that was the genesis for ‘Fingers in the Wind’. Ideas and movement.

What have you learned following the making and exhibition of your film?

I’ve learned a lot about myself and about filmmaking. A lot of things you can only learn by doing. I think most importantly, I’m really learning about the kind of filmmaker I want to be and who I am as an artist in general. I’ll always be searching, and my films will probably always reflect that, but I feel very comfortable with the journey that I’m on, even when I’m frustrated. This has been a great ride so far. I felt very affirmed while screening the film for audiences. Their engagement with the film means the world to me.

What three takeaway lessons have you learned in your journey so far that aspiring filmmakers should also know?

Somewhat similar to my first answer: stick to your guns. You’re special and unique. There is a lot of repetition in these streets, not just in cinema but in the art world in general right now. It’s sad and numbing, but don’t let it get to you. Don’t fall for the trappings of late-stage capitalism that lurk in every creative industry. I heard Spike Lee once say “Don’t worry about the industry”. That’s probably the hardest thing to do as a young filmmaker; to not worry about the industry. But he’s right. Don’t worry about the industry.

What is your take on the current state of cinema? Are there any issues you see, and if so, what would you do to fix them?

Often I feel we’re at a standstill in a really bad spot. There is definitely a war on arthouse filmmaking going on, and it really saddens me. I try not to worry about the industry too much, but I read a lot about the history of cinema, and I know we’re just simply in a different world. I don’t have any solutions, obviously, but I do think we need to change our ideas about the costs of filmmaking–literally, we shouldn’t assume it costs millions upon millions of dollars to make an average movie–and be more discerning about what is cinema and what is not. I’ll just leave it at that. I’m optimistic that audiences will always be thirsty for new and exciting films that do something with the form.

If there was one message that you would want audiences to take away after watching your work, what would it be?

Remain curious, and seek answers within yourselves because everything you need is already inside of you. A lot of people ask me to explain the film’s meaning. I get a little disappointed when that happens; not because I’m afraid they don’t understand it, but because they think anything I say has more validity than their own initial impression. As the audience, if a film moves you, or if any part of a film moves you, you ought to ask yourself how and why you think it did. What direction did this film move me in? What connection do I have to these characters in this world? What about the form of this film made me feel the feelings I felt when watching it? And what inside of me caused this relationship I now have with the film? I think if audiences begin to engage with films that way, examining their relationships with them instead of asking the director to tell them how they’re supposed to feel, then they will feel much more fulfilled when they engage with meaningful work.

You can follow Chad Murdock on Instagram, Twitter, Vimeo, or Studio Murdock online.