Meet Joseph Graham | Filmmaker/whatever else

We had the good fortune of connecting with Joseph Graham and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Joseph, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I just heard that Jay-Z song where he is like “I am not a business man, I am a business, man” and it seemed like a tight thing to do. So I just started an LLC to see how it would go. Not really though. every film we create involves the formation of a business which has to do taxes. It’s f*cking obnoxious. But this is kind of the pay-to-play culture of capitalism and we had to do it. We called the latest one “Hidden Jim Pictures” because a character in our latest film (SOMEONES DIES! Playing at River Oaks Theater June 10) has a detective agency called Hidden Jim. His name is also Jim. Or at least that is what he claims on occasion. He’s a bit shifty. I recommend seeing the movie. It’s funny and there is time travel. People love that and so will you.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
This is a shit load of questions as one question.
Let’s parse this out a bit….more about my business: we make films in Houston.
It’s hard as f*ck as there are not a lot financiers or people wanting to take a risk on low budget films that would like to exist here. Which is understandable as most affluent people don’t enjoy losing money and prefer betting more on their oil careers or tech stock or whatever probably makes more sense. But if you want to stop being a greedy son of bitch, and do something cool for once in your life, I exist here. I know about 4 other filmmaking groups in town that are pretty talented. We could use that 5-50k you have laying around. We could even put you in the movie if you want. Maybe we could even put you in a cool car or give you a line of dialog. Many possibilities.
What am I most proud of? My 3 year old son wrote his name with a marker the other day. That was cool, but as far as filmmaking? I am happy we have not lost money. Our first movie cost about 15k and made about that much back. We are about to put out our second movie which cost a bit more (more in the 20k-30k range) and I think we have an okay shot at making our money back, but Amazon lowered their prime rate to .01 an hour so we will see if anyone will ever make money again. If you’re reading this, please stop watching stuff on Amazon Prime, they are pure evil.
How did I get where I am today? I don’t think I’ve gotten anywhere. I’ve made two feature films, several shorts, and a novel, and all I have to show for it is a ton of great experiences. One day maybe I can make like 100k and then put it into a high yield savings account for retirement. Or like a Roth IRA. That would probably help my life considerably.
Was it easy? What, blowing years and years of time and money at the wall only to break even? Sure, that part was easy. I love filmmaking, everyone should do this.
How did I overcome the challenges? Every day in modern USA is a challenge for anyone making less than triple the median income in your area a year, in my opinion. I am not special. Most of us meet the challenge every day. One day we will realize we failed or succeeded, but best to not think about it too much in the moment, that’s how you get depressed and suicidal. Shoutout to everyone who hasn’t killed themselves in this reality. You are doing great.
What are the lessons I’ve learned along the way? Not to yell at people when everyone is working hard for pennies. I think when I was shooting more music videos I would get angry and I realized that’s not worth it. I’ve since always tried to keep the peace on a movie set and although I am not perfect, I’ve tried to help keep things running smoothly.
What do I want the world to know about my brand and story? I guess I’d just want them to watch my movies. I don’t really know what my brand is. I am just a guy. I also wrote a book called A MODERN GROWTH and I’m going to put that out this year, so you could also read that.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I don’t really do shit. We’d probs just go to what is left of the Houston Heights and drink beer and eat tacos. The Heights is becoming this comically expensive place to have fun and it’s pathetic to me. But I was never a big Montrose guy, so Houston is becoming a stranger to me as I focus more on my kid and family. Actually, I would take them to Shiloh Club in the Heights and hope to chat with the heroin addicts that hang out on the back patio. Or used to. They’ve probably moved on.
I would then maybe take them to The Tall Texan to give them an idea of what the heights is now… which is a facsimile of authentic places. I’d show them the parking lot where Fitzgeralds is and then take them to Permission Whiskey, which is one of the worst places I’ve ever been to on earth. It used to be a little convenience store that sold this mango beer that was great. I would buy cigarrettes there. And now it’s this vomit-inducing cocktail lounge that takes reservations and has a “secret members only” area which makes me want to kill myself just thinking about it. That would be funny to show them.
We might also go to the zoo ’cause I have a membership. The zoo is cool. I recently saw a family picnic there and they brought like, no-lie, seven casseroles and a platter of hoagies the size of a milk crate. They were all enormous people and I loved them for really not giving a shit about it. I hope that we see them again.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Big shout out to the haters and losers who’ve not watched our films or thought they looked stupid. Special shoutout to people on letterboxd who have left negative reviews of our first film NOTHING REALLY HAPPENS (available on Tubi). Very sad lives they lead, taking time to watch a film, often not even finishing it, and then spraying bile about it. I recently read a review from a person who clearly was badly educated (probably a low-funded public school) who said we as filmmakers lacked the prowess to weld a surrealist mattress store comedy mind-infiltrating comedy and he obviously didn’t know what he was talking about. I let him know that he was coming off as someone who has never had sex, and then he all but confirmed that by having several of his loser friends come into a comment section and let me know that he has quote “so much sex,” which was an obvious lie. So yeah, special shoutout to all of these people who enjoy tearing down tiny movies made for less than 20,0000 dollars.

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