INTERVIEW: Chris Adams: Building Worlds from the South Side

Born and raised in Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood, Christopher Adams turned self-reliance into an art form. As founder and CEO of Impakt Studio, he has built one of the city’s most versatile creative houses — a hub for animation, film, and visual design that bridges street-level grit and cinematic polish. A self-taught artist, animator, and director, Adams credits his father’s mechanical ingenuity for his own curiosity and craft: “If you know how something works, you can dissect it and apply what you need from it to something completely fictional.” That mix of discipline and imagination fuels his constant reinvention as an artist who sees creativity as both survival and freedom.

Adams launched Impakt Studio to fill a void in Chicago’s visual culture — to bring professionalism, care, and authenticity to the images representing the city’s music and film scene. Refusing to be boxed into a single aesthetic, he has produced Grammy-nominated visuals for Eric Roberson, Lupe Fiasco, and Lalah Hathaway, created campaigns for Ford Motor Company, Aon Hewitt, and Miller Brewing, and toured with Floyd “Money” Mayweather’s TMT brand. Through it all, he’s maintained a simple ethos: let the work speak for itself. “When people come to Impakt Studio, they’re bringing their hopes and dreams,” he says. “You have to handle hopes and dreams with care — I treat them as my own.”

A BFMmag.com Filmmaker Interview with Floyd Webb

Floyd Webb: Welcome to BFM Filmmaker Interviews. We have Chris Adams here today. Chris, tell us about yourself.

Chris Adams: Thanks, Floyd. I’m Chris Adams, founder of Impakt Studio. I’ve been working in film, TV, music video, and documentary production for a little over 30 years now—Chicago-based and Chicago-raised.

We’ve produced several Grammy-nominated music videos for artists like Lupe Fiasco, Eric Roberson, and Lalah Hathaway. Recently, we’ve received two Telly Awards—one for Heading West 2, directed by Darryl Dennard, a documentary on historically Black community-based organizations, and another for a documentary Legacy: From Horns to House about the evolution Chicago’s Black House music Scene. We’re also up for a local Emmy on a couple of projects.

Chicago Beginnings

FW: Were you born and raised in Chicago?

CA: Yes, born and raised on the South Side—in Roseland, where I still live today. I’ve lived around the city but ended up right back where I started.

FW: How did growing up in Chicago influence your entry into filmmaking—the politics, geography, temperament?

CA: My dad actually laid the foundation. He grew up in Kingston, Georgia, and ran what folks called the Last Picture Show. At the time, they were trying to push Black folks back into sharecropping, but my father had a mechanical aptitude. One of his teachers at Booker T. Washington saw that in him and got him a job sweeping floors at a theater a couple hours away.

Back then, theaters had their own editing rooms to cut scenes the censors didn’t like. My dad watched and learned by osmosis. When the theater tossed out reels, he saved them, convinced a store owner to invest in a projector, and started putting on outdoor screenings—basically drive-ins without cars—using church lots and empty fields.

He became so successful going town to town that white theater owners noticed they’d lost their Black patrons and ran him out. That story alone could be a film.

At home, he was always the man with the camera. From Super 8 to 16mm to video, he kept up with the latest tech and encouraged me to play with it. I was doing stop-motion movies before I knew what that even was. I got in trouble for cutting up my mom’s fur coat to make a King Kong puppet—but my mom turned the leftover fur into matching vests for us.

As video cameras came along, I was making neighborhood shorts—punk scene stuff, BMX tricks, and skateboarding. I was a bit of an outlier in Roseland—Black punk kid, BMX freestyler, filming everything. We made a VHS movie called Hood BMX Bandits—wish I still had it. My escape from the crack-era violence around me was sci-fi, horror, and fantasy.

From Illustration to Animation

CA: I also painted, sculpted, and did political illustration for papers and magazines. I ran a gallery in the South Loop called Neuraxis, around the time Tony Fitzpatrick had his space, World Tattoo Gallery, there. This was before the big wave of gentrification. We artists were the foot soldiers of that.

I opened my own gallery out of spite, actually—a Black-owned gallery once told me to paint “kids eating watermelon.” I told them off, they told me to start my own gallery—so I did, and outlived them.

Around that same time, I started experimenting with special effects, makeup, and animatronics. Then computer graphics hit, and I knew I had to learn. The Art Institute wanted too much money and time for too little computer access, so I compared tuition to the price of a Commodore Amiga with LightWave—and taught myself and was awarded Computer Graphics Hall of Fame status by Evans & Sutherland who at the time produced military simulators for the U,S.Army. I being the only African American with that distinction.

As I did animation for commercials, I realized shooters didn’t understand what VFX needed—so I learned cinematography too. Then came music videos, where I could merge everything: animation, effects, editing, performance.

Finding Voice and Style

CA: Music videos were my training ground. I treated them as practice runs for features—but they became a career. People later said, “You were doing what Lyrical Lemonade does now—20 years ago.” I was just ahead of my time. We have Grammy nominated music videos for artist such as Lupe Fiasco and Eric Roberson. Other clients have included Public Enemy, Floyd Mayweather, Jamie Foxx, Twista, and Crucial Conflict, to name a few.

That path led to Paradigm Grey, a Black sci-fi/horror anthology. It began as a creative jam session among Chicago filmmakers who were frustrated by limited opportunities and repetitive “hood” narratives. We met at a café, realized between us we had everything—gear, experience, actors—and decided to make our own Black Mirror-style series.

It became both an artistic experiment and proof that Chicago filmmakers can work together. We funded it ourselves, swapped labor, and built a family of directors, DPs, and writers.

Chicago’s Indie Scene Today

FW: What’s the independent Black film scene in Chicago like today?

CA: Fierce. There’s a lot happening—some of it great, some repetitive, but the energy’s there. Distribution isn’t the problem anymore—it’s marketing.

You’ve got filmmakers like Bo Deal (Tyrant series), Cassandra Bell, Christopher Nolen, Aztec Dinero, Jonathan Woods, Ted Crowder, Mark Harris, and Tommy Sigmon (LOMAI) doing incredible work. Jonathan Woods, Ted Crowder and Tommy Sigmon (LOMAI) collaborate a lot; I just finished post on Tommy’s cyberpunk short 21H2: 2099 —imagine Chuck D as a future cyborg rapper.

The community’s strong but underfunded. The tools are cheaper, but you still need money to feed crews and market films. Union access remains limited for Black talent, so many of us run fully independent. We don’t wait for permission.

Technology, Style, and Influence

FW: How would you describe your visual language?

CA: Every project gets its own look. My influences range from anime—watching Akira without subtitles at Tokyo Video on the North Side—to Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion epics and horror classics like The Thing, The Howling, and Blade Runner.

I study Roger Deakins’ cinematography and bring that polish to resource-limited shoots. Some projects are hyper-stylized (Public Enemy green-screen), others subtle (Eric Roberson’s “Still” video about breast cancer).

With Lupe Fiasco’s “Cake,” we shot with six cameras and built moving walls mid-take. He didn’t get the concept until the walls started sliding—then he laughed and said, “Oh, now I get it.” That one was pure choreography.

Sound, Music, and Subculture

FW: Chicago’s musical traditions run deep. How does music shape your filmmaking?

CA: Music’s in my DNA. I grew up the Black kid with a mohawk—into punk before it was cool. I loved the Dead Kennedys and discovered Public Enemy because Chuck D shouted out Jello Biafra in the liner notes. Punk led me to political rap.

I also worked security at an underground house club called The Reactor at 1115 West Lake. It ran from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m.—Ron Trent, Ron Carroll, and other future legends cut their teeth there. I didn’t like house music at first; I was hired because I didn’t. But it grew on me.

Music taught me rhythm—but more importantly, my business partner and amazing editor, Hana “Blaq” Mitchell, states how “Editing is like a marriage between music and video that dictates the rhythm and pace of that project. Music helps the emotion while the video provides the narrative”.. My playlists jump from Public Enemy to Nina Simone to Suicidal Tendencies, and I shoot with that same eclectic mix.

Chicago Stories and Legacy

FW: What Chicago stories still need to be told?

CA: So many: Larry Hoover, Jeff Fort, Oscar Micheaux, and William Foster, one of the first Black filmmakers. There’s the hidden history of Chicago’s Black community organizations—the ones that funded entire movements with catfish dinners.

We interviewed a former police officer who warned Fred Hampton the night he was killed. That story hit hard. We even tried developing a biopic with Fred Jr., but timing and casting issues stopped it. Then Judas and the Black Messiah came out—but it told the FBI’s story, not Fred’s.

Politics, Art, and Balance

FW: How do you balance politics with poetry in your storytelling?

CA: By hiding the medicine in the candy. I don’t preach to the choir—I reach the unaware through genre. For example, in Paradigm Grey, one story follows a Black man who takes a pill that lets him live as a white man for a day. It forces audiences to face bias through sci-fi.

Another series I’m developing blends the spiritual and the political—Luther meets Constantine—where a man walks between worlds to confront the supernatural roots of social problems.

Global Perspective

FW: Do your films connect to global Black and brown struggles, or are they more personal?

CA: Both. I’ve traveled a lot—across the U.S., Africa, and Europe—and learned people everywhere want the same things: safety, dignity, joy. Once you see that, you stop focusing on difference and start seeing mirrors.

That empathy shapes my casts—I center Blackness but include the global mosaic. And I’m conscious that we’re counter-programming. The world’s image of Chicago comes from violence on the news, not from our creativity. We have to rewrite that narrative ourselves.

The Challenge Beyond Funding

FW: What are Chicago filmmakers’ biggest challenges beyond funding?

CA: Marketing and visibility. When we premiered Paradigm Grey, we used Meta ads with laser-focused targeting. A $200 spend filled 700 seats—80% said they came because of that campaign.

Distribution is easier now—Tubi, Filmhub, Amazon—but visibility is the mountain. And many filmmakers don’t spend enough time on their scripts. The script is the cheapest and most powerful tool you have.

Building an Ecosystem

FW: What would it take to build a sustainable ecosystem here?

CA: We’re doing it. I co-founded ACE Universal Group—a 100,000 sq. ft. industrial space we’re converting into Chicago’s indie-friendly studio. We’ve hosted productions of BET movies and an episode of Power: Book of Force shoots there.

We also partner with Lawrence Hill’s Sonic Center in Englewood to train youth in film and performance. Graduates can move straight into real productions at ACE. It’s about ownership—our own infrastructure, our own pipeline.

Negotiating the Industry

FW: Have you had to translate Chicago stories for outside funders or festivals?

CA: Not really. Human stories translate. If audiences care about your characters, it doesn’t matter where you shoot. Some $100 million Hollywood films feel empty because they lack empathy. I’d rather tell a Chicago story with heart than a blockbuster with none.

Artistic Lineage

FW: Who are your cinematic kinfolk—locally and globally?

CA: Locally: Jonathan Woods, Christopher Nolen, Cassandra Bell, Bo Deal, Will Gates, Carl Seaton, Kenny Young—all grinding to build the culture.

Globally: Tyler Perry for his business acumen; Robert Rodriguez for his DIY independence and his Ten-Minute Film School that showed how to turn scraps into cinema; and Spike Lee for unapologetic Black storytelling.

Freedom, Ownership, and the Future

FW: What does freedom look like for an independent Black filmmaker today?

CA: Freedom means telling your story unapologetically, distributing it yourself, and benefiting financially. Paradigm Grey tripled its budget through screenings alone. Once one project hits, it should fund the next—you shouldn’t always have to beg investors.

FW: What’s next for you?

CA: Unbroken, a documentary on Keith Walker, who survived 30 years of wrongful imprisonment under the Jon Burge torture regime. It’s heavy—we needed therapists for the crew after interviews.

Also Bittersweet, based on a  novel by Asia Harris aka Asia the writer—about a young man torn between the streets and college—and a supernatural thriller series tackling social issues through genre.

Plus expanding ACE Universal and Sonic Center so future generations inherit a working creative infrastructure.

On Legacy and Vision

FW: At BFM, we see cinema as both testimony and technology—a way to build futures out of memory. Where do you see your work in that continuum?

CA: Storytellers are prophets. Like how The Simpsons predicts the future—it’s not magic, it’s observation. If we keep following certain paths, we can see where they lead. My job is to tell stories that guide us somewhere better.

I want my work to remind people there are no excuses. The tools are here. If you can imagine it, you can build it. That’s the legacy I want—to inspire creators to use every tool, from cameras to AI, to tell the truth and shape the future.

Floyd Webb: That’s perfect, Chris. Thanks for your time and your work.

Chris Adams: Thank you, brother. Appreciate it. Let’s keep building.