Today we’d like to introduce you to Patrick Wimp and Hamzah Jamjoom.
Patrick and Hamzah, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Digital Hydra is an international development, production, and distribution studio based in Chicago. We started out when Hamzah and I were MFA students in DePaul University’s Digital Cinema program. We had similar tastes in storytelling and a real passion for crafting exciting visuals, so we started making films together.
We had some success with our student films and upon graduation, we were contracted by the university to create a series of advertisements promoting the cinema school. We created a detailed creative proposal and assembled our own team of crew members to make 5 advertisements that aired at the Chicago International Film Festival. This was around 2009-2010, and it was the first time we realized that we could monetize our creative talents as filmmakers.
From there we spent several years building our business working on small business commercials, corporate work, and eventually finding our way into music videos. During this time, we focused on a couple things to help grow our brand. First was exceptional visual quality. We knew we needed our projects to look like Hollywood projects or high-end commercials if we wanted to compete in those markets. The second was storytelling. We focused on telling stories in almost every type of project. This helps us hone our skills as storytellers even when working in a more commercial space.
Two of our music videos during that time were for one of the biggest artists in the Middle East and Asia, garnering more than 200 million YouTube views to date. That success brought us bigger clients in those markets and allowed us to create bigger projects for those audiences. This includes making documentary films in Saudi Arabia and writing and producing two seasons of one of the most watched series on Middle Eastern TV, a show called “WaMahyaya.”
Since 2014, we have been able to turn our unique style and niche successes into consistent work in the independent film and TV space in the U.S. as well. We have worked on writers, producers, directors, and visual effects artists on everything from micro-budget feature films, to wide release TV series and films airing on Netflix, HBO, and Amazon. In the commercial space, we have expanded to work for major clients like Facebook and McDonalds, while also continuing to focus on local content including Emmy-award winning TV spots for WGN in the promotion of Chicago’s professional sports teams.
Today, we continue to build off of these achievements and focus as much as possible in the narrative film and TV space. We also recently launched a formal visual effects division of our company called “Dream Squad,” that is focused on providing pre-visualization, digital cinematography, and VFX to the independent film community.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There have definitely been struggles along the way. One of the biggest was simply learning and adapting to the film industry in Chicago. Without the high-volume of productions that are common to New York and Los Angeles, we’ve found that filmmakers in Chicago need to be more entrepreneurial in their approach to making a living with their craft. We needed to be business people as well as creatives, and it took us some time to understand what that truly means.
Another challenge that is present in the modern, digital age of film and video production is the extremely high number of competitors. As cinema technologies have lowered in price, the barriers to entry to the field have become limited. A lot of people provide similar services to those we have been able to provide. What we try to lean on to overcome those things is our own visual style, a positive collaborative attitude, and a high-level of execution. We need to be able to deliver a unique, polished product that stands out for our clients, and along the way create a positive relationship that will continue on to future endeavors.
Lastly, the film industry is by its nature very guarded–and rightfully so. It takes a lot of effort just to get a foot in the door and you need to really stand out to gain the respect of your peers and the community at large. This isn’t necessarily a challenge that we actively think about on a daily basis, but it is something that all filmmakers are going to face and we just try to meet it by doing great work.
Digital Hydra – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We are a full-service film production studio that takes film, TV, and commercial projects from creative development all the way through final delivery. We are most known for a distinct creative voice and style, high standards of visual quality, and the ability to integrate visual effects with live-action elements.
We are proud of all of our work. Recent successes that we are proud of include creating the #3 rated program on Middle Eastern TV networks for “WaMahyaya” and distributing that program on Amazon Prime Video. We also co-created, wrote, and co-produced the independent TV pilot “Public Housing Unit” — an hour-long drama based on the true stories of police and citizens living in Chicago’s Cabrini Green projects in the 1980s — and that project was awarded Best Writer and Best of Fest at two major television film festivals in 2017.
We also have a lot of fun creating advertisements for the Chicago Bulls, Cubs, Blackhawks, and White Sox on an annual basis for our friends and colleagues at WGN TV. We believe that our clients and collaborators come to us for exceptional creative work, positive attitudes, strong Midwestern work ethic, and the ability to execute big budget ideas with independent resources.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Our proudest moments are when you sit in the theater with an audience and your story works on screen. People gasp at drama, laugh when they are supposed to laugh, and you see that an emotional experience has taken place based on your creative efforts. That is what we do it for and there is nothing more rewarding.
Contact Info:
- Address: Stage 18 2558 W. 16th St
Chicago, IL 60608 - Website: digitalhydra.com
- Phone: 312.884.9372
- Email: info@digitalhydra.com
- Instagram: @dreamsquadvfx
- Facebook: DigitalHydraLLC
- Twitter: @DigitalHydraCHI, @patrickwimp
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