The first thing people notice about Blake Martin isn’t that he only started directing a little over a year ago. It’s that nobody talks about him like someone who’s only been directing for a year.
In an industry obsessed with credentials, Martin has become something far more difficult to manufacture: undeniable momentum.
The rise has been fast, but it hasn’t been accidental.
Before anyone knew Blake Martin as a filmmaker, they knew him as one of Chicago’s most accomplished visual artists. Over the course of two decades, he built an award-winning career behind the camera, photographing campaigns, editorials and celebrity portraits that appeared everywhere from Vogue and GQ to Times Square billboards. His clients ranged from emerging talent to global brands, and his eye for composition became one of his signatures. Every photograph carried a sense of narrative. Looking back, it almost feels inevitable that motion pictures would eventually call his name.
Martin disagrees. “I never woke up wanting to direct films,” he says. “Photography was everything.” Ironically, it was photography that led him to the next chapter.
In early 2025, Martin traveled to Cape Town, South Africa, after being hired as the on-set photographer for BET’s hit series Average Joe. His assignment was straightforward: document the production. Capture the actors between takes. Preserve the moments that audiences would never see. Instead, he found himself paying attention to someone else entirely.
“The actors were incredible,” Martin recalls. “But I couldn’t stop watching the director.”
Between setups, while departments adjusted lighting and camera teams prepared the next shot, Martin gravitated toward the monitor. He studied blocking. Lens choices. Camera movement. Conversations between director and actors. The way a note could change a performance. The quiet confidence required to lead a set of more than a hundred people while somehow protecting the emotional truth of a scene.
“I was obsessed,” he says. “I wasn’t supposed to be watching any of that. But I couldn’t look away.”
By the time production wrapped, he had fallen in love with a craft he had never seriously considered pursuing.
The flight home offered little distraction. Twenty-nine hours in economy. No in-flight entertainment. No Wi-Fi. Just a laptop and an idea that refused to leave him alone.
Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, Martin began writing what would become Sunday Evenings, a relationship drama centered on a married couple whose wildly successful relationship podcast begins to unravel the moment they announce their divorce live on-air. By the time his plane landed in Chicago, he had written the pilot. Before his Uber reached home from O’Hare, the casting notice was already live.
There was no studio. No network. No investors. There wasn’t even a production company built around scripted work. “There wasn’t a business plan,” Martin says with a laugh. “There was just faith.”
That leap produced Sunday Evenings, a seven-episode independent drama that quickly found an audience, generating more than 50,000 digital engagements and over two million social impressions across platforms. The series eventually attracted a distribution offer from Tubi—a milestone many independent creators spend years pursuing.
He accepted the deal and signed the paperwork. Martin surprised people when he later declined it. It wasn’t a rejection of the platform. In fact, he speaks about Tubi with genuine respect. But as conversations progressed, he realized something about the career he wanted to build.
“I kept asking myself a hard question,” he says. “’Am I making the best decision for this show, or am I making the biggest decision for my career?’”
The more he thought about it, the more he worried about becoming defined too early.
“I had this feeling that if I entered that ecosystem immediately, I’d spend the next several years in a cycle of write, direct, Tubi… write, direct, Tubi. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that path—it has changed lives. It just wasn’t the path I believed God had for me.”
Walking away from a distribution deal wasn’t easy. It was, however, entirely consistent with the way Martin approaches his career. Nearly every major decision he’s made has involved choosing the longer road over the easier one. That decision proved consequential almost immediately.
The work on Sunday Evenings caught the attention of acclaimed actress Cynthia Kaye McWilliams ( Real Husbands of Hollywood, Average Joe), who reached out with an opportunity that few first-time television directors ever receive. She hired Martin to direct all ten episodes of Messy Lola, a dramatic comedy created by Kevin Douglas and produced through CynCity Productions. For Martin, it was validation from someone whose opinion carried weight.
“For Cynthia to trust me with her company, her cast and her vision after seeing one project—that meant everything.”
The production paired Martin with an ensemble that included McWilliams herself, Tony Award winner Glenn Davis, Tracey Bonner and Anthony Fleming. More importantly, it confirmed what many around Chicago had already begun to suspect: Sunday Evenings wasn’t beginner’s luck. Martin had a voice.
That voice soon earned him another opportunity with CynCity Productions when he was hired to direct the feature film Fried Catfish, based on the acclaimed play by Inda Craig-Galván.
From the outside, it appeared to be the next logical chapter in a remarkably fast ascent. Privately, however, Martin was navigating one of the most difficult seasons of his life.
While preparing the feature, he was simultaneously battling colon cancer. Production meetings happened around treatment schedules. Location scouts were coordinated from hospital rooms. Prep continued between doctor’s appointments. The work never stopped, even when everything else in his life suggested it should. He refused to let the diagnosis define the opportunity.
Then came opening day.
After months of preparation, Martin and the studio reached a creative impasse over the direction of the film. Their visions no longer aligned. Before the production could truly begin, his involvement ended.
For a creative whose career had been built on continually reinventing himself—from touring the world as a professional dancer to becoming one of fashion photography’s most recognizable names before ever touching scripted television—the experience was unfamiliar.
It was the first time he had ever been fired. “It crushed me,” Martin says quietly. “Not because I lost the job. Because I lost my confidence.” For nearly two weeks, he disappeared. Friends checked in. Phone calls went unanswered. The director who had spent his career convincing himself that he could learn anything suddenly wondered if maybe everyone else had been right.
The explanation he kept hearing echoed louder than the dismissal itself.
“You’re not ready.”
Martin could have spent years arguing with that sentence. Instead, he decided to outwork it.
The loss of Fried Catfish could have easily become the defining chapter of Blake Martin’s directing career. Instead, it became the beginning of it.
For weeks, Martin wrestled with a question every creative eventually faces but rarely talks about publicly: What happens when the thing you believed was your breakthrough disappears overnight?
The disappointment wasn’t simply professional. It was deeply personal. He had spent his entire career proving that formal training wasn’t the only path to excellence. As a touring dancer, he had learned by doing. As a producer, he had learned by producing. As a photographer, he had taught himself an art form that eventually landed him on magazine covers around the world. Every chapter of his life had reinforced the same belief: if he worked hard enough, remained curious enough and stayed humble enough to keep learning, he could figure it out.
This felt different. “It wasn’t being fired that hurt the most,” Martin says. “It was believing that maybe they were right.”
The phrase lingered. “You’re not ready.”
Whether those exact words were intended to define him is almost beside the point. That’s how they landed. And once they did, Martin found himself at a crossroads. He could spend the next several years trying to convince other people they had underestimated him, or he could quietly become impossible to underestimate.
He chose the second option.
“I remember praying because I genuinely didn’t know what was next,” he recalls. “I wasn’t asking God to give me another feature. I was asking Him what He wanted me to learn.”
The answer, he says, came with unusual clarity.
Short films.
He dismissed it almost immediately. He had already directed episodic television. A feature had just slipped through his fingers. In his mind, moving backward into short films didn’t make sense. “But I kept hearing it,” he says. “’Do short films.’”
So he did.
Martin wrote ON HOLD, an intimate character study about a father whose life appears to be collapsing around him over the course of a single morning. The film wasn’t conceived as a calling card. It was an exercise. A chance to become more precise. To make mistakes on purpose. To experiment with actors, camera language and emotional pacing without the weight of an entire series or feature resting on his shoulders.
Then another idea interrupted him.
“It was almost funny,” Martin says. “I’m in prep for ON HOLD and I hear, ‘Not enough.’”
Not enough?
“’Six short films in six months.’” His first response was laughter.
“I literally laughed out loud,” he says. “I told God, ‘That’s crazy. That’s not happening.’”
The idea refused to leave. Eventually, Martin stopped negotiating with it.
What emerged was one of the more ambitious independent filmmaking initiatives currently underway. Rather than spending years developing a single project while waiting for permission from the industry, Martin would spend six consecutive months making six completely different films. Different genres. Different casts. Different visual languages. Different emotional muscles.
“It became my film school,” he says. “Only instead of studying filmmaking for four years before directing, I wanted to study while directing.”
That decision triggered an obsession.
Martin attacked filmmaking with the same discipline that had carried him through every previous chapter of his career. Nearly twenty books on directing, cinematography, editing, producing and screenwriting filled his desk within weeks. He consumed commentaries from filmmakers he admired. Watched hundreds of hours of behind-the-scenes documentaries. Broke down scenes frame by frame. Attended workshops across Chicago. Sat on panels. Asked questions. Introduced himself to veterans. Applied to traditional film school and was accepted, with plans to begin classes in January.
None of it was driven by insecurity. It was driven by respect.
“The moment you think you know enough is the moment you stop growing,” he says. “I never wanted someone to be able to say I wasn’t ready again—and have there be even a small chance they were right.”
What happened next surprised even him.
Martin documented the mission in the same way he had documented much of his career: honestly.
There was no cinematic trailer announcing the project. No glossy campaign. No manufactured origin story. He simply turned on his phone and spoke candidly about getting fired, questioning himself, battling cancer, choosing to start over and committing to six short films in six months.
The internet responded.
The video spread far beyond Chicago, generating millions of impressions and introducing Martin’s story to filmmakers, actors and audiences who had never heard his name before. The comments were filled less with congratulations than recognition. People saw themselves in the vulnerability of someone willing to admit that success and uncertainty often exist at the same time.
Support arrived from every direction. Actors offered their time. Crew members volunteered equipment. Homeowners opened their doors as locations. Professionals sent educational resources and introductions. Complete strangers contributed financially because they believed in the mission before they had even seen the films.
“It reminded me that people don’t just invest in projects,” Martin says. “They invest in people.”
Perhaps nowhere has that become more evident than on his sets.
Talk to actors who have worked with Martin and a pattern begins to emerge. They rarely begin by discussing camera movement or shot lists. Instead, they describe how they felt.
One actor recently reflected, “Working with Blake was unlike any experience I’ve ever had, and I’ve been on major sets. Maybe it’s because he’s newer, or maybe his heart is just different, but there’s a level of care for the people around him that I’ve never experienced before. He cared about the project, yes, but he cared about us first. That made us want to give him everything.”
That sentiment has become something of Martin’s reputation throughout Chicago’s independent film community. His sets are demanding. Preparation is expected. Performance is protected.
There is room for collaboration without sacrificing leadership, and room for vulnerability without compromising professionalism.
That balance has made him one of the city’s most sought-after emerging directors—not because he has spent decades in the business, but because he has developed a filmmaking culture that actors and crew members actively want to return to. The momentum has attracted investors as well.
Businesswoman and entreprenuer Paris Ashford initially signed on as an investor for ON HOLD. After viewing early footage from the film, she reached back out with a simple conclusion: one project wasn’t enough. She committed additional support to ALONE, NOW, Martin’s third short film, while exploring involvement in Sin and Bones, the fourth installment in the slate.
For Martin, Ashford’s investment represents something larger than financing.
“It’s exciting because she’s not just investing in my work,” he says. “She’s becoming part of this industry. Helping someone step into the role of executive producer is just as meaningful to me as making the films themselves. We need more people building this ecosystem.”
That philosophy—community over competition—has quietly become one of the defining characteristics of Martin’s career. While many filmmakers talk about creating opportunities, Martin has built a reputation for doing exactly that, whether by mentoring emerging artists, opening his sets to observers or intentionally creating spaces where actors, crew members and investors feel ownership over the work.
During production, actor Jazmin Johnson shared with Martin that she had quietly been thinking about directing one day. Rather than offering encouragement from a distance, he invited her directly into the process. Johnson now serves as a Fellowship Director under 3rd Week of January Productions, shadowing every stage of development—from reviewing self-tapes and casting sessions to production meetings, principal photography, editorial decisions and post-production.
For Martin, mentorship isn’t something reserved for people who have “made it.”
“I’ve had people ask me, ‘How can you teach when you’re still learning yourself?’” he says. “My answer is simple: because we’re learning together. I don’t think you have to be thirty years ahead of someone to help them. If I’ve learned something this week that can save you six months, then why wouldn’t I share it? None of us gets anywhere alone.”
That philosophy has quietly become part of the culture surrounding Martin’s productions. His sets are designed to be more than film sets—they’re classrooms. Crew members are encouraged to ask questions. Actors are invited into conversations that many productions keep behind closed doors. Emerging filmmakers observe every phase of the process, not simply to watch a movie get made, but to understand how a filmmaker thinks.
“I don’t want to climb the mountain by myself,” Martin says. “If we’re going up, let’s go together.”
“If an actor wants to know why I’m putting a light there, ask. If the catering intern wants to know why I had the actor pause in that spot, ask,” Martin says. “The catering intern could be Ryan Coogler tomorrow, motivate everyone around you.”
That belief has earned him respect throughout Chicago’s independent film community, a city he is quick to point out is experiencing an extraordinary creative moment. While Martin’s own profile has risen rapidly, he resists the idea that his story exists in isolation.
“There are some incredible filmmakers in Chicago doing phenomenal work right now,” he says. “Barry Brewer, Derek Dow, Patrick Deal, Lataryion Perry, Tyriek Smith, Kevin Baker, Xavier McKnight, Bo Deal, Bo Simmons—the list keeps going. These are Black male filmmakers telling bold stories at an incredibly high level, and I’m humbled that my name is even mentioned in the same conversation. We aren’t competing against each other. We’re proving that Chicago belongs in the national conversation.”
It’s a perspective that reflects the larger mission behind Martin’s work. Success, in his view, isn’t measured by being the only filmmaker people are talking about. It’s measured by helping build an industry where more Chicago voices are impossible to ignore.
It also makes his newest partnership feel less like a business announcement and more like the next logical step.
Beginning this year, theBlkScript will become the official home of 3rd Week of January Productions’ 2026 short film slate. Every film in Martin’s six-film initiative will premiere through the platform, establishing a long-term partnership centered on elevating independent Black storytelling.
For Martin, it is exactly where he wanted these films to live.
“TheBlkScript believes in filmmakers before the rest of the industry catches up,” he says. “That’s rare. They understand that independent cinema isn’t just about making movies. It’s about building voices.”
In less than two years, Blake Martin has gone from photographing someone else’s set in South Africa to directing multiple television series, being entrusted with a feature film, launching one of the most ambitious independent short-film initiatives in the country and becoming one of the most talked-about emerging filmmakers in Chicago.
The résumé is impressive. The trajectory may be even more so.
Martin doesn’t shy away from the size of his ambition.
“I want the world to one day say Spike Lee. Ryan Coogler. F. Gary Gray. Anthony Hemingway… and eventually, Blake Martin,” he says. “Not because I believe I’ve earned that place today, but because I’m willing to dedicate my life to doing the work that might one day deserve to stand beside theirs. I only serve one God but those black men…they are my heros. Those men built legacies that changed what Black filmmakers believed was possible. If I can spend my career adding even one meaningful chapter to that legacy, I’ll consider my life well spent.”
It’s a bold aspiration. Then again, nothing about Blake Martin’s journey has been built on small dreams. Because if Martin has demonstrated anything over the last year, it’s that setbacks don’t slow him down. They give him somewhere to point the camera.
What’s Next
The six-film initiative continues throughout 2026 and into early 2027 under 3rd Week of January Productions:
- ON HOLD — Starring Ronnie Hudson II | Premieres August 2, 2026
- M.A.I.D. — Starring Kimberly Steele and Brynne London | September 2026
- ALONE, NOW — Starring Taijun Waters | October 2026
- Sin and Bones — Starring Devon Lamont Thomas | November 2026
- HE and Me — An LGBTQ+ Christmas love story | December 2026
- The Interview — | January 2027
Also in development are the proof-of-concept films House Rules and Eggs Over Easy, both slated for 2027 as Martin continues expanding his slate into long-form television and feature development.
If the past year has established Blake Martin as one of Chicago’s most compelling new directing voices, the next chapter will determine just how far that voice can travel.
Few who have watched his ascent are betting against him.