TX
USA

Erica Silverman

Writer, Director

Erica Silverman

Commercial, Lifestyle, Documentary, Music

Erica is a Hometeam writer, director, and editor, who lives in Fort Worth, Texas. Starting in the music world, she’s directed artists like Lizzo, Avril Lavigne, Leon Bridges and many more. Her impeccable style and taste is matched with her attention to detail and her heartwarming spirit pours through the lens. She's an expert at working with both real people and actors, with a diverse portfolio spanning health, finance, testimonials, fashion, and music. Her work is always authentic, often with a quirky touch.

Family and Filmmaking with Writer/Director, Erica Silverman

Hometeam's collaboration with Texas-based Writer/Director Erica Silverman stretches back nearly a decade. What started in 2016 as a single music video project—Robert Ellis's "California," commissioned by Lagan Sebert has blossomed into a beautiful creative partnership. You’ll find her vision across many of our past productions including digital campaigns for household names like Benjamin Moore, Tecovas, and MamaRoo, music videos for artists such as Cody Jinks, Koe Wetzel, Hailey Whitters, and Avril Lavigne, and most recently, a bold commercial for the legendary restaurant chain Hooters, co-directed alongside Andrew Donoho.

Erica possesses a remarkable creative versatility and knack for hitting creative home runs with any pitch, often imbued with the nostalgic, the whimsical, and the heartfelt.

This week, Hometeam Partner Lagan Sebert sat down virtually with Erica to catch up and chat on the theme of family and filmmaking. They discuss how Erica weaves the two together in both her writing and directing, exploring how family and personal life are symbiotic to her creative process. From balancing directing and motherhood, to making set days “a family event," and even working professionally with her husband, musician Robert Ellis, across various projects—including Erica’s proof-of-concept short film Passing Through, which stars Ellis and navigates a biographical story about her stepfather’s final days in hospice.

An Erica set feels like a big get together under the Texas sun. You might find a kid or two running around, and long-time friends stepping into an acting role for the first time or taking BTS photos. Erica attributes her communal approach to a true love for her community, inspired by the supportive spirit and camaraderie of her fellow filmmakers living in Dallas and Austin, off the LA & NYC grid. Erica says that being a filmmaker outside of a major film center helps inform her work.

“I love New York. I would live there. I think LA is amazing. I would live there, but I don't, I live here. And I think that because of that, I have something to say that's unique.”

Directing is a job and an a form of self-expression, and for Erica, it’s also something else entirely: a mode of preservation—a way to grab hold of the life’s fleeting moments with the people we love:

“People take photos. They want to capture memories. I mean, I'm trying to do that, but in a different kind of way. I'm trying to slow time, you know, everything's so sped up. So it's a way to just slow the moment, to capture the moment and have it be more three dimensional…. so whenever I can use my family, I want to, just because I can capture this little moment of them in this moment of their life.”

To hear the full conversation with Erica, check out our debut episode of Hometeam's original podcast, Chasing the Same Sun: Global Adventures in Filmmaking below: