Chicago filmmaker Blake Martin is entering a new phase of his independent filmmaking career, with private investment from luxury designer and entrepreneur Travis Starks financing, in part, his latest short film, Sin and Bones, and a Warner Bros. Entertainment “Dream Big” grant set to provide additional support for his filmmaking work in 2027.
Martin’s production company, 3rd Week of January, has secured private investment for Sin and Bones from Starks, founder and creative director of T STARKS. Starks, whose independent American luxury maison is built around precision engineering, disciplined design and craftsmanship, will also serve as an executive producer on the film.
Starks’ investment in Sin and Bones brings an established creative entrepreneur into Martin’s growing production ecosystem. His involvement is particularly significant for Martin because Starks is investing not simply in the completion of a single film, but in the creative vision of a filmmaker and production company still in the process of establishing themselves.
For Martin, the investment marks a significant step in a filmmaking journey that has largely required him to finance his own work, call in favors and stretch limited resources across an ambitious slate of projects. He has not been entirely alone in that effort, however. Executive producer Paris Ashford invested in both On Hold and Alone, Now, becoming one of the earliest people to financially back Martin’s work as he began building 3rd Week of January and expanding his slate of independent films.
“When you’re independent, you get very accustomed to figuring it out,” Martin says. “You figure out what you can afford, what you can borrow, who believes in you enough to show up and how to make the movie regardless. I’m still that filmmaker. But there is something incredibly affirming about someone saying, ‘I see what you’re building, and I want to help you build it.’”
Starks’ investment was fostered in part by Sin and Bones producer Amanda Ballard, a first-time film producer whom Martin deliberately brought onto the project despite her being new to the position.
“Amanda is just such a powerful businesswoman and creative with such a tenacious spirit,” Martin says. “I knew she would be a good producer, and I am humbled she is part of my little world and proud that this film is her first. There are people who come around when everything is already working, and then there are people who help you get it working. Amanda is doing the latter.”
The production also received a substantial in-kind sponsorship when its primary filming location, a property that would ordinarily cost thousands of dollars to secure for a film production, was gifted to Martin for the shoot.
According to Martin, the owners’ reasoning was simple: “We see what you’re doing. We see how hard you work, and if anyone deserves support, it’s you.”
For a filmmaker who began this chapter of his career largely by funding the work himself, that accumulation of support has become as meaningful as the dollar amounts attached to it.
Martin has also been selected to receive Warner Bros. Entertainment’s “Dream Big” grant in 2027, which supports filmmakers early in their careers as they develop original work. The future grant is separate from the current financing of Sin and Bones and will support Martin as he continues developing his filmmaking career next year.
Through his production company, Martin embarked on an aggressive slate of independent shorts designed to function, in part, as his own practical film school: make the films, make mistakes, study the results and make the next one better. The objective was never to emerge with six perfect movies. It was to emerge as a better filmmaker.
“I never embarked on this trying to be the best or to have something to boast about,” Martin says. “I really wanted to learn. I think about making these films like learning to ride a bike. I’m going to get on, fall, scrape my knee, cry, embarrass myself — all of it. But eventually, years from now, I’m going to look up and I’ll just be riding, enjoying the wind. I just have to keep getting back on the bike, fall after fall, and keep pedaling.”
The experiment is beginning to produce results. His short M.A.I.D. has already won two film festivals- Best Short Film and Most Unique Idea, while On Hold, a father-daughter story centered on the realities and dignity of living paycheck to paycheck, reached tens of thousands of viewers following its release and has been accepted into multiple festivals. Alone, Now, an intimate exploration of a man returning home following his mother’s funeral on Mother’s Day, pushed Martin into quieter, more emotionally restrained territory.
Those films have also helped clarify his larger mission: expanding the range of stories Black characters are allowed to inhabit on screen. Martin is interested in grief, intimacy, class, family, loneliness and love — stories that do not require violence or extraordinary circumstances to make Black lives worthy of attention.
Sin and Bones continues that work.
The film centers on Saint, a 28-year-old neighborhood mechanic and self-taught saxophonist, and Brooke, a 40-year-old music executive whose carefully controlled life leaves little room for emotional uncertainty. What begins as a clearly defined physical relationship becomes increasingly difficult to contain when Saint wants a place in Brooke’s life that she never promised him.
Nolita Pore stars as Brooke opposite DeVon Thomas as Saint, a pairing Martin says has made him particularly excited to get the film in front of cameras.
“I’m so excited to work with Nolita because her energy is just infectious,” Martin says. “The moment she came into this world, she understood Brooke. There is a confidence and command about her, but there is also something incredibly warm underneath it, and Brooke needs both.”
Thomas, Martin says, brings an entirely different energy to Saint.
“DeVon has this natural vulnerability that I think is going to make Saint incredibly easy to root for. He doesn’t have to push for you to feel something from him. There is a softness there, but also this quiet masculinity that I really wanted for Saint. Putting the two of them together just feels right. DeVon just felt right.”
For Martin, the growth surrounding Sin and Bones is less about suddenly having money and more about beginning to build the infrastructure necessary to keep making films.
“I don’t want to make one good short film and spend the next five years talking about it,” Martin says. “I want to keep making work. I want to build a company where talented people can come in, grow, get opportunities and eventually get paid what they deserve. I want us to be able to tell stories that somebody might initially think are too small, too quiet or too specifically Black to matter — and prove that they matter.”
Martin is also candid that “eventually” remains an important word.
“Right now, I’m paying people nowhere near what they deserve, and I’m incredibly thankful they still love me enough to keep showing up,” he says. “But I want my crew and talent to know that I am working incredibly hard to get us to a place where I can pay them their worth and then some. Just keep sticking with me. I really believe I can take us far. I promise.”
Sin and Bones will not close Martin’s year. His final short of 2026 is scheduled to shoot in December and will mark another first: Martin’s first romantic comedy.
And after a year spent learning how to make films with whatever he could pull together, Martin is already thinking differently about how that one might get made.
“Maybe I’ll be calling Travis again, maybe, Paris” Martin jokes. “And Warner Bros., if you’re reading this, I have a rom-com that could use a little love.”
For a filmmaker who started the year asking how much he could accomplish with what he had, the question is slowly changing.
Now, Martin is beginning to find out what he can build when other people decide to believe in it, too.
Sin and Bones is currently in pre-production in Chicago, scheduled to shoot October 4th-6th.