The Workshop follows Julian Abdul, a 25 year-old Atlanta native, & peeks into the creative process that is responsible for creating some of sport’s most memorable draft day suites for college athletes entering the NBA. As we get to see how he creates, we also see what drives him creatively, and the roadblocks that come with being one of the youngest fashion designers in sports.

Director’s Vision for ‘The Workshop

When I first met Julian on the set of an AT&T and NBA commercial I directed, I knew that there was so much more of his story that I wanted to hear. After talking to him a few times over the span of a year, I knew I needed to capture a vignette of his story. I saw so much talent and raw potential in him, and he was just starting to see it in himself, I was confident that this version of Julian, at this stage in his life, needed to be filmed.

Pre-production started with “How do we put this camera in places that people don’t usually get to see, but still motivates the story?” I think we achieved the perfect balance of purposeful, artful cinematography, without muddying up the film, making the audience confuse flashiness with exposition as we deliver new information.

Based off the slight introverted nature Julian has, I knew immediately when creating the world for “The Workshop” it was going to be a “Man vs Self” story, and instead of taking him out of his familiar world (his workshop), I wanted to keep him there because his familiar world is how Julian gets what he wants. The goal is for us to watch him think out loud, and create his way out of the confrontations and internal/external conflicts that all starts, and ends in The Workshop.