Erin Babbin + Michael Sullivan
Erin Babbin & Michael Sullivan are the founding partners of On The Real Film, a Chicago based photography and video production company. Babbin is a Chicago native, continuing her family's tradition of artmaking begun by her grandmother in photography and her mother in filmmaking. She studied documentary film at Columbia College Chicago.
Michael Sullivan is an El Paso, Texas native. He studied fine arts at the University of Texas, Austin and expanded from still photography to filmmaking and video after moving to Chicago and partnering with Babbin.
Babbin & Sullivan started On The Real Film in 2011 and have worked since then documenting the work of artists and musicians, arts organizations, nonprofit organizations and universities. On The Real Film's work has been screened locally in Chicago and internationally in Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Mumbai, Hamburg, San Francisco, Belleville, Denver, Toronto, and Park City.
Above all we value storytelling and focus on "keeping it real" by striving for honesty in our work and telling the stories of people who are not often heard or seen. We have worked to hone our craftsmanship over the last years in order to serve those stories well. Our goal for audiences is to inspire empathy and create a greater understanding of the subjects in our documentary films.
