“…The ones who made the music videos you replayed until the algorithm gave up. The ones who made the commercial that made you text a friend, ‘This is how it’s done‘. The ones who made the short film that felt like a doorway. And then, one day, they were gone. Some burned out. Some left. Some kept working in silence. And one kept building a way out. A way through. A way forward. He called it ABABA.”
This is the evocative introduction to a creative studio for creators, ABABA, launched by director, Dawit N.M., whose name became known through directing Charlie Puth’s music video, Mother, and working with brands such as Curry Brand and Under Armour. ABABA he says, is a pipeline between NYC and his native Ethiopia, bringing Ethiopian creatives into the production and post arena with global taste, execution, and scale.
Dawit N.M. started early as a director, moved fast, and got real results fast. The “N.M.” is an accident turned into a philosophy: No Middle. It came from a hospital record error he once found, and it stuck because it described the exact thing he was chasing. But the more he won, he says, the clearer it became – when an industry starts elevating the young too quickly, it’s a sign the system is under strain. A sign that the market is moving faster than the structures meant to protect craft. Dawit did prove that he was more than a one-hit wonder. Then, after the third hit, he decided to stop chasing permission. So he started building.
ABABA is a creative studio offering full-suite post production, motion design, and animation through three plans – 1.) Lite: Dawit’s trusted team executes post, motion, and limited animation; 2.)Plus: everything in Lite, with Dawit’s creative direction layered in; and 3.) Max: for when you want to make something that doesn’t exist yet.
ABABA has already helped make work feel interesting again. It helped Genre.ai CEO, PJ Accetturo, a polarising, high-visibility name in the ad space, deliver a Popeyes AI music video:
…and created a hand-drawn digital animation film for David Killian’s new talent agency, Wilding. It has also created quieter work that protects the idea and the execution. Now ABABA is focused on something bigger – helping agencies and production partners protect taste and move faster, without losing the thread.
ABABA strengthens the two places that strain production most often – Pre-production: turning internal pitches into fully testable ideas beyond storyboards. Demos you can feel. Concepts you can experience before you spend the real money; and Post-production: keeping the vision intact by making the work live in one place, led by one team, with fewer handoffs and less dilution.
For now, ABABA’s services are digital by design.
“I have to reverse engineer the filmmaking process here in Ethiopia. Build a post team. Then a production team. Then eventually, a writer’s team,” Dawit stated.
ABABA says it is cutting the unnecessary middle down to its least viable number and building a new path between craft and scale. “ABABA is for the people who still care about the work.”
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