Brad Rushing, Cinematographer: This is a business that's very important to remember you will get
hired to do what you show you can do.
Film Courage: I believe you originally set out to be a director?
Brad: I wouldn't say I set out to be a director you know when I was
first interested in making films.
I spent many years studying fine art fine art was my passion and it still is my passion because to
me this is fine art in a different medium but when I originally transitioned into thinking I
might want to do it I as as a visual artist who is the principal author I thought well I would
want to be the auteur hence the director and that made sense to me and so all through college that
was sort of what I was thinking and then I got out and my first feature film that I worked on
I got on set and you know I was hustling I did all kinds of things over the period of time this
is the job I was telling you about where I was volunteering and I was working with professionals
and the first thing they threw at me because you know I was a musician I did a lot of recording so
I knew sound so they had me be the boom operator and then the sound guy had days he couldn't show
up because again we're all volunteering and and that's another thing about volunteering because
of the attrition you step up pretty quickly so he trained me how to record sound so I'm recording
sound and you know I learned grip work and oh the first AC can't show up Brad you want to pull focus
you know can you run a camera I mean I went from being the little guy to you know being the guy
that you know a couple of times it was me and the director and a wind-up Bolex and we were the crew
so you know that was that was kind of the thing but when I was on that job and I was watching that
director who's a friend of this day and I really respect this guy but everybody was hitting on him
everybody on set wanted a piece of him you know you know understandably you know the
actors wanted his time and the wardrobe people and the producer and the location
people and it's just like you know okay and then over here is the dp now this person has the magic
box and they get to look through the magic box and make the pretty pictures they get the lights
the toys and I'm thinking now that that looks like fun and the funny thing to me is is that
was that was the that was the instinct in that moment years later looking at it retroactively
you know I have a lot of interest in science just a huge science geek I love history and I
love music and of course visual art and I was reflecting and I realized that all of
those disciplines converge in cinematography you know you've got the art obviously you've got the
science in terms of the technology the physics you know optics things like that you've got history
because you understand you know the way that that a film was shot in the 20s versus the 40s you
understand you know the history of cameras and film grain and digital because it all
plays in and informs your creative choices you know if I want something with a little bit of a
retro look I have to understand that history plus the industry's got a fascinating history and then
as in terms of music i've done a lot of camera operating and i've come to find that there are
rhythms even if you're even if you aren't aware of that nobody's tapping out a drum but in a scene
in my head i've got a metronome and I'm like this person that person this person speaks they
grab the glass and I find there's a rhythm and to reinforce this I'll tell you an interesting story
about how I cut my montages most people find a piece of music cut to the beats of the music
I never do that to me it feels artificial it feels forced I will cut to the rhythms of the visuals
and then I will find music that fits those and the thing that is just profound to me
time and again is you find the right song and it just drops into place and all those beats hit
and sometimes you maybe there's a little nipper tuck here you know
sometimes I might cut the music and fiddle with it a little bit but and sometimes the rhythm changes
you know we're all splicing a different piece of music but literally all the feature montages on my
website were done that way none of them were cut to music so so just the rhythm of it and
so all of those things converging it just made me realize I'm not I'm not a spiritual person but
but things like that are kind of profound it's at least magical you know when the universe conspires
or whatever it is you know even though I don't embrace anything I don't exclude anything maybe
there is something really cool out there that put me here but yeah that was that was kind of
the thing is that you know I made that decision I had that impulse on that first set and then
looking back I was just overwhelmed by by all the affirmation of why that had been the right
decision when did you realize that being a filmmaker in Houston Texas wasn't the place
for you at that time and then what happened when you moved here to Los Angeles it's a good question
so so obviously I started my career in the film industry in Houston and I had you know people
I worked with who are mentors and friends and I still do i've been back i've worked there again
I'm a big supporter of houston and of texas I'm an advocate of the filmmaking community there
and I want to see it do well my I have a lot of mentees there to this day
and I support the community I just actually was invited to become a board member for southwest
alternative media project in houston which is a film advocacy and education group that's been
around since the 70s so I'm really honored and I feel that I'm still a part of that community
but what I did realize at the time was you know because I knew I wanted to be a cinematographer
there wasn't any question i've always known what I wanted to be even when I was a little kid I knew
I wanted to be a garbage man now I didn't stay wanting to be a garbage man then I wanted to be an
astronaut but i've never been one of those people who didn't know so I you know even though that has
swapped out and and so I knew at that time and I thought about it and there were some really good
cinematographers in in town and still are and I thought you know in order for me to get a shot
you know these guys are going to have to retire or there's going to have to be more work and it
really became evident to me that it was a little bit of a closed ecosystem it was a small market
and I thought you know I realized what a sacrifice it was going to be I realized in terms of my free
time in terms of you know the volunteering I would have to do to you know earn my stripes and build
my network and learn my skills just in terms of being a freelancer and not having regular work
the uncertainty you know all of those things and I realized okay I'm taking a big risk and that sort
of percolated in my brain and the funny thing is I never made a calculated decision to leave
one day I walked home I didn't walk on my drove home and I walked into the house because yeah I
was living with my parents at 25 because why not you know I was a filmmaker they were nice people I
loved them and I was happy to be there and you know for practical reasons I'm like you know I
have no need for that expense and I'm content so I stayed there and I so I walked home I didn't walk
home I keep saying that I drove home and I was walking into the house and I and I just I had this
lark that I was just gonna go provoke my parents I was just gonna tell them that I was moving to l.a
just to get a rise out of them and I figured they would talk me out of it and and so I walked in and
you know there had there had been no prelude to this it had never been discussed before and
I walked in and I said i've decided to move to los angeles and they said that's wonderful we
completely support you we think that's just such a smart decision and and in that moment I thought
oh [ __ ] i've committed myself I have to follow through now because again I you know but the funny
thing is you know just like I say you know maybe sometimes the universe guides you because maybe
it was just like you know I got pushed to where I needed to be in that moment because again it
wasn't a conscious thing but I made plans with a camera assistant friend of mine you know to
to go out and i'd already had some friends out here I had some filmmaker friends and I thought
okay well I'll go and I'll cast my lot with those people you know none of them were established they
were all you know wanting to be filmmakers and I had this one friend who said well I could come
crash on her floor and so you know my friend and I made plans that we would leave in a month
and started thinking about it like why are we waiting a month and I was like let's just go so
two weeks in we left so we got there and you know living living like thieves on the on the floor and
this could be a long story but I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna fast forward
does it involve the Whisky a Go Go sorry why do I feel like some of that's coming in no well
we were I was in Venice it was beautiful my friend lived in a townhouse involved
okay so but anyway I got there and I had a lot of delusions I really did I thought you know
oh and the the other reason that that it made sense to me at the time was that you know
instead of making all these sacrifices for this limited market if I'm going to pay this price I'm
going to go where the sky is the limit you know that was the logic that reinforced that decision
so I get out here and I just I made so many bad assumptions about how I was going to be
welcomed with open arms and get business and get work and you know probably 30,000 other people had
that same idea you know and so I spent I spent some years kind of aimlessly and you know to
make a living I was doing temp work in offices I was doing the freebies at the time they had
this publication called dramalog which is kind of like you know the what craigslist is today a lot
of it was student films but I'm like you know I'm building a reel I still had a few things i'd shot
in used it but I didn't have much of a reel so you know I just needed more footage and you know even
if I'm working for free somebody else is paying for the film and the locations and the camera
so I did that for a while and it was really dodgy and and at one point I had this epiphany
and I thought you know all the people I know are at the same level I am you know we we kind of
got into this and said you know all for one and one for all we're all going to be filmmakers
the problem with that is I realized that if I want to make a living at this
I have to work with people who do it for a living you know and that was a very
transformational realization for me and when I did that that's when I started moving forward
and I started you know applying to companies like concord new horizons one of my really
good buddies out here worked for them and he was in the marketing department but you know he gave
me names and and pointed me in the right direction and and that's just kind of how it got started and
you know from there it took a couple of years and then I shot some movies for those guys
you know did some more indies a young fellow who I mentored in houston ended up blowing up
as a huge music video director and you know through a set of circumstances we ended up
working together and that jumped me up some levels and then when music videos kind of
subsided I transitioned over you know the big budgets kind of went away I transitioned
over to commercials and and then those kind of evaporated and and now I'm doing narrative again
so you probably cut big chunks of that out no I love the story so that that's interesting
so you're here in LA and you're you're enjoying time with friends but you looked around and said
what is going to set me apart from these people and that was that realization knowing that you
were working with other people that this was paying their mortgage this was putting their kids
in school and knowing that they were going to take it very seriously I don't know I'm paraphrasing
but well I don't know I think that the whole set yourself apart realization came a bit later all I
realized was that I was working with wannabes I was a wannabe my peers were one of these
you know but wanna be is if it's it's like it's like entropy you know you're in a vacuum and and
nobody in there has the capacity to advance you unless you get lucky it's like the lottery you
know do you you know win a festival award and even then what does that matter you know so this is a
business that's very important to remember you will get hired to do what you show you can do so
if all you do is freebie low budget stuff that's what you're going to get brought on for if all you
do is volunteer stuff you know that may be what you get stuck in if all you do is commercials
it's going to be hard to get a feature film and even if you do commercials like me and you got a
broad variety of stuff if somebody wants a car commercial they want the car person they want
the one with you know 10 10 car spots or you know the beauty person I can do all of those things you
know and I have and I can show them but I don't have the preponderance and and so that was the
thing that that you know just going back to my early my first experience with that phenomenon
was that I was working with with one of these people I liked people who were talented
but nobody was in a position to jump me up to a salaried position and I had to
break outside of that paradigm you know just end the entropy go to a completely different model
and that model was to find the people who were getting paid to do the work and work with them
and that was really probably one of my very first significant realizations of of you know learning
the dynamics in this industry and we basically are all wannabes when we start out at something
so I'm still a wannabe you know there's still things I want to do I don't say that that term
maliciously at all it's just you know we were powerless we had no connections and
nobody was giving us money so you know it's not a judgment it's just that was the fact.
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