Today we’d like to introduce you to Brad Rushing.
Hi Brad, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
For some reason creativity is infused through me like breathing air. As the universe craves balance, it turns out that I am truly awful at other “normal life” kind of things. It can be quite embarrassing.
My earliest memories involve my imagination: my Mom reading me stories, drawing with crayons, staring at the ceiling and finding ephemeral faces and characters elusively hinted at in the patterns of the texture.
I was a shy kid and I am sure it did not help that I could get distracted and lost in reveries. I would stare at grass, or tree bark, or colors and I am certain at one time or another people worried about me. Haha!
Creating things, be they films, art, music, stories, or anything really, is the one mode I feel unconditionally happy and unbound by care and worry. Even challenges and difficulties around that tend to occur to me as fun puzzles because I long ago learned to embrace limitations and to lean into them as opportunities to grow and to try and to learn new things!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
I’d like to meet the person whose road has been smooth. Or on second thought maybe not!!
I don’t think such a thing is even possible. Maybe that’s a state of mind. I tend to get extremely invested and passionate about things. I also overthink like mad!
My greatest challenges have been what I alluded to in my last answer: normal things. Understanding and managing money. Being rational about balancing creative whims against practical responsibilities. Communicating on a personal level to other humans. Being charitable and kind towards myself, instead of perpetually disappointed that I am not better and more effective.
It’s quite a tangled mess. I am really great at analyzing things, finding solutions and implementing them – as long as they are initially comprehensible to me.
But as with most people, I suppose, I am clueless about why I am clueless about the things I am clueless about. Hahaha.
But I AM working on it. Promise.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I crave being challenged. Thankfully much of my work is by its nature challenging. With what seem to be ever-shrinking budgets, I am being given the gift of quite a large amount of challenges these days. But … ever hear of “too much of a good thing”?
I think I am good now, thanks. If the budgets could improve and I can go back to needing to add complications to keeping things fun with artificial challenges that would be a nice change, please!
What I mean by that is I discovered early on in life that routine and predictability bore the Fahrvergnügen out of me. To avert that, I come up with spins and limitations to take away my more obvious choices. If you want to know more about that Google the essay I wrote for Student Filmmaker Magazine called “The Difference Between Looking and Seeing For FIlmmakers and Other Artists.” (https://www.studentfilmmakers.com/difference-between-looking-and-seeing)
I read a story, related by one of David Bowie’s favorite session guitarists, about how Bowie once walked into a session and told him to play a solo only on one single string! It was an arbitrary thing. But I’m certain he knew very well that when you take away the familiar you are forced to think in new ways.
That is a very exciting place to be creatively and it is a terrific catalyst for growth.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I adore the cultural diversity more than anything else. I am happiest in environments which feel like the United Nations. I first experienced that when I attended the High School For the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston. Our common intersection was as artists, so we shared complimentary passions.
Within that nexus, we were all equal and respected and appreciated one another. Every one of us were different versions of normal – each expression of humanity: belief system, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. were ornaments which complimented and adorned our personalities.
I see that manifest beautifully in this city. It is in the arts, the architecture, the music, the food, the traditions, friends and neighbors … and it is ever so glorious.
The thing about the metropolis which most vexes me personally is the transportation. My hometown is Houston, a city with a marvelously logical and well-planned freeway system paralleled at all times by feeder streets (unheard of in L.A.). That some freeways intersect and we do not have the option to divert in either direction seems like insanity to me (I’m looking at YOU 5/134 and 170/134!!!). Also parking. Ugh.
Fortunately, there are usually magnificent rewards with friends and opportunities on the other side of those indignations!!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.BradRushing.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradrushingdp/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bradrushing/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/BradRushing
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLez8jOvskc-MtVXJdL6DR_IjUgLrCZL4h
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/bradrushing
- Other: https://www.studentfilmmakers.com/difference-between-looking-and-seeing/
Image Credits:
Tina Barr Rosser Goodman Mike Skor
