Meet Brendan Sweeney

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brendan Sweeney.

Brendan, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I was born and raised in the small town of Belvidere, New Jersey. My earliest memories revolved around watching movies, consuming the world of cinema, and dreaming up ideas for what my films could look like. My dad and I spent the better part of my youth at the theater on weekends and renting new movies for home on the weekdays. In a lot of ways, I have to thank my dad for introducing me to this passion at a young age and not limiting my perspective to only family/kid friendly films. He taught me the valuable lesson of separating entertainment from reality, which allowed me to watch more mature works earlier in life. As I progressed through my youth, much time was spent drawing and making art that depicted those scenes of my films. It was always fun living in my own imagination and crafting a world outside of mine.

At the age of 16, the 2008 recession hit my family causing us to leave New Jersey due to various reasons and found ourselves in the small town of McDonald, Pennsylvania. This town was located about 17 miles outside of Pittsburgh, which became the new community to grow in during my late-teens and early-twenties. As I navigated high school, this is where I fell away from the idea of being an artist or filmmaker. Even though my passion for the creativity of it waned, my love of watching movies never did! I still found myself at the theaters and consuming cinema in the evenings with my dad. As time passed by, my time in high school wrapped up with me heading to Youngstown State University for Business. At the time, it felt right, but I didn’t really know better due to not many people ever discussing the viability in art or filmmaking. Being in that industry never seemed obtainable and I found myself going in a direction further away from my passion. The crazy thing is that my Mom always thought that I was meant to do something different than business and before heading to college, she told me I should chase being a filmmaker. A lot of thanks has to be given to my Mom for the confidence boost and making me realize my true passion. At age 18 is where my life changed in a massive way.

From there forward, my goal was to chase the dream of becoming a film director and I started that journey by attending the small film school, Pittsburgh Filmmaker. This was my first step into the deep dive of studying cinema, the principals of the craft, and the filmmakers that came before us. Parallel to my time at school, I also integrated myself into the local indie film scene and began to garner more hands-on experience. Slowly I began to churn out my own short films that were either film school assignments or ones created with my friends. At the time, it felt like a hurricane of creativity and productivity, where every waking second centered around being the best filmmaker I could be. Soon enough, my time at film school ended and I had to figure out how to make money with this new foundation. It was hard at first because Pittsburgh has a smaller film scene and a limited number of spots. I wiggled my way into being a production assistant on commercials, crewing on other colleagues shorts, and doing anything I could to get involved.

This brought me to my biggest project at the time called, Kiss Me Goodbye, which is a short film that my creative partner, Zack Eritz and I conceptualized. This short film was a big step forward for myself in my career. This was my first decent budget project, with a producing team, and a modest crew. In addition, this was my first full short shot completely on 16mm motion picture film. At the time, Fujifilm had just discontinued making motion picture film and many thought that Kodak was going to halt production on it as well. Celluloid was up in the air, but for some reason I felt the need to shoot on the medium before potentially never having the chance to. With that in mind, I bought an Arriflex 16 SR2 and some film stock for the short. The film was completed with all goals in mind and it ended up having a modest film festival reception and support in the indie community. It was a great learning experience and I felt like my journey to becoming a film director was coming together.

From there, my time in Pittsburgh ticked down and my next chapter in Los Angeles, California began. I moved across the country with little contacts and no jobs lined up. It was definitely a big change, but an exciting one which developed quickly. Shortly after moving to LA, I found myself working under cinematographer Shane Hurlbut, ASC. I got hired and in time became Shane’s assistant and in a way, he became my mentor during our time together. My tasks varied from being his personal assistant, working on Hurlbut Visuals content, and helping firsthand with his various projects. This became a fast-track to learning all aspects of filmmaking, seeing how the industry works from the inside out, and getting hands-on experience with all the tools used in Hollywood. My knowledge base grew with him, giving me the experience to communicate with all departments from grip to electric to camera. This provided me with the knowledge and opportunity to apply this to my directing. After about two years with Shane, I decided that it was time to dive headfirst into freelance filmmaking and really try to obtain my goal of being a full-time film director. A special thank you has to be given to Shane and Lydia Hurlbut who supported me during my first two years in Los Angeles, which are arguably some of the hardest. They taught me a lot of valuable lessons and can’t say that enough.

During this period and up to now, I’ve had the amazing opportunity to produce and direct short films, fashion films, music videos, and more. Recently I got brought onto the MATIZ Creative Director’s Roster, which is owned by Executive Producer, Daniela Swain. In December of 2019, I released my latest short film called “Impossibility:Possibility.” The film was made through the production company, Orange Robot, which is co-owned by power couple, Luke & Tara Wyatt. Prior to the release, it had another modest film festival circuit and garnered more attention afterwards online via cinema magazines and various outlets. As the future progresses, my goals are to continue my journey and to hopefully get my first feature film off the ground!

Has it been a smooth road?
The struggles that come to mind are ones that many can relate to: rejection and fitting in the film industry. A lot of times it feels like I’m an outsider in the industry, someone that has different tastes or doesn’t fit into the expected aesthetic. It took some time for me to tackle that mentally and how to maintain my confidence when tackling each project. Directing isn’t an easy craft and the goal has always been to be honest to myself. In a lot of ways, my passion for filmmaking comes from my early days of watching movies and wanting to tell the stories that floated around my mind. I enjoy telling stories that I enjoy first and foremost, then everything else comes into play afterwards. It’s the perfect balance of being aware of the audience, but to not sell yourself short as a creative.

Like everything in life, it’s been a rollercoaster from one moment to the next. Filmmaking will never be an easy career to chase and most likely, it will only get hard going forward. I’ve been thankful for the unconditional support by my family, friends, colleagues, and my amazing wife. They’ve been there through some of my hardest moments and it wouldn’t be possible without them.

We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I’m currently on the Director Roster at MATIZ Creative (https://matizcreative.co) and work frequently with Orange Robot (https://www.orangerobotla.com). Both are amazing production companies and soon will be well-known in the greater film industry.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Yes, this city is an amazing place to start out in! As someone that practically grew up in NYC and on the east coast, it’s been a nice change of pace being on the west coast. The people and culture have only added to my perspective on life and look forward to learning more about Los Angeles.

Image Credit:
Arnie Rodriguez, Tara Wyatt (Orange Robot)

Suggest a story: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.