Today we’d like to introduce you to Brad Rushing.
Hi Brad, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
As a child, I daydreamed a lot and had quite an active imagination. I wasn’t antisocial, but I was shy and I could become mesmerized by things like patterns in the textures of walls or grass. I could stare at those and zone out, fascinated by the purity of their form and color.
I have always been stimulated by meaningful connections to others. But superficial communication and engagement feel tedious and frustrating and I avoid those at all costs.
I am also terrible at non-verbal communication. Insinuation, innuendo and subtext often fly right past me. From the time I was young, I could never tell if a person was flirting with me, even if a friend insisted they were. I could not perceive it. For this same reason when people try to read between the lines of things I say I pity them because they are on a fool’s errand. I am scrupulously literal and forthright.
That can be a blessing and a curse. While I always endeavor to be kind and diplomatic, I am uncertain where the boundary lies between comfortable and uncomfortable honesty and have taken to describing myself as “catastrophically honest” for the trouble that telling the truth has gotten me into on occasion. Ha ha!
It seems I am far more adept at communicating creatively – through images and music.
I took to fine art as a very young child. I used it to discover the world, and understand the world, and eventually to express worlds within myself. When I began writing music the same effect manifested. I could take intense emotions within myself and exorcise myself of some of the discomforts by transmuting that energy and passion into a song.
Cinematography is like a fusion of those two, existing as images in series evolving through time and rhythms like pictorial music.
Sometimes creating is a divine indulgence and pleasure. Sometimes it brings welcome therapeutic relief from distress, or enlightenment in perplexity.
Sometimes creativity is a lifeline and the only anchor I have in the tempestuous, overwhelming storm of life.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
In phases that have waxed and waned, I have spent most of my life as a peculiarly shaped peg (not even “round”) attempting to exist in standard-shaped holes.
I have never felt that I fully fit in, though the company of other creative people – of any discipline – comes the closest. My years at the High School for Performing and Visual Arts were like Shangri-La and the madcap environments of movie sets are a Utopia. “There’s no people like show people… !”
Feeling like an alien deposited on the wrong planet or a unicorn hoping to find more of its own species has been a pervasive challenge and at times a terrible kind of hell.
Working as a professional creative brings many practical and well-known challenges: inconsistent and unreliable income, one’s identity closely aligned to one’s work where rejection cuts existentially deep, and the need to network and be known, which is absolutely counterintuitive to introverts and shy people who are a large percentage of artists.
Over time I have learned to manage those reasonably well. It’s never easy. But I understand how to deal with them.
What has been more challenging sometimes is assimilating in a world that can seem loud and brutal and irrational. Much of it goes back to how I communicate and my innate shyness.
The things which occur with tremendous ease are creating, and being kind to others. I have never experienced creative block – knock on wood! I have the opposite problem of TOO many ideas, more than I have time for.
I would never suggest I am perfect at either… I am sure I miss the mark plenty. But my heart and my intention is always to translate my muse accurately and to treat others as I would like to be treated. To BE the change I would like to see in the world.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I have been a professional Cinematographer for years. I am fortunate to have had at least two renaissance periods. During the golden age of music videos – early 2000s – I photographed some of the most iconic and well-remembered ones: Eminem’s “Without Me,” Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” and Moby’s “We Are All Made of Stars.” I shot clips for so many notable artists: Blink 182, Sofía Reyes, George Michael, Enrique Iglesias, Mariah Carey, Lionel Richie, Lifehouse, Joss Stone, Rob Thomas, TLC and more.
More recently I have photographed a series of wonderfully high-profile streaming Video-on-Demand movies, “A California Christmas” “A California Christmas: City Lights” in 2020 and 2021 which both went to #1 in the U.S. and World on Netflix. And in 2022 “That’s Amor” which hit #2 in the U.S. and World on Netflix in August, and the Warner Brothers movie “Holiday Harmony” which bowed at #1 on HBO Max on Nov 24 and as of today, Dec 16, has not fallen lower than #4. Astonishing for an indie movie and even more stunning for four in a row.
In 2023 two more feature films I shot will debut: “The Long Night,” written and directed by Matthew Kohnen and produced by Chelsea Vale and David Gere which we filmed in beautiful Connecticut this past summer, and “The Island” which I photographed with Shaun Piccinino directing for producer Philippe Martinez in equally beautiful Nevis in fall.
I also love creating commercials, and in 2022 I shot a fun and technically complex ad in Houston for Dell Computer and their Precision 7000 Mobile Workstations. That was directed by Melody Maker and produced by Ruth Villatoro and Terry Vantine for Vision Production Group, with Great Guns EP Oliver Fusilier in spring. It was especially fun and involved front projection on a 3-wall set (three perpendicular surfaces) synced with the cinematography. What looks like a visual effects-heavy spot was created mostly in-camera! There were a tremendous number of “I”s to dot and “T”s to cross to get that one right. Fortunately, I was working with Vision Production Group’s brilliant post team Dan Pratt, James Templeton and Mike Stephany.
Beyond my cinematography, the isolation and abundant introspection resulting from the pandemic lockdown rekindled my interests in creating music and fine art. I had put those on pause to focus on accelerating my film career. Now the time is right to bring them back. I have been recording my music for almost two years now. In 2022 I have written 12 new songs, with sketches, notes and ideas for at least as many more. Just yesterday I registered my 81st song with ASCAP!!
One of my original songs “Go” features prominently in “Holiday Harmony,” with the amazing and legendary Andy Newmark playing drums on it. He is quite literally the heartbeat of that song. Andy plays on iconic music for George Harrison, John Lennon, Carly Simon, David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Sly and the Family Stone and more.
“Go” will feature on an album releasing in 2023, “The Ever Changing Everchanging.” I had the cover for that drawn by Klaus Voormann. Another legend. Collaborating with my heroes is like collecting autographs, except infinitely better.
There are already nearly 5 full albums and 1 EP in queue after that – collectively about 2/3 fully recorded. It’s been insane. I am excited to offer the material for more film and TV sync opportunities. Filmmaker friends who I have shared previews with have been happily eager to use them.
I have at least two fine art projects sketched out that I’ll begin in the new year – with more films as well. Folks interested in details can follow me on Facebook and instagram. On each there is a main profile which is mostly cinematography, and separate profiles each for the music and art.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Stubbornness, or more politely Tenacity.
I had wonderful parents who always assured me that I could “be anything I wanted to be.” – though I am not sure in retrospect how literally they imagined I would take that. Ha ha!
Being an odd duck where I perceived early on it was a hopeless proposition for me to ever fully “fit in” I never had any incentive to conform or please anyone other than myself.
If folks vibe with me: great. And those who don’t: just as well. No hard feelings or disrespect. Alignment is essential to productivity and happiness.
In these ways, I have been quite a self-indulgent hedonist. No regrets.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.BradRushing.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradrushingdp
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bradrushing
- Other: https://bradrushing.bandcamp.com
https://bradrushing.hearnow.com/go-from-the-film-holiday-harmony
Image Credits
Randy Shropshire Shaun Piccinino Piper Ferguson
