An Interview with Brady Deutsch
Brady Deutsch is a senior film and television major here at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) with a minor in advertising and branding. “I wanted to be an astronaut,” Brady shared.
Brady is fresh off of filming his thesis “Landfall” which was filmed on SCAD’s XR stage, and takes place in space. The main character, an astronaut named Theo, is living on Mars when he loses communication with Earth. He leaves to come back in a hurry and gets lost in space. Once he gets back 10 months later, he finds complete destruction from nuclear war. Once he lands his get away ship, he finds the only other human alive, a girl named Maya. “They have this moment together where they’re just not sure what to do next, and then that’s the end.”
“Around 11 or 12 I kind of forgot about that stuff…I wasn’t good at math or science or anything like that…Whenever I could get out of school, I was always shooting stuff with my friends. I thought I could be YouTube famous…I just wanted people to see what I had to say. And then I discovered film school.”
When Brady was 12 he got his first camera. Not only did he watch movies from the 80s and 90s with his dad, but he also watched lots of movies from the 20s and 30s as well. One of Brady’s biggest inspiration movies was “Pulp Fiction” by Quentin Tarantino. “When I was younger it was more of a ‘I can’t believe this guy is getting away with the stuff that he's doing,’ I want to get away with that. I mean not the racism and, you know, misogyny part.” In every class whenever he was asked to share his favorite movie and use it as inspiration, he always picks this film “just because it’s where it stated from.”
We talked about technical stuff like XR stages, cameras, and lenses, but I could tell this wasn’t where the passion lied for Brady. When asked what his favorite roll on set was, Brady had a very charged answer, which is where I felt I finally got to know the artist.
(An image from Brady’s senior thesis: Landfall)
“As of now, its definitely been the direction role.” He loves the checks and balances, as well as balancing the checks. “You get this crazy excitement, and just this group of people that become such a quick family, everyone’s working towards a common goal. As a director, you know, that’s an amazing feeling.” He compared it to feeling like mom or dad, seeing your ideas that you put out and created getting to come to life. “We’re making something beautiful.”
There were many challenges when filming “Landfall,” such as production being moved up an entire month, props and sets being destroyed by Hurricane Helene, crew dropping out, and raising enough money. “When you have so much money on the line, you’re not worried about ‘what’s the biggest issue?’ You’re worried about, okay, what’s the solution to this issue? And that happened constantly throughout filming.”
Brady talked about this feeling that a lot of SCAD students get. The “is it everything you wanted and more?” After wrapping production last week, he got asked this question a lot by family, friends, and professors. “No, it’s not everything I wanted and more. It’s everything I wanted, but there’s no more to it. I told my story. My crew was happy, so I’m happy.”
A huge challenge for creatives is Imposter Syndrome. “I always feel imposter syndrome. I feel like everyone does as a creative. I feel like it’s part of the job to not feel like you belong.” Brady shared that this is the one project where he didn’t feel this. “I think because by the time I showed up to production, I was in such that mindset of, ‘this isn’t my movie.’ These are the people that showed up today to make my dream come to life, that it’s their movie.” Brady told me that even sitting with me and talking about this movie, his movie, it didn’t feel like it was his movie. He went on a quick little heart felt ramble about how warmed he felt thinking about all the people who helped him with the project and the community he created.
“At the end of pre-production, probably three weeks before shooting, there was a moment where I just kind of sat alone on my couch and was just like ‘I can’t do it. There is no way in hell I can pull this off. There’s no way I can do it, like I’m just not that guy.”
Brady shared how in film you are not always there to be the best and that there’s always going to be someone better than you. The primary goal isn’t to be the best. It is to tell a story and make a relationship in your community.
After graduation in a few months, Brady’s dream is to start his own company that can combine art direction, advertising, and film. The company would be based off of intellectual property and the rights to projects. He seemed like he had big goals for this one day. “Personally though, I would love to go just direct on these stages, maybe even with my crew from “Landfall” for the rest of my life, and just shoot whatever’s the next big “Star Wars” project.” Clearly his love for space never fully went away.
