Brad Rushing on Generosity and Creative Alchemy

Join Thorn as they speak with award winning cinematographer and musician Brad Rushing about creativity, alchemy, and the importance of kindness.

The transcription and recording of these podcasts is supported by Thorn's Patreon backers: https://www.patreon.com/ThornCoyle
You can find out more about Thorn's work at https://www.thorncoyle.com/
Brad Rushing: http://www.BradRushing.com

Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Brad Rushing expressed an aptitude for art and science from a very early age. 

Brad has been Director of photography on multiple indie films and high end, award winning music videos for artists such as Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Lionel Richie, Nelly and Eminem. Brad’s ground-breaking work on Moby’s We Are All Made Of Stars won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Cinematography in a Video, and many of the other music videos he shot have won awards such as VMAs, MVPAs and Grammys for Best Video.

Brad’s recent cinematography highlights include the Netflix Original feature films A California Christmas, and “A California Christmas: City Lights.”, “Holiday Harmony” on Max, “Alarmed” on Tubi, and “The Island” on Starz. Each of those films spent

more than a week in the Top 10, and all of them Hit the #1 for popular movie on their respective platforms.

Brad’s cinematography in “Holiday Harmony” was nominated for a Canadian Society of Cinematographers award.

He is a longtime vegetarian, animal lover, artist and musician and songwriter.

Recently “Go,” an original song written and recorded by Brad, was featured in the Warner Brothers / MAX film “Holiday Harmony.” 

His song, "Just Call On Me" featuring Ukrainian vocalist Liliia Kysil releases on February 24, 2024.

Transcript

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Hello friends. Welcome to Magic, Creativity, and Life. Interesting conversations with interesting people. My name is T. Thorn Coyle and I am your ... host. Thank you for joining me and ... thank you to my Patreon supporters for paying for the ... recording and captioning of this series. Let's dive in. Welcome to Magic, Creativity, and Life. My name is T. Thorn Coyle and today as a ... guest I have Director of Photography Brad Rushing. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Brad Rushing expressed an aptitude for art and science ... from a very early age. Brad has been Director of Photography on multiple ... indie films and high-end award-winning music videos ... for artists such as Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Lionel Richie, Nelly, and Eminem. His groundbreaking work on Moby's "We Are All Made of ... Stars" won an MTV Video Music ... Award for Best Cinematography In A Video ... and many of the other music videos he shot have won ... awards such as VMAs, MVPAs and Grammys for Best Video. Brad's recent cinematography highlights ... include the Netflix original feature films "A California ...

Christmas" and "A California Christmas: 1:16

City Lights,""Holiday Harmony" on Max,"Alarmed" on Tubi, and "The Island" on Starz. Each of these films spent more than a week at the top ... 10 and all of them hit number one for popular movie on ... their respective platforms. Brad's cinematography in "Holiday Harmony" was nominated for a Canadian Society of ... Cinematographers Award. He is a longtime vegetarian, animal lover, artist, musician, and songwriter. Recently "Go," an original song written and ... recorded by Brad, was featured in the Warner ... Brothers' Max film "Holiday Harmony." His song "Just Call on Me," featuring Ukrainian vocalist ... Liliia Kysil, releases on February 24th, 2024. And you can find him at bradrushing.com. Brad thank you so much for joining me. You're so welcome! You know I first encountered you in the podcast series "Film Courage" and I was so impressed by your kindness, your level-headedness, and you just have a stable way of thinking about creativity which I really ... appreciate. I appreciated you talking ... about how artists don't need to believe in themselves to be successful and your ... emphasis on just getting in there and doing the work. I want to start with that. What is your, first of all, what drives you to create? And why is that more important to you than a sense ... of feeling successful or being successful? Well you're separating something that to me, fundamentally is one and the same. Okay. Like creating- So, to me success, I mean look there are different kinds of success. There's personal success, there's financial success. But to me the most profound and meaningful success is success in authenticity. Like are you being the most authentic expression of yourself? That is so much more important. Like I wouldn't want to be making money for the wrong reason. I wouldn't want to be making decisions for the wrong ... reasons. I wouldn't want to be treating people crappy or doing things I don't believe ... in fundamentally. To further what a lot of people call success. Right. So to me being an authentic ... expression of myself is the very highest level of success. And so it to me is ... synonymous with being creative because humans are a multiplicity of possibility and a multiplicity of potential and you could be everything from social to relationships to career to just everything, everything that we have the possibility to begin to do. And each of us have different aptitudes. Some people are better at this and some people are ... better at that and the thing that for me, flows with the least amount of resistance, is creativity. During the dark times that's absolutely all I've got, you know, and everything else I feel like ... I'm an absolute disaster at. Right. But creating is something that I've always been able to ... do. And it's not to say, I mean angels didn't come down and bestow it upon me, it's been in my heart and I had to passionately pursue ... and develop. But because it was such a part of me, I put in the work, I put in the time. I don't want to perpetuate this illusion of talent. I don't believe in talent. I believe in a passion to do something and then you work hard as hell. You commit and you persist to develop those skills, it's that simple. I don't think that I do anything ... that anybody else can't do. But for wanting to do it I've been willing to commit. So I want to be very clear about that. But that's the thing that to me has always been an irretrievable part of myself I've had plenty of ... those come to Jesus conversations about."Do you want to be the starving artist?""Do you want, you know, are you willing to trade things to have your creative career?" And I would always come to the conclusion, considering any other possibility, that the price would be too high. Like I would resent anything I traded it out for, I would be so resentful for what it cost me. And that's just when I knew that I just didn't have any other choice. So for me to be that truthful version of myself, in the most important way, I can't be any more successful. I am really similar and I agree with you, thank you so much for that. I have always, you know, now I'm a full-time creative ... person that's how I earn my bread, but my whole adult life I've always taken weird odd jobs ... so I had time to create. The creativity was far more important to me. There's the root of the word "desire." Means "to follow a star." And I've always followed that star of creativity, passion, desire, and to me that's how I access life force and how I connect ... with the world. It also connects back to my spiritual practices. So my daily practices lead me to creativity and feed my ... creativity and vice-versa, and I'm wondering if you ... have any sorts of practice that help keep you connected to your authentic self and to your creative flow. Well for one thing I just want to give the context but this is ... the world that has commercial interests that want to impose when I deal on what each of us should be. They want to give you your identity. And that's true of everybody and every demographic, whether you're a 13 year old girl or a 58 year old man. Whether you're gay or straight, or conservative or liberal. There are commercial interests that want to tell you what you should be and how you show up. The most important thing is for each of us to know our own heart. To have that unfiltered presence of mind. T reject others' labeling. You know to not let somebody else or something ... else give us our identity. And I think that the one true indicator that you are inside of your true identity is when you are comfortable enough to accept and love others. Because if you fear others, if you feel threatened, then I think that that is not your true self. Ideas and concepts have been imposed upon you. You feel restricted, you feel like you have to fight ... back against the thing. And my feeling is that that ... thing, is that you've had an identity ... imposed upon you. So to understand each person's own heart and, you know, not everybody is going to ... have the passion to be a creative person. Everybody whatever their ... passion is, is right for them. It's like if they want to be a doctor or a scientist or a lawyer, whatever their calling in life is, because obviously life is all about multiplicity again. We know some people are far ... better at the things I'm shitty at, thank God. Right. So that's just kind of my preamble to say that the things the things that move you deeply, whatever those are, some people are just super moved, I have a friend in the restaurant business and he ... just loves feeding people and nourishing them, and having moments with their families, and it's so meaningful. And again I think that a lot of the best aspects of humanity ... are contribution. Not necessarily what's in it for me but what do I have to offer? It's like that story we heard as ... kids about the stone soup where the guy had no food ... and he has this cauldron and he fills it with water, putting rocks in it and boiling them. And people from the city come,"what are you doing?" "I'm making stone soup.""Oh I would really like to try that. You know I have some carrots, can I put some carrots in? Can I put some celery in?" My soup's going to be vegetarian by the way but let ... me put some tofu in, whatever. Right. Then suddenly now this ... guy's got food and friends. And I think that is the most incredible paradigm and I ... think it's essential, again, for us to be our being somebody we're not authentically. Or if we're being an identity that's been imposed upon us. We are attracting the wrong people, we are attracting the wrong opportunities, we're attracting the people and opportunities that belong ... to the facade that we've adopted or has been imposed on us. So again it's just that exercise and I've always kind of ... intuitively had a sense of who I am. I recently I've been uncovering these lyrics that I ... wrote to songs that I was 15 and 16 and I think,"my God, I could have written this ... today!" Wow. From a certain point of view I'm like "have I not evolved? Am I still the same person? And feel so alienated and ... lonely and frightened?" But also I'm like I guess I really do know my heart. I do know what's in there. And I think I only recently in recent years learned that I if you know the ... Myers-Briggs types I'm an INFJ, and a friend taught me a word I've never heard before I ... called 'sapiophile.' It's a person who is attracted ... to intelligence. Which explains so much. I mean there's so many ... anecdotes I could tell you about my adolescence where I mystified myself and my friends but I'm like looking ... back with that filter I'm like, it all makes sense now! Yeah. But even when it didn't make ... sense, I wasn't pretending to be like ... somebody else, I'm like well, this is how I feel so that's just what's up. And I never felt a need to be like other people and so I've gravitated ... to people who are eccentric and odd balls. And I'm like look, if you are willing to rock your ... weirdness, then I know that I can rock ... my weirdness and I'm like those are the people I feel safest with. And it's not to say that all people should be weird but ... it's like, to be that in a society that wants conformity tells me that that person has a certain level of bravery and ... authenticity. And it might not even be ... bravery it might just be there's no hope in trying to be anything other than ... myself because I just can't, so they just own it. Yeah. I think that that's again that's ... just the important thing, is whatever makes you happy, whatever you have again to be able to contribute to ... others because we are not islands unto ourselves. Whatever we do I feel it should come from a place of generosity. Mmhmm. So is generosity your antidote for feeling fear and alienation? I think so, because look, I feel fear and I feel sadness and depression and one of the best remedies is being kind to others. Like when I feel I'm hopeless ... and I'm like you know what Brad, just give up because there's ... just you are unsalvageable. But I'm like I can't help me but maybe I can help you or ... somebody else and I can do a kind thing. I can help you, I can encourage you you know whatever it is that you need. And I think the universe is great saying we're all just ... walking each other home. Yes. We all have pieces that other people need. We aren't born into this entropy of a sealed world where we have everything we ... need. I've got things you need, you got things I need, etc etc. And it's only through that emotional commerce and that social commerce that we are able at all to become the best versions of ... ourselves. And you can't go into the world, "gimme." You have to start by going into the world giving. Just like the guy with the stone soup. He didn't go around saying "hey, give me some carrots and tofu and other vegetarian ... sustenence." He went around saying "hey, I got this cauldron and it's rock soup." He offered something. He contributed and again ... there's going to be people who say "well I contributed ... nothing, screw it," I've lived that, but you know what? Just because that's the case don't let the world change you. Don't let the meanest of the worst parts of the world ... change you. Be your best self. Just always. Like "I am the only person I ... have control over. I don't have any control over ... you or anybody else." And so if they act like shit at the end of the day whatever is written about me let it be that I tended to give my best. I mean I'm human, I'm sure I have my bad moments. But in my intentions, in my choices, I always want To be my best self for myself and for others. I know that's a very meandering answer to your ... question but hopefully it gets to it. Yeah. My core practice things I try to practice are gratitude and ... generosity. They're my way of reflecting ... the reality that we are interdependent and ... interconnected. That everything in the ... cosmos is interdependent and interconnected. Every time I inhale I'm breathing in life. Every time I exhale I'm connecting with every living ... being. Our blood is filled with dying ... stars, right? We rely on the trees and the animals and everything ... around us and we rely on each other and for me that's ... also the seat of my creativity because what brings me back to creativity and interconnectivity and gratitude are noticing all the small things. The small pieces of art left slapped on city street signs; the flower in someone's garden; the way the light looks on the leaves; and I'm sure as someone who is a cinematographer, Director of Photography, light and image and then, you're a musician, sound, you must be communicating ... with all of that everyday. And throughout the day. To me that's really important and it's important that all humans find a way to connect with that and find their own ... expression. And I agree that not everyone ... is going to be a Capital C Creative Person. But we're all creators in our own way. Sure, of course. We create ourselves. We create however we show up in the world, no matter what your role in your community and your social circle is, you create that. So yes. I'm sorry I've completely lost the thread! That's okay. We're just riffing on ... interconnectivity and creativity. Oh yes, interconnectivity, that's what I was going to tell you. So Interconnectivity doesn't necessarily mean action, reaction, in an animalistic way. I mean all of us are biological. creatures with impulses that we inherited from tens of thousands of years ago. Be they anger, hate, love, lust, whatever. You know those exist. But we also have the intellectual capacity to choose. the influences and the choices that we make. And what I mean by this is something I've been practicing is that because of those impulses within us, what will end up happening, a person will do or say something and will be just charged with adrenaline. Andd it's like you're going to be mad, or like "you hurt me, I want to hurt you back,""you said a bad thing to me, I'm gonna say that bad thing back to you." I don't know if there's ever been a circumstance in my ... life where that made anything better. We have the feeling, we have that energy within us. But I think to go with our initial visceral impulse we just have to have the presence of mind ... to ask ourselves"Is this going to make me feel better? Is it going to involve the situation or the other participants in a beneficial way?" I usually would say no if it's ... something that's you know aggressive or hateful. And so what I do, you have to release the ... energy, you can't just sit there and stew in a difficult emotion. But what I've discovered is ... what I call emotional alchemy. So if I am in that moment of being all worked up and I instead do something kind for your other person, if I make a donation, if I call somebody who's ... lonely, if I send a gift to somebody ... that they're not expecting, it dissipates. Great. That emotion, it literally does. Just because you're angry doesn't mean you have to act angry. If you're angry you need to release it. But you can release it as kindness. You can do the good thing, you can go out and be in ... nature. You can be with your pets. You can go help somebody. You can tell somebody you love them. If you're angry and you're hurting you can go on social media and think of like "what is some inspiration that arises out of this?" That is not the end-all be-all it doesn't have to be "oh, this is horrible and it sucks and it's shit and black," you can say "this bad thing happened to me but I'm present to this. But here's a context, here's how I want to divert it because we are responsible ... for what we put into the world. We are responsible for how we show up. In that we have a choice. I mean I guess you could vomit your primal. impulses all over the world. But when you look at it and you say "I made a choice, what are the consequences of that choice?" Are those going to be as beneficial as you transforming it and doing something kind or ... contributing something positive? I think I just always try to have that awareness. You talk about ... interconnectivity, with it comes a responsibility. Just don't go out in the world and create turbulence for the sake of creating turbulence. I'd never want to be harmful to other people. I don't want to make that choice. Again, I'm not perfect, I'm sure it happened, but I don't want it to come ... from a deliberate choice. And I think we could choose to show up consistently in a way that is, look, making selflesws choices and ... being kind to others is also doing things that nurtures an environment around us of gratitude and peace, that you care about them. You nurture relationships. There's a symmetry to it. I don't feel like stumbling through life without intention, I suppose. If I were to sum it up. Think of the world you want to live in. I live by two principles. One is do unto others.\ Two is be the change you want to see in the world. That's it, that's my entire philosophy. There's no spirituality, there's no nothing. It's those two things and that's it. Well when you're talking talking about emotional ... alchemy, what I hear you talking about is alchemy is full of transmutation, right? Of shifting from one ... substance, moving it through the fire, transmuting it into another substance, refining it. And so it is a form of magic in my book. But I want to bring in another facet to that which is if I have anger if I'm going to express anger, I personally need to make sure it's coming from love ... and not hatred or alienation. Because sometimes anger ... can be a galvanizing force for social justice or for creativity, for a lot of things, so it's what is the impetus for ... the anger? If my anger is arising from ... love, that is fuel that I can use ... towards right action as opposed to just the spewing ... that you're talking about. And part of our work as ... human beings and as creative human beings is Channeling. channeling our emotions, channeling our thoughts. And as you said marrying those with our intentions. Yeah, and I'm not saying I don't feel ... those things I have the same biology and physiology is you ... and everybody else. I feel all of those things. But I made the choice of how I express them and manifest ... them and I want it to be in a way that best serves myself ... others within the community. Like again I just don't want to be a harmful influence in this way. I'm going to be hurt, I'm going to hurt no matter what. I don't want to perpetuate and transmit that. I want to transform it, transmute it as you said. I want whether it becomes art or music or a film or an act of kindness. I want to have that level of control over myself and my presence in this world. I just I feel like as a member of the community of humanity that I want to give my best. In as much as do unto others ... I would love for people to give their best if somebody's angry at me I would love it to be expressed in a polite and kind way that is rational and I'm able to understand it and to ... respond to it appropriately. Because we all are going to ... feel all of those things. Right. And the choice is how we communicate. How do we articulate in such a way that the outcome is optimal for our benefit, the benefit of others for the communityk for the people to whom we are an example. Yeah, and that last one, for the people for whom we are an example is something that I think a lot of people forget. That we're all examples to ... each other. Or we can be. We can make that choice. Like everyday on social media ... I choose I want to put out signal instead of noise. I want to put out some beauty instead of frantic fear and alienation. That's a choice I make and ... that's one way in which I'm attempting to be an example, right? It's also good for me as you said. Yeah. So I want to circle back and ask So you have clearly been using creative expression since a young age. What do you consider to be the roots of your creativity? Have you always written? Have you always made music? What did that look or feel like to you as a young person? When I was a little tiny kid the first thing I did was draw. I loved art classes. I picked up music in my teenage years. Filmmaking came later. Filmmaking came at the end of high school and college. It was actually not even until I got out of college that I ... committed to a career in filmmaking. When I was in college I had double major of fine art and film, and I was in bands and recording and writing music ... all at the same time. Right. Yeah. You know it's just self-awareness really. It's just like that's who I am. I can't help it. It's just such a part of me that I couldn't excize it if I wanted to. I would die I would like cut out my heart. When I was very young I just realized I was in so many fundamental ways very different than a lot of my peers. Like you, I was looking at leaves and ... raindrops and ants and grass and clouds and trees. And I just have this profound affinity for animals. Like if I go over to somebody's house and they ... have an animal I get down on the floor. There's no decorum, there's no politeness. I'm like "yeah nice to see you guys" and then I get down on eye level with the animals and ... that's what I do and I have no reservation or shame or regrets. I guess for me because I realized I was sort of different ... there was no hope of conforming. Yeah me either. There was just no possibility So I just didn't try. And it was very liberating. At the time it can be really hurtful because you ... misunderstand people, people misunderstand you. I was shy. And I only found out years later a number of people ... thought I was stuck-up. I was never stuck up, I was terrified of you! I didn't talk because I was so ... shy and I thought you were like these perfect athletic beautiful people and I was the art nerd. But I guess they thought because I had skills and was ... a clever person that somehow I thought I was ... better, but my brain doesn't even ... work that way. Again that's just a prime ... example. My brain wouldn't think that, I wouldn't think you think you're better than me ... because that's not a thought process of mine. A best I think we're all equal and at worst I think ... everybody's better than me. It was horrible. It was terrifically liberating. No there was no possibility on this Earth, like I'm not going to keep up with fads, and not going to do the football thing, it's not me and I paid the price and I suffered the consequences. But I'm like you know what has no resistance is creating. The strange people and the peripheral people and the ... ones who I mean, in a way we're all kind of ... wounded, but another way we're sort of ... ridiculously brave because in a world that demands ... conformity we're like I'm not going to do that. Yeah. That's how I always felt. I was never rebellious, I just did what made sense to ... me and what I call the over culture didn't make sense to me. So I just did what I did and was who I was. That's great Brad thank you for that. Can you talk to us a little bit about the alchemy of filmmaking? You're working with a group ... of highly skilled dedicated people on the job, all trying to work together with their own skill sets, their own part to play, to make this form of magic to put out in the world so people ... like myself can enjoy it. What does that feel like to you, to work so creatively intimately with other people? The first thing that I'm going toqualify is I'm going to quote this wise sage this wise little green guy who once said "There is no try, do or do not." There is no rehearsal in life. We're not trying. We're doing. We're doing the best we can in the moment. With the best information we have at hand. And that's it. We're doing it, there is no trying. That's not to say that we ever get it 100% right. But the conceit that we do is the thing that intimidates ... people who aspire. It's bullshit to think that I don't make mistakes bullshit ... to think that I'm even close to perfect in any of these things. I'm just either brave enough or crazy enough. to just jump out of the plane. I'm never going to jump up ... out of a plane I hate heights, but you know what I'm ... saying. I commit, I commit to the vision, I commit to the thing, because it's inevitable and it's inescapable. I can't be anything other than myself. And so I just embrace and I throw myself into the fire. And I think that's one of the things that a lot of creative ... people too, especially in a group of filmmakers, all of that's just overthinking. Like am I trying hard enough, am I doing it? You know what, if you're thinking about ... there's so much to manage, with all the flying monkeys ... and flaming cats, if you're thinking about that you're not on point. And even like when I write music, I don't put a lot of thought into it. So much of it the lyrics, the music, is stream-of-consciousness. I'm just like it's literally like throwing up. Look what came out, oh my God. And then afterwards you can shape it you can edit it you ... can do things. But you can't interfere with ... that. If you are micromanaging that ... moment of creation you're fucking it up. And the same thing with the filmmaking. And it's so essential that you're with people that you ... have alignment with. If you are creating by yourself you can do whatever you ... want. You can be weird, whatever. If you're working with other people you have to play nice. Whatever your mode is, and there are people who ... have different modes of working than I do, I don't like anxiety and stress, I like family harmony. I'm not one of those people who believes, some people, to me very weirdly, believe in incentivizing with fear and intimidation. Madness. I find that if at the thirteenth ... hour we're going over, and it's not comfortable, I want people to say "no, this guy treats me right, he's honest, and I'm going to stick with this uncomfortable situation." Because I know I can trust this person is here for the right reason. I know that on the back end ... they're going to take care of me. But I don't want him to be like "you know what, time's up, screw you, you're an asshole I want to go home." Yeah. And it's also about finding ... those people who feel the same way who are showing up for the reason you're showing up. And again I emphasize that my way is not the right way. There is no right way, there are different ways. We find the way that works for us and we find that ... people are aligned with that way, and that's the process that works for me. Harmony and kindness and generosity work for me. And I've done this enough that I'm like everything will work out. Like I was on a commercial ... shoot once that things were going sideways. People were kind of losing their shit and somebody ... looked at me and I was sitting there calmly, and they said "why aren't you more upset?" I'm like "it's not going to do anything!" We have the right people. We always figure it out. We will figure it out. And expending this energy to get chaotic we're wasting time. We're freaking out everybody below us in terms of the hierarchy. I've never been on a job, I've never had a creative endeavor ever that didn't work out in the end. I have also never had a great endeavor where things didn't go wrong! Literally I say Murphy is always on the call sheet ... whether you put him there or not. It's not if something something's going to go wrong. It's what and when. If you've been around the block long enough you ... anticipate. One of the things I do is even ... on shoots that have no visual effects, if the budget allows I have a green screen and a blue screen. Because you know what if I have to pull a magic trick out ... of my pocket boom, there it is. And I have other magic tricks. I have things like that where I'm like the unforeseen, the unforeseen might happen. And if the unforeseen happens this boy scout has got the tool. So you can't go into the thing thinking it's going to be smooth sailing because it never will be. That is not normal. Normal is being dashed on ... the rocks. That's normal. So you have a plan in front of that, you know what I'm saying? And if you're with people who are chill and relaxed in they ... know that stuff's going to happen, and if you have a day that goes sideways people like ... that say "pick it up, it'll be fine, we'll figure it out." That's not to excuse incompetence or or people ... thwarting safety or maliciousness and those are ... bad things obviously. What I'm talking about presupposes that folks are ... professional, competent, well intentioned. And that is supposed of most ... of my sets. Most of my sets are with good people. And that is just like in life we illuminate that circle around us over time. And I find that, and I'm using the word good people contextually, I'm not using it objectively, I'm not saying that the people outside of that are bad ... people. But people who are good a good fit with my mode and my alignment people who are good people for us tend to know good ... people. People who you have an ... affinity for know other people you probably will have an affinity with. As you build circles and they build out like that you kind of move in those groups of people where the way I like to express it is that there's not resistance, it's effortless. Communication effortless, I mean literally when you're on a set and the best mode, the less you're talking to each other, and I don't mean that you're mad, I mean if you and the director have prepped and you just ... are joking and kicking it on set it's not cuz you're ... screwing up it's cuz y'all are one brain. And that's what you want. That' what you want with everybody. That's the idea. Well and that I think that's such terrific wisdom for creative people, that something's always ... going to go wrong and it's all going to work out in the end if ... we're present with it. Which is what I hear you talking about. I hear you talking about being present on the set with the ... creative act with the other people on the set and I think ... we can extrapolate that out to a lot of other community ... endeavors, right? It doesn't matter what we're working on. If we keep those things in mind and remain responsive ... and responsible to each other then things are going to work out. Which I appreciate. There's this great saying. That success is opportunity meeting preparation. Preperation being paramount. And that preparation can be from the moment I first picked ... up a crayon and started drawing. That's right. It can be college. It can be early internships. It can be those hard lessons. And it can be in the two weeks before the shoot ... where I'm looking at reference materials, having conversations with the ... director. The reason we're not having ... those conversations on set is because we've already had them. And I'm not saying I never have conversations. But if you are in a creative collaboration, the less you are compelled to redirect the other person, the more you're on the same page. Nice. So that's what I mean. If you look at everything in life as a possibility as an ... opportunity, even the bad thing like the strike. One of the things during these strikes where we were ... all out of work I mean I was going through it as so many of us were, And I'm like I am a paying such a high price for this, financially emotionally mentally. And I'm not going to let it tear me down. I demand for this price that I get value. And that value means that I have to learn things. I have to learn things and evolve into a better version of me. And so I took a really bad situation and insisted that it would become ... an opportunity. And that's the alchemy. Bad crap's going to happen. Let's not even call it bad, bad is such a judgmental ... word. Disadvantageous things. Things that are apparently ... setbacks. Things that are apparently really unpleasant frustrating things are going to happen. Just like Murphy's going to show up. And if we can transform those and say "yes, I'm getting kicked in the head, but I'm going to learn how to dodge that boot." Go away from this and I'm going to learn Kung Fu or ... whatever. In that moment you're not, I mean look I have the emotional damage just as ... much aseverybody else. I'm not saying that I'm above that. But again it's that presence of mind. It's the fact that my mind is going I'm getting the bejeezus whacked out of me here. What am I going to do next? What is my choice going to be? Am I going to submit? Am I going to break? So during the strikes in Hollywood, were you working on other creative projects just to keep ... that spark alive along with learning these hard lessons ... you're talking about? Absolutely I mean the main thing I've been doing is ... working on music. Yeah. And you have this new song coming out. And I also worked on some projects. Some pet projects. Some of them I volunteered ... my time, some of them I did get paid for. You know the nice thing about the music is it's ... self-generating. I can't self generate a movie. Even if I had the money even if I had unlimited funds. It takes a while to spin up. I can't go out the door tomorrow and shoot a movie. But with. music I I literally don't even have to have anything. I could just do it in my head. But I can have a guitar, I can record on my phone, again I'm not going to make a professional recording on my ... phone but I can record it down the line. I don't want to be the kind of guy who says you can't do ... something, so maybe you could record a ... professional thing on there, and I know they have ... multitrack software now but I'm just thinking like voice ... memo. But you could probably do ... something nice for the voice memo, it's just understanding technology understanding ... limitations and working with those and even if it still ... sounds shitty then make that a good deliberate choice. But it's so empowering and it's so essential to not your happiness to not be subject on the whims of ... others, or the winds of caprice. You really have to It's okay to have those bigger things, I mean obviously I'm a cinematographer, I shoot movies, I love them. But it can't be my only thing. Because I need creative things other other ways to engage that. So with the music I wrote a ... ridiculous amount of new songs last year. I mean forty new songs last year. Wow. And then I've written a ton this year. I'm not only writing but recording these bloody things. I'm not doing it from a commercial point of view. I mean the genres are absolutely all over the place. Synth stuff to heavy metal to country to I did something ... that's kind of got a Henry Mancini Bosa Nova feel. I do what I want to do. I'm not trying to be an artist ... and create an identity. I'm just like I moved in that ... direction so I indulge it. Yeah. And it is really been a great ... place because you know speaking of the alchemy ... again, creativity is the alchemy of turning pain or happiness or any emotion into an expression. And one of the things that I've said before is I feel things emotionally so intensely that if I don't get them out they will literally burn me up from inside. And so to create a thing is to take it outside of yourself and ... to trap it into that. You take that energy that would destroy yourself, and you made a song or a painting. Or you wrote a poem. Or you wrote a story. Or you made a film. Again we already talked about creation just as human beings we create our identity. That creation could be you going to a homeless shelter ... and volunteering. Or literally again we come back to that alchemy of as human beings we have that energy of emotional resonances within ourselves. We can choose to create it in a traditional creative medium. Or we can express it in some other way. But it doesn't have to be that one-to-one correlation. You could feel sad and horrible and write a love song ... or a hopeful song. Or you can feel a little ... hopeful and write a sad song. Wherever your muse tells you to direct that spirit. That's beautiful. I want to start winding up though I feel like I could talk ... to you for another hour. We'll follow up sometime. Yeah that would be great. You just have such such a terrific way of expressing your concepts But ... I wonder do you have any idea or feeling what is something that makes you feel hopeful right now? Two things. I'll give you the internal and ... I'll give you the external starting with the external. There's this great quote of Mister Rogers was talking about when he was a kid and bad things would happen in the world. And his mom would say "when things like that ... happen, look for the helpers." And we're in a very tumultuous time in this world ... and as an empathic person, a lot of that infiltrates into me. Yes. And it's something that I don't ... feel is beneficial for me to necessarily react directly against. But I feel it same as everybody. Yes. You know in terms of conflicts I have friends representing all different aspects. Different cultures, different countries. And it's not possible for me to take sides in anything other than humanity and kindness and love to sound like a hippie. I just again I feel like ... compassion should always reign. Show up. as Mister Rogers' mom said, with the solutions, with the generosity, in the moment of anger and passion, are the ones who can redirect into inspiration and possibility. That's who I look for, that's who I want to align ... myself with. I like to think when I see media and social social media platforms and news and all of the pain and negativity and fear, I want to be the antidote. I'm not saying "The Antidote," capital The, I want to be a contributor to that, to that potential. I want even if I just make somebody smile, or if I give them hope, and maybe I'm not ... addressing this situation but I'm uplifting in some positive way. They always say that "well what can I do, I'm one person, I mean I can't go before the ... United Nations and obtain World Peace, that's not my skill set, I don't have that access or ... passion to be honest. But what can I do? Each of us has elements that ... we can contribute to the others, and what are my elements? And I'm not such a naive idealist to say that I'm going solve the world's problems with my creativity. Creativity is a medium for a message. It's a medium for a vision. And I think if your message at the core of all of it, more important than what we create more important than the images and the sounds and the words is where does it come from? Does it come to your heart? Is there generosity? Is there something where other people could see ... themselves? Is there hope? Does it let them feel seen? Let them feel less alone? Alienate or embrace? I don't pretend to have the answers for these things and ... so much of it is me going on intuition. But again it's me making the choice Like if somebody hurts ... me and I lash out in anger, I've contributed. I've added a drop to that bucket. Why? It didn't make it any better for me. I have to release it. I have to. But why don't I put the drop ... in the bucket of maybe kindness or generosity. And it doesn't have to go back to the person who hurt ... you. You could shut that door and ... turn around and now there's somebody who's hurting and ... be kind to them. I just want to be super responsible for the energy that I put into the world. I want to be super responsible for the messages and way that I treat people. Not only because of the resonance of it but also like I said the example. If we're going to be examples, let those be examples of patience, kindness and generosity. Coming back again and saying do unto others, and be the change you want to see in the world. Thank you. So can people find more about your music and films at ... bradrushing.com? bradrushing.com is my cinematography website. I'm still trying to learn the ropes on in terms of the music I did create Instagram and a Facebook both for my music and art. But I find it really ... cumbersome to be juggling 6 different things. Are you on are you on Bandcamp or anything else? I am on Bandcamp. But also I release through cdbaby which populates all ... the streaming services. My music is literally everywhere except the free platforms. Amazon, YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, it's on all of those. My main Instagram which is bradrushingtp, Facebook which is Brad Rushing. They're kind of a conglomerate. Instagram is more professional there's not quite the personal anecdotes and dissertations And with Facebook because it lends itself more to text, sometimes I will write a lot more thoughts and things like that. It's great and I'm happy to help people follow me. Everything is public. Again I'm not a private person.

The criteria of courses that I like: 53:57

positive, generous, compassionate people, because I am one. And so that type of energy is always welcome. Wonderful. Well thank you again for joining me. And you can find Brad at bradrushing.com and on any ... music streaming service and as Brad just said on ... Facebook and Instagram. And as usual you can find me ... at thorncoyle.com. And for all our listeners I wish ... you a magical, creative day.