We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kai Brown. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kai below.
Hi Kai, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
As a kid, I would write scripts and make the kids in the neighborhood audition. The stories tended to be treasure hunts, with dialogue ripped from TGIF or my kid understanding of the world. A fave line from a script I found recently — “we’ll get there faster if we rollerblade.”
I didn’t have a camera, but I’d imagine each shot. I also didn’t write musicals, but each audition required a scored song. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I HAD to do it. That have to, as well as a good amount of not knowing what I’m doing, continues to drive my art to this day.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
After a childhood spent writing movies without a camera, I got a camera, enrolled in film school, and then moved to LA. In LA, I worked for an independent production company and for a celebrity photographer. In that time, I met wonderful artists and learned about the industry from the inside. I also made almost no money. I have a distinct memory of watching an outdoor summer movie at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Except I have no idea what was playing. All I remember is trying not to stare at picnic feasts of the people around me — piles of fruit and plates of cheese and flowing wine. Soon after that, I took a step back to see if I could create a life where I could be an artist and not starving. So I went back to school, got a PhD, and started creating from a deeper place. The starving artist story is one that took a decade to fully let go of. And across that decade, I have moved into creating the kind of art I have always dreamed of, with creative partners whose kindness, passion, and talent I could not have dreamed of.
My most recent film, the animation-live action My Holographic Heart, premiered at Festival of Cinema NYC in 2023, where it received a nomination for Best Experimental or Animation Film, and in 2024, played at the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood and the historic Westbeth Gallery in NYC’s West Village. I also directed and co-wrote the feminist thriller True Crime, which premiered at the DC Independent Film Festival in 2022 and went on to win awards at several international film festivals.
In 2025, I get to direct my first feature film, the paranormal thriller Indigo Hour (produced by Eternal Film Productions). Some of my other work includes curating The Shadow Anthology (Apollo City Comics, 2024), writing the comic series Soul Catchers (illustrated by 24×4, coming 2024), creating the inter-media experience Clover’s Disclosure: It’s Probably Nothing (Illustrated by Hannah Williamson, coming 2025), and co-writing The Alchemy Workbook, to help creatives take their art to the next level. And I am deep in production on a hand animated film called The Anatomy of Jane Doesn’t Exist, which is bringing me an incredible amount of joy from a dark experience. I feel so lucky to be able to work in the spaces I always dreamed.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
Just Kids, by Patti Smith. My favorite book of all time, about growing into being an artist. I am not going to try to put into words the beauty of this book, this part of her story, or her writing.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
Just go make art. The resources will appear. You will find what you need and you will make do where you can’t. I spent far too long trying to find people to “let me” make art. And then I realized, it’s completely up to me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://kaimedia24.com
- Instagram: @kaimedia24