We recently connected with Brad Podowski and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Brad thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

My mission is to spread hope and love through my work as an artist. It’s that simple. There is so much divisiveness in our culture. We constantly hear about rumors of war, acts of violence and fighting across political lines. Media plays a big factor in all of this. I have the opportunity, yes even as one person, to help change that with the work I put out into the world. I refuse to feed into the hate and hopelessness that oftentimes surrounds us.

My hope is in Jesus. Coming to faith, at the age of 27, changed my life dramatically. We all have a God-shaped hole in our heart and each of us chooses what we will fill that hole with. It wasn’t until I placed my faith in Jesus that I found lasting joy and hope.

What we feed our soul determines how we feel and how we view others. Movies, music and other forms of art have a powerful way of shaping that. My aim is to create stories that challenge and inspire my audience. Some of my stories are overtly faith-based, while others, like my most recent film, “Silent as the Grave” are not.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am an award-winning film producer based out of the Chicagoland area. I am the founder/owner of BP Video Production. While we specialize in corporate video work, my passion as a creator is in filmmaking. My debut feature, “Redemption Way” (2017), which I wrote, produced and co-directed, won the Bronze Crown award for best drama under $250,000 at the ICVM awards.

My most recent film, “”Silent as the Grave” (2023), is a mystery inspired by actual events. The story follows a relentless documentary filmmaker who struggles to unravel the mystery of his uncle’s death, as an unknown enemy is intent on keeping the truth buried. My vision for the film was to draw inspiration from such film noir classics such as “The Maltese Falcon”, “Chinatown” and “Rear Window” while combining it with contemporary film language. The film is now streaming on Amazon, Tubi, YouTube Movies and Google Play.

For as long I can remember, I’ve been interested in art. Growing up, I was always drawing. As I got older, I experimented with animation. In college I began studying animation, but soon became fascinated with film. That semester I transferred to Columbia College Chicago to study film. In 2003, I graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a degree in film and video. After graduating, I worked on many different projects from short films, to features and documentaries. In 2008, I started BP Video Production. While our main focus is corporate video, I’ve been blessed to be able to fulfill a dream of making feature films.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

“Silent as the Grave” is a project 5 years in the making. In 2018, I started writing the script. Over the next year, I refined the story, got professional feedback and began planning to produce it. I then spent the next year raising the capital for it. Raising funds for an independent film takes a lot of work and patience. While we ultimately didn’t hit our target raise amount, we had just enough to complete production. It’s risky to begin shooting a film without all of the money in place, but we felt like it was a calculated risk. So we planned and prepped for the shoot and then Covid hit! We lost another full year because our story was set during Christmas-time, so we had to wait for next winter to start up again. Once we were finally clear to shoot, everything went smoothly. We had a top-notch crew and a terrific cast of local actors. The timing was finally right, but man that tested my patience.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

To fund “Silent as the Grave” I decided to utilize equity crowdfunding. For those who don’t know, equity crowdfunding is a method of raising capital online from investors in order to fund a private business. In return for cash, investors receive either equity ownership or a percentage of the profits from the business. At the time, this method was mostly used for tech startup companies. There were a couple filmmakers trying it out, but not many. I decided to jump in. We created our campaign through Wefunder, one of the largest equity crowdfunding companies in the world. I had a lot to learn, but in the end it was worth it. Wefunder was great to work with. We raised 75% of our budget through Wefunder. The rest was raised through private investors.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.silentasthegravemovie.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/silentasthegrave_movie/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/silentasthegravemovie/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brad-podowski-98762b8/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb6LnszVvbbqN4ntyuLl8fg