We were lucky to catch up with Bryant Griffin recently and have shared our conversation below.

Bryant, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

While I do feel that everything happens when it’s supposed to, there is a large part of me that wishes I had embarked on this career path sooner. My parents were both working class and while my parents were always very supportive, there was a great deal of resistance, or fear, out of their love for me in pursuing a career in the arts. My father specifically just couldn’t understand how I would be able to earn a living as a visual artist. He would sarcastically suggest that I learn to cut hair as opposed to spending my time drawing, at least then I could pay my bills. So my parents, as all good parents do, were really on top of me in terms of making sure that I received the best education possible within their means as they tried to guide me towards a career path that might be arts adjacent. Like architecture or engineering. As a result, when I started undergrad, I majored in architecture but then quickly changed to industrial design.

Bryant, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a filmmaker and I enjoy telling stories through the lens of underrepresented and marginalized communities, stories that are thought provoking while above all, entertaining. I’ve been a filmmaker for 20 years but only fairly recently transitioned to being a writer, director, and producer. Prior to my career as a writer, director, I was a visual effects artist at Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light and Magic. My background as a visual effects artist and supervisor helps me tremendously in creating visually striking images and worlds while keeping the tone of the film very grounded. I’ve been on countless sets where filmmakers quickly get in over their heads when directing films with visual effects. For me, it’s second nature. I don’t have to think about it. I can help create these fantastic worlds, science fiction worlds, expand landscapes, add robots and creatures to shots, make them feel real, and keep things at a very reasonable budget by being efficient.

After graduating with a degree in industrial design, I was able to land an apprenticeship at ILM. That 3 month apprenticeship turned into a 12 year career. Working at Lucasfilm was a dream come true. I had the amazing fortune of working on film franchises that I used to dream of being a part of when I was growing up, from Star Wars to Indiana Jones. I used to watch The Making of Star Wars documentary countless times as a kid. Actually getting to work on the last Star Wars film directed by George Lucas, and bring my father to the crew screening, with George Lucas in attendance, when my dad used to take me to see The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, countless times in the theater, is just too much for me to put into words. There is no way I could have imagined that a kid growing up in Brooklyn would have ever had that opportunity.

2023 has been a real high point for me as a director as I completed production on two feature films. The first was a documentary for SoCal KCET’s Artbound series entitled L.A. Rebellion: A Cinematic movement, that I co-directed with a former classmate and good friend, Kitty Hu and her production company Shoes Off Media. The film is about the first group of diverse filmmakers to attend UCLA’s Film program in the late 60’s early 70’s and how their films changed the industry. The second film was my first narrative feature called Young King, which is a film that I wrote back in 2019 and filmed during the pandemic. It’s a film that is really personal for me as it tells the story of someone I grew up with that served in the military and suffered from PTSD and took the life of someone he loved, so it’s really intense but I think it deals with very important mental health issues, especially for the African American community which lags behind in terms of seeking and receiving mental health care.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I’ve always wanted to be a filmmaker, but growing up on the east coast, there wasn’t really anyone that could help or guide me in finding a career path. So I would always just inch towards the next best thing. So, being a filmmaker or an artist wasn’t realistic. So the next best thing was architecture or engineering. As fate would have it, I met a professor that suggested industrial design. And while studying industrial design, I see a flyer that says Lucasfilm is recruiting. I show my portfolio, and after a few months, I’m offered an apprenticeship as they are ramping up for a few projects. One of which being Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Then I get to Lucasfilm, and while it was a dream contributing to these massive tentpole films, ultimately, the stories weren’t mine. I learned that in order to tell the stories I wanted to tell and build the worlds I want to build, I had to learn to write and direct. So after investing 11 years in a company that I loved, doing work that I loved, doing well as a supervisor, working on amazing projects, I had to walk away. That’s how I ended up at UCLA TFT. I had to start from the bottom again. It was the hardest decision of my life.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Having to break free of the fears and limitations that others have on what you can accomplish and to understand that sometimes people that love you and that you love, may not be able to envision a life or goal that you can see for yourself so clearly. It is important to understand that their fears come from a place of wanting to protect you but a cage can both protect and imprison you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.youngkingsthefilm.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smilez94/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryant-griffin-00a1324/

Image Credits
Zheyu Liang, Emmanuel Moore, Ivy Liao