As a filmmaker, please introduce yourself.

My name is Brian Jervay.  Originally from Chicago, I served 20 years in the US Navy retiring in 2016.  I’m a writer, director, producer, and editor living in the great state of Tennessee. 

 

 

 

Why you became a filmmaker as director and producer?

I would watch the Karate Flicks that used to come on Saturday mornings when I was a kid, then go outside

and gather my friends so that we could make our own version of them.  This was before cellphones,

and we didn’t have access to cameras, so it was more like rehearsals of what we were going to do once we

able to get a camera.  I had no idea of what a director or producer was, I just knew I liked movies and

wanted to make them.  My first film was a 1 minute short called "Timmy the Kid" I shot with a

Bolex 16mm camera while attending a summer program at Columbia College (Chicago).  

That was it!  I was hooked and I knew that’s what I wanted to do.

 

Give some more information about yourself and the films you have made so far,

​

​​

Timmy the Kid I enrolled in Film Techniques I, followed by Film Techniques II.  

While in those classes I would make numerous shorts as a writer, director, actor, producer and editor.  

Upon completing those courses, I asked my professor what should I do, and to my surprise, he said go make a movie.  So, I just started making a bunch of films.  Most were bad as far as production value, but the stories were solid.  Later I teamed up with a couple of other filmmakers and we shot our first feature.  We couldn’t afford film,

so we used mini dv’s to make Two Brothers in A Dope Car.  Like I said, production value wasn’t great,

but the story wasn’t bad.  By this time, I was married with children as well as active duty Navy

so I would use my leave and liberty hours to work on the film as a producer. 

For my next feature, I saved up $3500 then wrote and directed Rough, Rugged, and Raw,

which earned me a nomination as best first time director at the 2001 (or 2002) Pan African Film Festival in LA.  The film would later be distributed as Platinum Playaz by York Entertainment.

I continued to make short films here and there all while still active duty Navy. Eventually,

I received orders to transfer to Oklahoma City where I began attending Oklahoma City Community College.  

Here I studied Film/Video Production under the late Grey Frederickson who’s known for producing The Godfather I & II, Apocalypse Now, The Outsiders and numerous other films.   Feeling the itch, I began working on my third feature entitled, Mi Vida Mi Carga (My Life My Burden). This time I had $6K to work with, but unlike the other two features I shot, this film was never finished.  It was the first time I set out to make a film but couldn’t see it through.  There were mitigating circumstances that contributed to the film's failure, but at the end of the day, I didn’t get it done and I felt defeated.  I decided I was done with filmmaking.  It wasn’t until several years later after I had retired from the Navy and started working a civilian job that I absolutely HATED that I thought, "it’s time to give it another go."  By now, I was living in Nashville, ready willing and able, but I didn’t know any filmmakers in the area.  I started taking acting classes just to surround myself with other creatives.  This lead to me meeting a few student filmmakers which lead to me hooking up with a couple of recent graduates from Middle Tennessee State University and that lead to my fourth feature, Love Incidental.  The film was finished and released and I regained my confidence.   That brings us to my fifth feature Some Kind of Justice, by far my best work and a film that I’m very proud of.