Today we’d like to introduce you to Braydon Leadbetter
Hi Braydon, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I started doing creative things at a professional level at a very young age.
When I was 14, I started a punk rock band with two of my friends where I sang and played guitar and the other two played drums and bass guitar. I was always pretty good at music from a young age. I taught myself how to play the guitar at the age of 8, so I had already been big into playing music for the last 6 years of my life. It was something that not a lot of people our age were doing at the time and somehow we ended up being quite good at what we did. It was my first taste of being able to express something that I had to say to an audience.
We played several shows at various venues around the St. Louis area (places like Fubar, Cicero’s, The Firebird, The Demo, all places that unfortunately do not exist anymore) from around 2012-2016. We were able to play with a lot of really cool local and national bands. We had no business playing some of the shows we did at our age. We would be playing in bars full of people drunk people twice or three times our age on a school night. I’m very thankful to all of our parents who were always super supportive of what we were doing. [It was also because of this period that I met my now wife, Emma Leadbetter, who saw a promo poster that had a photo of me and the band and decided to reach out to us about our headlining EP release show. She had a mutual friend was also in one of the bands opening for us.] Music was a very strong passion for a long time in my early life, but filmmaking quickly took hold in a very big way near the end of high school.
I suddenly became obsessed with telling stories and using a camera to give an audience an experience. I had always been a huge movie fan and always thought that there was just no way I would ever be able to make one. Making a movie always seemed like this mystical thing that only select people get to do. I always made goofy little videos and films on whatever video camera I could get my hands on throughout my childhood, but it was never anything I had seriously considered developing into a career.
At some point in high school I stumbled upon lots of different fan films across YouTube for franchises like Harry Potter and Star Wars, both of which I was and still am a huge fan of. Seeing those gave me a lot of inspiration to pick up a camera and try to make something with real intention behind it, not just messing around with friends. Me and my two closest friends, Stephen Brda and Brandon Sears, spent a good year hammering out various different little films and fan films (all of which were very bad) which were essential in growing my passion and curiosity in becoming a filmmaker.
I went to college at Southeast Missouri State University from 2016-2020 and received a Bachelor of Science in Television & Film. It was at this point that I really dove deep into what it truly means to craft a film. It was also at this point that I realized that I am a director. It was the only thing I could see myself doing and the only thing I found myself gravitating towards while on set. I always had suggestions on where to put the camera or what an actor should do or where the story should go, even when that wasn’t my job. It was totally clear to that I was supposed to be a director.
While in film school, I met some of the most amazing and talented people that I still work with today. The one thing that I am grateful for when it comes to going away to college for filmmaking is the connections that I made and the relationships I built with people who shared a similar passion me. I made a total of 14 short films and 2 web series over the course of my 4 years at SEMO. Several of which won awards like Best Mystery/Suspense Film, Best Long Form Film, and the ‘Redhawk Award” at the school’s annual film festival called the “Faultline Film Festival”.
Upon graduating in 2020, I wrote and directed some of my own personal projects in order to keep my directing skills sharp. Thankfully, St. Louis is full of some really driven, talented, and passionate filmmakers who are always down to support and be apart of each other’s projects. Many of which are willing to donate their time and work for free on a project just because they believe in you or your story that you want to tell. That is how I was able to gain so much experience directing a proper crew so early on in my career and I couldn’t be more thankful. However, COVID was still rampant at this point and the search for a full time career in the industry was very hard to come by.
While on the post-college job search, I came across a job posting for a YouTube channel called “Vat19”. Everything about the posting seemed too good to be true. “Working in St. Louis’ largest sound stage creating video content for a YouTube channel with over 7 million subscribers and 5 billion views”? Yeah right. I had never heard of the company or the channel in my life. I had to see for myself. I searched the channel on YouTube and I was surprised to find out everything about the job posting was real. I learned that Vat19 was a YouTube channel and e-commerce website that sold “curiously awesome” products like the world’s largest gummies and a lot of fun and quirky gifts. They made commercials and crazy viral videos for these products that were all getting literal millions of views. I quickly applied and got a virtual interview the next week. Unfortunately, I didn’t land the job, which was a bummer because it seemed like the interview went very well.
Fast forward to Fall 2021, over a year after my interview for Vat19, I got an email from Vat19 asking if I was still interested in working as a video director for the channel. The answer was a resounding YES, as steady video work was still very hard to come by in an almost post-pandemic world.
Working at Vat19 has allowed me to hone in my skills as, not only a director, but as a creative in general. I am one of four video directors on staff full time. We work in a giant studio with 9 different built-in sets and use Hollywood-quality gear to shoot the videos. Working as a director at Vat19 is not only filming the videos, but almost everyone in the company appears in the videos as well. You never know what you will be doing when you come into work. One day you could be gluing 100,000 gummy bears to cover your boss’s entire Tesla, one day you could be eating the World’s Hottest Chocolate Bar on camera so the world can see your reaction to the spice (9 million on the Scoville scale!), or you could be challenged to do something crazy like jump rope on top of a bed of legos (yes, I actually did this). There is never a boring day at my job, and I have been super lucky to be able to make crazy content like that for the past 3 years. We have been able to grow the channel to over 10 million subscribers and I have directed videos and YouTube shorts that have received tens of millions of views, which is still unbelievable to me.
While directing videos at Vat19 is my day job, I am still hard at work writing and directing my own personal projects. My latest film entitled “Delivery”, is a thriller about a pizza guy who has to deliver pizzas to a very strange man. I worked with a great crew on this one, and worked with a friend from high school, Chase Jungewaelter, who is just an absolute powerhouse of an actor and a blast to direct and work with. The film just won Best Thriller & Best Cinematography at the Pompeywood Genre Film Festival in Portsmouth, UK. I plan on releasing the film publicly online next month (October 2024).
I was also finally able to combine my passion for music and film this past year by directing my first music video for a song called “Chasing Ghosts” by Portraits & Landscapes, a post-emo band local to the St. Louis area. Some of the guys in the band are friends I used to play shows with when I was in a band. I put out a post seeing if any bands would let me try my hand at making a music video for them for free and they happily let me take a stab at it. Not only are they all super talented musicians, but they were also super gracious and let me do my thing creatively. I came up with the concept, the location, the visuals, everything. They let me take the reins in a big way and I’m super grateful for that.
I think that directing my own projects is super beneficial for me as a filmmaker. I always have the itch to be on set and create something and tell a story. My end-goal is to direct feature films full time, which I think is something that is super achievable for me, though it will not be easy. I am currently in development on 2 feature films and hope to shoot my first ever feature film very soon.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has not been a smooth road. Filmmaking is not for the faint of heart. You have to REALLY love what you do and be super passionate about it. I’ve always thought of it this way: If you wouldn’t rather live under a bridge than NOT make films, you’re probably better off doing it as a hobby. Being able to make and complete any kind of film to me is nothing short of a miracle. All of the pieces of the puzzle have to align just right in order for there to be any kind of finished product. There have been days while on set where I have questioned whether I even want to do this anymore. It can get that dark. Or seeing an early cut of my film and literally getting physically ill. That happens almost every time. But after I finish every single project, the next day I’m ready to get out and make the next one. I have no clue why we as filmmakers do that to ourselves, but I like to think it is because we HAVE to make movies. We HAVE to tell stories.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a filmmaker. More specifically, a director. I have been making films for the past 10 years and have been working professionally in the industry for the past 5 years.
I am most proud of my most recent thriller short film called “Delivery” which has been doing great in the film festival circuit. It was my favorite experience working on a film. It was shot in one night and we had some of the biggest St. Louis all-stars working on the crew. Some of the local industry’s leading technicians (dolly grip, grip & electrical department, director of photography) were involved in the making of this one and I’m incredibly proud to have been able to make something with such talented people.
Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
While I didn’t have one specific mentor when I was coming up as a filmmaker, one crucial part of being in this industry is networking. Meeting people and building connections is one of the core foundations of any kind of creative field. When I was starting out, I think that I was quite naive and thought that I could just do everything myself. I found out quickly that I couldn’t. One of the first crews I ever worked on was in film school. I was in class and one of the students in the class asked if anyone was available to run audio for a little web series pilot that they were starting to shoot that weekend. I said I would do it. We continued to work on that series for the next 6 months and I even ended up directing some episodes. The creator of that series is now one of my main creative partners and one of my best friends. All of that because I put myself out there and offered to help. That is something that is essential for filmmakers. Put yourself out there, put yourself in uncomfortable situations, and you never know what will come of it.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/braydonleadbetter/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@braydonleadbetter7474
- Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8939729/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
