Fearless (1993) is the kind of earnest film on serious themes that rarely manages to get made in Hollywood. It's a masterclass in great filmmaking as well as a vital lesson about the struggles to make and market serious films in a business that is serious chiefly about profits. It's become an overlooked masterpiece thanks in part to the way Warner Brothers limited its theatrical release and thus never brought it to the kind of widespread attention it deserved.

In this essay, I analyze the creative choices that makes it such an enduring and moving classic as we're guided through the process of writing and making it in conversation with novelist and screenwriter Rafael Yglesias.

Fearless is a masterclass in great filmmaking as well as a vital lesson about the struggles to make and market a serious film in the profit-driven world of Hollywood.

It's become an overlooked masterpiece thanks in part to the way Warner Brothers limited its release and thus never brought it to widespread attention.

In this interview, novelist and screenwriter Rafael Yglesias talks about the brush with death that led him to the idea for the story, shopping it to Hollywood studios, adapting it himself to screenplay format, making the film with director Peter Weir, and many other stories about his decades of experience in Hollywood and insights into how films actually get made.

What do Serena Williams, Keith Jarrett, Tiger Woods, and Michael Jordan have in common? Is the secret to their overwhelming success just innate talent? How much of it is due to what they did with it?

There’s no formula guaranteed to make all stories great, but there is one technique that keeps audiences glued to their seats more reliably than any other. This essay explains it in detail, accompanied by examples from great films and using Barry Levinson’s 1988 masterpiece “Rain Man" as a case study. I also wrote a two-part blog post on this topic that goes into additional detail here.

Children need to believe that their caretakers have their best interests at heart. But what if someone in your family is both your hero - and your nemesis? How do you follow your own path and still remain loyal to your family?

Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’ and Gotye’s ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ are two mega-hits about coming to terms with breakups. Let’s look at what has made them such enduring and haunting pop masterpieces.

Brian directed, shot, and edited this profile of the first dog café not just in Berlin, but in all of Germany, and how its entrepreneur owners launched the business.

Brian directed and shot this documentary for Al Gore's NGO, the Climate Reality Project. It was a privilege to portray one of the most progressive green energy centers in the world, a tiny dairy village in Bavaria, southern Germany.

 In 1999, the town council of Wildspoldsreid in Germany (population: 2,600) set out to become completely energy independent by 2020 with renewables. Today, using a combination of wind, solar, hydropower, biomass, and biogas, the town produces seven times its energy needs - and sells the rest to the grid.

A work-in-progress trailer Brian shot, edited, and directed, with music by Giovanni Spinelli.

A Hardknocks sportswear spec commercial that Brian shot for director Fred Guerrier.

A beautifully horrifying thriller short film that Brian shot for director and long-time collaborator Jeremiah Kipp, written by Joseph Fiorillo, and starring Lukas Hassel, Cristina Doikos, and Robin Rose Singer.

A fantastically taut thriller in the vein of his favorite 70s influences, Brian shot this short film for William Speruzzi, about a man whose promotion hinges on taking a disturbingly intrusive medical exam. After a home visit with his pregnant wife and six-year-old son present, he finds out what the medical examiner’s true agenda was. It took home the prize for best cinematography at the 2016 Chain NYC Film Festival.

Supercat struggles to survive a very. Boring. Day. Just a little home video I made about the Supercat, who gets very annoyed and bored when it's too wet to go outside - by his own choice, mind you...