Interview by Carol Wright | Photos Courtesy of Strategic PR
Teen director, writer, and actor, Dusan Brown has been named one of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Scholars announced by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. We got to chat with him about being named a Presidential Scholar and the future of the industry.
Growing up was creativity highly encouraged in your house?
I always ask my parents, how did they raise my brother and me, and they kind of based it off the idea that every kid has a special talent, every kid has something that they’re passionate about. It’s just about letting that child explore that. My mom and dad would always tell me I would be like ‘well what if this and what if that’ and I’d always be spinning these little tales and these little stories. They always let me explore and kind of ask them questions and be a kid, it was great. Also, as far as acting we kind of got into that cause, my brother. I wasn’t even born yet but they would always be like, ‘hey your kid is so cute’ ‘oh my gosh have I seen him on TV’ things like that and eventually my mom met this lady who got my brother into acting and then I was born and I started doing all of that stuff. It has always been great because my mom is my acting coach and she lets me explore different ways to do the character or different ways to think like that. It all links back to letting us explore.
How did it feel to not only be named a Presidential Scholar but also have your short film Reece be recognized on a national level?
To be named Presidential Scholar was really cool because there were only 20 of us in the arts out of everybody in the United States and so that was a huge achievement and it felt really great. Especially because of all the hard work I put in. You need a certain GPA in your high school career and then for them to appreciate Reece enough. I got in through the young arts track. What I did was I applied to young arts. I got into young arts and then my mom and I sat down and it was a 16-hour process to apply for Presidential Scholar. So, it felt really great because it’s all this application, all this time, all this effort, and it all goes in and pays off. It feels great for Reece to be recognized at a huge level like that because it really shows that people care about the stories that I want to tell or that people like me want to tell.
What skills did you learn during your time at Los Angeles County High School for the Arts that you hope to take with you into this next chapter of your life?
Everything that I know now about filmmaking I learned it all at LACHSA. LACHSA and YouTube were my biggest teachers in high school. After school, I’d stay after class with my teachers and I’d go over my script ideas or I’d go over different lighting techniques or different ways to move the camera around the scene and add intensity. Things like that. They definitely taught me a lot of technical things and the teachers were trying to teach me to pull on the heartstrings a little more cause that’s something I always have trouble with, with my stories because they’re always action-packed. The way that I learn I’m a more hands-on type of learner and so throughout my four years of high school I would make at least four films a year, minimum. Then my senior year I only made five because we have this big film festival at the end of the year called Moon Dance and I made two films for that but I was also going to make a senior thesis so that would have made six but the coronavirus struck, but it was still a lot of fun and it all paid off. So, everything I’ve learned about filmmaking I learned from LACHSA and Ghetto Film School which is where I made my first short film ever, which was really amazing.
Also, being an actor really helped a lot too because I learned a lot as far as directing. When you’re directing you pick up on different things like, ‘ok well I see now how a Director would explain this or how I would be confused’ that kind of thing. It’s great because it all plays in-together. Filmmaking is such a collaborative thing and you can learn so much just from doing one job about 20 different other jobs within the set. I owe a lot to LACHSA. I owe a lot to Ghetto Film School. I owe a lot to my mom and my dad. I have a great support system, and a lot of great people around me that are willing to help which is great.
Tell us a bit about Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Why did you want to be involved?
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a play originally written by August Wilson. Denzel Washington is producing all of August Wilson’s plays so I just so happened to be graced with the opportunity to be in one of these films. The audition process was pretty standard. My mom sends me an email she’s like, ‘hey you got an audition for this movie it’s called Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.’ So I did research. I already knew it was an August Wilson play so I was already excited and then I saw Denzel Washington was producing it and Viola Davis was in it and Chadwick Boseman was in it and all these amazing actors were in it. When I went into the audition I was thinking there was no way that I can not be a part of this because I know for a fact when I get on that set I’m going to learn so much from all of them and I just have to be there. So I’m just glad I was there, honestly. I was talking to my mom and I was like, ‘after working on this I would be content with never acting again.’ Not necessarily saying don’t ever cast me again but it was such an amazing experience. It was really a dream come true.
In the film, you play Sylvester who is Ma Rainey’s (Viola Davis) nephew. What did you learn from working so closely with her during the film?
They’re all very very smart people and literally everybody on set, including Mr. George C. Wolfe the Director they would always tell me, get your education-go to college and I asked Mr. Washington why. I asked Mr. Washington, ‘I understand and I want to go to college but I’m just curious why you guys are suggesting this to me.’ He told me this story about how he used to run track in high school and how he was the fastest kid on the team and then eventually a kid faster than him came. So he went to his Coach and he was like ‘I’m not as fast, what do I do?’ and the Coach says ‘your natural talent can only take you so far now it’s time to train your skill.’ And so he took that into college and when he started becoming an actor his natural acting talent only took him so far so then he went to Fordham undergraduate and he bettered his skills. So that’s what they were trying to tell me. They were trying to tell me, ‘look kid I understand that you’re here now but you have to go to college and you have to better yourself, you have to better your skills, and you have to be knowledgeable because it’s a tough world out here and you gotta be ready.’
What do you think the future of filmmaking looks like in the midst of the pandemic and industries calling for more diversity? As a young filmmaker, what do you think the industry is going to look like in the future?
I’m hoping that the industry keeps going in this upward trend of letting African-American people tell African-American stories or just stories in general. I hope that it continues like this with Issa Rae and Kenya Barris and all of those amazing filmmakers. I just hope that they bring along younger people to help them on their sets to keep that trend going because a Director always has a protégé and that Director always keeps making films and things like that. I just hope that more African-American filmmakers emerge, more African-American storytellers emerge, and we can keep this going.
What advice do you have for aspiring filmmakers?
My advice to any emerging filmmaker is if you don’t know how to do something look it up on YouTube or ask somebody. I found that the number one thing that I would see my friends struggling with is when they weren’t sure how to do something they wouldn’t ask anyone and they wouldn’t necessarily try to figure it out and that’s where they would hit a wall or a stalemate. There’s always a way to figure something out, there’s always a way to do something, you just gotta find a way. I was watching Spike Lee’s Masterclass if you’re passionate about something and you want to make that film. You find that money, you find that craft service, you do that, you do it. You figure out a way to get it done. There’s always a way to get it done. Even if it’s not necessarily the way you want to get it done but that’s also a learning curve because if you don’t always have all the resources you need you to become a better filmmaker cause you’re trying to work with what you have. Then once you get what you want it’s a whole different story, you can be that much more amazing.