We were lucky to catch up with Brandon Souza recently and have shared our conversation below.
Brandon , so great to be with you and I think a lot of folks are going to benefit from hearing your story and lessons and wisdom. Imposter Syndrome is something that we know how words to describe, but it’s something that has held people back forever and so we’re really interested to hear about your story and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
So, I’m going to be answering on behalf of my production company with Mark Vedra called Marketing & Branding Studios.
Recently, we took home first place at the Paramount film festival for our short film “A Quarrel”. This was the very first thing that Marketing & Branding has produced as well as the first film that Mark and I (Brandon) have made. It was shot in my bedroom for a hundred dollars. There was another film at the festival with a budget of seven thousand dollars and we beat them. There was another film with multiple production teams across the country and we won.
We both were taken aback. How did our little film win anything? We didn’t have the resources to go big and we felt like imposters up on the stage accepting the award. Why did we deserve it? There were several other films that were, in our opinion, clear winners.
How did we overcome the imposter syndrome? To tell you the truth, I don’t think we have. Not completely anyway. But we have to keep going. I think for us the answer to correcting imposter syndrome is continually testing ourselves to see where we stand. Like a runner working on their mile time, we have to continue creating our body of work and seeing where it lands. And we’ll either continue to improve our mile time or fizzle out. I don’t think the latter will happen. There are going to be more rooms where we feel like we don’t belong, but we have to acknowledge that feeling and then say to ourselves, “You know what? We’re here. This is where we wanted to be and now that’s where we are. So, maybe we are supposed to be here.” I think that over time it becomes more comfortable. It’s like dealing with any form of change, it’s weird and tense and uncomfortable at first, but at some point it all becomes just another day.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Marketing & Branding Studios is a film production company based in Los Angeles, California. We’re a young company, nearly a year old! (Happy birthday to us) Our focus and specialty as of now is producing short films, sketches, and proof of concept videos for larger scale productions. We’re hoping to expand into larger projects in the future. But for now we are excited to build a strong foundation for our company so that we have something to solid to stand on when those larger productions come our way.
We hold an incredible amount of importance on collaboration. Mark and I will be there from start to finish to oversee, and maybe perform in, the production. That being said we’ll be background if need be. The focus of this production company is not on us. Foraging a path for yourself in the entertainment industry is no easy feat and it’s essential to have a team there to support and collaborate with to make that path a little easier to navigate.
We recently have win first prize for our short film “A Quarrel” at the Paramount Film festival. We are also in development on a Lonely Island style music video. You can watch our sketches on our YouTube page
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Community, Perseverance, Laughter. Those are the three things that have been vital to our success.
Surround yourself with people who inspire you and share your vision for success. It’s always a bit easier with other people. I mean we all know how many names are in the credits after a movie. Each and every one of those people are nessicary for the final product to exist.
Then when you have built a dedicated team you have to keep going. Keep jumping over hurdles, dodge the comments of those trying to drag you down, and push through the trials of everyday life. Life itself seems to always try to get in the way, that’s a fact, your car breaks down, or you get fired, or you’re friends want to hang out all the time, and you have work, and you have to pay your rent, and fund the film, and call your mom, and clean your toilet, and and and and and…. That doesn’t stop. So you must keep going.
Laughter may be the most important one, because you’re going to make a lot of mistakes ( I know I certainly have) and that is okay. You have to be able to laugh at them and learn and grow from them. I love the saying, “If you learned something then you didn’t fail.” Also we all just need to laugh at ourselves every now and then, life is hard and laughing is healing.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
We are always looking for new collaborators. We’re really looking for an audio person to record audio on set and help with post production work, such as ADR and audio editing.
But we want to work with everyone! Writers, directors, choreographers, producers, actors, singers, comedians, the only things you must be is collaborative.
Check out our instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/mandb.studios/
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@MandB.Studios
Email
brandonsouzaactor@gmail.com
Contact Info:
- Instagram: mandb.studios
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MandB.Studios
