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Jordan Brown got the opportunity of a lifetime to jumpstart his budding career in media. The Spring 2022 graduate of North Carolina A&T journey to being a part of the two-time Oscar-nominated film The Creator is a testament to taking advantage of the moments in front of you.
“So, how I got the creator was I was an intern at Disney. I was a Disney's Digital Studio Service intern. And those are people on the catering side. Their main goal is selling post-production spaces, making sure that all their clients get what they need and everything of that sort. And plenty of other things. I'm just going to shorten it down. But my supervisor, Mrs. Shannon, who I love…she looked at me one day and she was just like, ‘You need a job.” And I was like, ‘Thank you for realizing that.' The next day, she was just like, ‘I'm going to sell this space to this team of editors and director. I need you to look up Gareth Edwards. I need you to look up Hank Corwin. I need you to look up Scott Morris. I need you to look them up. And I need you to be on your P's and Q's.'”
It appears as if Shannon had a broader plan for Brown, as his research turned into something bigger.
“I'm like, okay, cool. I looked them up. I reported back to her. She was like, cool. We went there to the Fox studio and I saw the team. I was just like, ‘Hey,' didn't think nothing of it. Went away with my life. Didn't think of it. Two weeks later. , I got a text or email from Shannon. She was just like, ‘The Creator is looking for a post-PA. I put your name in, you have an interview, be ready.' I'm like, “Oh, Okay,' [The] interview was just 15 minutes. The next day, I got the job and I was like, ‘Oh,' it was like, ‘Now I got to find an apartment. Now I gotta live here. Gotta pay L.A. bills.'”
The Creator is a film about a future war between humans and AI, ex-special forces agent Joshua is tasked with eliminating the Creator, the mastermind behind a powerful world-ending AI weapon. The movie was a hit, grossing $104 million in box office revenue worldwide and being nominated for “Best Sound” and “Visual Effects” at the 96th Academy Awards earlier this month.
Brown held the position as a post-production assistant, which he describes as an entry-level role where PAs provide assistance and fill in as required.
“It's basically everything that the team does not have time to do. That's where you stepped in. Right? So if you have to send an email, right, if you have, we had a lot of screens for this movie. And so I would have to send emails to every single guest, get NDAs from every single guest, checking every single guest, make sure that they're good. [You] make sure they have the map of the screening, all that stuff. And that was like, And that was just like a light thing that we did. Sometimes it's something as small as, yo, can you pick this up for us? And I'm like, okay, I'll do it.”
The genesis of the opportunity to work on the set of The Creator has the potential to open doors for Brown and his journey started at his HBCU.
Jordan's North Carolina A&T experience
Brown's North Carolina A&T experience was a product of opportunity and resilience. He entered the 2018 school year as a Journalism and Mass Communication student determined to work in the TV & Film industry. Throughout his journey, he grew as a creative and a student leader. Brown served as an Aggie Success Leader (ASL), the group of students that help facilitate the transition of freshman students into college life at North Carolina A&T. He joined Aggie Night Live, a sketch comedy group on campus inspired in concept by the legendary Saturday Night Live.
But, Brown certainly tried his hand at creating media projects such as his web series POV. He utilized the skills he honed in the Journalism and Mass Communications department to produce the project, which further helped him hone his craft.
“My sophomore year, like my sophomore year was. A lot of [failures], a lot of humbling things. And I think it's because I had that mindset of, ‘Oh yeah, I got it. I'm good. I learned everything I need to learn my freshman year. So I'm good.' And so my sophomore year was my first attempt at making POV was a web series that I did in college. And it was horrible. Like I couldn't format a script. Right. I wasn't thinking about the time it would take a filming because I can not lie it's live, but then like the things that we do online or like the video sketches are like four to five minutes.”
His experience in the JOMC program, housed in Crosby Hall on campus helped him in honing his abilities as a creative.
“But I think I'll tell you what made sophomore year so special to me was Mr. Moye, who…works in Crosby and he was one of the biggest inspirations that time. I was a work-study student. And so I picked to work in the TV studio on campus and he took me under his wing and he told me that you got to fail it's okay if you fail. Trust me. It's kind of learning from your failures and kind of improving on those things that really motivated me to do good. And I'm really grateful for that.”
Brown continued, “And he was the one that kind of got me to learn my mistakes. He's the one that got me to learn about camera movement and, you Ways to kind of make a shot better and how a lightning lighting is a big like thing when you're telling a story and got me to realize all these things that I realized I wasn't putting in that POV project. And so that's where I have to really just apply like my school because like the things that made me better were things that I've learned in class.”
His college experience was transversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which happened in the middle of his sophomore year in the Spring 2020 semester. The pandemic affected several aspects of hison campus experience, including his extracurricular activities and filming of his POV series.
“[The COVID-19 pandemic] was very difficult and it was…tiring too. It was tiring. It was very tiring because…I wasn't used to it. Nobody was used to that. I'm used to being in class and learning, I'm used to being out in the field and writing, even with Aggie Night Live…we couldn't do anything with Aggie Night Live we couldn't film, we couldn't do anything one of our other shows was cancelled for the spring because of it, and it was a show that I was looking forward to, so it was very, it was a lot of losses in that, but, at the same time, I just had to look at the long game. I couldn't, I wanted to give up, but I couldn't. And so that was just me reassuring myself that things will get better. Hopefully this will pass, and that was just the mindset that I had to develop, seriously.
The jumpstart to Brown's Hollywood journey & his future
Brown is an alumnus of HBCUs in LA, a signature program in the HBCU world created by industry veteran Stacy Milner that provides opportunities for HBCU students to intern in the media and entertainment industry. Brown spoke highly of the program and how it aids HBCU students who dream of a career in the TV & film industry.
“HBCU in LA is one of those programs where they are who they say what they are, and one of the best things and most beautiful things about that program is how they don't just, Give you an internship and they leave you alone. They keep up with you, and I mean, they still give us opportunities. They still post job offerings for us. They're still very adamant about making sure that we're staying connected with each other…if it wasn't for my connections at HBCU in LA, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't have been at the [NAACP Awards Brunch] learning and listening to amazing people that's in the industry talking. Same thing with some of the jobs that I got, after The Creator. I couldn't have gotten it without HBCU in LA, and I cannot stress how good of an organization that is.”
The North Carolina A&T alumnus looks to continue the journey he's forged in the industry as he works on various film and music projects to be announced later. But, he waits for the day where he can write his own film and lead his own production.
“Call me crazy, call me stupid. But…I can't wait for the day when it's a movie that I wrote. Or a movie that I directed, or a movie that I'm starring in.”
The Creator is available now on video-on-demand platforms worldwide.
