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HOW I GOT HERE
Getting started
I got my start in 2018 as someone who took pictures — not a photographer. It took years before I felt I’d earned that title.
In college, I joined the Bonner Service Scholars, a four-year volunteer program with a 300-hour annual service requirement. I chose to serve with Youth Volunteer Corps of Hampton Roads, a nonprofit focused on helping young people understand their communities and the importance of civic engagement.
Pretty quickly, I noticed their digital presence needed work. So I picked up an old Olympus camera my dad gave me and taught myself the basics — shutter speed, exposure, all of it. The photos weren’t great, but I had nothing to lose. I tried everything: Photoshop, vlogging, After Effects, web design, interviews, performance art.
LEARNING (AND UNLEARNING)
At the time, I felt simultaneously on top of the world and like I knew nothing. I started calling myself a photographer but though I made videos, I wasn't a videographer yet. I think this was also around the time I started watching other peoples work and judging. I felt two things - envious that their work was so good and confident that I could do the same. Yet instead of feeling inspired to create. I felt shame. So I judged. I criticized how they color grade or how I don't like their style or whatever. I was deflecting. Obviously never to them, but to myself. And it made me have this view of filmmaking as something that needs to happen alone. So I became a jack of all trades. I pushed myself to always be watching tutorials, experimenting with different technologies, and imitating things I saw online until I created my own style. I worked hard and landed my first full time job as a video creator for Freedom Boat Club. For the first time, I became a videographer.
Working at Freedom was a dream. 20 years old. Salary job (for the summer). With one directive - make videos. So I did. I made tutorial content and started getting comfortable with after effects. I got my FAA drone license. Testimonials became my thing. It's interesting to look back and see how my style has developed. In that time with Freedom, I could have done literally anything so long as it was decent quality and fit the brand. Yet I chased storytelling.
Senior year of college I felt like the man. People knew me as "Brandon Davis the Photographer", we were coming out of covid lockdowns, I made some of my best work, and saved up enough to upgrade my gear - more specifically, I spent all my money on upgrading my gear then I saved enough to earn it back. Now in this time I was meeting other photographers and something else interesting happened. I didn’t judge quite as much for two reasons:
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I realized at some point that being negative towards other creators caused me to put too much pressure on myself because I felt like everyone else was doing to same to me.
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I was the best.
Obviously, I wasn’t actually the best and I don’t think I was ever cocky enough to think so. But I didn’t have anyone surrounding me that I felt was radically better than me. And if they were then I chalked it up to something that was out of my hands - like age, time and experience, gear, etc. In this time, I realized that I loved being a videographer and photography was a consistent way for me to meet people and fund my video projects.
Discovering Storytelling
FIRST DOCUMENTARY
In my final semester, I was assigned a 5-minute environmental documentary. My friend Michael Bush and I chose to explore a coal terminal in Newport News, VA, and its impact on local communities. We interviewed professors, activists, and politicians to create Coal Blooded — my first real documentary.
It took three months, and for the first time, my technical skills matched my ideas. More than that, I wanted the people in that community to feel proud of how their story was told — and I think we succeeded. Coal Blooded has since been featured in museum exhibits, used as a teaching tool, and won first place at the 2023 Virginia Environmental Film Festival.
FIRST DOCUMENTARY
After graduation, I planned to return to Freedom Boat Club. But under new ownership, they offered me a contractor role instead of a full-time job. So I moved to Florida.
With no job lined up, I threw myself into building a freelance wedding videography business. I rebuilt my website, set up a CRM, and reached out to every wedding vendor I could find in Tampa. I had a handful of weddings under my belt but no real network. Then, my dad shared my work on Facebook with a simple message: “If anyone knows someone getting married in Florida, check out my son’s work.”
From that post, I landed a job with a leadership development company called Lead Star. Nothing to do with weddings, but exactly what I needed.
Growing as a filmmaker
Lead Star was an excited opportunity. It was a small team of 4 and my main job was (yet again) to make videos. Now here’s the thing. Leadership is not simple and it’s definitely not boating. To understand someone’s leadership journey you have to understand their story. So I spent a lot of time watching documentaries to learn how to tell efficient and beautiful stories. I felt like everything in my life had prepared me for this position. But this job presented something unique. The opportunity to travel. For some context, I watched the Marvel universe (in order of MCU timeline) but only while on a flight and I got through Endgame in less than 6 months. Lead Star took me to film leadership workshops in Atlanta, conferences in San Antonio, testimonials in North Dakota, and all sorts of things. The biggest thing that I learned was how to travel with gear, and the value of pre-production. I could no longer just show up and film whatever I see. I had to start creating the video in my head first, writing it down, then executing on that vision. From here I gave myself the title of producer.
Creativity Needs Community
Isolation is the enemy of creativity. For over a year and a half I had been producing videos by myself, working from home, and didn’t have many friends in FL. I was lonely. And I was bored in my craft. It came to a breaking point when Lead Star started implementing video into our client work and we were starting a 6 months long project that would require 2 weeks of filming, and numerous different videos and I felt utterly drained and didn’t think it was possible. That’s when we hired Chris Connell who has become my creative partner. I never realized the toll being alone in my job was taking on my creativity. Since June 2024, we’ve been working on everything together and it has shown me how capable we are when we work together. Which led us to the forming Brown Cow - A Creative Film Company. I realized that Brandon Davis Media was only going to keep me small. With Brown Cow, we hope to tell meaningful stories and collaborate with other creatives to build community and develop our craft.