Brothers look to future in film

Having just received the Spotlight Award from the School of
Theater, Film, Television and Digital Media this year, graduating
film student Jared Drake is eager to start a career in directing
among Hollywood hotshots.

For starters, “Sand Dune Water Worms,” his short
film, will be shown at the Directors Guild of America Theatre.
Drake is ready to take his diploma and run toward the glitz and
glamour of stardom.

So what’s more exciting than one Drake taking on the film
industry? Two, of course.

Jared isn’t the only Drake who’s anticipating a
future in film. Older brother Brandon Drake just won the
screenwriting competition in the School’s Professional
Program and is also graduating this June.

“It’s like the Drake brothers are dominating!”
said Jared, laughing. “We can’t wait to graduate. We
have so many things that we want to do. We’re on pretty cool
paths, and we’re optimistic about this.”

With Jared as director and Brandon as writer, the
brothers’ paths seem to coincide naturally. While they
“are taking completely different paths (in film),” they
“always had the idea to do films together since high
school,” according to Jared.

But the Drakes didn’t always anticipate seeing their dream
come true. During his first three years, Jared’s main passion
had been pole vaulting for UCLA track and field, until an injury
caused him to be redshirted his third year. It was then that he
picked up an interest in directing and realized that he needed to
make a difficult choice.

“I remember telling my coach that I could either give
fifty percent of myself to track or fifty percent of myself to
doing film,” Jared said. “I tried to do both at the
same time, but it was too much. I knew I had to pick one or the
other. (My coach and my teammates) were extremely supportive of my
decision.”

Despite the sacrifice, Jared has no regrets.

“That year when I was hurt, I had started editing some
stuff and thought, “˜Hey, this stuff is pretty cool.’ So
I applied to the film school,” he said. “By the time I
got accepted, I was dead certain that this is what I wanted to
do.”

Soon after he began his career in directing, Jared encouraged
his brother to apply to the certificate program in screenwriting
offered online by the Professional Program. Up until then, Brandon
had been trying out his career as a writer for a travel magazine in
San Francisco.

“I’m a writer, it’s all I do. I’ve
always been about expressing ideas and I’ve always been
passionate about writing. I was searching for the right outlet for
it,” Brandon said. “I started talking to (Jared) about
scripts and discovered I really liked it. He let me check out the
Professional Program, and I decided to do it. It would have been a
shame if I hadn’t taken up the chance.”

By finding their separate niches at UCLA, the Drakes developed
their own interests in film and also a closer bond with each other,
both as brothers and collaborators.

“We both developed on our own, and we both have different
strengths, which is great,” Brandon said. “(Jared) is
awesome with the camera. The stuff he does on computer blows my
mind””mdash;I can’t even understand how some of the stuff
works.”

Despite their differing skills and the four-year age difference
between them, the two brothers still make time for each other.

“There’s no question about it. We complete each
other,” Jared said. “Everything I lack in,
(Brandon’s) got covered. He’s everything I’m not,
and I’m everything he’s not. There’s no
competition at all. Even though he’s older, he knows I can
kick his ass.”

Probably the most valuable aspect of the Drake partnership lies
in the brothers’ respect for each other and each
other’s work.

“We’ve been best friends forever,” Brandon
said. “We’ve always done things together. For example,
we used to make all these snowboarding videos together. It’s
pretty much the same thing here. There are so many people whom you
can give your work to and they’ll say, “˜It’s
awesome,’ just because it’s what you want to hear. Or,
they’ll say, “˜It sucks,’ because it’s what
they want to say. But we know we can give each other our work and
get the truth. There’s not that many people like that who
you’ll run into.”

As they stand at the brink of graduation, the Drakes are ready
to grab any opportunities that may come their way.

“As of now, we’re both at the jumping-off point,
where we’re pretty confident in our abilities as
filmmakers,” Jared said. “We’re ready to dive
deeper into what we’ve begun.”

The awards that the Drakes received just last week serve as
extra assurance that their futures lie in film.

“Hopefully I’ll get (an agent) out of this,”
Jared said. “But basically it justifies my decisions about my
future. It’s a good feeling. Now for my future, I have some
credibility behind me. I feel no regrets, it just feels good to
know that this seems like the right choice for me now.”

As a brother should, Brandon echoes Jared’s sense of
confidence.

“We’re both entering now into whatever is out
there,” Brandon said. “We’re both trying to make
things work, and if we can do it together, then that’s the
dream.”