Times are changing. Rich Brauer can feel it.

New cameras, new technology, artificial intelligence…all coming in waves and promising to change movies (and perhaps everything else) forever.

But Brauer, a celebrated Traverse City-based filmmaker, doesn’t lose focus. Everything about actually producing a movie might very well change, but there’s one thing that never will.

“The most important thing, by far, is telling a good story,” he tells The Ticker. “It starts with the script. What is the story? Is it indeed a good story? Is it motivated by what I would consider to be the right things?”

Nail that down and the rest will follow, he says. And he would know. With 12 movies and tens of thousands of hours of commercial video production under his belt, Brauer has become a trusted authority for all things film over his more than 40 years in the business. 

It all started, as these things often do, when Brauer was a kid. He grew up in Ann Arbor, but his folks had a cottage on beautiful Crystal Lake. Back in those days, there was a tiny movie theater in Beulah called the Crystal Theater, and during the summer after sixth grade, he saw a movie called “The Blue Max” there. 

“It was a World War I dogfight movie. Very cool. But I didn’t just come out going ‘Wow, that was a good movie.’ I came out saying ‘I would have loved to have worked on that movie,’” he says. “All of the sudden I had the itch to do it, and pretty much immediately I began to dink around with film.”

He began pouring all of his paper route money into cameras (Super 8, in those days) and other technology (“I was the first kid in Ann Arbor to have sound on film,” he says) before eventually making a movie that won top honors at film festival hosted by the prestigious Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills. 

Out of high school he got a scholarship to film school in California, but “needed to kill two years of prerequisite crap,” which he decided to do at Northwestern Michigan College. He ended up in Traverse City for good in 1978, opening Brauer Productions and serving scores of clients throughout the region and beyond. 

Fun fact: Brauer shot most of those popular “Jared” commercials for Subway down around Detroit. 

“He’s a terrible actor, but that’s what made it work: he’s just an average guy,” Brauer says. “And until he got arrested, it was fine.”

But movies have always been Brauer’s greatest passion. He’s working on his 13th full-length feature now, a piece called “Gandy Dancer” that will examine a father-son type bond set on an inspiring train journey. 

“I have seven or eight screenplays done and ready to go, but this one kept bugging me, kept chirping up," he says. It’s a sweet story, and it’s a very important story.”

His films don’t often garner a ton of commercial success, but that’s never been the goal. Supporters who help finance his work do it for the sake of the art itself, Brauer says, and many are also inspired by Brauer’s knack for shepherding young talent. 

“A lot of (my supporters) are really gung-ho about the fact that I mentor young people. I run apprenticeships where they're actually learning a craft,” he said. “A lot of people don't even care what movie I make, they just like the idea that these kids are getting some education.”

The biggest thing he teaches the youngsters? Be ready to solve problems. By his estimation, it’s one of the most – if not the most – important skills to have. Filming a movie, especially in a variety of environments, is fraught with peril. And when you’re shooting in a tight time frame on a tighter budget, you need to think on your feet. 

“What if I didn't finish that scene on one day like I needed to, and I have to spill into the next day, and now it's raining when it was blue sky (the day before)? How do you cut that together in the end?” he said. “What happens if somebody gets sick, or the generator goes out? Or the drone breaks?”

Over a long career in this industry, Brauer is pretty good at solving problems.

“When you get kicked in the gut enough in your life, you just quit worrying about it,” he said. “You just get in there and roll your sleeves up and just deal with it.”

And he fights to make sure every bit of the script gets fair treatment on screen, regardless of the conditions. 

“It’s like telling a joke. If you miss just one little line, you could be missing the one element that makes the whole thing work,” he said. “You can’t lose that little connective tissue.”

Brauer raised three kids in Traverse City. He loves it here and is deeply appreciative of the community’s ongoing support for his work. 

“I look at this like a blank canvas, and people help me buy the canvas and paints,” he said. I’m just blessed to be able to do what I do, and it's only because of that support. I'm not independently wealthy, so this is only possible because of the people in the community who dig what's going on here.”

Editor's Note: This story also appears in the upcoming Fresh Coast Film Festival souvenir program, a collaboration with The Boardman Review, featuring profiles and art from the festival that runs April 30 to May 3.