Bret Branon's Bio.

People ask me a lot about who I am and what I do

So I decided to build a webpage to make it easier to find out and to save myself a lot of explaining.

 

 

 

Content is King.
The story, the story, the story.

These two statements define my beliefs about creating entertainment.

My career began in media while still a Finance Major at the University of Texas at Brownsville in 1989.
The first time I was in a studio watching live television being produced, was in Harlingen Texas at KMBH TV/60 the local PBS affiliate for the Rio Grande Valley.
I knew I was home.

Since 1989 I've climbed the ladder and gained my knowledge of media production by hard work. I have held every position on the set and have gained the friendship of dozens of media professionals whom I'm proud to think of as mentors. I stand on the shoulders of others and will always be indebted to them.

When Digital hit, we were ready.
Those were heady days at KHOU CBS/11 in Houston, when we became the first all digital, HD capable, broadcast affiliate in the U.S.
Everyone recognized in '93 how important the web would become and I quickly refocused my studies to have the skill-set to compete in a dotcom marketplace.

Luckily for me, I was accepted by the smart kids at HAL-PC and was elected as one of their Directors. HAL-PC is the Nation's oldest and largest computer user's group. I loved being involved with HAL-PC. That organization gave me opportunities and academic training that a person would be hard-pressed to find anywhere.
In 2000, I became the Senior New Media Developer for Reliant Communications. Compaq, Haliburton, Enron, and Shell were a few of the Fortune 100 companies that we helped develop internet content for while finishing off the 90's.
It was weird, during the day I hung out with seven figure executives and in the evenings I would go shoot rap videos and short films just to keep my hands in the creative side of production.
When the Dot-Bomb hit, I had already retired to the shelter.
San Marcos. Beautiful.

Upon my arrival in Central Texas I was graciously "adopted" by Barcelona Films. Tim and Viviane were great to me. They gave a newcomer to town a chance, a base, and a warm meal. Great people.

At one point I served on The Austin Film Society's Community Outreach Committee. I also did fundraising for the Austin Museum of Digital Art, and for a while enjoyed playing a minor roll with the Austin Media Arts Council.
My other civic projects included working occasionally with the Chamber of Commerce and select city employees by attending the Film and Digital Entertainment meetings which were intended to help promote Austin's economic development.

When I moved to Austin proper, I immediately recognized several key needs of the Austin film community. Lots of directors and no producers. And plenty of filmmakers but no film business people.

So in August of `03 decided to spearhead an effort to bring an IFP chapter to Austin. FAIL.
A main issue hampering the filmmakers in Austin is a lack of producers and entertainment business knowledge. We needed to bring the business practices of the entertainment world to town especially in the area of distribution knowledge and deal structure.
Instead of joining the herd of writer/directors that were re-inventing the wheel each time they marketed themselves or their products I saw that they were all trying to do the same thing. Only alone and having to individually repeat the steps of their peers and predecessors..
Thinking that by coordinating their efforts they could achieve more, or follow a similar roadmap for the marketing and distribution of their works.
Few people realize how incredibly hard you have to work to get a film made and distributed.
This is an insanely difficult task.
And these directors are trying to wear ALL of the hats.
I felt horrible for them and thought this is how I can help the town most. To help make filmmakers. Anyone can make a movie. But achieving fiscal success and critical acclaim, these attributes are some of what truly make a successful filmmaker.
That was how the concept of Westpark Foundries was born.

Westpark. My obsession for five years. I view Westpark first and foremost as a content firm.
Management, development, and distribution as one side of the business, and counsel, mentorship, career development and connections are the 'value added' part of the Westpark equation.

This is what Westpark tries to provide for its filmmakers.
Westpark is helping a select group of writer/directors achieve commercial success. In my view many of the people Westpark supports are going to be successful in their own right. But with Westpark's assistance we might be able to help them achieve more. This is Westpark. To act as a layer of infrastructure, planning and information provision, that makes the directors job easier.

2009

Still at it. Most of it at least. Civic, political, business and social.

Owning parts of a couple small companies, sitting in a few chairs that let me influence decision-makers, working on my own thing or two, still advising content producers, still making content and helping people/companies organize things and achieve their goals.

Still studying the different verticals of this wonderful distribution business. Still reading white papers and keeping myself well versed in the technical aspects of content distribution, and its monetization, on several platforms.

~moolieboy.

b.