Biography

Brandon Allen Powell grew up in the small town of Gorman, Texas. It was while attending high school (in Brownwood, Texas) that Brandon first realized that he wanted to spend his life making movies.

Brandon feels as if making movies is his calling and has a passion for filmmaking that is unbelievable. "Trial by Self" was Brandon Allen Powell's first feature length movie and to many people's surprise, Brandon had never even made a short film prior to this effort.
- IMDb mini biography by: Press Kit

I do not click with the stereotypical hero; those characters who have their lives in order and will save the world in three acts. That isn't real and to be honest, it is a bit boring. I prefer the anti-hero; those completely dysfunctional people who will have a hard time even saving themselves. Dysfunction is interesting because it is human.

I think filmmaking is a great way to try to understand the world and the people in it.

Why rob people of one of the most important and powerful aspects of film? No one is going to interpret this the way I do because they don't have the same experiences. This doesn't make them wrong at all because what will make the movie so powerful is that people can interpret it in ways that mean something to them. There is a lot of subtext and a lot that one can take away from the story! It would be rather arrogant of me to tell them what to think.

Acting is hard work and it puts many actors in psychologically vulnerable positions; especially in movies like this one. I tried to give each of them what I felt they needed and of course some needed more direction than others did. No two actors are the same. Different actors required different methods of direction. I tried my best to adapt my style of direction to accommodate each of the different actors. There was a certain degree of freedom each of the actors had, but I did require in many shots that they accommodate my camera.