Even as a child growing up in Ellijay, Clyde E. Bryan knew he wanted to make movies.
He never dreamt of seeing his name in lights or of being the next Robert Redford.
“I wanted to be a cameraman,” Bryan said. “I wanted to be the one that took Robert’s picture.”
Forty-plus years and 129 on-screen credits later, Bryan is still passionate about the childhood dream that turned into a lucrative career. And he’s come out of retirement to give back.
“The motion picture industry was good to me, and I feel a certain obligation to make sure that quality technicians come into the business to carry on the phenomenal work that has come before,” he said.
Bryan is one of about 50 current and former members of the motion picture and television industries who are working with the Georgia Film Academy. Their goal: develop a talent pool so deep and permanent that Georgia’s television and motion picture industries need never go elsewhere for on-screen or behind-the-scenes expertise.
Currently, Bryan teaches the basics of his craft to students at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville (the town where he and wife Maureen have lived since 2006).
Credit: Phil Skinner
Credit: Phil Skinner
“We are making his knowledge, skills, experience, and, frankly, his passion, available to students,” said Jeffrey Stepakoff, a veteran writer, producer, author, and the Georgia Film Academy’s first executive director.
Since 2007, Georgia’s film industry has rocketed from a $25-million-a-year business to a $4 billion industry. And the Georgia Film Academy, which started in 2016 with 193 students at three partnering schools, has registered more than 10,000 students at 20 of the state’s technical colleges, colleges, and universities, Stepakoff said.
“There’s no story anywhere in the world like this,” he said.
Credit: Phil Skinner
Credit: Phil Skinner
Bryan’s credentials are impressive: “Back to the Future,” “American Beauty,” “Sea Biscuit, “Meet the Fockers,” “Apollo 13,” “Indiana Jones,” the hit TV series “Ozark,” and more. One of his proudest works is 2002′s “Road to Perdition,” with Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, and Daniel Craig, one Academy Award win, and four nominations.
Credit: Photo courtesy of Georgia Film Academy
Credit: Photo courtesy of Georgia Film Academy
Bryan was set on a career in moving-making by 7th grade and was shooting lower-than-low-budget 8-millimeter movies and casting his high school classmates as actors.
Still, family members – particularly his father – were skeptical. And that was only reinforced by a guidance counselor in the small Alabama town where Bryan attended high school. The counselor told Bryan’s parents he “didn’t have his feet firmly planted on the ground,” wanted a career that “was not attainable” and “needed to get a grasp on reality,” Bryan recalled.
He had the last laugh. Probably several. In 2007, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Camera Operators. The presenter was his friend and Hollywood head-turner Annette Benning, with whom he’d worked on five movies.
Credit: Photo courtesy of the Georgia Film Academy
Credit: Photo courtesy of the Georgia Film Academy
But getting to that point took true grit and was hardly glamorous. He tried college for a couple of years, then worked as a portrait photographer before heading to Hollywood in the mid-1970s. He slept on friends’ couches, lived on a shoestring budget, and jumped when a stroke of unexpected luck came his way.
A movie was being made in Los Angeles. Extras were needed on the set, and “I needed $50,” Bryan recalled. “Someone in the camera department made a mistake, a pretty radical mistake, and was fired on the spot.”
The lead cameraman in his anger wanted to know if anyone on set knew how to load film.
“I was standing 10 feet away from him. I said: ‘I do.’” Bryan said. “And I ended up on the rest of the movie [the not-so-memorable ‘Jet Set Disco’ with 1960s teen idol Fabian].”
His second break came when he was able to show off his skills in Roger Corman’s “Piranha” and in “Rock ‘n Roll High School” with Dean Cundey. Cundey and Bryan went on to do more than 30 films together.
Credit: Photos courtesy Georgia Film Academy
Credit: Photos courtesy Georgia Film Academy
Bryan and his family moved to Milledgeville in Middle Georgia to realize their goal of having a lakefront home, while he continued to work mostly in Hollywood. A year later, the state passed a tax break for the film industry, and there was enough work in Georgia that Bryan rarely had to leave home.
“I retired in 2017 because I had done this for 42 years,” he said. “And I didn’t have anything else to prove.”
About the Author