BrianBernard

Screen Shot 2014-08-08 at 10.44.17 AM

A screenshot from Brian Bernard’s documentary, Avner the Eccentric, which follows the odd life of the famed vaudevillian.

Long Beach documentarian Brian A. Bernhard is looking to help charities, one movie at a time.

The filmmaker from Blight Productions said he tries to tell a story with each documentary he makes, which usually show some aspect of Long Beach, whether it be a biography of a local figure or a feature on the art scene, as well as stories from all over the world.

“I make a conscious effort to craft each one a little different and hopefully a little better with each iteration,” Bernhard said. “However, if there are any themes that are constantly in my stories, they would be inspiration and creativity.”

BrianBernardBernhard said he uses crowd funded resources through a website called Patreon to donate money to charities selected by the figures he features in his documentaries. In this regard, as he notes proudly, the nature of his film-making is public service-oriented.

“I decided to build in the charity element, not only  as a way to motivate people to help good causes, but as an incentive for the artist themselves to feel good about promoting their stories,” Bernhard said. “After working with artists and producing these stories for many many years, I have learned that many artists have trouble promoting stories about themselves for fear as coming across as narcissistic.”

Bernhard said that because his audience is still relatively small, he hasn’t raised much money for organizations yet, but that doesn’t deter his spirit. He hopes the donations will grow as his audience and supporters do.

Bernhard said his next project will be a feature on the Long Beach music scene in collaboration with the local music blog, The Long Beach Independent.

“The pieces will vary between independent musicians and local legends,” he said. “In addition to promoting the local music scene, I will do my best to seek out high-profile interviews with some of the Long Beach music legends.”

He said he set a Patreon funding goal of $1,000 for the music scene documentary.

“This is not much money, but it is basically just enough to let me know there is an active and interested audience waiting to see some amazing music stories,” he said.