Brandon Gaesser
Because meaningful change is often grassroots, Brandon believes in the importance of featuring compelling stories in our surroundings: local people, organizations, and communities working as advocates and guardians in the journey toward changing our anthropocentric footprint one step at a time. These are stories, he says, that we never learn about in the 24-hour news “recycle.”
His film approach is to feature the participants as storytellers. Brandon says, “When you grow up in a family of talkers, as I did, the default option was to listen, observe, and learn.” His first film, “Chicken Soup for the Soil” reflects this early foundation as well as his creative intentions to communicate the science behind the story to a wider audience. PBS North Carolina selected “Chicken Soup for the Soil” to air on Earth Day, 2025.
Brandon also collaborated with the Wake Forest University Department of Engineering and non-profit Yadkin River Keeper, as they studied local watersheds to provide accessible water quality information to local communities. This research and short documentary film were published online in the journal, Nature.
Now, an assistant professor in the UNT Documentary Production and Studies Program, Brandon teaches documentary cinematography, film production courses, and mentors MFA students. He is a member of AERI, UNT’s Advanced Environmental Research Institute. For his current research project, “Unplugged” (working title), Brandon has traveled all over the state of Texas to chronicle the Produced Water problem and its impacts on people, land, and groundwater. The feature documentary will be completed in Fall 2026.
Abstracts this author is presenting: