Meet Yonash Breneman of New Orleans

Today we’d like to introduce you to Yonash Breneman.

Hi Yonash, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I was born in Czechoslovakia, 1986 during communism with club feet. After two failed operations, my mother refused a third which could have been a crippling procedure and she decided that we needed to leave the country. Before I turned 3, her and my dad faked a ski trip to Switzerland and escaped through Austria, shortly after tying my great grandmother up, so she wouldn’t alert anyone. We were swiftly detained and I began my life as a criminal in jail at the age of 3. After a couple weeks of quarantine followed by 2 months in a halfway home, I began my dream of becoming anything under the American slogan looking to thrive in the “Land of opportunity”.

Growing up in the countryside of Michigan, imagination is really all I had. I didn’t realize it then but the adventures of the mind were only the beginning of creating worlds. Although I stepped into music when I was 14 and believed nothing more than Rockstar-dom was for me, that’s when the creative side took hold. By the age of 19, I had pending deals with various record companies and I was on my way…so I thought. Through rebranding and trying to find my voice, I found myself having been attached to bands in Europe and America but nothing to show for it. The time was nigh and I needed to get out to the entertainment capitals. I arrived in Los Angeles towards the end of 2009 with a fresh voice and new demo, but it didn’t feel right anymore. Everything was going electronic and conformity wasn’t something I was leaning into.

I thought for a moment. Are the years of drama class and playing soldier in the lonely woods of Michigan finally come to a T? I shifted focus and began my acting journey. The slick new headshots, the acting agent, the-the…Wait, these are the scripts being made out here? Anyone can write this kind of mediocre nonsense, right? Wrong. I quickly realized that even though an idea comes to your mind and the story can be great, conveying it on a blank canvas wasn’t that easy. The descriptions were too long, the characters spoke like no one in real life does, but I was determined to find that voice. Find that mood. Find the emotion that drives a person to the cinemas. After some research and learning, I created my first web series called Belligerent Drunks & Paranoid Stoners, later rebranded to Blazed n Loaded. I was writing, acting, directing, and loving every moment. I was lucky enough to be on hundreds of Hollywood sets, as a background…lol, but nonetheless…Lucky to see the best of the best create the magic that inspires. I did a couple features, a few short films, and even though acting was and still is an amazing experience, it was the writing…the creating of worlds that truly found its way to my heart. So, I stepped back and delved even deeper into the rabbit hole. I partnered with a random guy that now is my business partner and best friend, Anthony Theodorakos. We went from slap stick to dramatic forms of entertainment, then shifted to Horror and even wrote a children’s story inspired by American tall tales.

With polished craft and numerous scripts in our catalogue, we ventured out into the business and let me tell you, it’s not easy. Yes, we met with some of the leading companies in our market but nothing seemed to click. No after no after no, you just lose track of why you actually even do what you’re doing anymore. Is there a chance to break through into this tight knit circle that seems to only let a few in? That’s when it hit. Depression showed it’s teeth and I couldn’t help but to cower.

Weeks to months and after a year, I realized I’d lost my sense of what it was to be myself anymore. EVERYTHING that once brought me joy, was just a burden. I couldn’t kick the feeling. One morning, I woke up and I looked myself in the mirror and I said, “If you’re not wanting to end it, then why the hell don’t you turn it around…you’re the only one that can change it.” I chose writing. I made the choice to use my story telling and build a world that I could understand through a reader’s eyes. The Last Retreat. That was the script that made me face my demons. The story is about 6 strangers that go up to the mountains to kill themselves. Each character was a representation of a piece of my depression. I forced them to face their demons, and in turn, I faced mine.

That script spring boarded me into writing a couple of short films and finally got myself back into the director’s seat with my debut of “Walk of Shame”. The short film did respectfully well across 28 cities and took home awards for best in show, actress, and drama. I continued my festival run with a few others and eventually was inducted into the Austin Revolution Hall of Fame.

I’m not saying that I was above shorts anymore but I needed to feel what it was like to make a feature film. Problem is, I didn’t have the time and damn sure didn’t have the money. And then Covid hit. You’re welcome. I always say that the universe said, “What’s your excuse now?” And I kind of took it up on it’s offer. From April to May of 2020, Anthony and I wrote The Death of Us and it starred Dana Schick and Ahku. That was it. No smoke and mirrors. No money. But we have the time. We had 4 people willing to show up every day and make something. Anthony was a little worried about the Coof, so we wrote the whole thing over Zoom and shot the entirety with only 3 people in person. This was it, wasn’t it? Make a film and stairway to stardom? Nope.

“You made a film, but no one is in it. Nobody known directed it, wrote it, starred in it” Those are the things we heard. No matter the hurdle you cross, there’s a bigger one on the horizon. Does anyone ever really reach that fairy tale ending? It took us almost 3 years to finally get the film fully finished and on the market. The feeling was amazing and I’ll never forget the experience. The people along the way and my team behind it all. But we strive forward. The job is never done.

I’m currently working on multiple scripts and we have a couple in the pipeline with options on the table. I’m still working a decent job and paying the bills I can but the struggle is the journey and the journey is nothing without it. So we say. These are the times you must truly believe and love what you do, otherwise what’s the point? I’ve been so dedicated to Plan A for so long that I forget if I even had a Plan B. The point is, love what you do so much that giving up makes you feel disgusted at the thought of quitting. I don’t know. That’s my story, I guess.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The road is never paved in the way we dream it. It’s built brick by brick, smoothed over concrete that gets trampled on by the neighbors cat as soon as you reach what you thought was the end.

*See previous for struggle*

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Outside of my craft, I’ve learned to keep myself within the realm of what it is that I love to do. I was with Smashbox Studios for 5 years before leaving Los Angeles and what I can truly appreciate about the experience is that I learned way more about photography then I’d originally intended. I stepped back and really started to understand the craft outside of “Ooo, that’s pretty, let me try to frame a picture”. Lighting is something that I understood before working there, but I truly grasped the importance of bending light while working at the studio. It really helped me hone in on the look and fact that we didn’t have anything but house lights and home depot garage tins for The Death of Us.

Out in New Orleans, I work as an Audio/Video technician for events and have even picked up more editing gigs. You can never learn enough when it comes to putting a functioning piece of art together.

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Growing up, I went from a crippled kid that got picked on all the time to oh hey, he’s not crippled anymore but let’s still pick on him. My mom was always a big advocate, once I got my legs fixed in Chicago through the Shriner’s hospital for children, to not settle for what they say. The doctors had me pegged as a kid that could probably lead a semi regular life but I wouldn’t fully be able to perform like the other kids. By the time I turned 10, I was playing every sport under the sun and drifted into Ice Hockey and Football. At the age of 15, the bank took our home because my mother’s new husband decided to rob half the people of southern Michigan through lumber fraud, which in turn, forced my mother to return to Czech to rebuild ourselves.

I left for Europe the chubby kid no one paid any attention to. While there, I was pissed at the world. I hated everyone and the fact that I couldn’t be “home”. I took my anger out on the guitar and then later found a buddy to hit the gym with. Looking back now, I loved that year, but I didn’t then.

I came back to the states unrecognizable, so they told me. Girls I had a crush on in middle school all of a sudden thought I was cute. “Who’s the new guy from Europe?” ….”I WENT TO KINDERGARTEN WITH YOU BETH!” I finally got to see what the other side of the spectrum lived like. Got back into football and played my music for anyone that listened. Things were mostly great and very much a flip of what I was used to but I was still angry at the world. I had something to prove to no one at all. It took awhile for me to calm that side of me but eventually, I learned to focus it in on my art.

Not to say I don’t still have that anger on the end of a fuse, it just takes me longer to get there. Being a bouncer and security in my later years, really taught me patience and self preservation.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yonashbreneman/?hl=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BDnPS

Image Credits
Writing Partner: Anthony Theodorakos…Pic at IFS Momma Bear…Pic ARFF 2017 Lead Actress: Ruth Reynolds….Walk of Shame Poster Last photo: Dana Schick and momma bear on zoom celebrating best actress!