As the Oklahoma-shot legacy-sequel summer blockbuster Twisters continues to blow through theaters nationwide, the Sooner State as a film location is, once again, in the film zeitgeist. Proud Okies are flocking to the theaters in droves, and maybe—if keen-eyed viewers haven’t kept a pulse on the Oklahoma film sector—the state’s success could almost seem to be happening overnight.

Film producer Dylan Brodie, one of the recipients of the 2024 deadCenter Film Festival Film Icon Award, knows what it took to get here. Hailing from Ramona, Oklahoma—a town with a population of a little over 500 at the last census—Brodie has kept his passion for filmmaking close to his Oklahoma roots, having championed our state as a great place to shoot and crew up for over a decade.

“This is a vital need to sing from the rooftops: that this is an economy. This is jobs. This is a future for people. It’s not just a hobby, it’s not just something they’re doing for fun,” says Brodie. “And that I would love that to be supported, like so many other industries are supported within Oklahoma, and that’s one of my biggest missions right now.”

It’s Brodie’s goal to help build a film industry that’s sustainable, investing in the Oklahoma communities that foster upcoming talent in our state.

Reinvestment Beyond the Rebate

Leading the charge to get more films and productions in the state is the Oklahoma Film and Music Office (OF+MO), the entity responsible for managing and allocating Oklahoma’s $30 million film rebate. The echos of the rebate and OF+MO’s investment in the local crew base can be seen in an increasing number of higher-budget and higher-profile productions coming to shoot in Oklahoma: Killers of the Flower Moon certainly comes to mind, alongside Academy Award-winning indie films like Minari (both of which Brodie worked on).

But what Brodie and frequent collaborator Sterlin Harjo, co-creator of the Peabody Award-winning Hulu series “Reservation Dogs” (shot entirely on location in Oklahoma, primarily the Okmulgee and Tulsa area), have come to realize is the power of investing in not just the local crew base where productions are being held, but also in the communities serving as locations.

For example, Brodie leveraged the season two crew of “Reservation Dogs” into immediately shooting writer/director Erica Tremblay’s feature debut Fancy Dance, starring Academy Award nominee Lily Gladstone (now streaming on Apple TV+).

“Fancy Dance was this realization of the dream that Sterlin and I had kind of looked forward to years before. We were able to crew up Fancy Dance with about 65-70% of ‘Rez Dogs’ [crew] we’ve been training up, so the system was working,” says Brodie. “It was amazing to do that.”

Paying It Forward

It doesn’t take the clarity of shooting in 4K to see why Brodie has an extensive passion for investing in the next generation of Oklahoma filmmakers and film crew. It was a career change and a mentorship that paved the way for his very own film career.

While Brodie’s dream as a young adult was always to make movies, the limitations of Oklahoma’s film sector at the time he was entering the workforce just made it unfeasible for him to actualize this passion. After choosing a career in computer science and working in the tech industry for years, he realized it was time to make a change.

In 2008, when Brodie was contemplating this shift, the film rebate cap was at $5 million, just a fraction of what it is today. Despite this, Brodie could see that these investment efforts were working and that opportunity now existed where previously there had been none.

“I could see what was happening. There was a pulse, finally, in the film industry in Oklahoma. It was still a microcosm of what it is today,” Brodie says. “But I knew that if I didn’t try to make a change, I had to live a life of regret.”

Brodie’s trust fall into Oklahoma movie-making paid off. After unpaid work as an editor on a short documentary about a dunk tank clown at the Tulsa Fair (where he met Harjo, who was serving on the film’s camera team), he continued to build the resume that eventually landed him a mentor and a stint in L.A.—a pilgrimage almost all employees in the film sector make at some point in their careers. But after gigging in L.A. for a time, it took a visit back home to see family to recognize that maybe there was a different path for him.

“I had this reckoning inside,” Brodie remembers. “I was like, ‘Can I go back to L.A. unknowing what my future will be while I be a Set PA for years, which would have maybe, potentially, no upward mobility? Or do I try to grow something here with the people I love in Oklahoma?’” 

The choice then became crystal clear.

Fast forward a few years, and now Brodie’s fingerprints are all over the Oklahoma film scene.

He just finished a stint on the set of Harjo’s next TV series “The Sensitive Kind” since “Reservation Dogs” wrapped in 2023. Shot in Tulsa and surrounding areas, this pilot stars Ethan Hawke, Kyle MacLachlan, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Killer Mike and Tim Blake Nelson, and is currently being pitched to Hulu before a full series order is made.

One of the ways his influence is clear is seen in the attitude he carries from set to set in small communities across Oklahoma, many the same size as his hometown of Ramona.

“We’re still going back to these communities, and we try to leave it better than we found it. Because it’s not just this one project you’re filming; it’s every project after that, and for the other people that are going to be filming in the future as well,” Brodie says. “It’s good stewardship.” •

To keep up with Dylan Brodie and explore his work, you can follow him on Instagram at @dylan_brodie.