Daniel Beard figures that if he’s going to teach how to make movies, he better be out there making movies himself.

And that’s how he spent the first part of this past summer. He was lead producer on “I Always Hated My Brother,” a film written, directed and produced by Chris Hansen, chair of the Film & Digital Media department at Baylor University. Beard is a senior lecturer in that department. This marks Beard’s third film in which he’s been a producer, and second as the lead producer.

“I basically was coordinating between other producers and the crew and the cast,” Beard said. “A producer provides everything you need to create a film. So, if you need a flight to a location, they provide that. If you need a place painted before you start filming at a set, they provide that. If you need to get paid, which everybody wants to do, they provide that. They’re the ones that provide the vision that creates the film.”

Beard has worked in Baylor FDM since 2008. He started as an electronics technician, which was similar to a job he had while serving in the U.S. Navy for 10 years. He began teaching in 2017 and teaches film producing and management, lighting, cinematography and documentary.

Beard came to Baylor as a student after his time in the Navy and started his academic career studying law. His wife, Mary, was also in school and they had three children, so Beard needed a job. He was hired as the FDM technician and began working closely with the folks teaching the classes.

“I remember talking to some of the faculty, and I was like, you know, this film thing is really awesome,” he said. He had always been a cinephile. He and his dad had a goal to watch every movie in the mom-and-pop video store close to his childhood home, and Beard had enjoyed the film appreciation class he had taken in high school. He changed his major to film, completed his undergraduate degree at Baylor and went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts in film from the University of North Texas in Denton.

The film he worked on this summer was a couple of years in the making, Beard said. Hansen would work on the script and send it to Beard, who would offer feedback.

“We finally got the script where we thought, ‘OK, we want to start this now.’ That’s when we started going through and trying to cast and get places do all of logistics,” he said.

“I Always Hated My Brother” features a pair of estranged brothers, distressing medical diagnoses and a bucket list. It was shot mostly in and around Waco, with some scenes filmed at the Buggy Barn Museum in Blanco. About 20 Baylor students worked on the film as well.

“It is a drama, but there’s a lot of comedy in it,” Beard said. “It’s kind of about redemption and acceptance and just the love and bonds of family.”

After Beard finished his work on the film, he headed west to lead FDM’s Baylor in Los Angeles program for the latter part of the summer.

In Production

Daniel Beard is a senior lecturer in Film & Digital Media at Baylor University. He’s married to Mary Beard, an accounting analyst at L3Harris.

“We have very similar jobs when I’m producing a film,” Beard said. “I am always worried about budget, payroll, all of the different things that accountants do. So, there are a lot of times where I’m like, ‘Hey, honey. What does this mean? What am I supposed to do here?’”

They have four children: Josh, who graduated from Baylor and now works at Rogue Media; Erika, who is in her senior year at Baylor; and twins Zack and Hunter, who are sophomores at Baylor.

“I tell my kids, you don’t want to take my class because I’m going to be harder on you than anybody else,” Beard said.