Graham Brown: The Perfect Dude for Dude Perfect

Background

Graham Brown grew up in a christian household in the small town of Spring Hill, Kan. about 35 minutes away from Kansas City. Every Sunday, Brown and his family attended College Church of the Nazarene on MidAmerica Nazarene University’s campus, where his father worked. Brown comes from a long line of Olivet alumni as his grandpa, father, uncles, and brothers all attended Olivet previously.

Video production has been a lifelong dream for Brown. As a child, he had always wanted to be a YouTuber. When he was in fifth grade, he started watching YouTube videos on what it took to become a YouTuber, how to get views, and how to have good viewer retention. He went to a small middle school where he had about 50 kids in his class and there were no media classes whatsoever. No photography, video or multimedia classes made learning a difficult process, but he stuck through it and eventually went on to teach his own media classes at his high school during his senior year. He saved up money and bought his first camera as a sophomore in high school by working on the farm for his grandpa ever since he was a middle schooler. Starting out, Brown was just making some funny videos with his friends in high school and posting them to HCA the Scoop on YouTube where you can still find them today. Eventually, he made his way into Sports Videography–his true passion.

Sports Videography

During his junior year, Brown became interested in turning a hobby into real money, and he decided that sports videography would be his medium to do so. Early in 2022, he shot his first basketball games at his high school. One of the players’ dads owned a basketball club similar to AAU and liked his work. He offered Brown a job shooting games and editing highlight reels for the club, and he even bought Brown a $2,000 camera to use at the club’s games and for his own personal use. He travelled with the team to shoot basketball games every weekend and was constantly getting better while running the team’s social media page as well–he even made a documentary on the team at the end of the season. 

Johnny Cook, a lifelong friend, highlighted Brown’s growth both as a person and as a visual storyteller as Brown transitioned from silly videos on HCA The Scoop to more serious videos, edits and highlight reels. An occasional goofy video for HCA The Scoop was still made, but for the most part, Brown was all business now.

“As we got older and matured his stuff became more serious…He became so much better at story telling and how to film certain shots. He also began to branch out from stories to filming mini documentary projects and sports,” said Cook.

While serving on the student council in high school, Brown made his own media company called Big Gumbo Media. Additionally, Big Gumbo Media has its own Instagram page where Brown posted most of his content throughout high school and even into his days at Olivet where he worked closely with the men and women’s basketball and volleyball teams. 

Graham’s time at Olivet

Brown spent 3 of his 4 semesters at Olivet as a business major before switching to multimedia communication before the second semester of his sophomore year. He was shooting videos and making edits for the basketball teams while doing freelance gigs, engagements and senior photos. Freshman year, Brown wrote, directed and edited three ollies follies shows, which he notes as a career highlight thus far. As he began to think about the future, he truly began to wonder what exactly he wanted to do. He was not above the classes Olivet had to offer, but he felt like he had already gained a lot of the skills that were being taught and was focused more on improving those skills and challenging himself. He spent a lot of time deliberating and questioning the future value of what he was doing.

“What do I really want to do with this? Who’s going to notice a kid from Olivet making these kinds of things? And I was like, you know what? I should just try to put myself out there. I prayed about it and Dude Perfect came to mind. I was like, ‘Dude Perfect aligns exactly with everything that I believe, like I’m a christian and I believe that I want to be doing something that’s going to impact others’ lives for the better,’” he said.

Brown has been very passionate about video production for years, as noted earlier. As his interest grew, so did his passion. For years before getting his first camera, Brown was already watching videos on video production and finding tips and tricks to perfect his craft. 

“He truly loves what he does and has an incredible talent for it. As soon as we started making videos he was constantly researching and teaching himself new tips, tricks, camera equipment and editing software. I believe he could watch YouTube videos and read articles on this stuff everyday for the rest of his life,” said Cook.

A story of Patience with Dude Perfect and trust in God

After much time and thought in prayer, Brown decided to apply at Dude Perfect for several reasons. The most attractive reason for him was due to their christian values aligning with his christian values, but he also had family in Dallas that lived just ten minutes from Dude Perfect’s headquarters, so he already had a place to stay throughout the summer internship.

Brown applied for the job, and did not hear back for two months. Eventually, in March, he received an email saying that he was one of the top candidates for the internship and that they would be reaching out to him in a month. After that month had passed, he got a message from Dude Perfect that he would receive a final word that Friday. Brown spent that week nervously waiting, waiting and waiting for a message; constantly refreshing his inbox and checking all his folders, only to never receive a message on that Friday. They messaged him again the next Monday with confirmation that he would receive word on Wednesday. Stomach churning, Brown waited and waited until Wednesday evening when he received a call that confirmed he had gotten the internship. Brown called that season one of the hardest and most challenging seasons of his life so far, but yet still trusted that God would provide. 

Obviously, this was an extremely difficult time for Brown. His patience and faith were tested unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Brown relied on his friends to keep his mind off of it.

“I think just being there for him and trying to keep his spirits up was important. Trying to keep his mind off things and just encouraging him throughout the whole interview process was the least we could do,” said Cook.

A few weeks into the internship, Chad Terrell–Brown’s boss–informed him that Dude Perfect wanted him to stay and work there beyond that summer. Obviously, Brown was an Olivet student as well, so he was faced with the hardest decision of his life. On one hand, his parents, grandparents and entire family really wanted him to get his degree from Olivet, but on the other hand, this was exactly the kind of job that he had been looking for. Eventually, after more thought and prayer, Brown decided to take the job with Dude Perfect.

How Dude Perfect has impacted Graham’s faith

Dude Perfect consists of five christian men; Tyler Tony, Garrett Hilbert, Cody Jones, and Coby and Cory Cotton. The five of them believe that their faith is something they need to put first and foremost in their life, which Brown says is evident through the way they act in their videos and how they conduct themselves when not filming. On the Dude Perfect live tour specifically, they present the gospel and they sit up on stage in front of large crowds spreading the good news. 

“I think it’s amazing, and it’s exactly why I’m glad to be where I’m at, making awesome content for fans to see Jesus through.”

Brown, along with his roommate Jackson Haltom, created @dpinterns on Instagram where they post content that is clean and consumable for families. The content is not necessarily christian content, but it is content that is consumable and appropriate for all ages. Additionally, Brown and Haltom post stories asking how they can pray for their fans, which has given him a unique opportunity and quite the long prayer list.

“We get a lot of people in our DMs saying stuff about how they love the content but this is how I’m struggling, could you pray for me?” he said. “And like, people look up to Dude Perfect or look up to me and Jackson. Sending a quick message back saying we’ll be praying for you is something that I think is really awesome.”

Graham’s future goals

Right now, Graham is focused on content creation along with his roommate, Jackson. 

“I, as of now, do not plan on coming back to school just with the way all my stuff is going…but I do want to finish college eventually because my mom really wants me to, whether that’s through Olivet or some other online school.” 

“I believe that anyone and everyone that’s a Christian is called to ministry in some capacity. I think there’s lots of ways you can be a teacher.”