Following the Breeze

Incarceration altered his life; now MTSU film student Brian Maxwell helps reform local inmates

by Robin E. Lee and Drew Ruble

Brian Maxwell is an Honors Buchanan Transfer Fellow, a 43-year-old married father of three (his oldest son, Mike, also attends MTSU), and a Video and Film Production major who graduated this spring with a 4.0 GPA.

But Maxwell hasn’t always led such a model life. In 2000, as a young man entering his 20s, Maxwell was arrested (for the first time) for simple possession of marijuana. Between repeat offenses and parole violations, he would spend the next six years in and out of jail.

His story represents two very different lives. But recently, through his volunteer work, Maxwell’s two worlds have collided.

Maxwell is giving back to current inmates in Rutherford County with hands-on training and education in audio and video equipment and production to help them chart a more positive course for their futures. It’s training they would not otherwise be able to receive and is unlike any other correctional education program currently offered in the state. And it is experience Maxwell put toward his Honors thesis.

Losing His Way

Maxwell vividly recalls seeing the movie Back to the Future in theaters when he was just 5 years old. He says the movie ignited his passion for film production. He recalls the lights and sounds, the larger-than-life action sequences, and the story itself.

He graduated from high school in 1998 and moved from Horn Lake, Mississippi, to Smyrna, not far from the MTSU campus. He got a job working in a computer room at a book distributor. His goal, though, was to begin film school at MTSU. But life choices altered his plans.

Maxwell had started smoking marijuana when he was 16. He said it helped with his depression. One day, though, he was pulled over by the police for a broken taillight and was caught with marijuana in his car. He was arrested for simple possession.

“The first time I spent in jail, I felt complete shame. There was a pit in my stomach. I couldn’t look up from the floor,” Maxwell said. “[But] it took less than 30 days before I was all smiles and heckling the guards for an extra sandwich. I became institutionalized very quickly.”

Over the next six years, Maxwell was in and out of jail several times. It was always either a new charge for a small amount of marijuana or a probation violation that led to reincarceration.

“I feel like probation is a scheme designed to send poor people to jail. I would fail a drug test or miss a high-dollar payment toward my fines, and they would issue a warrant for my arrest,” Maxwell said. “It was an escalating time frame. The first violation was 30 days, the second was 60 to 90 days, and the third was 90 to 364 days. The longest stretches I did at one time were 180 days and 145 days.

“I was terrified the first time, nervous the second time, and felt like a veteran of the system by the third. I honestly don’t even remember the person I was before my time in jail, and I was confident that I would go to my grave institutionalized.”

MAXWELL TEACHES CURRENT INMATES ABOUT VIDEO AND FILM PRODUCTION, AS WELL AS SOFT SKILLS.

Maxwell spent his 21st birthday behind bars at the Rutherford County Correctional Work Center. Sadly, his father passed away while he was incarcerated.

It was 2006 before he was finally clear of the system.

“The air smelled cleaner, food tasted better, and a massive weight was lifted off me mentally,” he said.

Following his final release, Maxwell started working in construction. He worked as much as he could, sometimes earning less than minimum wage, but when he broke two vertebrae in his spine on a construction site, his work opportunities shrank.

“I struggled to find work for about six months because I could no longer lift anything. I was in tremendous pain for about a decade,” he said, adding that for a time he was homeless.

He was fortunate to eventually find a desk job at a storage facility. Then, when the Affordable Care Act passed, he was finally able to get surgery on his fractured back.

“I was no longer in pain and could do things I thought I would never do again,” he said.

At long last, he turned his sights toward his long-held dream of making movies.

A New Direction

Maxwell wanted to study film at MTSU. But first he needed to establish himself as a good student. He used the Reconnect Grant to attend Motlow State Community College, where he became an honors student. After completing his associate degree at the Smyrna campus, he took advantage of MTSU’s Honors College Transfer Fellowship to enroll at MTSU.

Honors students at MTSU must complete a thesis before graduation. Maxwell’s thesis details his life, but part of it also reflects on his passionate volunteer work at the Rutherford County Correctional Work Center, where he was once imprisoned.

On a weekly basis, and using his own equipment, Maxwell teaches current inmates about video and film production, as well as soft skills they wouldn’t otherwise learn while incarcerated. The inmates receive hands-on experience with audio recorders, microphones, boom poles, slates, cameras, tripods, and editing software.

“I speak their language, and that is more important than any of my actual knowledge,” Maxwell said. “I connect with them on a deeply emotional level due to our shared experiences; I want to be an example of who they can be. The situation they are in does not define who they are.”

Maxwell hopes that those he is teaching might now have a path forward if they choose to pursue it after his lessons with them are complete.

“You will never reform criminals by sending them to jail. All you do is normalize the experience for them while making them more efficient criminals at the same time,” he said. “Instead of being in situations where they can learn a skill or take a parenting class, inmates are instead offered 20 hours a day in their cell with a few hours to waste playing card games in a slightly bigger room. You must educate and uplift to reform a person.”

It’s not the only volunteer work Maxwell is involved with. He has also helped at Ables Recreation for people with disabilities, Adam’s Place and The Waterford retirement homes, and several local libraries for children’s book readings, in addition to raising thousands of dollars in donations for Autism Speaks (Maxwell’s other two sons, Keith, 15, and Kevin, 14, have autism).

Maxwell said he enjoys teaching and is pursuing a master’s degree in filmmaking at MTSU starting this fall.

Beyond that, he wants to keep making movies with his son, Mike, who is also majoring in Video and Film Production with minors in Mass Communication and Honors at MTSU.

“In a perfect world, we find funding and get to make a big budget Hollywood movie,” Maxwell said. “[But] I’m more of a live-in-the-moment and take-it-as-it-comes guy, so if the winds blow right, I’ll follow the breeze.”