Living Mountain Productions founder Brian DeRan began his career in film after studying painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art. He worked on film and TV productions including Pecker, Cecil B. Demented (John Waters), The Wire, and Matthew Barney’s Cremaster II.

After gilding and restoring monuments around the world, he co-founded Monitor Records in Baltimore and collaborated with Palace Records. In 2005, DeRan moved to New York, where he launched Leg Up Artist Management in 2006. In 2010, he co-produced Transverse Temporal Gyrus at the Guggenheim with Animal Collective and co-founded the acclaimed Basilica Soundscape festival, which he co-curated until 2016.

He relocated to Los Angeles in 2012, eventually settling in the California high desert. In 2019, DeRan left the music industry to return to film and fine art, working on projects with Farrington Press, James Turrell, Mary Weatherford, and Sterling Ruby.

Now based in New Mexico, he focuses full-time on filmmaking, writing, and painting.