About
Film Director
TV Director
Writer
Teacher
Los Angeles-based director of multiple seasons of the popular dramedy ZOE VALENTINE for Brat TV; comedy shorts for FUNNY OR DIE; and the digital series THE CONNERS. His award-winning films HARD PILL (MTV’s Logo Network) and WAR STORY have each played in over 50 film festivals worldwide. When John’s not directing or teaching on-camera acting, he likes to blog about the craft of filmmaking and the work of his favorite directors.
Blog
Exploring cinematic brilliance one shot at a time
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MAD MEN: AN APPRECIATION
In honor of, nay, in grieving for, the final episode of MAD MEN, I wanted to post about what the show has meant to me. As luck would have it (for this blog post, at least), watching the show from
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SPIELBERG ONERS (Zhou, 2014)
I really enjoy the work that Tony Zhou does with his Every Frame a Painting video essays. They're informative, well considered and presented, insightful, and super educational for even the seasoned filmmaker. Whether you've never thought of a particular idea before or
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BACK TO THE FUTURE (Zemeckis, 1985)
Couldn't have done this better myself, so I post it here. This by the same guy, Jamie Benning, who created the fantastic "filmumentaries" on JAWS, RAIDERS, and STAR WARS, by exhaustively collecting existing interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, alternate takes, etc, and cutting them
