Don Johns - Director

Don Johns began his film career at the ripe old age of 12. Growing up on the beach in Jacksonville, Florida he was fascinated by the miracle of sun rises on the beach. Upon receiving his first film camera, a super-8 with no sound, he began to film every sun rise he could. By the 7th grade he and some friends had made their first film, “The Sixteen Dollar Man, plus tax” It was a cult classic at Sandalwood High School. “I didn’t know then that I was beginning something that would stick with me the rest of my life”

The drive to make pictures and tell stories continued to evolve as Don became more and more skilled in the movie making process. “I’ve always dreamed of making a real movie one day, but how would I ever get the chance?” Little did he know that Panasonic was developing some technology that would enable that dream to become reality.

After moving to Charlotte, North Carolina, Don was offered a teaching position at Central Piedmont Community College. Part of his job was show casing new technology to the students. Enter Panasonic and 24P. The school purchased some new cameras and it was my job to go out and test them to make sure everything worked, and also to be familiar with them to show the students how to use them.

“I can remember how excited I was when I first turned on the Panasonic 100-A, if it looks this good in the view finder, I am going to finally make that movie I’ve always dreamed of.”

Well, it did look that good, and then some. For the first time in his life, Don had the tool he needed to take his vision to the masses. So what would he shoot for his first film? Over a two year period Don began to write a screenplay, he would call it, “The Dishwasher”. Based on his own life of growing up in an alcoholic home, it explores the demons that sometimes haunt him from that experience. “My life was not all that exciting, so I took real events from my life and dramatized them, and made other events that weren’t there to help tell the story, but a lot of what is there is sad, but true.” “I didn’t understand where this deep anger I had inside came from and as I got older, I understood it was from that experience. It’s a beautiful story about love, hope and forgiveness. I really want all my movies to explore that theme.”

Fast forward to today. “When I finished “The Dishwasher”, I realized this was a huge film, and the potential was there for this to be a great opportunity to share with the world. I looked into my bag of tools and quickly realized, I’m not ready to take this on, not just yet. So how can I get myself ready?” Take baby steps is what he came up with.

The first baby step was “On My Last Breath” I wrote this short script on a Sunday morning in about an hour. I saw their was something there, but did not realize how much until I saw the actors doing a read through.” It was then that Don for the first time started to believe that maybe he did have the tools to make this happen. Again technology allowed the dream to become reality as it was shot using another Panasonic marvel, the HVX-200. Using the same technology as the Panasonic 100-A, the bar was raised by shooting in High Definition 720-24P. Not only was the film great, but it looked absolutely amazing. Don was now completely convinced, he was there, but still needed to do some more wading before venturing off into the deep end of the pool.

“I went to an open casting session for a George Clooney movie, “Leatherheads” On the way to South Carolina I passed this place off the interstate that looked like nothing I had ever seen. Mountains, caverns, rocks that shimmered in the sun, on the way back, I had to go check that out. 

Enter Kings Mountain the birth place of “Without Hope” 

With no story, but one incredible location, Don knew he had to film there, but what would he film? “I knew it had to be a sci-fi where a character would have to crash land there, but that is all I had. I wrote this script in a very long day, later it would be re-written many, many times by Michael Montero and Rick Alexander, actors and writers of Without Hope. Here again it started out as a simple script that turned into a 15 scene movie. What began to develop was this collaboration between Don, Mike, and Rick, it was a great team effort. They took my rough idea and crafted into a polish piece of work, it really came together.”

Directing Without Hope has been a huge challenge to Don, but he has savored every moment. “I’m just going to get better as I go along, it’s a journey I’m on that I wouldn’t trade for anything.”

Without Hope is scheduled to be out by the Fall of 2007.

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