Connect
To Top

Meet John Woodruff

Avatar photo

Today we’d like to introduce you to John Woodruff.

John, before we jump into specific questions about your work, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Like so many, I’ve loved horror (and movies) since I was little… mostly because my Mom would come get me out of bed late at night if there was a “scary” movie on and we would watch it together. They were conservative films, a Hitchcock film like The Birds, or an old Hammer or Universal production, but at the time, it felt like we were breaking the rules and facing our fears… together… in the dark… in our seemingly ancient, isolated farmhouse and it made a huge impression on me. We were always reading scary stories, or telling our own, trying to scare each other, making costumes and decorating for Halloween, but I never considered filmmaking or acting as a kid because it seemed like such a far off magical thing.

It wasn’t until I was goofing off in class as a freshman in high school that I became introduced to the idea of acting when my English teacher was perceptive enough to manage my ill-placed theatrical antics by making me audition for the high school play instead of giving me detention. From there I was hooked, but it still never occurred to me that maybe I could actually make a film until college when I took a class called Acting For the Camera which was very production oriented. You have to realize that we didn’t even have cell phones or laptops back then, haha! Maybe a few kids that were ahead of the curve, but most of us were still going to the computer lab to get on the internet and mad when we had to do that! So even while I was in college, the technology really wasn’t readily available to make a film unless you had been exposed to film, beta, but to make a REAL film was a very hard thing to do because of how hard it was to get your hands on the tools that were necessary to make a REAL movie.

So when I got out of college, a lot of the stuff I was acting in was being shot on mini-DV and it was OK, but honestly, the quality still was nowhere close to that of film… it was around this time that I fell into modeling, which took me to NYC and then on to Japan. It was there that I eventually became exposed to the SLR camera… these photographers were shooting behind the scenes videos and fashion videos on the same cameras that they were shooting stills on and the video looked SPECTACULAR. It was then that I finally knew that I could try to make a film… the accessible technology had finally reached a point that made sense to me, and so I started developing my first short film, but even then, a big part of my reasoning for that was to advance my career as an actor… it didn’t turn out half bad so I kept going.

Made a couple more between acting and modeling, knowing that my goal was always to work up to a feature. A friend from that Acting for the Camera class way back in college was LA-based (I was in NYC) and introduced me to a former studio head who was looking to hire an assistant into his production company in LA and I got the job, so I moved out here, decided to phase the acting and modeling out, focus on film making and here we are.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Haha, it sounds so simple in the previous answer, doesn’t it? Just grow up, go through life and make a movie! I suppose it could be that simple and in a way it is, but in a way, it absolutely is not. It is a constant struggle with constant failure and rejection along the way, but I think anyone in this town is aware of the challenges of breaking into (and sustaining a career in) this industry. You either learn to focus on the positive, measure the gain in the loss, find the compliment in the insult and move forward or you don’t and you stop moving forward.

Fortunately, I have a great family and group of friends around me who are very supportive and that helps a lot while you are out there getting beat up, learning some of those tougher lessons. I work very hard to focus on the positive, the lessons learned through the struggle and failure and that in and of itself is probably the biggest struggle… learning to transform the negatives into positives and not letting the perceivable failures and struggles overcome you. It sounds cliche’ and I’ve heard so many people say it, but perseverance and persistence really are key. You have to keep moving, live to fight another day as they say… How was that for answering the question without really answering the question? Haha

We’d love to hear more about your work.
I directed and was one of two lead producers on the film Animal Among Us. I produced the film with Jonathan Murphy who wrote the film and also acted in it. It stars Larisa Oleynik, Christian Oliver, Don Frye, Erin Daniels and Heather Tom and was released this past November. The film is currently available on multiple platforms in multiple territories and has received a lot of positive press thanks to our distributor Keith Leopard and publicist Clint Morris. I am excited about what the film has been able to achieve in spite of being my first feature film and done on an extremely limited budget in an extremely limited period of time.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
Well, it was kind of a natural creative evolution or journey that led me to filmmaking, so I think luck or chance kind of played a large role in the process. It was all of the random, weird things that happened in my life before I started making films that equipped me with the tools to make films… I just didn’t know that it was happening while it was happening, haha! I learned to block in theatre, learned to act in theatre, to break down a character, a scene, a script… I learned to adapt and evolve in improv, to let go of the structure and embrace the unknown, to trust it… improv also taught me a tremendous amount about communication and leadership, team building and group dynamic…

I learned a lot about wardrobe and make-up when I was modeling, haha, photography too… I was huge into illustration and design when I was younger, which in addition to hanging out with those fashion photographers, taught me about composition, movement in a shot, framing and perspective… reading all those comic books when all I wanted to do was illustrate comic books didn’t hurt from a visual storytelling perspective either and growing up on a farm where we were constantly building things and fixing things, in addition to working construction, and then art department, in both theatre and film was definitely advantageous.

I was also lucky because through the acting and modeling, I became exposed to some people who were really able to teach me a lot about the filmmaking process and really acted as guides and mentors (and still do) and they kind of give you this idea that you can do it, and tell you to do it and so you take the plunge and then you just start piecing things together from shoots you’ve been on and those seemingly random experiences throughout your life and eventually it all starts making some kind of sense, I suppose, haha… I might not have never gotten into acting had I not been goofing off in that Freshman English class and that teacher hadn’t made me audition for the high school play.

Would’ve never taken the Acting for the Camera class in college if I hadn’t broken my leg twice my senior year of High School causing me to miss my entire senior soccer and wrestling season, resulting in me going to college just to get back the soccer season I missed… and what are the chances that it was a friend from that acting class that introduced me to the studio head who convinced me to move to LA… Animal Among Us would not be what it is if I hadn’t produced it out of LA as I never would’ve met Jonathan Murphy- WHO strange as it is, I met through another friend living in LA who I literally grew up riding the school bus with and have known since I was six years old… so yeah… luck, chance, whatever you want to call it, it has been there all along.

Contact Info:

Suggest a story: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.

Related Items

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More in