About the founder:

John Barnhardt

john_mesa verde ruins I grew up in Seattle and Colorado and moved here about eight years ago.  My father was a photographer and an avid movie watcher.   When I was very young I had the opportunity to see some of the best movies in the theaters.  Although at the time I thought it was weird to be in an “R” rated movie at the age of seven, as I got older, it became the defining moments of my future as a film maker.

I believe you have to start from the bottom and never forget where you came from started out running the teleprompter for a local news station at five o clock in the morning.  I eventually worked my way up to being a news photographer where I had some success by winning several awards for some stories I did.  Because of those awards, I began teaching a video lab at Trident Technical College at night.  This is where I became friends with my mentor, Russ Schaaf.  I dove into the film side of things and eventually got the job as the commercial production manager at a local television station.  At the same time I began teaching a 16mm and a 35mm film course.  I then got a job producing a national exploration show called “Exploration with Richard Wiese.”   This show took me all over the globe including Australia and Ireland.  Although this was a great experience, it was keeping me from my ultimate goal as a filmmaker.  So I left the show to start working on my current project “The Man Who Shot God.”