Meet Joshua Johns

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joshua Johns. 

Hi Joshua, so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I started off in the early 2000s directing plays at my local church and caught the attention of the music and media pastor. He showed me how to edit video in Premiere 2.0, helped get a video camera into my hands, and encouraged me throughout my life. My family in 2003 purchased me a Sony Hi8 video camera and in 2004 I purchased my first editing software, Pinnacle 9! I spent hours editing videos and shooting with friends. Events at the church had to be covered and videos shown the next Sunday, sometimes making turnaround time in less than 12 hours, which according to several people it was “impossible” to do. I studied video production in Chicago and earned a BA in video. While in school I did an internship under my music and media pastor to increase the production quality of the Sunday services. We built the 5-year plan to get to 1080HD video, trained a team of directors and camera ops, ran cables all over the auditoriums underground pipes so we could have 7 cameras during the Christmas musicals, and made sure to lay the framework for a growing church body with easy hookups for overflow rooms, and so much more! Once college was over, I returned to Flint because I knew they didn’t have much media and I wanted to change that. It took a while, lots of learning, failures, and hardship, but I learned where I was weak, where I needed to rely on others, how to delegate when I needed and where my strengths are. Now I film for name-brand corporations, non-profits, universities, and even the occasional wedding for my friend’s wedding company out of Chicago. I have been on a team where we were awarded 3 bronze Telly’s and later the project, I was heavily involved with building went on to a silver Telly. I have filmed events where clients have raised over $400,000 to continue changing the lives of kids and created emotional works about changing people’s lives from homelessness to self-sufficient. It has truly been a ride and I am so thankful and blessed that now almost 20 years in the industry I am able to mentor teens and adults at my new church in photo and video work. Seeing their faces light up as they learn, discover, and try new things, but also seeing teens who felt left out now having a desire to participate and feel loved and welcome makes the long nights and thousands of blurry, dark, and random photos so worth it. 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I have made several mistakes along the way. I would say when I first started out, I really didn’t understand what I was doing or how me not producing good work affected the overall project. I also took on way too much and ended up not knowing how to balance life and work. I developed videos for a small group of clients making over $40,000 in six months, which the previous job I made $8,000 in a year. I had no clue what I was doing, but I was living large! great meals, always saying yes, hiring people who never got trained and I really destroyed my quality. Also not taking the “I was wrong” stance when a lot of times it was my fault. Over the years I started figuring out what I was best at and now I only focus on that. If a project isn’t what I’m good at I will help connect them to someone better suited for their needs. I learned you can’t be good at everything all the time, and money doesn’t fix all the problems. 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I learned after shooting over 100 weddings that I don’t really like the stress of the wedding day. Now shooting second for my friend’s company is way better than hoping you filmed the everything yourself. I really enjoy the montage footage from wedding videos but not the stress, so I’ve focused on that. High profile event coverage or getting those tear-jerker stories from people’s lives changing because for the first time someone believed in them and pushed them to reach for their goals. Those are what I focus on and the stories I love telling. 

If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Interviews you have to be able to relate with people because not everything can be saved in post. Understanding where your client is coming from is huge. One of my clients wants donations from individuals and loves finding new ways to bring in income. One client is given money based on how many people they have come through their doors to impact the local community; they want more stories of how someone through their door impacted the community and was offered a job in the community over how to make more money. Once I learned that the focus switched and the videos are making impacts but told from vastly different perspectives. If you don’t understand why your client is doing what they are doing you may never connect to their audience and they won’t see the success even if the video is amazing. 

Contact Info:

• Email: jjohnsstudios@gmail.com
• Instagram: jjohnsstudios