Neil Brook Johnson (born 26 July 1967) is a British film and music video producer, director, and editor best known for his long association with heavy metal band Manowar, and for directing and writing science fiction films.
Neil Brook Johnson (born 26 July 1967) is a British film and music video producer, director, and editor best known for his long association with heavy metal band Manowar, and for directing and writing science fiction films.
Born in Southampton, England he emigrated to Australia at the age of five. At the age of 20, Neil became the youngest (paid) director in Australia. [1]
Johnson's lengthy career includes stints as producer, director, editor, cinematographer, and production manager. Beginning his career as a camera assistant, Neil was obsessed with Science Fiction, and would spend his spare time making short films. His first 40 music videos were made for free before he started earning a living. [1]
To date, Johnson has made over 500 music videos for bands like Manowar, U2, Rammstein and Rhapsody of Fire. [2] He has directed 6 feature films. His first film, Demons In My Head (1997) is reputed to be the world's first digital film. [1] His second film, To Become One (2000) was produced for exactly $2,196, as proof that you do not need money to make a successful film.[ original research? ] His third film, Battlespace (2003) was the shot in Arizona and boasted over 500 digital effects, which, at the time, was considered by some members of the press [3] to be a major feat before the digital film-making explosion.
From 2005 to 2007, he shot an additional 20 minutes for the first 2 films, re-cut them, updated the effects, re-sized the films up to high definition and renamed the films. [1] Demons In My Head is now called Nephilim and To Become One is called Bipolar Armageddon.
In 2008, he made Humanity's End, a film about the last man in the universe being hunted down to extinction by a race of beings known as the Nephilim. In fact, all his films take place in the same universe and all contain Nephilim as characters dominating mankind. These films have won him praise as "The Chester Novell Turner of our time" for creating such a monumentous sci-fi trilogy using digital film-making techniques which he created in his spare time. [1]
In 2009/2010 he made the film Alien Armageddon. It was originally called "Battleground Los Angeles", but when 2 other films with similar titles were announced, the name was changed. The film continued the story in the Nephilim universe, tying up all the loose ends. It featured actors Claudia Wells, Virginia Hey and Marilyn Ghigliotti. [4]
2011 saw the release of Alien Dawn , a direct take on The War of the Worlds . The film was set in modern times and showed Los Angeles decimated with Martian tripods, more akin to George Pal than the original H.G. Wells version. Johnson stated in a number of interviews that he would one day do a proper version of The War of the Worlds once the rights became clear in the UK [5]
In 2012, Johnson made the film Death Machine in the UK, following the death of his best friend, Philip Burthem. He stated in an interview on the Geekscape podcast that this film was his personal favorite, born out of the pain of his loss. [6]
2012 He made the films Starship: Rising and Starship: Apocalypse . Both films were shot back to back and were shot on Johnson's own studio soundstage, Morphius Studios. The films were shot and produced in 4K resolution. [7]
In 2012 he was featured n the Discovery Channel's Television program Stalked. The episode highlighted the problems he had with a stalker, Wendy Feiner, who had stalked him since 2003. It is alleged that she made many death threats against him and when she was finally arrested, she continued the harassment in jail until the day she died of a drug overdose in September 2012. [8] Iva Franks [9] and her brother Michael Martin [10] both died after the incident due to dealing with the stress of the situation. Neil Johnson remains the sole survivor of this incident. [11] [12] [13]
In 2016, he made the film called Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter, starring Tracey Birdsall. The film was released by Sony Pictures USA. [14] The film was notable for having its spaceship design and poster artwork emulated by Star Wars' Mandalorian Television series that came out two years later. [15]
Between the years 1995 and 2024, Neil Johnson has been working on The Time War, a $10 million, 10 episode TV series, shot in England, Scotland, Iceland, Germany and Malibu California. It was written in 1995 as a feature film, but finally became a television series in 2018, after he was forced to re-shoot footage following the fires in Malibu in December 2018, in which some of the footage was lost to the fire. [16] [17] Despite losing everything he owned to the fire, Neil Johnson has been able to complete the series, albeit slowly before its impending release. [16] [18] The Time War stars Tracey Birdsall, William Kircher, Christopher Showerman, Daniel Logan, Barry Corbin, Christopher Showerman, Stephen Manley, and features the voice talents of Christopher Lee, Paul Darrow and Marilyn Ghigliotti. [19] [16]
Repo Man is a 1984 American science fiction black comedy film written and directed by Alex Cox in his directorial debut. It stars Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez, with Tracey Walter, Olivia Barash, Sy Richardson, Vonetta McGee, Fox Harris, and Dick Rude among the supporting cast. Set in Los Angeles, the plot concerns a young punk rocker (Estevez) who is recruited by a car repossession agency and gets caught up in the pursuit of a mysterious Chevrolet Malibu that might be connected to extraterrestrials.
Phil Tippett is an American film director and visual effects supervisor and producer, who specializes in creature design, stop-motion and computerized character animation. Over his career, he has assisted ILM and DreamWorks, and in 1984 formed his own company, Tippett Studio.
Andrzej Sekuła is a Polish cinematographer and film director. He was cinematographer on Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary's films Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.
John Lafia was an American film director and screenwriter. He was best known for co-writing the 1988 film Child's Play and directing its 1990 sequel Child's Play 2.
Sean Michael Turrell is a director of music videos and documentary television. He has directed videos for Canadian bands such as Billy Talent, Lights, Protest the Hero, Hedley, MSTRKRFT, Blue Rodeo, Great Lake Swimmers, Magneta Lane and Sum 41. He has also directed videos for Hawksley Workman, Michael Bublé, David Usher, Brendan Canning, Buck 65, Tegan and Sara and Good Charlotte.
Marc Benardout is a British film director and film producer. He is a distant relative of the American composer Irving Berlin and the French science fiction writer Jules Verne.
Christopher Leone is a Los Angeles–based filmmaker with a background in visual effects and CG animation.
A starship is a theoretical vehicle for interstellar travel.
Kirk Harris is an American actor-filmmaker who has been the lead actor in several films that have had arthouse theatrical releases in the U.S. He starred in the 2013 western thriller A Sierra Nevada Gunfight by director Vernon Mortensen. The film was shot in the mountains of Eastern San Diego county. The film was written by Mortensen and Johnny Harrington. He also starred in The Kid: Chamaco, which was shot in Mexico City by Mexican director/producer Miguel Necoechea. The film was written by Harris, Necoechea and Canadian filmmaker Carl Bessai. A former amateur boxer, Harris played a boxer on-screen for the first time. The film made its United States premiere at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival. The film premiered in theatres in late 2010 and was chosen as a Critics Pick for the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times.
Herbert Neil Travis was an American film and television editor with about 28 feature film credits from 1970–2007. He is likely best known for editing the television miniseries Roots (1977) and the feature film Dances with Wolves (1990).
Humanity's End is a 2009 American fantasy science fiction film directed by Neil Johnson. Based upon a story concept by Johnson, and with a screenplay by Johnson and Michael Jonathan Smith, the film stars Jay Laisne, Rochelle Vallese and Cynthia Ickes.
Gil Cates Jr. is an American producer and director, and former actor. His 2006 documentary film Life After Tomorrow, which he co-produced and directed with Julie Stevens, won awards for both Best Documentary and Best Director at the Phoenix Film Festival and had its premiere on Showtime. He is the executive director of the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.
Tracey Birdsall is an American actress.
Robot & Frank is a 2012 American science fiction comedy-drama film directed by Jake Schreier from a screenplay by Christopher Ford. The film stars Frank Langella, Susan Sarandon, Peter Sarsgaard, James Marsden, and Liv Tyler.
Ex Machina is a 2014 science fiction thriller film written and directed by Alex Garland in his directorial debut. A co-production between the United Kingdom and the United States, it stars Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, and Oscar Isaac. It follows a programmer who is invited by his CEO to administer the Turing test to an intelligent humanoid robot.
Steve Johnson is an English film director.
Christian Sebaldt is a German-born cinematographer best known for his work on the long-running CSI: Crime Scene Investigation television series, for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series in 2010. In addition, he has worked on numerous major motion pictures, including Resident Evil: Apocalypse and FeardotCom, and commercials for companies like Toyota and Energizer.
Everything Beautiful Is Far Away is a 2017 independent science-fiction fantasy film written and directed by Pete Ohs, co-directed by Andrea Sisson, starring Julia Garner and Joseph Cross. It premiered in competition at the 2017 Los Angeles Film Festival where it received the U.S. Fiction Cinematography Award.
Starship: Rising is a 2014 action science fiction film directed by Neil Johnson. The film was generally poorly received.
The Creator is a 2023 American science fiction action film directed and co-produced by Gareth Edwards, who wrote the story and co-wrote the screenplay with Chris Weitz. It stars John David Washington, Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe, Sturgill Simpson, and Allison Janney. Set in 2070, 15 years after artificial intelligence (AI) set off a nuclear detonation in Los Angeles, which started a war of humans against AI, a former special forces agent is recruited to hunt down and kill the "Creator," who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war.
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