Estero teen, an aspiring filmmaker, to share his latest movie at Bonita Springs Short Film Fest – Naples Daily News

Evan Johnston is an award-wining, aspiring filmmaker. 

Johnston, an Estero resident, said he was inspired to explore his interest in movies after attending a film camp in St. Augustine. In 2017, he received a camera for his birthday and began making his first film. 

That movie, “An Ancient Mystery Revealed,” won a technical award and the people’s choice award at the 2017 Bonita Springs Film Festival. In 2018, Johnston’s second film, “Through Kate’s Eyes” won the festival’s Henderson Franklin Prize for best overall film. 

Johnston, 17, said he hopes to achieve more success this year with his third film, “The Mound Key Chronicles: The Oligarchy Conspiracy.”

Johnston said film making requires collaboration to tell a story. 

“Humans love stories,” he said. “They don’t learn by graphs or numbers. They learn by stories.”

He’s entered his latest creative work at the Bonita Springs Short Film Festival Competition this week.

Q&A with Evan Johnston 

The Banner: Tell me about the first film you ever made. Why did you want to make a movie? 

Evan Johnston: In 2017 (“An Ancient Mystery Revealed”), that was the first film I ever made. It stems back to the spring. I went to a film camp in St. Augustine at the Florida Film Academy. That’s where I was kind of interested in dabbling. We made a movie in a week. 

I was really passionate. My birthday was in the summer, and I got a camera. I wasn’t expecting to do a movie. I was making fun YouTube videos. Then, we were in Bonita and I saw a poster for the film festival. My dad said, ‘Yes, we’re entering that.’ That was it. That was around June, so the film festival was in November and we spent that whole time filming. 

That was the first try, so I was really excited when it produced something. 

TB: Two of your films have connections to history. Why do you like making films about history? 

EJ: There’s such rich history, especially in this area here that nobody knows about. It’s good source material where you can explore something that’s already happened. We call it historical fiction where you take a time period and in a fiction way explore the different things the historical figures could have done that weren’t essentially written down in history. I just love that aspect of it. History always has a redeeming value you can talk about. 

TB: Tell me about your process. How do you get your ideas? 

EJ: The first part that comes is the story, before you start anything. It normally comes in a newspaper article. Our historical ones have come from just researching the area. 

It normally happens where we get an idea and figure out what we can flesh out. What is the message? What can we say? How can we make this entertaining? It not only has to be entertaining, it has to have a message. It normally happens around a round table where we all talk about ideas. There’s a lot of arguing and a lot of bantering back and forth. That’s what happens when you work with other people. Once we come out with a decent idea structure, I’ll write it through and we’ll go over dialogue. Once we have that solidified, we have actors we look for. Then we schedule shoot times. It takes a lot of work and a lot of time. I would say the average amount of time is six hours of filming a day. 

TB: What do you like about participating in the Bonita Springs Film Festival? 

EJ: The competition but also the ability to make something. It’s fun to get awards and cash prizes, but it’s fun to produce something. I probably wouldn’t have made that first movie if it wasn’t for the film festival.

TB: Tell me about your latest film. What is it about? 

EJ: This movie is about the oligarchies from past and present. The definition of oligarchy is a small group of people controlling the masses. The oligarchy we talk about here is the Medici. This movie is about a key the Medici possessed in Florence that was taken here to Mound Key, which is an island off Bonita Springs (in Estero Bay). It was thought this key had supernatural powers. The Medici wanted to bring the key here to establish their dominance. 

Fast forward to modern day. These kids find the key and they start to unravel the history behind it. They start to find out the Medici descendants are still looking for the key because they lost it. They would do anything to get this key. 

It connects to the theme of the film festival, which is “Secrets of Bonita.” 

TH: What is your favorite movie? 

EJ: “The Sting” (1973) with Robert Redford and Paul Newman. I first watched it when I was 14. It had a twist at the end— it was the first movie that blew my mind in how they did everything. That really stuck with me. 

TH: Are there filmmakers today who inspire you?

EJ: That’s tough because there are so many good ones. I do like Christopher McQuarrie. He made the last “Mission: Impossible” movie, which is in my top ten movies. Just the way he uses the characters and plays with the characters, I really like that. He’s someone who at a young age won an Oscar for his screenplay. I thought, man, that would be really cool as a young person to win an Oscar. 

TB: What is next for you? 

EJ: The ultimate goal for college is Lipscomb University, which is in Tennessee. They have one of the best film schools in that area.

There’s so much stuff we could add in this movie that we didn’t. We had to cut a lot of stuff out. The goal is — it’s called a proof of concept. We’ll take this short film. We will take a finished script and we will kind of shop it around and put it out there and say ‘This is what I have, does anyone want to back me up and think this is a good idea and help me make this a movie?’ 

Especially in this digital age of content streaming of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, more and more young writers are being hired to create new shows. So, the future is bright. 

Editor’s note: This interview as been edited for clarity and length.

If You Go

Bonita Springs Short Film Festival Gala

When: 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 7, Under 16 competition 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 9

Where: Prado Stadium 12, 25251 Chamber of Commerce Drive

Tickets: bonitaspringsfilmfestival.com/gala/

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