Using Filmmaking to find your Superhuman Gene
william hutcherson murray a scottish
rider once said that the moment one
definitely commits oneself
then providence moves too
all sorts of things can occur to help
one that would never otherwise have
occurred
whatever you can do or dream you can do
begin it
has genius
power
and magic in it
let me take you on a little journey
through our childhood my brother justin
and i were born and raised for most of
our lives in the small college town of
champaign illinois the home of the
fighting illini and the same was chained
jimmy john’s
but most importantly the place where our
filmmaking dreams were born
we were born four and a half years apart
so in order to hang out with my big
brother i had to do what he did so as
far back as i can remember
i would join julian and watching tv
shows like power rangers all sorts of
japanese anime in each and every marvel
movie that would screen in the theaters
during our childhood
our filmmaking journey began with just a
webcam and imovie app on her home
computer
and a little bit of imagination
i was the big brother right
so i did what big brothers do best
and i boss justin around
so i would boldly challenge justin to
make things teleport disappear and even
make people levitate and justin being
the brilliant one that he is would rise
to the occasion every time
within months we convinced our parents
to upgrade our equipment to flip cameras
and then we take our ventures out into
the neighborhood and cast our friends
and silly videos about virtually
anything but that’s what made it so fun
and that’s when it became clear to us
that boldness
has genius in it
you see in 2012 i was a ten year old
fifth grader when our family decided to
relocate to a town right outside of
columbus ohio pickerington to be exact
this meant we had to make new friends
and integrate into a new community at
the time though i was pretty preoccupied
with figuring out all this filmmaking
stuff so i spent most of my time
studying youtube tutorials and trying
out new filmmaking techniques
i on the other hand was just a 14 year
old freshman starting both high school
and high school football so my
transition was a bit more difficult
since all my peers had grown up together
and i was just the new kid from illinois
i also quickly realized because of the
more diverse hometown my family had just
left my brother’s perspectives and mine
were quite different than most so we had
to figure out how to introduce ourselves
in a bold and memorable way and we
decided to do this through our next
projects
from doing a fantastical short film
about us fighting over meal leftovers
to another about an extra credit santa
claus assignment that involved ninjas
and elves we introduced our style our
humor
our interests and our experiences all in
our own way and actually worked
we soon gained new friends in a growing
village of believers
consequently
the possibilities of what we could
create increase exponentially
boldness has power in it
in december of 2015 we were now 17 and
13
and we were ready to step up our game
yes literally on christmas day my
brother and i announced the world via
youtube of course our formal partnership
as a filmmaking duo ready to take our
projects to the next level
whatever that meant
such a bold proposition however required
an equally daring set of actions we had
no money
and we had no connections but we knew
from our parents that extraordinary
results only came from being willing to
put in the extra work
so we bet on it
believing that if we just got started
and if we put in the work
providence would have to move too
so we began by creating a vision
statement that’s inspired by a verse
from the book of proverbs
speak up for those who cannot speak for
themselves
this vision reflected in large part my
experience of moving from a small
majority minority middle school in
central illinois to a large suburban
high school in central ohio and
realizing that the stories of my mostly
black and brown middle school friends
represented life challenges that we
rarely now heard in our new friend
groups so we became driven
to create images and tell
underrepresented stories that are
entertaining inspiring and uplifting
our first efforts would involve
developing a cinematic universe that
mirrored the world of our hometown
friends who are like heroes to us
because of their perseverance and
resilience but in our alternate universe
their characters would have true
superpowers
to do this we took a page from america’s
history and created a world where the
practice of eugenics during slavery that
is the practice of breeding the
strongest and fastest slaves produce the
dormant superhuman gene
and the superpowers these urban descent
is developed would be shaped and
revealed by traumatic experiences in
their lives
this was our creative interpretation of
saying that which does not kill you
makes you stronger
we had big goals feature films tv series
sequels
but without big money what do you do
you do a short film
so our first short film in this universe
entitled foreshadow is centered around a
young black vigilante who’s gifted with
the supernatural ability to see into the
future
we produced every aspect of this film
and we funded it solely with monies
earned from selling t-shirts donations
and the monies i now earned as a very
fortunate 8th grader who became the
entrusted videographer for my brother’s
high school football team
but we got it done
and in the summer of 2016 at the ages of
now 18 and 14 our short will win in the
youth category the very first film
festival which we submitted
nonetheless our parents thought it was
more important for us to grow rather
than win so moving forward we only
submitted this project to adult
categories so we can really experience
what next level filmmaking looks like
in 2016
the national stories of the two police
shootings of philando castile and alton
sterling weighed heavily on us as young
black men by then julian was now a
freshman at morehouse college and i a
freshman in high school
it troubled us to hear the polarizing
commentary and see the disturbing
footage that was on replay all day
so in early 2017 during our winter break
we filmed our seven-minute artistic take
and commentary on the universal fears in
the african-american community that
these and past police shootings of young
unarmed black men provoked
now we were going to shoot this project
with
no budget
in two and a half days in single digit
weather with five volunteer actors and
our parents crew
but we were willing to do whatever it
took and put in that extra work because
we believe this was a project that could
create dialogue and invoke empathy
but listen to this
in the middle of the first night of the
shoot we hear sirens from a distance
before we knew it we were surrounded by
four police cruisers and staring down
the barrel of multiple police officers
guns all while being told to put our
hands up
fortunately over one of the police
radios though a voice breaks the tension
they’re good they’re good they’re
filmmakers
apparently there was a miscommunication
between our sheriff’s office and our
city police
now whenever we shoot we carry around a
large sign that reads filming in
progress
and talking about life entertaining art
this project that will go on the screen
at five international film festivals and
win a few festival awards but most
importantly our daring endeavor will
ultimately change the trajectory of our
journey
now fast forward to august of 2017 and
we’re now in vineyard haven
massachusetts at the martha’s vineyard
african-american film festival
boldly
our family decided to travel 11 hours by
car bus and boat all just to get to the
screening of a seven minute short film
we had no idea what to expect but we
remembered
extraordinary results require extra work
and sure enough over a period of less
than 48 hours we will meet the one and
only morehouse man and oscar-winning
director spike lee
and we will connect with representatives
from none other than
sesame street now we have to admit at
the time we weren’t too sure what to
think of this chance meeting our film
was about some serious stuff so
sesame street
yes sesame street but when you move
forward boldly remember all sorts of
things occur to help one that would
never otherwise have occurred so not
knowing where this might lead we thought
let’s go
and little did we know that we would
soon learn that boldness could really
unleash magic too
it’s now november 2nd 2017 and i decided
to do some extra credit for my biology
class at morehouse which involved me
creating a two-minute rap video about
meiosis and mitosis and i cannot make
this up within minutes of me posting
this on social media the video will go
viral eventually amassing millions of
views on twitter youtube and facebook
and now we’re going to make television
appearances from good morning america to
tmz
to mtv
julian’s video is still being played in
science classrooms across the country
today
remember sesame street
well it turns out that around that same
time sesame street commissioned us to do
a live action short film
so the news of us being the youngest
filmmakers to be tapped by sesame street
went viral too we would soon enjoy more
national exposure from platforms
including cnn and the new york times
before we knew it we were visiting with
execs at major studios in l.a and
shopping our first feature script but
after a few months and weeks of no
follow-ups or follow-throughs we had
come to a crossroads
what next
how do we become the next russo brothers
hughes brothers or duffer brothers
so justin and i decided to start our own
crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for
a feature script
yep
in 2018 at the ages of now 2016 we
embarked on a campaign to raise a cool
1 million
dollars and guess what
we
didn’t meet the mark
in fact we only raised five thousand
dollars
but thanks to our parents and our
village of believers we didn’t give up
instead we switched gears
and we focused on raising enough funds
to make the best short film possible
making this mental shift led us to
raising the most money we had ever had
to work with on a project at that point
nearly fifty thousand dollars
we were going to produce nia shadow a
short story about a young
african-american woman
with superpowers
today this film has screened at
international film festivals from harlem
new york to los angeles california
it’s important to add though that
although our films have been screened at
nearly 20 film festivals over the last
five years they’ve been rejected by over
twice as many others
that’s nearly 20 acceptances and over 50
rejections
not feel good stats right after
finishing me a shadow i was heading to
my senior season of college football and
on a whim i applied for this really cool
content summer internship in oregon with
adidas
and by the end of my internship one of
my projects would make it to the desk of
the president of adidas north america
and he would soon introduce me to a
black fashion entrepreneur
and honestly
i had no idea what was going to come out
of this connection
but
providence was
moving when march 2020 came around i was
preparing to head to either morehouse
college or usc school of cinematic arts
where i hope to join julian
and i was making plans to head out to
usc as a graduate film student
but unfortunately
covey hit
consequently we both stayed at home in
columbus ohio to wake covert out while
we continued to work on our craft and
attend school virtually and as the only
african-american male in my usc class
during my first semester i was more
determined than ever to push forward
now remember summer 2020 proved to be
the height of the pandemic and racial
tension stemming from the death of
george floyd so we felt compelled to act
boldly
so we decided to host the peaceful
protest in partnership with a good
friend of mine
this event attracted hundreds of people
where among other things local
politicians spoke and we distributed ppe
in the community
and while we were doing this a small
little brand by the name of beats by dre
was moving forward with their own
initiative to give minorities like us an
opportunity to tell our stories through
their inaugural black creators program
providence
was moving
we were selected to be a part of a group
of young black creatives who were
challenged to create works that boldly
addressed our current socio and
political climate
this led to our latest short sci-fi
short film club ally
a fantastical narrative about the plight
of minorities in america another social
commentary if you will
providence will move again a few months
later after the release of club ally
when i will receive a call from none
other than
our adidas connection
owner of urban fashion boutiques ah
mamma year social status and more
not only had he seen what we’ve done but
he wanted to partner with us in telling
underrepresented stories that
entertained inspired and uplifted
and since then we’ve produced two short
films for shoe collaborations with none
other than air jordan
and nike
thank you
thank you
so
while we have yet to achieve the
ultimate goal of our big screen debut we
are encouraged and determined because
we’ve already seen providence move on
our behalf and we’ve already seen our
extra work
pay off
so we encourage you too
to be bold
because your boldness
has genius
your boldness
has power
and your boldness
has magic
and with our hand full of feature film
scripts and treatments and with our
endless stories to tell we will continue
to put in the work and move forward
boldly
no we are not william hutchison murray
nor do we live in the 20th century
so if i were to put this in words that
the nine-year-old justin would
understand and in words that the
thirteen-year-old julian would follow
too
we would say
your boldness
is your superpower
my name is julian turner my name is
justin turner and we are the turner
brothers
[Applause]