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]