Former instructor Johnnie Mazzocco wrapped production on her first feature film, Found Objects. Mazzocco plans to submit the film to festivals after editing is complete. (Photo by Eugene Johnson)
By maygan beckers
Reporter
and Chelsea Van Baalen
A&E Editor
Former instructor Johnnie Mazzocco has realized her dream of creating a feature film after 20 years of hard work. She plans to premiere the film, Found Objects, in late spring or early summer.
Found Objects follows the story of Claire Randall, who finds freedom after her home burns down. Randall uses this freedom to reinvent herself as a woman, artist and mother in a film that details the “overall struggle of being a creative woman and doing the family thing right,” she said.
Mazzocco envisioned the character of Randall, an image that grew more vivid over time.
“I see an image over and over and sometimes I hear dialogue in my head. Being a mother and creative person myself, I recognize the conflicts that a person is always in. Oftentimes doing creative work and being a mother are indirect conflicts of each other. It was my own challenge,” said Mazzocco. “Just talking to other women, I started realizing it was a really important topic.”
She said she has always been interested in women’s issues and believes the institutions of marriage and motherhood help shape women’s identities.
Mazzocco drew on her own experiences and talked to other women as well.
“For women’s spiritual and mental health they have to not get swallowed up in it and just be true to what they want to do,” she said.
“I think there are a few messages in the film. … There is something very specific about women’s creativity and their ability or inability to express it because of social expectations. Our society has this idea about what a good woman looks like and what a good mother looks like. I think the film asks people to think about that,” Mazzocco said. “It also has a message about art in general and the importance of art, and again how we live in a culture where it doesn’t really support or value it.”
Mazzocco has three children and often had to balance her creative drive with motherhood. She would find herself feeling compelled to write without the time to do it.
“It was difficult sometimes to find a happy medium and feel like I was good at all things,” Mazzocco said.
Working on film allows me to do all the things I’m good at…. It’s what I want to do with the rest of my life.
Johnnie Mazzocco, LCC instructor
It was while her children were growing up that Mazzocco returned to school, earning several degrees including a bachelor of arts in fiction-writing, a master’s degree in film studies, a master of fine arts in digital arts and a graduate certificate in women’s studies. She was in school until her youngest son was 19, so her kids knew her as a student for most of their lives.
Mazzocco divorced her husband while in school and raising her children.
“That was a whole batch of struggles,” she said. “I felt like a warrior sometimes.”
While Mazzocco strived to find a balance between fulfilling her creativity and being there for her children, they inspired her to pursue her goals.
“I wanted to show my kids what it was like to follow their dreams,” she said.
Filmmaking is one of these dreams.
Found Objects is currently in post-production, a process that includes editing. Mazzocco is working on a rough cut — the blueprint for the final product — with her sound engineer.
After the rough cut, with which Mazzocco will evaluate the content of her film and trim it to shorten its length, she will “string the whole thing back together.”
In the beginning stages of creating Found Objects, Mazzocco said she began viewing herself as a filmmaker after she realized Randall’s story would be best expressed through film.
“Working on films allows me to do all the things I’m good at,” Mazzocco said. “It’s what I want to do with the rest of my life.”
“Johnnie was great to work with. She is devoted to her story, highly organized and extremely gracious (towards) her cast and crew,” director of photography Edward Schiessl said. “Helming a feature film is enough to break most people, but Johnnie kept her wits about her the whole shoot.”
Mazzocco’s goal is to make the final cut at less than 90 minutes, as she plans to submit Found Objects to film festivals.
“Keeping it right at 90 minutes will increase my chance of being seen and selected,” she said. “If it gets selected and shown at the festivals and distributors see it and like it, they’ll buy it and distribute it.”
“Collaborating with Johnnie was a joy because of her curiosity, flexibility, vision, strength and vulnerability. Like any strong leader, she asked questions and created openings with kindness and respect. She works with mystery as an element of her process and her intuition is uncanny, not only in directing, but in dealing with human beings,” said Mary Gen Fjelstad Buss, the lead actress in Found Objects.
Mazzocco funded most of the film herself. She paid all of the actors a “little bit” up front and plans to pay them once the film starts distributing.
“It’s a big leap of faith for them. I felt really blessed by all the people that were involved in it even though funding really wasn’t there,” Mazzocco said.
She said she is proud of Found Objects, the investment her cast and crew made in the film and her own planning skills, which she hopes will help her in future endeavors.
After Found Objects, Mazzocco will begin work on a second film, Miranda’s Garden, about a woman married to a classical composer who is suffering from writer’s block. After her husband moves the pair to a remote cabin, he unexpectedly drowns, leaving Miranda to pick up the pieces.
“That’s the catalyst for her to become introspective,” Mazzocco said.
Mazzocco said she partly credits her children for the success of Found Objects.
“They’re all amazing and creative themselves,” she said. “They completely understand my drive.”
And in the balance between creativity and motherhood, Mazzocco said, “I feel like I’m in a really good place and it’s all up from here.”
For more information about Found Objects and Mazzocco’s work, readers can log on to http://foundobjectsthefilm.wordpress.com and http://www.darkmoonlilith.com.
