Photos are worth a thousand words, but expressing yourself through film might just leave your audience speechless. This month’s artist picks up a camera and hits record. Meet Joseph Boyle, a 32-year-old filmmaker. Boyle was born and raised in Iowa and moved to Lake Nona in 2012 to be closer to work.
Although he didn’t go to school for filmmaking, he considered it quite a few times. “[I] have always valued the practical experience far more. This has been beneficial to me because it has exposed me to almost all facets of filmmaking. My main passion is writing and directing, but I also shoot all of my own work.”
Nonahood News set out to discover the storyteller’s personal story, what artists know as an autobiography.
NHN: What drove you to become a filmmaker? When did you realize making films was your passion?
JB: When I was 12 years old, I loved the original Star Wars trilogy. I often played with Star Wars action figures and eventually began to film them with my parents’ huge JCPenney video camera. I learned about stop-motion animation by watching a behind-the-scenes featurette about James and the Giant Peach. I immediately began to try this out myself and was entranced by the results. I naturally moved on to shooting live-action scenes and made my first “serious” film with a buddy when I was 15. I realized that it was a passion shortly thereafter.
NHN: How long have you been a filmmaker/photographer?
JB: There isn’t a hard and fast date when I became a filmmaker, but I have been actively making films for at least 15 years, though there were significant gaps in there when I didn’t make any new films.
NHN: How often do you find yourself creating films?
JB: My desire is usually to make at least one film a year, but it varies. There have been some years when I was younger where I would make several, and then there have been a span of a few years where I didn’t make any. The length of these films could be anywhere from one to two minutes to around an hour. While I did make a couple of features with a friend while in high school, I haven’t yet directed my first solo feature film.
NHN: Is this your only job? If not, how do you find the time to continue to create films?
JB: I work a day job where a significant part of my role is dedicated to film/video creation. I also recently started a wedding film company with another filmmaker and collaborator, Mark Farag, who is based out of St. Pete. It’s called Tapestry Wedding Films (tapestryweddingfilms.com). But for the passion projects that I consider my own films, I work whenever I can find the time and energy. This is often on nights and weekends.
NHN: Which of your films would you consider your favorites (pick a top three)?
JB: It’s hard to say what films of my own that I would consider my favorites. There are usually parts that I like and other parts that make me cringe. If I had to choose, I would probably say Red Stroke, which was a 53-minute film I made while I was living in South Korea in 2011, A Plea for Everyman, which was shot on Super 8mm film in 2007, and A Storm Is Coming: Learning the Blues with Coney Island Pete, a 53-minute, semi-autobiographical documentary that I completed last year. You can see synopses and either trailers for these or the whole films on my website, www.josephboylefilms.com. I have made over 20 personal films, but only publish a few publicly.
NHN: Which of your projects were the most time-consuming/challenging and why?
JB: Last year, I finished a 53-minute documentary called A Storm Is Coming: Learning the Blues with Coney Island Pete. This was probably the most time-consuming and challenging film that I have made. This film is about how suffering and personal experience[s] in life relate to blues music. It is told through the lens of Coney Island Pete Collins, a 70-year-old blues musician currently living in New Orleans. I originally began shooting the project in Iowa in 2008, but it was put on hold for several years and then picked up again in 2013. It morphed from a shorter piece told strictly through Pete’s point-of-view to a much more complex semi-autobiographical film spanning several years. This film was one of the most difficult because of the mountain of footage that I had to sort through and arrange during the edit. It took several years to get this to a place where I was happy with it. There have certainly been other projects that were more time-consuming on the pre- and production end, but in terms of post-production, this was the most difficult and time-consuming.
NHN: What are some of your dream projects?
JB: I don’t really have any dream projects that I am holding out to do someday. My desire is to try and create whatever is in my head and possible at the current moment, so I don’t often look ahead to other projects. I always wanted to make a Star Wars film when I was younger, so it would be fun to direct one of those someday.
NHN: What serves as your inspiration on a day-to-day basis?
JB: Ideas and relationships inspire me from day-to-day. I enjoy reading, and I often find and develop ideas while I am doing so. I also enjoy having discussions with my friends and family. These discussions are often challenging and help me to develop and hone my thinking.
NHN: Which artists/filmmakers would you say you share a vision with?
JB: I don’t know that I share a vision with any artists that I’m familiar with. There are certainly artists and filmmakers that appeal to me, but I actively try to keep my style and approach as purely my own as possible. That being said, some of the filmmakers that I really enjoy are Werner Herzog, Tom Tykwer, Robert Rodriguez and Darren Aronofsky.
NHN: What style/form of art is your favorite to create?
JB: Narrative fictional films are my favorite to create, though I enjoy doing documentary work as well.
NHN: Future goals/plans?
JB: I currently have three films at various levels of production. The first is a short film that I co-wrote and co-directed with another filmmaker, Desiree Moore, called Perihelion. It was shot last August and is in the final stages of editing. Another film is a short documentary called Super Mario. I have been filming my roommate, who is an incredibly talented and interesting individual, on my phone for the last couple of years. I also shot another short documentary chronicling my family’s memories and thoughts about my childhood home as they were selling it. I hope to start editing these in the coming months. Beyond those, I am doing research and developing ideas for a feature film that I hope to shoot late this year or early next year.
Those interested can connect with Boyle and learn more at his website,www.josephboylefilms.com, and on Facebook and Instagram, @JosephBoyleFilms.
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