John Vizzusi
- Director
- Writer
- Editor
John Vizzusi is a Filmmaker based in Central Florida. He is originally
from San Jose, California as well as Aptos, California. Early in John's
life he took up the Electric Guitar and was heavily influenced by Eric
Clapton, Jeff Beck and Peter Green. He played in a few Bands in the San
Jose area but struck an interest in the Recording Arts. He met up with
Steven Kimball whom was a legendary Engineer in Multitrack Recording at
major Studios in the San Francisco Bay area. Interning with Steven, he
learned how to sync sound to Film and how to record "live" sound. Later
John attended The College for The Recording Arts in San Francisco.
Studying Electronics as well as Jazz Theory at West Valley Junior
College he continued to play guitar and learn advance recording
technique. He began to intern on several shoots and Directed his own
short Film "The Bus People" in the 1980's. Shot with a single 16mm
Camera on one Memorial Day weekend on PCH-1 he followed three families
that traveled to LA in converted Passenger Buses and their lives over
that weekend. From that Film he was able to pickup a Internship with
Impact Films. In 1987 he help secure Locations for Steinbeck's Cannery
Row as well as Clint Eastwood's "Visions of Monterey". Hearing about
the nuance of Productions in Orlando he then decided to move to
Florida. Once in the Orlando area, he did numerous jobs such as
Assistant Direction and Location Scouting as well as Production
Management for several large Films and TV Shows. Not being satisfied
with the Directors he was watching and helping, John took off to become
a Filmmaker in the early 1990's. Ocean Pond and From the Field's to
Your Table, both Feature Docs for the Florida Public Broadcasting
Networks was a package titled "Florida Stories" that John created for
regional Florida PBS Stations. He then started Central State
Productions and with his own Doc researchers, editors, shooters and
crew he has shot many Films on his own label. In 2005 he developed The
Don Ellis Story, John Favorite Jazz Artist of the 1970's. Electric
Heart has gone on to win several awards as well as a invitation to the
Cinema Jazz Series at The Library of Congress where John donated a DVD
Master of the Film to the musical archives. The Radium Girls is his new
Film and he has several other Feature Doc stories to tell as he
continues to tell stories through mainly Biographical Documentary
formats from a Historic POV with a certain stylistic edge. His
Distributor is Sights & Sounds Films.