Press

Honing His Craft
Highland Park High School senior pursues
his passion of film making
By Peter Waters, Park Cities News 11/30/04
HIGHLAND PARK - Lights, camera, action! Those
words were ringing through the Woosley home in
University Park as Highland Park High School senior
John Woosley was producing his latest film, Pen Marks.
The seven-minute silent film set to music, is about a
young boy who uses caffeine to fight the abuse he
receives at home. The character goes into a small coffee
shop everyday to drink one shot of espresso and writes
down his feelings in a small notebook to help conquer his
situation. His actions are witnessed by a barista, who
tries to understand the young boy.
John used two Highland Park High School student
actors, Elizabeth Hill and Billy Cavanaugh in the film.
John wrote the screenplay at a coffee shop while he was
in Cape Cod last summer.
“I wanted to make a film about something very powerful
and very emotional involving teenagers. Abuse is a very
serious subject that hits close to home for many around
the world. The message of the film is that even when
you are in a tough situation, there is always a way for
release, there is always hope, and in this film’s character,
he finds that release through caffeine and writing.
Through his hope the character ends up getting adopted,”
John said.
John also obtained the license to four musical pieces and
arranged the music to fit the film. He plays the clarinet in
the Highlander Band and uses his musical knowledge for
the films.
When John was a young boy he would take his dad’s
video camera and run around the house.
In eighth grade his made his first film.. “I made an eight-
minute short James Bond-type film called, No
Tomorrow,” John said. He shot the film with his dad’s
digital video camcorder and edited it on a computer. John
said it wasn’t a great masterpiece, but it allowed him to
learn the steps of filmmaking and producing a final
project.
The largest project John has directed was Three Days
and Forever Fame, written by Chrisopher Skrobeck. The
35-minute film used a large semi-professional cast and is
about a young teenager who takes his feelings of angst at
home to the extreme and must face the horrible
consequences of his actions.
Besides the hands-on experience of making films, John
has read books on filmmaking and watches a lot of
movies, studying each one of them. In the summer of
2002 he attended a workshop on directing at the Woods
Hole Film Festival with New York filmmaker Mark
Gasper.
John owns a production company called Lighthouse, Ltd.
He has produced a lot of private work in the Park Cities
community including the Highland Park Middle School
musical Godspell. He also has produced documentaries
for Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church.
John is planning to pursue a career in film or television
directing dramatic works and plans to attend college to
study film. He also plans on entering Pen Marks on
several film festivals.