Award-winning filmmaker Lorna Ann Johnson-Frizell has taught in TCNJ\u2019s communication studies department for 11 years.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nJohnson-Frizell\u2019s path to that award started in the mid-1990s. She went from learning about filmmaking\u2014working in various aspects of film production and distribution in New York, absorbing lessons and inspiration\u2014to picking up a Super 8 camera and actually doing it. \u201cI wasn\u2019t sure what I was making a film about,\u201d she remembers. \u201cI was just shooting my environment,\u201d primarily Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
In 1995, \u201cviral\u201d was a term confined to doctor\u2019s offices\u2014film festivals were how movies built buzz. Money was tight, so Johnson-
\nFrizell stayed home and submitted her autobiographical short documentary, Strands<\/em>, far and wide. Months later, the comments arrived. The organizers of a forgotten festival, either in the spirit of self-improvement or inadvertent dream crushing, had asked audiences where Strands had played in the Northwest to provide feedback.<\/p>\n\u201cIt was the most amazing thing, one or two lines,\u201d says Johnson-Frizell, who is also chair of TCNJ\u2019s communication studies department.\u201cThey were so beautiful and life-affirming.\u201d It gave her the energy to keep going. She has not stopped.<\/p>\n
The Leeway Foundation, a Philadelphia organization that supports women and transgender artists, honored Johnson-Frizell for exhibiting \u201ca demonstrable practice of art and social change.\u201d She prefers to think of her work as a social critique or \u201cgiving the world another frame.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou really think you have something to say,\u201d adds Johnson-Frizell, who will put the award money into her films, \u201cand you want people to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scene 2: Entering a New World<\/h2>\n
Telling her immigrant parents felt like coming out. Mom, a nurse, and dad, an engineer, equated America with social mobility. (Johnson-Frizell was almost 12 when she arrived in Kansas City, MO. Another move, this time to the Bronx, NY, followed at age 16.) Young Lorna studying engineering at Northwestern fit the game plan. Ditching it after sophomore year to pursue the creative life did not.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re immigrant class, your parents, all they think about is upward mobility: \u2018There\u2019s a reason we came here. You have to go to college, you have to do this,\u2019\u201d Johnson-Frizell says. \u201cThe fact that I knew I wanted to be an artist was not something that sat well with my family.\u201d What kind of artist? She wasn\u2019t sure.<\/p>\n
An internship senior year at Kartemquin Films, the Chicago nonprofit responsible for documentaries such as Hoop Dreams,<\/em> provided some focus. \u201cThere was something about grappling with issues in a really creative way that I liked as a kid,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I thought, \u2018Wow, this is great.\u2019\u201d Before she left for New York, the folks at Kartemquin gave her a list of independent filmmakers there to contact. After she graduated from college in the late 1980s, she started calling.<\/p>\nHer first job was at the production company Film News Now working on the marketing for the Academy Award-nominated documentary, Who Killed Vincent Chin?<\/em> She realized that movies could \u201ctake an issue or a topic or a subject and really delve deeply into it. And I really loved that.\u201d Later, at Third World Newsreel, a film distribution company, she was exposed
\nto female directors\u2014such as Mira Nair and Julie Dash\u2014and even got to work for some of them.<\/p>\nTheir role was more inspirational than educational. Here were women of color, just like her, out in the field calling the shots. \u201cYou learn by doing,\u201d Johnson-Frizell says. \u201cYou have to create. They showed me that it was possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mom and dad would have to deal with the career path, even if they indirectly caused it. When you come to a new country, explains Johnson-Frizell, who was born in England and lived in Jamaica before heading to America, you\u2019re not immersed in the culture. Like a director, you have to observe.<\/p>\n
Scene 3: The Artist\u2019s Mind Never Rests<\/h2>\n
The body of work and the hefty checks from admiring strangers don\u2019t keep the doubts at bay. When asked at what point she considered herself a filmmaker, Johnson-Frizell says, \u201cI always question it, even though I should have known from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s curious about the world, and trusts herself and her perspective. If that weren\u2019t the case, she says, she couldn\u2019t create art. No one could.<\/p>\n
The identity crisis is not affecting her output, that\u2019s for sure. Her upcoming documentary short, \u2026about love<\/em>, is in final edits. Charles Musser, professor of film studies at Yale University, saw a cut more than a year ago. \u201cI love this film,\u201d says Musser, a longtime admirer. \u201cIt speaks to me in ways that move me to tears\u2014and I presume it has the same effect on many others.\u201d The Leeway Foundation\u2019s money will allow her to make a longer piece, a narrative about \u201cimmigration and loss\u201d based on interviews. It\u2019s all part of Johnson-Frizell\u2019s quest to make films that resemble real life, something she doesn\u2019t see in a cultural landscape dominated by multiplex sequels and reality TV.<\/p>\nAnd if this mind-set doesn\u2019t convince Johnson-Frizell she\u2019s a filmmaker, she could always take a trip to the third floor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Communications professor Lorna Ann Johnson-Frizell has been making movies her way for 20 years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":6932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-june-2013","category-on-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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