Our Films
Visionary Studios produces narrative films—and brings filmmakers behind the scenes to see how they’re made.
From short films built around a single creative experiment to full-length features shot across multiple states, each production gives us another opportunity to tell a story, push our craft forward, and share what we learn along the way.
Here’s what we’ve been making.
Candlesticks
Feature Film · Coming Soon
Written & Directed by Chris Tabares
Starring Leanne Johnson, Mark Ashin, and Dan Berkey
Lavender is drowning in debt.
Desperate to regain control of her life, she turns to day trading in the hope that one big break might finally give her family a way out.
Shot over two weeks across Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, Candlesticks is an intimate feature built around financial desperation, ambition, and the increasingly dangerous decisions people make when they feel trapped.
The film was shot primarily on the Sony ZV-E10 with anamorphic lenses and a full lighting package—part of an intentional effort to build a polished feature around a remarkably accessible camera system.
Coming Soon
A Tree Falls in the Forest
Feature Film · Coming Soon
Written & Directed by Leanne Johnson
Starring Leanne Johnson, Amelia Mahrie, and Ezekiel Shrader
A Tree Falls in the Forest is a faith-based family survival film about a woman who becomes trapped alone in the woods.
Cut off from help and forced to endure the wilderness on her own, she has to draw on her resilience, relationships, and faith as she fights to make it home.
Shot over 12 production days in remote wooded locations, the film is an emotionally grounded survival story built around endurance, family, and hope.
Coming Soon
My Story
Short Film
Written & Directed by Joseph Woolwine
Starring Trick Blanchfield and John Basler
My Story was built around a simple challenge:
How cinematic can we make a film shot on a $500 camera?
We produced the entire short on the Sony ZV-E10 with a small crew and a deliberately lean production approach—while still treating lighting, composition, performances, production design, and every other part of the film seriously.
The result became both a finished narrative short and one of our most useful filmmaking case studies.
Go behind the scenes to see how we made it.
Debtor's Hope
Short Film
Directed by Joseph Woolwine
Starring Derek McMahan
When a man pushed to the edge by debt sees one desperate way out, the decision forces him into increasingly dangerous territory.
Debtor's Hope was one of the earlier narrative projects that helped shape what Visionary Studios would become.
Shot with a one man small crew, the film gave us an opportunity to build polished narrative images with limited resources.
Locker Room Talk
Short Film · Coming Soon
Written & Directed by Trick Blanchfield
Starring Trick Blanchfield, William Rayne, Derek McMahan, and John Basler
Four people sit together in a room, wrestling with grief, anger, avoidance, and the things they cannot bring themselves to say.
But they aren't four separate people.
Locker Room Talk is a performance-driven short built around emotionally raw acting, heightened visual choices, and the idea of turning an internal conflict into something physical the audience can watch unfold.
Coming Soon
Real Autism
Short Film · Coming Soon
Written & Directed by Chris Tabares
Starring Leanne Johnson
What does “real” autism look like?
Real Autism confronts the assumptions we make about autism through a mother fiercely protective of her son—and an encounter that challenges the way she understands the spectrum itself.
Written and directed by Chris Tabares from a subject deeply personal to him, the film marked an important creative step for Visionary Studios: story first, with the filmmaking built around serving it.
The film was shot on the Sony a7S III, and our upcoming behind-the-scenes content will use the production to explore how we built its images and brought the story to the screen.
Coming Soon
Chuck Buster for Congress
Short Film · Coming Soon
Written & Directed by Boston Scharwarth
Meet Chuck Buster.
Congressional candidate. Man of the people. And, apparently, a man prepared to solve America's political disagreements in ways no campaign consultant would ever recommend.
Chuck Buster for Congress is a dark comedy built as a polished political campaign ad for a candidate whose platform becomes increasingly absurd.
Shot across Indianapolis in a single day, the production combines satire, dynamic camera movement, multiple locations, and the visual language of real political advertising into something considerably less responsible.
Coming Soon
Four Films
Four Films. One Production Day.
The Four Films Campaign was built around a simple production challenge: create four different narrative short films in a single day.
Each production was designed to explore a different part of filmmaking, including nighttime lighting, natural light, production design, wardrobe, and sound.
The campaign gave us a chance to test ideas in real productions, compare different creative approaches, and capture behind-the-scenes material showing how those decisions affect what ends up on screen.
It also reflects one of the core ideas behind Visionary Studios: filmmaking is learned by making films.
Not waiting for perfect conditions. Not endlessly researching the next piece of equipment.
Choosing a project you can actually produce, making deliberate decisions, finishing it, and carrying what you learned into the next production.
