John D. Marshall is a writer/director from based out of Pittsburgh, PA. Drawing from his diverse background in commercial production and VFX/post, he released his debut narrative short, Artificial Existence, in 2021 after three years of development.
John is currently developing two feature films and a television project to add to his growing body of work.
Director Statement
With the rapid development of technological progress over the last few years, the world is becoming increasingly more Orwellian in nature. We are gradually slipping from a physical reality into a digital one. I wrote, Artificial Existence, to explore a version of the future where we have allowed technology to control us and every aspect of our lives, but no one seems to notice or care that their freedom and humanity has been gradually traded away for comfort and convenience. One mother sees the dystopian prison for what it is and longs for her and her family to escape it. It is my hope that the film would make audiences more cognizant of some of the potential risks technology threatens us with.
Society seems to act retroactively about technology as we are seeing with social media, and we may not have that luxury over the next generation. It’s not that I am against technology, I believe we have to be careful with how we use it. It can be used to empower or to oppress, to bring us closer or to divide us, and if we are not careful it could easily rob us of our humanity. It seems like many of these issues dealt with in Artificial Existence are being ignored in general and that is what I have attempted to capture and communicate with this film.
Fantasy/Sci-Fi FILM & WRITING FESTIVAL 