David E. Johnston's Lush Life and Lifesaver [NOW FOUND]

Here's a few more info worth mentioning:

- In 1994, a commercial for Lifesavers (the candy) was released, so not to be confused with those Lifesavers. Here's the commercial for reference: www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8WoCMHD_e0

- In 1993, another movie titled Lush Life, starring Jeff Goldblum, was released, so not to be confused with this one. Here's the IMDB page for reference: www.imdb.com/title/tt0107464/

- I found another short film from 1998 called "The Lush Life", so not to be confused with this one either. Here's the film for reference: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKfyTdW_53s

- According to IMDB, both films were shot in San Francisco, California, just like Talking About the Weather, however, if there's something the Talking About the Weather investigation teached me is that IMDB is NOT 100% accurate, so let's not take IMDB as a fact until we find evidence that supports this. With that said, it is extremely likely that these two films were shot in San Francisco

- There are two versions of IMBD: the "regular" one and the mobile one, let's make sure to check both version, since some times one version has more info than the other

- Lastly, I'm seeing way more recognition of these films on the internet than Talking About the Weather, which could mean that these two aren't AS obscure, with that said, information is still kinda limited, so it might prove a bit difficult to find info about them (specially Lush Life because of the Jeff Goldblum film)

I guess that's all I have to say for now. I suggest we start by investigating all the people involved, when we were investigating Talking About the Weather, we found very useful information by researching the people involved, so I guess that could be a good starting point

I thought so too, but I remember I found a detail on the mobile IMDB that wasn't present on the regular one. Maybe I'm crazy or I didn't see it on the regular one or something like that, but still, it won't hurt us to take a look at both versions

I'll do a quick search on all these people to see what I can find

- So apparently there's a LOT of important people called David E. Johnston, from a classical archaeologist to a writer. With that said, I think I might have found a live performance of our David E. Johnston, where he performs a musical piece called "The Hustler". According to the video description: 

"THE HUSTLER was a solo multi-media performance piece commissioned by San Francisco's The Lab and used original songs and stories to reveal the underbelly of the Heartland. Tales of hunting, Waco, gay murders and abusive fathers bled together against a slide backdrop of deer heads and twister"

Given the location (San Francisco) and the year this was recorded (1995), I'm more than positive that this is our guy, however, the person who uploaded it seems to be someone else. Here's the video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8S1028iAxY


- A quick google search about Dennis Conroy didn't give me any useful matches. Apparently, there are 25 profiles on LinkedIn with the name "Dennis Conroy", non of them seem to be our guy, but I'll leave the list here for reference: www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Dennis/Conroy


- Rodney O'Neil Austin is only credited for Lush Life in IMDB, there's also a page for his biography, though it is empty, as well as his contact information page. I checked a website called beenverified.com about any posible information about him, it gave me 9 results, only one of them in California, though it seems this person lives in Oakland, not San Francisco. With that said it isn't impossible that some of these people have moved to other parts of the state, even to other countries. Here's that page I just mentioned: www.beenverified.com/people/rodney-oneil/


- The biography that IMDB has for Nao Bustamante says:

"Nao Bustamante is an actress and director, known for The Perfect Ones (2006), Silver & Gold (2010) and Tableau (2013)"

Not only she seems to be relatively successful in the industry, but she seems to be still active. Here's her IMDB page: www.imdb.com/name/nm2482938/?ref_=tt_cl_t3


- According to Jennifer Locke's biography in IMDB (which also is extremely brief):

"Jennifer Locke is an actress, known for Lush Life (1993) and Snap 'n' Snatch (1990)"

So either the page is incomplete, or she didn't stick in the cinema industry. Here's her IMDB page: www.imdb.com/name/nm5833895/?ref_=tt_cl_t4


- Like Rodney's, Ryan Rubio's IMDB page is empty, and he's only credited for Lush Life. LinkedIn gives me 20+ results for "Ryan Rubio", however there's one that catched my attention since he lives in Los Angeles, although he doesn't seem to belong to the movie industry (or at least this LinkedIn profile doesn't suggest that). I'll leave here the page with the results: www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Ryan/Rubio


- Finally, Jim Winters' IMDB page is also empty, being credited only for Lush Life. I found an IMDB page for OTHER Jim Winters, so not to be confused with that one. Here's the OTHER Jim Winters' page for reference: www.imdb.com/name/nm0935947/


And that's all I could find. Let me remind you that this was a quick google search for each person, a more deep search might uncover more information, but I think this is good enough to get started

Honestly I didn't watch the video, but that description of "Tales of hunting, Waco, gay murders and abusive fathers" and "deer heads" kinda gives me an idea of what kind of stuff he's into. and certainly Lush Life (not Lifesaver) sounds kinda specific as well. The Hustler was completely created by Johnston, and since these two movies were directed by him, we can kinda guess how these two movies work, or how do they look at least

I also checked Snap 'n' Snatch, and apparently this is a music video, since its IMDB page says that it's 6 minutes long, every person credited for it is casted as "themselves" and also I think I found it on this obscure website, which describes it as a "sort of music video":

www.vdb.org/titles/snap-n-snatch

I'm not willing to watch it, but my point is that if Jennifer Locke participated on this weird music video, could it be that Johnston's movies (or Lush Life at least) are music videos as well? After all he's a composer, and now we know that there's a high probability that he also does musical shows and stuff (or at least he did in the past)

Well I don't think it is completely necesary to watch Snap 'n' Snatch, what matters about that video is the fact that it's a "sort of music video", which opens the posibility that Lush Life (and maybe Lifesaver) are some kind of musical stuff as well, I mean I'm not saying they're definitely are, I'm just saying that we should add this to the "what if..." list. Like I said, the fact that Johnston is a composer and that he has done some live spectacles, raises the possibility of him doing a musical production. Notice how on the description of Gift of Tongues you quoted earlier it says "...and his VIDEOS were selected for festivals in the US & Europe", his "videos", usually you refer to short films as, well, short films, while music videos (although I guess they kinda are short films as well) are commonly referred as "videos". So once again, I'm not saying this is definitely the case, but we should have it in mind, in case we stumble upon a Lifesaver and/or Lush Life we won't inmediately say "Eh, is a music video so no way this is it"

So you gotta pay 50 bucks on that website to watch the whole thing? Man, that sucks, if we really have to watch it maybe we could find another method like the inter-library loan you mentioned, although in my opinion it isn't completely necesary yet, since, besides Locke's apparition, it isn't relevant for us, not yet at least

I just checked that DVD website and the description says: "A compilation of 26 short and experimental films, plus an interview", the "experimental films" part makes me believe that Locke appearing on Snap 'n' Snatch could (or couldn't) be an important coincidence, since, like you said, Johnston appears to be into experimental things, so we should at least keep it in mind, at least to see Locke in action

Yeah the year says that it is from 2005 and its location is Sydney, so it definitely is not our movie. Let's add it to the list along with the Lifesavers comercial, Jeff Goldblum's Lush Life, and The Lush Life, for future reference. Man, those names are way more common than I thought



I checked a few works of Nao Bustamante to see if anyone related to Lush Life worked with her, and apparently that's not the case. She focuses mostly on comedy, and her works have various runtimes, from 4 minutes to 45 minutes

With that said, there was something that catched my eye: She is credited as an actress for Lush Life, which we already knew, however, Lush Life is listed as a "video short", while every other entry is listed as a "short", not "video short". Could this be another hint about Lush Life being some kind of music video?

Also, here's a picture of her with some guy called Alex Rivera, for reference (I'm saying "for reference" a lot on this one, huh?). The link is from amazon, but it was on her IMDB page:

images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTk4OTEyNTc4OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjQwMzc1MQ@@._V1_.jpg

Yeah I know "videos" is a generic term, I just think that usually when it comes to this stuff, the term "short film" is way more professional and appealing than "videos", "videos" sound like an LP or something, but then again that's just my opinion

We should investigate a bit more about that film collection, maybe we could find some familiar names on it, maybe even our films are in there

I guess I'll take a closer look at Bustamante's works, just in case I'm missing something

Wow! I had no idea she was so notable. She must be doing quite well for herself.

I'm going to e-mail Gift of Tounges. The worst thing that could happen is they say we have the wrong guy.

Edit: E-mail sent!