Columbia residents may have noticed over the past few days that parts of their city are serving as the set of a film crew looking to put together a small production by the end of the year.

With a working title of “Luna in Love,” the film is written and directed by John Brandon, an area artist who has worked on a number of projects including commercials and music videos.

Born in and still based out of St. Louis, Brandon attended college at University of Missouri-St. Louis, finishing his higher education at Webster University.

He worked for the campus newspaper while at Webster, starting his professional career at the St. Louis Suburban Journals and working on that paper’s sports page as well as offering a few other stories for several years.

Brandon’s education continued into grad school, though his time there was cut short as he found a job in television which sent him north to Quincy.

He served as a TV reporter and anchor through the 1990s, working in Quincy as well as Lexington, Ky., and a small market in Nebraska. He also recalled interning for some channels in the St. Louis area, though he was never on TV himself locally.

As a well-rounded reporter, he kept himself plenty busy handling writing, filming, editing and other responsibilities for his stories.

He also developed an interest in film.

“I knew in the long run I wanted to get into film. I really wanted to make films,” Brandon said. “And I knew that my skills as a TV news reporter, one-man-band reporter, would translate pretty well into being the kind of filmmaker that I’d like to be.”

As he described, Brandon left journalism about 20 years ago to pursue those film aspirations.

With a private business in St. Louis, he’s done work on local commercials, short films and music videos including some country rock pieces and videos for various St. Louis rappers.

His big passion, however, has been feature films, and he said he’s written a good stockpile of scripts over the years.

“My goal was to eventually be directing feature films that I wrote,” Brandon said. “Most of my interest in doing films is with projects that I write, not necessarily directing a feature that someone else wrote or having someone else direct my feature that I wrote.”

When it comes to his film production experience, Brandon chiefly pointed to a film called “Under a Blood Red Sky.” Shot in South St. Louis,  he wrote, directed and played a role in the piece.

Though the film never saw public release, he regarded it positively, describing it as a drama in which a group of thieves hide out in a crack house, with a “whodunit” element as it is determined who killed the man the group just stole a crate of artwork from.

Currently filming in Columbia, “Luna in Love” seems to have a similar dramatic crime element as a mail-order bride from Romania escapes a wedding with a city mob boss – Bubblegum Daddy – and flees to a small town.

Brandon voiced excitement and optimism about the production, noting how smoothly filming has gone as well as the strong performances he’s seen from the cast.

With Hollywood connections he’s made through his previous work, Brandon acknowledged how difficult it can be to get funding and backing in film production, with a big-name actor or director often playing a big role in lifting smaller projects.

While the cast and crew for “Luna in Love” aren’t household names, he emphasized the talent and skill among the group as well as their strong cooperation.

“I do believe, deeply, that every once in a while a film comes along that doesn’t have a famous actor in it, doesn’t have a famous director, but it’s written really well, and it’s done in such a way that it’s very stylistic and it’s very entertaining to watch, and I believe that the film we’re shooting now in Columbia is a project that will have a real chance to succeed,” Brandon said.

Still on the topic of cast and crew, Brandon spoke about his hopes to provide an opportunity for local creatives to cut their teeth or otherwise show skills in whatever element of production they’re interested in.

While a number of folks working on the project aren’t entirely local – Brandon mentioned at least two individuals from North Dakota and Springfield, Mo. – a number of cast and crew members come from St. Louis.

He pointed to Adam Long as an exceptionally talented audio recorder in St. Louis doing strong work in keeping dialogue and other sounds in the film clean.

Waterloo resident Isaiah Mathews also has a hand in the film as first assistant director and the character of Oskar. His parents April and Steve have also gotten involved.

“My goal with this project was to give a bunch of local actors, as many as I could, local actors and local production people a chance to be part of this, and I found a bunch of really good people,” Brandon said.

While not part of the cast and crew, Brandon said he’s also gotten plenty of local help as the film has searched for shooting locations.

He particularly mentioned Lori Prior of Fashion Attic on Main Street in Columbia for being so welcoming, as he was looking for a place to shoot a scene taking place in a dress shop. 

As he described, Prior was also quite helpful in getting him in touch with other Columbia businesses and nearby farms for various other shooting needs.

Brandon also offered special thanks to the K-River Motel & Campground outside Baldwin, saying the space has been welcoming and generally ideal as a location for several shooting days.

Speaking after a heavy outdoor shoot on Monday, Brandon said the film has just a few more days of shooting left.

After that wraps up, he anticipates about six to eight weeks of editing, with hopes to have the film put together around Christmas.

Brandon said the name of the film may change from its current working title – particularly if the film is accepted by a large streaming service such as Netflix. Brandon also said he’s had the chance to speak with theaters to see about getting his film shown locally.

While much of the film will ultimately be determined over the course of editing, Brandon was quite optimistic about the production coming together.

“It’s very long, tedious, difficult work when you have a small crew, but if you’ve got experience in it, and you’re really determined, you have a chance to make something that people wanna watch,” Brandon said. “I think that we have something that people might want to watch just based on everything we’ve done so far.”

This is not the first time Columbia has served as a site for filming.

Legendary actresses Florence Henderson and Pam Grier were cast members in the movie “Bad Grandmas,” which was filmed mainly in downtown Columbia in 2015.