David the Director Arrives: Making 'Who Took Johnny'

• 24:48David directed 'Who Took Johnny,' which is currently trending on Netflix.
• 25:24The film finished in 2014, took a year to find a distributor, then went to Amazon and iTunes before Netflix acquired the streaming rights.
• 26:02David and his partners made 'Horns and Halos' in 2002 for HBO about a man who bought rights to a discredited George W. Bush biography.
• 26:27A journalist named Nick Bryant approached them after a screening with a crazier story—The Franklin Scandal.
• 27:32The Franklin Scandal involved a credit union in Omaha that was laundering money and running a teen prostitution network, flying kids around to service wealthy and powerful people.
• 28:15Operators would abduct children, plunder the foster care system and Boys Town, then make kids molest other children and run drugs to destroy their credibility.
• 28:54A central character in the Franklin scandal was Paul Benassi, a former teen prostitute who helped kidnap Johnny Gosh in Des Moines, Iowa, nine years before the scandal broke.
• 29:36Johnny's mother Noreen became an incredible advocate for victims' families, helped start the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and changed laws requiring law enforcement to act immediately.
• 30:31As documentary filmmakers, David and his team approach stories as narrative filmmakers rather than journalists, focusing on character, protagonist, and narrative arc.
• 31:00They centered the film on Noreen Gosh as an incredibly brave and charismatic reluctant hero fighting against all odds over thirty years.
• 31:11Johnny's case follows a linear narrative from his disappearance through sightings and evidence that unfolds like a scripted film with ups, downs, climax, and revelations.

Noreen GoshFranklin Federal Credit UnionNick BryantJohnny GoschFranklin scandalWho Took JohnnyHorns and HalosPaul BenassiNational Center for Missing and Exploited ChildrenNetflixBoys TownSean HornbeckGeorge W. BushDavidRay Kump