LEON RICHARD JOHNSON

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LEON RICHARD JOHNSON

June 3, 1943 - March 10, 2023

Leon Johnson died on March 10, 2023 after a brief illness with metastatic bladder cancer.

Leon Johnson, our dad, had an extremely full life, rich with adventures and incredible opportunities. He was born in Ada, Minnesota, on June 3, 1943, and grew up on a family grain farm near Borup, Minnesota. To supplement their income through the 1940s, the family spent several winters living and working in Santa Barbara, CA. This early travel, and later family vacations in the US and Canada, would instill a love of exploration and meeting new people. However, Leon’s heart was always firmly rooted in the Red River Valley. He spoke fondly of his youth spent driving a tractor on the open fields and being alone thinking about the world.

Leon was an intensely curious and fearless person. He attended Concordia College in Moorhead, MN (eventually completing a B.F.A in 1972). As a young man in the mid-1960s he moved to Colorado, quickly achieving his goal of skiing seven days a week by becoming a member of Aspen Mountain’s trail crew. He spent summers working construction, including on the state’s Reudai Dam. In 1966 Leon reluctantly joined the U.S. Army Reserves and completed basic training as a medic. While antithetical to his spirit, he always had stories to tell about the experience on the bases in Texas and Louisiana. He would receive an honorable discharge in the 1970s after somehow conveying that he should not, in fact, be there.

It was at a ski resort that he met his first wife, Joanne Jackson Johnson. They were married in 1967 and lived for several years in Minneapolis, MN. It was during this time that Leon worked in advertising at RKB and Krough Murdoch. He would proudly remark that he quit advertising because he did not want to “sell any more Pop Tarts or Twinkies”.

When traveling to Churchill, MB in the early 1970s Leon was captivated by Inuit art and specifically a small sculpture showing the progression of a bird in flight, which to him was so evocative of animation. In a visit shortly after to the National Film Board office in Montreal that he would trumpet the need for investment in both Canadian animation and film, more broadly.

Leon and Joanne eventually settled in Winnipeg where they were active in the arts community. They were founding members of the Winnipeg Film Group (where Leon served as the first coordinator) and involved in early projects undertaken by the newly established NFB offices in Winnipeg. Their daughter, Molly, was born in 1975.

Leon was always intensely passionate about Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Canada, becoming a Canadian citizen in 1985. Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s he was on board of the Manitoba Puppet Theatre and made several of his own films: Christmas in Brandon, PARK (with Joanne), Okee Doke, and Good Afternoon, Royal Tower (now in the National Gallery of Canada video collection).

Early in this period of filmmaking, Leon was mentored in sound recording by Hans Oomz and as a result pursued a career as a production sound recorder and, eventually, mixer. It was through this work that Leon was able to travel the world, across Europe, Africa, Japan, and throughout North America. Highlights included seeing the Monarch butterfly migration in Mexico, recording in the Florida Everglades, and getting up close and personal with the land and wildlife. The place that had the greatest impact on Leon was the eastern Arctic, where he worked many times. It was here that he recorded the caribou migration and a polar bear growl. Leon has been credited as the first person to record digital sound for a major film production, the IMAX film Heartland which premiered in Winnipeg in 1987.

While working in film, Leon met his second wife, Charlotte Penner (a costume designer). Together with others, one of their great contributions to the film industry in Manitoba was the push for, and ultimate achievement of, unionization. In the early 1990s this process led to nearly a year without work. Leon credits Derek Mazur at Credo Group for taking a chance and being the first production company to hire under the new union contract.

In 1996, Leon and Charlotte’s son Davis was born and in 2001 they were married.

Leon’s sound recording and mixing credits exceed 150 films and television series including: Capote, The Lookout, A Dog’s Purpose, Less than Kind, Mark Twain’s America, The Arrow, the Daughters of the Country series, and Tommy Douglas: Keeper of the Flame. While over the years he was nominated for, and won several Gemini Awards, it was the travel, the time spent on the tundra, and meeting people around the world that was the greatest reward.

More recently, Leon was active in the Armstrong’s Point Neighbourhood Association. He had always wanted a house on the river. This wish came true in 2021 and he spent his final years in the Charlotte Penner house, which she had designed in collaboration with Design Built and remains a testament to her aesthetic sensibilities and love of spaces for art and gatherings.

Leon is survived by his two children, Molly (Shawn) and Davis (Ross), his brothers Denis (Sylvia) and Dean (Nancy), and many extended family members. He was predeceased by both of his parents, Neil and Naomi, and his wife, Charlotte.

Shortly before he died, the Cinematheque premiered the Yardmen, a short film capturing the North End railway yardmen. Leon had directed and filmed it in the 1970s but it was edited and completed by Kevin Nikkel late in 2022. The family sends their heartfelt thanks to Kevin for his time and commitment to the project.

Many, including us, remember Leon as someone completely content to be deep in thought, reading National Geographic, or alone under the open sky. To some this made him seem aloof or an enigma. He was also a man completely steadfast in his convictions. In recent years, Leon was known for sharing jokes. We are both particularly fond of: “If at first you don’t succeed…skydiving is not for you.”

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Mar 09, 2024, Mar 09, 2024