Growing up John Medlen had **** loves: karate, stunts, music, and directing. Much of his early work was based on his vast martial arts background, which opened doors for him to become a stunt player and a small production company that he co-owned in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which provided plenty of trial and error learning as a director and editor. Medlen had an enormous appetite for learning and would take any position from extra to production assistant just to be on a production set.