About Karima

Name:
Karima Johnson, Class of 98

Books I’ve written:
one book of poetry that’s sold 300 copies

Favorite movie:
Boiler Room

Hometown:
Baltimore City, Maryland

Little known fact:
I’ve played chess since I was eight. At St. Mary’s I created my own chess club!


It has become one of the familiar variations on the proverbial American Dream. A bright, ambitious kid leaves family and friends in a hopeful quest to “make it” in the glitzy L.A. scene. As we all know, many of these hopefuls wind up working as waiters or errand boys indefinitely. Karima Johnson ’98, whose first film is currently making the international film festival circuit, is not among them.

Johnson (known as Karima J. Sphere in the film industry) released Finding the Boom Bat last December, but the initial inspiration struck during his time at St. Mary’s. “I made a commercial in my senior year to advertise a ‘Poetry Explosion’ event I was organizing. The premise of the commercial . . . ended up being the basis for my film,” he says.

However, it wasn’t straight from St. Mary’s to Hollywood for Johnson. After graduation, he returned to Baltimore City—his hometown—to take a job with the Baltimore Business Journal. In Washington D.C., Johnson became the first African American to intern for the Ad Council. A year later, he began teaching fourth grade in Baltimore. “I felt the need to teach in the public city schools because I’m a product of that. I had an opportunity to impact kids’ lives, but it was limited in that I couldn’t be as creative as I really wanted to be.”

The creative opportunities that Johnson craved never seemed to present themselves on the east coast. So when another SMCM alum (and aspiring actor), Jonathan Abrams ’99, suggested they pack up and move to L.A., Johnson agreed. The encouragement of his mother helped him make the transition. “She said, ‘You’re on a journey. I believe in what you’re doing,’” says Johnson. “So I thought as long as my mother is behind me, I’m brave enough to do this.”

With the help of his mother and family and his own dogged perseverance, he muddled through, eventually landing a job as a digital imager at the Kodak Theater. He also worked as a studio page at Warner Brothers, where he was involved with such popular shows as “My Wife and Kids,” “Spin City,” and “Will and Grace.”

By 2003, Johnson had joined two organizations: OBS (Organization of Black Screenwriters) and FIND (Film Independent), a network of independent film producers and directors. “In California, it’s not how talented you are, it’s who you know,” says Johnson. This networking gave Johnson the confidence and the necessary infrastructure to undertake the first film project of his own.

Finding the Boom Bat, which Johnson describes as “a light romantic comedy,” explores its characters’ attempts to find the right romantic connection. The hallmark of Johnson’s short film is its unique pairing of music and characterization. Each character has his or her own soundtrack, and when a successful match is struck, the music blends in an auditory representation of compatibility.

The film’s unusual title derives from a hip-hop term. “When I was a kid in Baltimore, we’d beat rhythms on the table in the cafeteria—the sound is like ‘Boom – Bat.’ To me, that’s when hip hop was born—when the boom and the bat met. I used it [the term] as a metaphor for finding the right person.”

Johnson’s original blend of music and action is prompting offers for a TV pilot show based on the film, and he’s considering filming another episode in the life of his characters. For now, he is absorbed with getting his first project out to the world. The film was shown at the Santa Barbara African Heritage Film Series and has been submitted to the Tribeca, Cannes, Sundance, and twenty other film festivals.

In May 2006, Johnson was back east to show Finding the Boom Bat in the Maryland Film Festival. You can bet his thoughts weren’t far from St. Mary’s. “In California, there are a lot of filmmakers who have degrees in film. But in film, you need to bring something to the table other than film—you need experiences,” says Johnson. “St. Mary’s gave me those experiences.”