John Badalamenti was born and raised in Queens and comes from a family of musicians and actors; his father Steve was a jazz musician, his uncle Angelo Badalamenti is a musical composer for movies and TV, and his younger brother Stephen is a NYC SAG actor.

John was trained in color retouching and photographic techniques at a graphic arts trade house in NYC serving Madison Avenue ad agencies. He then moved on to real estate/architectural photography, videography, and drone-aerial work before starting his documentary film company in Arizona, Desert Horse Media LLC.

While John enjoyed architectural photography, he got a real buzz doing property & aerial /drone video work. One thing led to another, and he found that independent documentary film work was his real passion. John moved to the greater Phoenix Arizona area nearly six years ago from the East Coast and the documentary film world where he's completed two feature documentary films and is now working on his 3rd.