John Lechago

John Lechago (April 4, 1969 – July 22, 2026) was born in Kingston Ontario, Canada to an Argentinean mother and a Spanish father. At age four the family moved to Los Angeles California. From an early childhood Lechago was fascinated by drawing, and would spend hours creating monsters and reproducing what he saw around him. The rest of the time John would spend playing with his fraternal twin brother. At age nine Lechago was enrolled in traditional oil painting classes and thrived, winning awards every year he was with the school. This strong base in traditional painting would be very influential in Lechago's approach to his filmmaking later in life.

John was also enrolled at an early age in self defense classes. Coincidentally the school that his father chose for his young sons was one owned by Chuck Norris. On the second day of karate class the teachers showed a 16mm film print of Chuck Norris's first film Breaker! Breaker! (1977). Lechago looked around the class realizing that most of the adults were also getting beaten up by the head teacher in the film! Three and a half years later at age ten, Lechago and his brother James were part of a children's class in Chuck Norris's A Force of One (1979). Being on set and seeing how scenes are actually set up and shot was a major motivator. It was at that point that Lechago decided that he would be involved in the movies.

As a teenager John began studying screen writing and shooting scenes with the video cameras of the day. He went so far as to found the "Cinema Productions" club at his high school. After high school Lechago attended the prestigious art school S.A.I.C. in Chicago, concentrating in film, and then finished his degree in film at the Columbia College Chicago.