Guest post by Brian vonSchmidt
Several years ago, I was working on writing a script about kids being lost in the woods that I thought would be quick and easy to film. I wrote it using locations I knew, and the actors would either be friends or relatives (or our daughter).
I assumed my wife and I would probably be done with the project in about three months time. So now, four years and $100,000 later I realize the complexity of making a feature film.
The Incredible Adventures of Jojo
Our movie, ‘The Incredible Adventures of Jojo (and his annoying sister Avila)’ is about a mother who takes her two children to go visit their Grandma in the woods. On the way home, the mother gets into a brutal car accident and six year old Jojo is forced to take care of his baby sister Avila. They encounter a mangy hobo, wolves, raging rivers and other obstacles in their attempt to make it back safely to Grandma’s house with all their limbs intact. Its basically like ‘Milo and Otis’, but with toddlers and more death defying stunts.
Just my wife and I
We shot this entire movie with just my wife and I over the course of a year and a half with our daughter and nephew playing the lead roles. Occasionally we could convince people to show up and help us out for a day or two, but for the most part it was just the two of us. I know a lot of other indie films have filmed the entire production with a two man approach, (most notably ‘El Mariachi’ with Robert Rodriguez), but its different when you have kids involved. Every single day we had our baby tied to our backs while we were lugging heavy film equipment into these gorgeous back canyons and we were constantly popping tires driving through rivers to get to our shooting locations. When we were shooting, it was always an issue of trying to film child number one while making sure child number two didn’t run into a river. It was fun, but it was brutal.
Nice to be outside
For as frustrating as it got at times, it was nice that we were still outdoors. We made the movie with our daughter and our nephew, and I knew that if we weren’t outside filming, our nephew Jojo would have spent the entire summer indoors working on his video game skills. He got a chance to swing on rope swings under bridges, go cliff jumping, and spending a lot of time trying to catch salamanders and frogs. All the amphibians in our movie were from the local creeks and streams, so some days we were lucky and we caught them immediately and we could get to work making our movie. Other days, it would turn into a couple of hours of scrambling trying to catch the critters, usually ending with me and Jojo jumping into the water to grab them. Our daughter Avila, although only 9 months at the time, even helped us catch a snail once, but unfortunately she decided the inside of her mouth was the best place for the snail.
Post-production
So now we’re at the very end of post-production, trying to get this thing in the can. Hopefully you’ll be able to see our movie at a local film festival, or you can buy a copy of our film from the link below.
If you’d like to see our daughter shill our project on kickstarter, click on the link below. Be forewarned, she’s a good saleswoman.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1925850436/the-adventure-of-jojo-and-his-annoying-little-sist
For more information about Brian and Ann-Marie visit Incrediblejojo.com
