Churning out three or four stories a day to feed the web beast can be a grind. You bust a hump crafting a feature that quickly gets buried by a rewritten press release announcing the opening of a new doughnut shop.
Some days it’s a struggle to stay motivated. If we’re not writing about doughnut shops, is anybody even paying attention?
But then, along comes an opportunity to share something really unique and fun and it reinforces why we got into this business in the first place and the important role local news plays in building community.
This story, about a Port Moody family that set out to make a Christmas movie together, started as an email with a link, asking if we’d be interested. How would we not, even if it doesn’t involve doughnuts.
Most families looking for a holiday season activity to do together might go to a tree lot to pick out their Christmas tree for the living room. Or build a gingerbread house.
The Ortiz family from Port Moody made a movie.
Their production, Saving Christmas, is now available on digital platforms like iTunes, Vimeo, Amazon and Google Play as well as cable providers, Bell, Rogers and Shaw.
How it got there is a “like a Christmas miracle” in itself, said Luiza Ortiz, one of the film’s writers.
The idea started as a fanciful notion by her dad, Marcelo, who works as a digital animator in the film industry. He said he’d always been curious about the craft of live-action filmmaking since he first saw Star Wars as a child growing up in Brazil.
“I threw out the idea to the family to make a movie,” Marcelo said. “It would be doable.”
His wife, Beatriz, was receptive.
Their son, Ricardo, is an actor and she’d accompanied him to sets when he was younger so she knew her way around the business and had forged numerous contacts who could help guide them in the right direction.
And Luiza has taken a couple of elective courses in screenwriting while studying English literature and political science at the University of British Columbia.
The family batted around ideas. They considered a drama or horror film but their budget was small and the bulk of the filming had to be done in and around their Ioco Road home.
A small, heartfelt Christmas story seemed the best fit for the family’s skills, budget and Marcelo’s ambitions.
Pre-production involved months of script writing and refining, casting 25 actors, scouting locations in Port Moody and Maple Ridge, arranging for equipment and permits, along with assembling a crew of 30-50 — most of them extended family, friends in the industry as well as students from Vancouver Film School and the film program at Capilano University.
Marcelo said what anyone lacked in experience or in-depth knowledge, they more than made up with passion and enthusiasm.
“We had such a phenomenal crew,” said Luiza.
Three weeks of filming was scheduled in December, 2022.
Beatriz said that’s usually a quiet time for the film industry locally so pro members of their crew could be readily available.
But a snowstorm almost derailed the first two of 15 shooting days.
Other setbacks also popped up.
Arranging insurance for the production took longer than expected.
A scene in a grocery store had to be rewritten when an actual grocery store couldn’t be secured at a price the production could afford.
“It was a little bit crazy,” said Marcelo. “Problems will come every day and you have to stay positive to find solutions.”
“There’s no time to complain,” added Beatriz.
But, said Luiza, the speed bumps created a kind of “brothers-in-arms” vibe on the set, pulled everyone closer together to find a way to see the project through to its conclusion.
“It really forced us to be creative,” she said. “That made the movie better.”
SUBMITTED PHOTO Ricardo Ortiz plays NIck, a 16-year-old teen who unwittingly cancels Christmas then must find a way to restore the holiday in his family’s film production, Saving Christmas.
Post production of the film took the better part of a year.
Marcelo watched YouTube videos to learn how to use the software required to craft 24 terabytes of digital footage into a 104-minute film. A friend did the colour correction. Another did the sound mixing and an old friend from Brazil composed the sound track.
Getting the film done was only half the battle though. Ensuring it gets seen presented another challenge.
Marcelo researched distributors on the Internet Movie Database Pro (IMDB) website. He sent out dozens of emails, talked to about 50 companies, delivered several copies of the movie. Many inquiries went nowhere. But there were offers and an executive producer finalized a deal with California-based Vision Films.
Saving Christmas premiered two weeks ago at Vancouver Film School.
It was the first time much of the cast and crew were together again in almost two years.
Marcelo said his heart filled with pride to see the fruits of their little family project projected on a big screen.
“It looks like more than we expected,” he said of the film. “Everybody put a little love into it.”
MARIO BARTEL 