On April 15, HieronyVision and Film Independent hosted the installment of On a Shoestring, our series of discussions on Ultra Microbudget Filmmaking. In this panel talk moderated again by HV founder Felix Werner, filmmaker Toby Jones and producer/filmmaker Liz Manashil (Speed of Life, Bread and Butter) discussed their work on the upcoming indie AJ Goes to the Dog Park.

Jones, a Los Angeles based director and animation writer, made the absurdist comedy in his hometown of Fargo, North Dakota with his childhood friends. The project began as a proof-of-concept short with a budget of $15,000 intended as the first few scenes of the feature. When the short failed to draw interest from financiers and investors, Jones and his friends pooled their resources to raise the budget to roughly $40,000 while also calling in favors and relying on old-fashioned small-town pride—somewhat ironically, for a town made famous in the cultural lexicon by another independent film (that admittedly is mostly set next door in Brainerd, Minnesota).

Over the course of the three years, Jones and his friends shot the film in 2-week intervals while he home on breaks from his day job as an animation writer. While Jones scripted the entire movie, he implemented an unusual writing process, which he compares to a one-man version of the “exquisite corpse” exercise. Given the necessity of the film’s extended shooting window, he essentially wrote whatever he found funny or amused him in that specific moment, worrying less about the logic or connective narrative tissue.

This is not to say the filming process was entirely freewheeling. Jones credits his work in animation with drilling in the principles of story structure. He also considered the people and places he had access to, which helped ground the process. Because of the film’s miniscule budget and resources, Jones also made sure to prepare. While the family, friends, and community element of the production always seemed to ensure a bit of chaos—not to mention working with the titular canine—he countered this by preparing meticulous boards and shot lists to ensure that the filmmakers took advantage of the time they had.

This was Jones’s first time making a film at any level, let alone at a microbudget scale. He edited the film himself, calling in more favors with friends for things like post effects, spending “smart” money in areas like sound mixing and color correction. As he started to navigate the film festival circuit in search of distribution, he realized he needed help. He was familiar with Liz Manashil through her appearance on an indie film podcast (she also hosts her own podcast, which we recommend checking out). The two filmmakers also bonded over their shared passion for another microbudget indie, Jason Avezzano’s Hallmark parody Love Dump starring and written by Gorstein and Jesse Kendall. Liz explained what her role would be as a production consultant and distribution specialist: manage expectations, cheerlead the film, and eventually find the least evil deal (there are no good deals out there for indie filmmakers anymore).

Even so, the filmmakers found navigating the festival circuit with this type of film puzzling. Although not technically a “genre” film, the film was well received at some of the bigger festivals offering more specialized and niche programming. At the same time, smaller, less prestigious festivals rejected the project. Jones also credits Peter Kuplowsky, a curator of the “Midnight Madness” programming at the Toronto International Film Fest, for being an early champion of the film. His advocacy helped the team garner more attention.

And the end result of all this? The filmmakers were able to secure a distribution deal for AJ Goes to the Dog Park with Doppelganger, the genre label of Music Box Films (details were still under wraps at the time of the discussion). So the $100K or less again: would they do it again? Jones enjoyed the DIY aspects to the process. As he puts it, there’s no reason to make something ordinary if no one is paying you to do it. Manashil, similarly, remains committed to microbudget filmmaking. For her, this is the only way to work. As she quipped, she doesn’t take vacations; she makes films. Her summer plans: shooting her next feature, Best Friends Forever, a microbudget horror film.