Go for Grandma dug deep inside the filmmaking toolkit to achieve its Spielbergian magic. To film the scenes at Lucian’s window in which he talks to his grandmother across a New York alley, the filmmakers shot Lucian’s coverage on Production Designer Clarisa Garcia-Fresco’s apartment set, matching the window frame to one in an existing New York alleyway. They then filmed Grandma’s coverage in the real alley, and editor Banner Gwin cut shots from both locations together to make them look like the same location.

Flooding Blake’s apartment meant building the entire apartment set inside a water retention pond, which the SFX department then filled with water once all the dry scenes were in the can. 

Ignoring the old adage, the team shot with children (lead Austin Schoenfeld and many child extras) and animals, including a white draft horse standing in for a unicorn. 

DP Maximilian Schmige used a technocrane on Wall Street to allow the team to shoot quickly during intermittent traffic control. Running two cameras inside a sweltering New York City bus was a tight squeeze, but it helped make the day on a child actor schedule.

The talent and commitment of Justine Lupe and Amy Madigan were essential to giving the film its raw emotional power. Amy even came in on her days off so child actor Austin would have a scene partner for the walkie-talkie scenes.

There are almost 200 VFX shots in the movie, ranging from a dragon flying down Wall Street to a little mariner boy caught in a Perfect Storm-type ocean. The film’s VFX team – led by co-producer, Oscar winner Scott E. Anderson, and by VFX supervisor Robert Moggach – came from all over the world, with artists working out of the US, UK, Serbia, Egypt and China.

The post-production process saw composer Fabrizio Mancinelli record his romantic symphonic score with a full orchestra at the Synchron Stage Vienna. The team at Skywalker Sound invented the creature sounds and assembled a sonic landscape rich enough to convey a child’s inner life. Coloring at Light Iron allowed the storytellers to discover a tonal balance between Blake’s emotional coldness and the vibrancy of Lucian and Grandma’s imaginations.

Ultimately, Go for Grandma takes a child’s interior world and gives it a spectacle worthy of the big screen. The finished film is a testament to the hundreds of gifted craftspeople across all departments who contributed to it.