A full-length children’s movie known as Dot Conner: Webtective was filmed in Murfreesboro this summer. Based on the faith-based streaming series of the same name, Murfreesboro producer Jae Huff and writer/director Andrew Huff created the Dot Conner concept.
The action series follows an inquisitive young teenager as she investigates questions about her Christian faith as if she were a detective solving a mystery. The filmmakers say the goal of the series is to teach sound biblical doctrine to kids in an entertaining way and encourage them to use available tools and resources to answer their own questions about God and the Bible, according to dotconner.com.
Find the Season 1 series now on DirecTV, Prime Video, Tubi, YouTube TV and other streaming platforms.
“When we thought about how to do Season 2, we thought, ‘What if we went out and made a movie?’” Jae Huff said. “Because there is going to be a lack of family content in the theaters.
“Also, some Indie films like Sound of Freedom have come out and been huge, and not distributed in a traditional way. That gave us pause to think maybe we can distribute it and bring it to families who want that content, and to movie theaters that have recently been so much more open to Indie projects.”
Andrew Huff said they have been getting great feedback from kids.
“It’s awesome that kids watching the show have really been enjoying it,” he said.
In Season 1 the kids in the show are in middle school; the movie takes off at the point when they become freshmen in high school, according to Andrew.
“The main character Dot is very curious. She is also very innocent and a little awkward at times because she sees everything through a lens like being a detective. And then Makayla, her best friend, is a little bit of Dr. Watson to Dot’s Sherlock Holmes. Makayla is grounded in the real world, kind of scrappy and looking out for Dot,” he said. “Alex was a very interesting character to put into the series because he records the mysteries—he is a cameraman, and he is hilarious.”
Gili Sage Gould as Dot Conner, Lauryn McCardell as Makayla Williams and Ethan Pogue as Alex Murray are the lead actors playing this central team uncovering these mysteries.
Andrew said he’d had the idea for Dot Conner: Webtective for quite awhile when a streaming platform asked for pitches that could be developed and launched.
“Jae and I started working in production in 2019 when we were working on a lot of media production for churches, and we decided to start working on more, because we weren’t doing anything entertaining for consumers,” he said. “I loved the ’80s show Remington Steele that was about a private detective, and then I’m a huge Alfred Hitchcock fan. I love detective stories and mystery stories and all that kind of stuff.”
Taking that detective element and attaching it to more of a modern kid’s experience resulted in Dot Conner.
“At the time my kids were very much like YouTubers and bloggers, so I thought maybe this pre-teen girl would film herself solving mysteries,” Andrew said. “Taking that mainstream character and combining a YouTuber was the idea we were going for.”
At the same time, the filmmakers wanted to create a story that is timeless.
“We try to make exciting stories with eternal truths,” Jae said. “Things that will be true today, tomorrow and 10 years from now.”
They also aim to preserve and showcase the family unit and strong friendships in their film.
“We enjoyed filming the movie in Murfreesboro and there will be a few local spots that people will recognize. We want to support Murfreesboro and the people who live here, and we loved shooting part of the film at small businesses,” Jae said.
Some of the Middle Tennessee locations included in the film include the Soda Bar at Fountains at Gateway, Motlow State Community College and the Smyrna Airport.
To find out more about Dot Conner: Webtective, visit dotconner.com and wefunder.com/dot.conner.webtective.
