RV Nomads — The Movie tells the stories of full-timers pursuing their passions.
By John Johnston
Associate Editor
October 2018
Late last February, Jesse and Jenny Ingram and their infant son, Tucker, were headed to Baja, Mexico, in their motorhome when they heard that filming on a feature-length documentary about full-time RVers would begin soon in Wellington, Texas.
RV Nomads cast members include Jesse and Jenny Ingram and their son, Tucker.
The Ingrams, F485755, saw it as a great opportunity for Jesse — a film student at Full Sail University in Winter Haven, Florida — to gain experience on a movie set. After exchanging emails with the film’s producer, Jesse accepted a volunteer job as camera operator.
Soon after the Ingrams arrived in Texas, their roles expanded. Jesse, 38, and Jenny, 30, agreed to become members of the cast. And when filming began in May, Jesse was promoted to director of photography. As such, he had input into how hundreds of hours of film footage was shot in Texas and Colorado.
“It was a lot of hard work,” Jesse said, “but it was very rewarding work.”
Other members of the production crew, many of whom are FMCA members, shared similar sentiments. The results of their efforts will be on display when RV Nomads — The Movie premieres on October 20 during NomadFEST, a four-day, sold-out event in Wellington.
The producer and driving force behind RV Nomads is 38-year-old Eric Odom, a former political consultant and activist. He acknowledges he never paid much attention to RVs and those who owned them until February 2017, when he traveled from his Chicago home to Las Vegas, Nevada, on business.
Needing a breather, he decided that instead of flying he would drive, stop at KOA campgrounds along the way, and pitch a tent. The first revelation: RVs are ubiquitous. Then, on the way home, he met a young couple whose motorhome was parked overnight in a Walmart lot near Des Moines, Iowa. “I found out they ran an e-commerce store (from the RV) and had just come from the Tetons,” Eric said. “They had no plans for where they were going and didn’t really care where they ended up.”
For Eric, it was an epiphany, a window into what the digital age makes possible. Through social media, he learned that many thousands of people have left their sticks-and-bricks homes to travel and work full-time in RVs. “That was awe-inspiring to me,” he said.
Members of the RV Nomads crew include, from left, Caitlin Morton, Eric Odom, Audrey Callahan, Tom Morton, Shane Snyder, and Jesse Ingram.
A plethora of YouTube videos captured the RV lifestyle in “a million bite-sized pieces,” Eric said. But he was surprised that no one had produced a long-form film to tell the overarching tale of the full-time nomadic movement.
“We built a story arc that walks you through the decision (to become a full-time RVer), why the decisions are being made, what the transition looks like, and what results physically and mentally when that transition is made,” Eric said.
Eric himself has completed the transition to full-time RVing, leaving behind what he said is the “revolting and divisive world” of politics for the “extremely refreshing and very therapeutic” RV lifestyle. Initially, he considered telling his own tale in the film. But after posting an item on Facebook, he was deluged with responses from RVers with compelling stories. The film intersperses Eric’s interviews of cast members with scenes of RV life.
John and Laura Hebard, F485725, were the first couple to commit to working on the film. John is the cinematographer, and Laura is community director for EPICNomad.Life, the social app that has been created to share the movie and other content. Both are also cast members.
Before buying their fifth-wheel, “I was working at night, and he was working during the day and going to school full-time. We just never saw each other,” Laura, 32, said. “Our relationship was suffering.” What’s more, John, 36, longed for the kind of camaraderie he knew in the military. He served three tours of duty with the Army in Afghanistan and Iraq, and returned home after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Since becoming full-time RVers in October 2016, they say they have mended their relationship, made many great friends, and are enjoying life again.
RVing also has made a significant difference in the lives of Tom and Caitlin Morton, F485729. Tom, 32, the film’s director, is a certified drone operator who runs a company specializing in high-end aerial cinematography. Caitlin, 28, is director of events for Epic Nomad LLC, which is putting on NomadFEST. Both are also RV Nomads cast members.
Before becoming full-time RVers, the Mortons had good-paying jobs that left the couple feeling unfulfilled. Tom survived layoffs at his workplace, then faced increased responsibilities that brought stress and eventually took a physical toll. Feeling trapped, they bought a pickup truck and a fifth-wheel and hit the road in September 2015. RVing “has been everything, and more, that we wanted,” Tom said.
Just a few years ago, Jesse and Jenny Ingram also appeared to be living the American dream. They had a nice house in Washington state, and Jesse was earning good money working in power plants. But, “it wasn’t work I loved doing,” he said. In November 2017 they became full-time RVers, “hoping that as we pursue our passions, we’ll find other ways to earn an income.”
RV Nomads brought together the Hebards, Mortons, Ingrams, and about two dozen other full-time RVers, including FMCA members Marc and Julie Bennett (profiled in the November 2017 issue of Family Motor Coaching) and John and Brenda Nejedlo (profiled in the March 2018 issue).
“We didn’t know anybody there,” Jesse Ingram said. “We had no idea what to expect. But we got along very well. We had so many similar thoughts and connections. It was kind of like we showed up and they were longtime friends we hadn’t seen in a while. Everyone meshed very quickly.”
Good thing, because they faced numerous challenges. In Texas, “the weather did not cooperate at all,” Tom Morton said. Temperatures of 100 degrees or more and winds of 20 to 30 mph made filming extremely difficult.
And although many crew members are skilled at creating videos for YouTube, they had never made a movie. “It was quite a learning experience for everyone involved to really step up their game to this cinema level,” Tom said. “It was challenging at times. By the end, we were a pretty well-oiled machine.”
The crew struggled mightily on the scorching hot day they filmed the opening scene. Audrey Callahan, the film’s narrator, appears in it. After the crew lugged hundreds of pounds of equipment up a steep butte in Texas, they set up a jib — a boom device with a camera on one end — so it would swing in a wide arc over a cliff and then land with the camera focused on Audrey’s face.
“The mood, the lighting, my facial expression, (everything) had to be perfect,” she said. “The wind was going nuts, blowing the camera in the wrong direction, and then my hair was all over my face.”
After dozens of takes ended in failure, “I think we all knew when we finally got it,” Tom said. “That was the moment we really felt like a team, more than ever before. It was the most exhilarating feeling.”
The filmmakers hope audience members also will feel something after seeing RV Nomads.
“We’re not asserting that the RV life is the answer to everyone’s woes,” Eric Odom said. “We’re saying, if you’re not happy or fulfilled, do some self-reflection and find ways you can be happy and fulfilled and live more intentionally. (RVing) just happens to be what these individuals did, and here’s what it did for them.”
RVing has been life changing for Audrey Callahan and her husband of seven years, Shane Snyder, both 35. They recently sold their small web development business, and now Audrey is pursuing her dream of being a full-time singer. Her sound studio is in their RV. She wrote and sang the RV Nomads’ title track. She and Shane are cast members, and they served as the film’s audio engineers. All this has happened since the couple began RVing full-time in August 2017.
Since embracing the RV lifestyle, Shane said he’s felt a tremendous sense of freedom. At its core, that’s what RV Nomads is about. “It’s about stepping into your own truth and living your passions,” he said. “It’s crossing the fear line and allowing yourself to live whatever passion, whatever excitement, whatever dream you have always had.”
About The Movie
RV Nomads – The Movie is an independent film, made without the backing of a major film studio. Producer Eric Odom said he and two other full-time RVers provided funding of approximately $100,000. In addition, a campaign on Indiegogo.com raised more than $26,000 for post-production work, public relations, and marketing.
Tom Morton is the director of RV Nomads. He and his wife, Caitlin, also are members of the cast. They say being full-time RVers has made a significant difference in their lives.
Without a major studio behind it, the RV Nomads won’t be shown in theaters. Instead, it will be made available through a distribution network built by EPIC Nomad TV (ENTV). A group of RVers created ENTV in 2017 to produce online content centered on people who are devoted to full-time nomadic travel. A digital network also was developed to deliver that content.
RV Nomads is the flagship project of ENTV. The film will premiere October 20 at sold-out NomadFEST in Wellington, Texas. After that, people who want to see the film will have several options.
*The film will begin streaming free in high definition on November 15. Viewers will see advertisements, which will help offset costs of the project.
*The movie can be ordered on DVD. The price has not yet been set.
*Beginning in January 2019, the film will be available for free streaming via Roku, iOS, Android, and Amazon Firestick using the EPIC Nomad Life app, www.epicnomad.life.
For more information about the film, as well as ENTV’s plans to begin streaming episodic TV shows in 2019, visit www.RVNomadsTheMovie.com.