Skating filmmaker from Buffalo Grove to show collection of short works

Filmmaker Brad Bischoff was a teenager at Buffalo Grove High School when he began shooting and starring in extreme inline skating videos with his friend (and later his cinematographer) Jake Zalutsky.

One thing led to another until he wound up with a series of independent film shorts that expanded far beyond skating.

Now, there's a retrospective of his shorts (one was shown at 2008's 61st Cannes Film Festival in France) being presented at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 16, at Chicago's prestigious Music Box Theatre.

Bischoff, now 28, will be there to discuss his works - including his first, "Eyelids," and the most recent, "Lady of the House" - and answer questions from the audience.

"I'm a cartoon character," he confessed during an interview at a Hubbard Street restaurant in Chicago. "I wear the same thing every day. That doesn't matter to me. Let's chase our dreams. Let's do what we want to do.

"I think a lot of people might not know what that is. That, in itself, is very sad. I think fear is another huge part of that. I try very hard to follow what feels good. And filmmaking feels good."

Bischoff credits his parents, Cindy and Hank, for creating a home environment where he and his two brothers could develop their own interests and be "spontaneous."

A self-confessed "sheltered kid from the suburbs," Bischoff said he never came into Chicago proper until age 17.

"It opened up my mind," he said, "to experience the city for the first time."

His interest in film shorts led him to Chicago's Columbia College, where he earned a degree in film and video. These days, he works as a commercial editor for McGarryBowen Chicago to put food on the table for his wife, Mirella, and their 1-year-old daughter, Everest Moon.

How he met Mirella at a party three years ago would make for its own movie on the Lifetime Channel.

"I saw her across a room," Bischoff said. "It was crazy. I walked up and I kissed her. She said, 'Are you serious?' I just kissed her again."

And that was it?

"That was it," he said. "We had this connection. We had our first date a week later. We were married a year later. Our baby came a year after that."

Being a father changed the filmmaker.

Watching his own wife at home with their baby inspired him to create his most recent film short, "The Lady of the House." It's about an opera singer - Bischoff's sister-in-law - who has given up performing to be the mother of two.

"People only see the happy pictures of families on Facebook," he noted. "They don't see the weeks, and months and days and endless hours with the baby. All they see are the posts, the selfies and the happy family photographs."

Bischoff spent a day with his sister-in-law and her two children to shoot her daily life, tinged with a certain amount of editorial sadness at the end.

"She's not even an actress, and she did an amazing job," Bischoff marveled.

For now, the filmmaker has set his sights on directing his first feature film, a darker and more adult version of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" titled "Grasshopper."

"The 9-to-5 daily work life never appealed to me," he said. "In Buffalo Grove, all my schools are on the same street, like a block from each other. Then there's a golf course behind my house.

"It's like these are the steps in life, right? After this, you go to college and get a degree, then you get a job. Then after that you get a house, then yada yada yada. Then one day you wake up and you're 45, but you don't feel any different from you've always felt.

"That's when you realize that life is a musical and you're supposed to sing and dance while the music is being played. I want to take advantage of every moment I have."

- Dann Gire

Jamie Sotonoff and Dann Gire are looking for suburbanites working in showbiz. If you know one who might make a great story, contact them at jsotonoff@dailyherald.com and dgire@dailyherald.com.

Independent Filmmaker Project

Buffalo Grove High School graduate and independent filmmaker Brad Bischoff will show his film shorts and discuss his career at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 16, at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., Chicago.

John Otterbacher, vice president of the Independent Filmmaker Project, will host. Tickets are $12.

Bischoff will also initiate a fundraiser for his first feature, “The Grasshopper.”