Feature Documentary for The Valhalla Fund

‍

Overview

• Project: You Can Ride With Us (Feature Documentary)
• Client: The Valhalla Fund
• Category: Feature Documentary
• Sub-Category: Nonprofit / Awareness / Long-Form
• Location: Seaside, Oregon to South Padre Island, Texas

‍

When Christian Johanneson lost his father Jerry to pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive and incurable lung disease, he was left searching for a way to keep moving. He founded The Valhalla Fund in his father's honor to support the mental health of pulmonary fibrosis patients. Then he signed up for the Scooter Cannonball: an 8-day, 4,000-mile back-roads ride from Seaside, Oregon to South Padre Island, Texas. He invited friends and family to ride beside him. He covered his scooter with stickers bearing the names of others lost to the disease. A personal grief journey became a public act of awareness.

JSB Video came on board as production partner to make the feature documentary. You Can Ride With Us is the result: a 75-minute feature film delivered for the 2026 festival circuit, serving as the cornerstone content asset for The Valhalla Fund's awareness mission.

‍

Background & Challenge

Pulmonary fibrosis is incurable. For Christian, it was not abstract. It took his father, who he describes as not just his dad but his best friend. The Valhalla Fund needed a piece of work that could carry the mission well beyond a single fundraiser.

The film had to work on multiple levels at once. That was the central production challenge:

• Personal credibility. This was Christian's grief, his father's memory, and a community of friends and family who came out to ride beside him. The film could not feel sanitized, branded, or pitched. It had to earn trust as a personal story before it could ever function as awareness content.
• Filming while moving. Capturing a 4,000-mile back-roads ride meant shooting from inside a chase vehicle and from the saddle, often at 50+ MPH on remote forest roads. Every shot had to balance camera operation with safe driving and crew coordination, with no margin for error.
• Working inside a 200+ rider event. The Scooter Cannonball is a real third-party event with hundreds of riders running their own race. Capturing Christian's story without distracting the other riders, blocking the route, or interfering with the official event was a constant operational discipline.
• Capturing every moment that mattered. With no second takes, the production had to anticipate where the story was going and be in the right place when breakdowns, weather, conversations, and emotional moments hit.
• Audio at speed. Pulling usable interview audio off riders moving at 50+ MPH, through wind, helmets, and engine noise, required rigging that worked the first time and held up across eight days on the road.
• Data discipline on the road. Hours of multi-camera footage every day meant offloading, backing up, and verifying data every night before sleep. With 5 AM call times and 1 AM wraps, the production schedule left almost no recovery window.
• Festival-ready delivery. The film was always intended to play in real cinemas. That set the technical bar from day one: 4K master, professional 5.1 mix, full color grade, captions, and a Digital Cinema Package built to festival specifications.
• One creative voice from interview to delivery. A documentary about grief is held together by tone. The project needed a single director carrying the story from first interview through picture lock so the film would feel authored, not assembled.

‍

The Valhalla Fund needed a partner who could direct the story, run the production, edit the film, and deliver a festival-grade master. All without losing the human core of why the ride happened in the first place.

Our Role

JSB Video served as the lead production partner on You Can Ride With Us from development through final delivery. Jordan Berns served as Director, Producer, Cinematographer, and Editor, and was the sole camera operator throughout the ride. Monique Lapointe served as Logistics Coordinator and Associate Producer, supporting both production and on-the-road operations. A three-person crew, led by Jordan, covered the full 4,000-mile journey. Christian Johanneson also served as a producer on the film.

Our scope across the project included:

• Story development. Pre-production conversations with Christian and the riding crew to shape the narrative arc, identify the core characters, and find the honest version of the story under the headline event.
• Documentary direction and interviewing. More than a dozen long-form, journalism-rooted sit-down interviews with Christian, his family, the riders, the support crew, and the broader community around Jerry Johanneson. Drawing out the personal material that anchors the film.
• On-the-road production. A three-person crew on the road, with Jordan as the sole camera operator, shooting a Canon C70 package across the 8-day, 4,000-mile journey. Coverage from the chase vehicle, on the bikes, and at every fuel stop, hotel parking lot, and roadside breakdown. 15.99 TB of footage captured across 4,886 files, including verité ride footage, mechanical challenges, weather, and the moments between riders that no scripted production could ever stage.
• Travel logistics and route mapping. Monique mapped the most efficient daily route for the riders every single day on the road. Ahead of the ride, she spent countless hours researching the roads to identify the most cinematic stretches and pre-scouting locations that would hold up on camera. Logistics work that quietly shaped what the film could capture.
• Archival integration. Weaving home video, family photography, and existing materials Christian and the family had gathered over years into the cut to give the film visual and emotional depth.
• Editorial. Full feature edit from rough cut through picture lock. Structured around the film's two-act movement from preparation through journey, with an emphasis on letting the story breathe rather than over-explaining it. Christian was actively involved throughout the edit as a viewer and creative guide, keeping the cut honest to the story he had lived.
• Audio post. Sound design, dialogue restoration, and full 5.1 and stereo mixes delivered by audio post collaborator Andy Villarreal. Jordan supervised the revision process across multiple rounds.
• Motion graphics. A custom animated map sequence built for the film to track the cross-country route through forests, mountain passes, river canyons, desert, and the Million Dollar Highway in Colorado.
• Festival-grade mastering. 4K ProRes 422 HQ master, professional color grade, closed captions, and Digital Cinema Package authoring for theatrical festival screening.
• Festival strategy and submission management. Festival research, deadline tracking, and submission planning across both qualifying and audience-facing festivals on the 2026 circuit.
• Friends and family premiere. A theatrical-style preview screening at iPic Theater in Redmond Town Center for the riders, the families on the stickers, and the broader community supporting The Valhalla Fund. Christian planned the entire screening, from venue to invite list, turning the first viewing of the film into the kind of communal event the story itself was built around.

‍

The work spanned roughly one year from first conversations through final delivery. Jordan stayed personally involved at every stage. That continuity was deliberate. A film about grief needs one voice carrying it from the first interview to the last frame.

‍

The Result

A 75-minute feature documentary, delivered at festival-grade technical specification and ready for theatrical screening and distribution.

You Can Ride With Us has since been recognized as a 2026 Bronze Telly Award winner in General Documentary and an Official Selection of the 2026 Catalina Film Festival.

View on IMDb · Follow the film on Instagram

The Impact

You Can Ride With Us is now functioning as the cornerstone awareness asset for The Valhalla Fund. The film is being submitted across the 2026 festival circuit. Theatrical screenings are building visibility for the organization in real cinemas and in front of real audiences.

After delivery, Christian shared the following:

"Working with JSB Video on You Can Ride With Us was an exceptional experience. Jordan and his team did far more than simply document the journey. Over more than 4,000 miles across the country, they were professional, committed, and fully present every step of the way. Jordan brought an extraordinary level of care to every aspect of the project, from licensing and editing to music selection and the beautiful use of the footage he captured along the way. He is highly detail oriented, an outstanding storyteller, and someone who never settles for anything less than getting it right. Monique also went well beyond her role and was a huge asset to the team while we were on the road. She was organized, dependable, and a genuine pleasure to work with throughout the process. Before retiring, I worked with many production companies during my years at Microsoft, and JSB Video stands out as one of the best."

— Christian Johanneson, Founder, The Valhalla Fund

‍

The friends and family screening at iPic Theater in Redmond brought riders, family members, and supporters into one room for the first viewing of a story they had each carried a piece of. For the families whose loved ones were named on the scooter, it was a public memorial. For The Valhalla Fund, it was the launch of a piece of work that will continue to introduce new audiences to the cause for years.

The feature is also Jordan Berns' first credited feature documentary as Director, Producer, Cinematographer, and Editor, and Monique Lapointe's first credited feature documentary as Associate Producer. It builds on JSB Video's documentary track record and establishes a long-form portfolio anchor that supports future feature and brand documentary work.

‍

What Made This Work

• One creative lead from start to finish. Jordan directed, shot, and edited the film on his own. The voice of the project stayed consistent from the first interview through final delivery.
• The subject in the room. Christian stayed actively involved throughout post as a creative guide, watching cuts and helping shape the edit toward the most authentic version of the story. The person who lived it was in the room while it was being told.
• Trust before story. Long-form interviews and time spent on the road meant the riders were comfortable being honest on camera. The film earns its emotional weight because the people in it trusted the process.
• Built to keep working. Festival-grade mastering, DCP delivery, and a 75-minute runtime mean this is not a one-time deliverable. It is a film that will keep working for The Valhalla Fund well beyond its first screening.

‍

‍

Work With Us

If your organization has a story that deserves a feature-length treatment, an awareness mission that needs a long-form anchor, or a once-in-a-lifetime production environment that has to be captured the first time, we can help.

We work with founders, nonprofits, and mission-driven organizations on documentary projects where the story is personal, the stakes are real, and the production has to hold up to a theatrical audience. Directing the story, running the production, and delivering a film that keeps working long after the lights come up. That is what we show up to do.

See our video solutions or request a proposal and let us know what you are working on.