My Lockdown Jaws Project: The Orca

Jaws finatics and father and son team Phil (39) and Brandon (5) decided to use their lockdown time together to tackle a Jaws themed home project - making their very own Orca! The Daily Jaws caught up with the West Yorkshire based duo to learn more.

Phil: My love for jaws began at a very early age when i discovered the VHS in my uncles video draw, I was probably round about 5/6. My son Brandon was probably about 3 when he would say goodnight to the poster upstairs. and was always trying to play with my jaws memorabilia. He loves sharks and he watched certain bits of the movie supervised lol, he also loves the Orca boat. (I've told him he can watch the full version when he’s a little older)

I always remember being blown away by jaws the way it was filmed, the music score the acting the beautiful town of Amity (I hope one day to get there) and most of all BRUCE.... People still go on about the dodgy mouth but to me as a kid and now an adult the look of the shark still is terrifying especially the estuary scene. I especially remember as a kid running up and down the beach pretending to be Brody shouting everybody out of the water SHARK..... (Which funnily enough my son now does the exact same)

Brandon's favourite line in the movie is BLOW UP.... he gets very excited even mimicking Brody and hums the music annoying his mum lol (we both do actually) my favourite scene is the Kintner attack scene I love how it's one continuous shot of Brody looking out and then you get that famous zoom shot on Brody. AMAZING. And also the final battle Brody and the Beast I STILL get the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

Favourite character for Brandon has got to be the captain of the orca QUINT. he absolutely loves him. And is always quoting lines. I think its gotta be Brody for me as he starts off as a total outsider hating the water truly terrified and yet gets courage and saves the day and because of the ULTIMATE line "Your gunna need a bigger boat"

My friends and family who know I am an absolute jaws nut and now Brandon (proud father moment) cant believe how many times I watch it quoting line for line, and am always drawing jaws cartoons and now making orca boats with Brandon. I had the opportunity when I was younger to visit universal studios Hollywood and got to meet Bruce personally on the backlot tour, sadly the Orca had been destroyed. But it was amazing to be there. I also have an ever growing collection of memorabilia of Jaws books videos DVDs keyrings posters etc etc.

I am proud to call Marty Milner a great friend who worked on the movie building the orca fixing the sharks and building the cabins etc etc. And he has also sent me a piece of the same balsa used to make the breakaway transom and cabin scene aswell as signed autographs, he also wrote out how he would fix the sharks mouth again and again. He is a top top man who I am always asking questions about jaws and he always asks how Brandon is doing. I still cant believe I am friends with someone who worked on the GREATEST movie of all time. He is in my eyes a LEGEND.

Another great friend is a man who actually lives on the island, Captain Mikey Waters (who was an extra in Jaws) who has gone above and beyond to get me autographs like Jeffery Voorhees. He gave us actual sand from where the Kintner attack took place and he also got me a piece of the original Jaws bridge (you can still smell the creosote they used to coat it with) he keeps me up to date on island life and has sent me a huge amount of Jaws memorabilia. He is a great friend and one day hope I can sink a few Narragansetts with.

Brandon and I were inspired over this lockdown to build a full size orca (Brandon size) after we would build little mini Paper Maché Orcas and he would always say I want to get in it. So I went into my shed and found bits of cardboard/paper etc etc and we started to construct the orca shape adding more detail as we went along. We basically put the DVD on and looked at scenes involving the orca and tried our best to copy I think we did a pretty good job out of the little materials we had lol. We took over the front living room much to the annoyance of my wife. She did like it in the end.

Brandon would act out his favourite scene and would have his breakfast lunch and tea in it, we couldn't get him out. Sadly the orca met its doom after about 2 weeks when Brandon said he got eaten by the shark and it wrecked the boat in the process......somewhere there is a scrap yard orca now lol

To anyone wanting to make there own orca I say go for it, it was great to do and it made mine and Brandon's love for this Classic movie even stronger.

We are currently building a smaller more detailed mini Paper Maché Orca. We’ve had some great comments from Jaws fans from around the world which Brandon could not believe. He thought he was famous.

One other thing that I love about this movie is its opened up a huge world to me through social media and been able to actually talk to people who worked and star in the movie. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be swapping texts with the likes of Carl Gottlieb, Susan Murphy, Kevin Pike, Susan Backlinie, Jeffery Voorhees and I am proud to call Marty Milner and Mikey Waters friends

As they say "AMITY MEANS FRIENDSHIP.”

Are a Jaws finatic like Brandon and Phil? If so, we’d love to hear from you! Contact us at mail@thedailyjaws.com and put your name and jaws finatic in the subject and we’ll get back to you!

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