Originally planned as the second 10-minute follow-up to the short film "Get Lost In The Outdoors: Junior Associate Ranger" (2020) on a YouTube channel. Ideas kept generating until a 90-minute feature film, 11 months in the making, was created.
Many of the characters (Clara, Hubert, Sally Freeman) were named after real relatives of Allen Freeman, who wrote the brief story, later expanded by Allen and Dean LeCrone.
Dean LeCrone really did go through boot camp when he was younger, inspiring his Hubert character with real taunts to scream out at Allen's character and Melvin during a scene in the film.
While filming a 10-minute short also starring Melvin, played by Jacob Dubizhansky, the team were confronted in a park while filming by real Rangers with threats of fines. This inspired Allen Freeman to write the first draft of the movie enhancing the rangers part with the Hubert character, portrayed by Dean LeCrone, taunting them.
The initial idea of a grown man aspiring to become a Junior Ranger started 10 years earlier when Dean LeCrone and Allen Freeman visited a State Park gift shop and Dean put on a Junior Ranger hat and Allen took his photo.