ORLANDO — The movie industry already has a Hollywood and a Bollywood, but some local filmmakers see Central Florida staking its claim as “Holywood.” A single faith-based movie filmed here last year has led to a handful of like-minded movies being shot from Ocoee to Mount Dora.
“The Whisper Home,” based on the biblical parable of the prodigal son, was filmed in Ocoee last winter. It has its Florida premiere at the Ocoee-based Central Florida Film Festival.
An adaptation of a Christian children’s fantasy novel, “Ryann Watters and the King’s Sword,” just wrapped location filming in Mount Dora. “Heading Home,” a faith-based drama about redemption and baseball, was written by local filmmaker De Miller and is slated to go before cameras in Lake County in October.
And the local producers of “Letters to God,” the first big faith-based movie shot here, plan to film two more faith-based projects in the region before the end of the year.
David Nixon, who co-directed “Letters to God,” is a firm believer that Central Florida “should be the capital of Christian films. We have world-class facilities, just as good or better than L.A.”
Adds Miller, “We’d like Central Florida to be ‘Holywood’ because we want to get the ‘L’ out of Hollywood.”
Unlike Hollywood’s blockbusters, these faith-based films are made on micro budgets. “Letters to God,” which started this Central Florida boomlet, cost $3.5 million to produce. But the films following in its footsteps have even smaller budgets -- ranging from $785,000 for “Ryann Watters and the King’s Sword” to $70,000 for “The Whisper Home.”
Most are made with lots of donated labor, locations and gear. “Ryann Watters” was shot on cameras donated by a church member, said Kerry L. Fink, CEO of TYG Studios, the film’s producers.
“We tell folks this is a God-sized project, so we’re believing God (will) step in where our resources and abilities stop,” Fink said.
Several factors are attracting faith-based filmmakers to Central Florida as their location of choice.
“We have A-list crew who don’t get the chance to showcase their work very often,” said Jaime Velez-Soto, director of “The Whisper Home.” “They want the chance to make movies here, and not in L.A. or wherever, so they help you out.” As in California, you can film in Florida all year. And “there’s all this acting talent, thanks to the theme parks,” Nixon said.
This being Florida, sometimes “retired” talent is available. The producers of “Heading Home” hope to use Gary Burghoff of TV’s “M*A*S*H,” a snowbird who winters in Florida, just as they did in their earlier venture, “Daniel’s Lot.”
Another plus: the local churches.
To a one, filmmakers involved in Florida’s faith-based films take their inspiration from the Albany, Ga., Sherwood Baptist Church, where the Kendrick brothers -- ministers and aspiring moviemakers -- made “Flywheel,” “Facing the Giants” and then the $40 million hit “Fireproof.”
Ministers and congregants became the volunteer crew, donors and actors in those films. Nixon, who has two upcoming Central Florida projects, was a producer and second-unit director on “Fireproof.”
“It doesn’t hurt that we have a lot of churches in Central Florida,” Nixon said. His “Letters to God” used a Winter Garden church for a location and volunteers. “Churches that are totally into this are a real asset.”
More recently, Margaret Marquis of Ocoee Christian Church offered her church as home base for “Whisper Home,” said Velez-Soto. “We used it for locations, and members of the church cooked for us and pitched in.”
Using film as a means of evangelical outreach has prompted at least one local church to set up its own production company.
“We’ve always wanted to minister outside the four walls of the church, to the whole world,” says Pastor Matthew J. Shaw of the Faith and Power Worship Center in Apopka, the church behind Faith and Power Pictures. “Movies seem like a better way of spreading our message.”
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