The Story Behind Upcoming Film Homeless for the Holidays

The Story Behind Upcoming Film Homeless for the Holidays

Just before Christmas last year, George Johnson (pictured) found himself in a frightening position: He was unemployed. To purchase Christmas gifts for his children, he cleaned garages for income and bought presents at "dollar" stores. But soon, he says, he felt God calling him to make a movie about his experience that would bring hope to families who are facing similar challenges. Six months later, production wrapped, and the movie, Homeless for the Holidays, is on its way to theaters this Christmas. Here is Johnson's amazing story about the film that God seemingly created from nothing.

New Man: What was going on in your life last November?

Johnson: I was working as a marketing director for a company and my position came to an end. They decided they didn't need a marketing director anymore. So for the first time in my married life, I found myself unemployed. I have four young children—they were ages 6, 5, 4 and 1 at the time. Needless to say, my wife and I were a little unnerved by all this.

I have also been a filmmaker on the side since I was a kid, and at the time I had two feature films in development, and we were hoping those would come through for us. We had directors attached and had been promised funds, but because of the economic situation, they never ended up coming through.

So we were unemployed for about three months. From early November to about mid-January, the only income we had was from babysitting one of the neighbor's kids. Our net household income was about $2 an hour. I didn't get a single job until January, when my buddy hired me to clean out his garage. And he really only did that because he wanted to help us.

It's one of those things a lot of people are experiencing nowadays, where you have to make the most you can out of every penny. Christmas presents were purchased at dollar stores. It was a lean time.

New Man: What happened to turn things around?

Johnson: About early- to mid- December, I noticed I was starting to get depressed. When you're the man—the leader—and you're not providing for your family, you start to feel like you're not worth your salt. I was paying attention to the news at the time, and I knew I wasn't the only one feeling like this. It was happening to a lot of people.

I knew that God was still in control of my life, and I thought, "This is rough, but instead of just sitting here and sulking, maybe I can turn this situation around and use it to give other people some hope." So I started working on a script called "Homeless for the Holidays." It was our true-to-life story about a family who lose their income around Christmas.

Typically it takes me about nine months to a whole year to finish a script, but this took about three weeks. It just flowed out of me. Everybody who I showed it to absolutely loved it, they said they were just crying the whole time they were reading it.

New Man: What is Homeless for the Holidays about?

Johnson: It's the story of a self-made executive who has been ambitious all of his life and has worked his way to the top, but then he loses his job and discovers that no one is hiring. He has to take a position at a burger joint in order to make ends meet, which is extremely humiliating for him. then he realizes that his ends are not being met, and that if something doesn't change before Christmas, his family will lose everything.

New Man: How did you go from being unemployed to getting the movie produced?

Johnson: We went back to the financing people hoping we could get them on board. I sent them the script, and we were basically just waiting for people to dump a bunch of money in our laps.

This process can take a really long time. I knew that God had given me this story, and I knew that I wanted it done as rapidly as possible so that it could really make a difference in the lives of people who are struggling right now. After a while, my wife came to me and said, "Let's just do this ourselves." I had produced my first film by myself, and it was something I never wanted to get into again, but we felt like God was leading us to trust Him, so we decided to just do it and let Him provide.

When we held our first auditions at a local church, my wife was expecting maybe 50 people to turn out. We had 800 people show up. We were supposed to be done by 8 o'clock, but we stayed well past midnight and had to have several hundred people come back another day.

It was unbelievable the type of talent that wanted to be a part of this little film in Indiana. Our star, Matt Moore, has a fascinating story. He played in the movie Pearl Harbor and recently had a role on Lost. His career in Hollywood was really taking off, but then God called him to be a pastor in Decatur, Ind. He was shocked and didn't want to leave, but God told him that He would meet his dreams in Indiana. We felt God really moved him into this role.

God showed up in so many parts of the process. I decided early on that if we were going to shoot this, I wanted to do it on a Red One camera, which is a new digital camera that offers fantastic resolution. When we found our director of cinematography, he had just got one and managed to assemble a camera crew on spec at no cost. That's unbelievable and it saved so much money.

We had so many wonderful volunteers and people that helped us with production. When we started they had no idea about making movies, but by the end we had a seasoned little film crew. We had help from friends, family and ten to twelve local churches. The mayor of one of the small towns near us closed down a street for an evening so that we could set up Christmas lights everywhere and shoot there.

We shot at about 40 locations. We had businesses open their doors for us and shoot for free. The Penguin Point, a burger joint where our main character ends up taking a job, allowed us to shoot from the time their doors closed at 8 p.m. until 3 in the morning, and they paid their staff to be there with us.

To raise money, my wife and I sold off personal possessions for the majority of it. A church also helped us out with another large chunk. The rest was loaned or donated by friends and family. The budget for this movie was estimated at about $1.25 million, and because of God's provision, we made it for about $220,000.

New Man: What did you make of this almost miraculous production?

Johnson: To me, what I got out of it was that God blessed us with this experience so that we can bless others who need help. The story of the movie is that regardless of the state of the economy, God is still able to overcome the situation and do miraculous signs in your life. It's cool that that ended up being the story of the filming process as well. The economy wasn't ready to hand us $1.2 million, but our community overcame that. If God wants something done, the economy is not even a factor.

New Man: How does faith play a role in the film?

Johnson: I consider this to be a "Phase II" Christian film, in that it's purpose is not to get viewers saved, but rather, to show them how to handle today's tough situations with a Christian worldview. If the sole purpose of every Christian movie was to get people saved, we'd have a lot of saved people, but no idea how to live life after salvation. This movie offers believers (and non-believers) a peek at how Christians might handle troubles at home. They're not perfect. In fact, they have unwittingly placed one foot in the world over the years, but they strive to do the right thing, and ultimately discover the need to go back to a life of total surrender to God.

New Man: What do you hope God will accomplish with Homeless for the Holidays?

Johnson: I hope that he is going to make people aware, like he did with me, that despite the state of the economy and how it affects our home personally, He is still able to accomplish what he has called you to accomplish. I had gotten caught up thinking that if you want to accomplish something that God has called you to do, it's all up to you and you have to work do get everything done yourself. And while you are called to do everything you can, we have to learn to rely on Him. Also, don't be scared. If God has put something on your heart, go do it and trust Him to see it through.

New Man: When can we expect to see the film?

Johnson: We're anticipating a late November or early December release. We've got interest from some major distributors. I really believe God wants this movie to be in theaters.

For more information about Homeless for the Holidays, check out the Web site at www.breathemotionpictures.com