Making movies is something many of us dream of doing, and today's technical age has made this prospect more accessible than ever.  However, there are big questions to resolve about getting a film made: How do you make a script work?  How will you get the right technical aspects together with cameras, audio devices, and editing?  What about assembling a crew who will be on time, directing actors, and finishing within a decent shooting schedule?  What if your budget is miniscule?  What if you’ve never been to film school?

Zac Heath, who recently directed his first feature film, “The River Within” (www.theriverwithinmovie.com, now available on DVD) is passionate about being creative and making movies that matter.  Recently, I had the chance to sit down with Zac where he candidly opened up about the difficult process of making films independently, his influences, and some of the lessons learned along the way. Here is the first part of a two part interview:

ZH: I had been out in Los Angeles for a couple years before I took on this picture.  I didn’t go to film school or anything like that first.  I had gotten some crew jobs when I came out and I decided to learn hands on.  I spent a couple years working on films.  At the end of about 5 feature films, I decided to try and make my own short film.  I ended up pouring in $2500 and making a short film.  At the end you don’t have anything to do with it – it’s just a short film.  You can’t make any money off of it.  I had a friend who told me for about $25,000 you could try and make a feature film and on a low budget make some money back.

That kind of inspired me and I decided to go for it.  I was supposed to be producing a friend of mines film in the summer of 2008, but the funding fell through at the last minute – like 6 months early.  We had our crew in place and everybody ready to rock and roll for that summer.  I just decided that – I had this film idea and script idea sitting around in my head for awhile and I thought – I’m gonna see what happens if I put 2 weeks into it and see where it goes.  It was during the writers strike and I had some down time.  So I did – I wrote the script in a couple weeks and sent it off to some people and they liked it and so we started rewriting it and we decided to keep the same production dates and move it to Arkansas which is where I was from.  I scripted the script around places I grew up and people I knew.  I was able to get free locations and the whole community rallied around the movie and came together to help make it.

Did you base any of the characters around people you know?

Oh yeah. Really everyone in the movie – each person is kind of a variation of myself, different parts of my own life.  Especially the 2 main characters they’re both different aspects of different times in my life. But I also drew from a lot of the personality types that I knew.  The storyline came from my life, but then the personality types came from friends and I tried to recreate those personalities and give them little variations.

It’s funny though because a lot of people have come up to me afterwards and said “You wrote these roles about me” which isn’t necessarily true – some of the personality traits are there and some of the story lines are similar, but I didn’t actually base them on those people.

Right - It reminded of when I used to be a youth pastor.  I would do sermons with the youth and talk about stuff I was struggling with and afterwards some of the youth would come up to me and say “you were talking about me, weren’t you?” (laughs).  It’s the same kind of thing.

It’s an independent film, but it’s also a “Christian” movie for lack of a better term because it’s marketed in that world.  What does that mean to you – “Christian film”?

I don’t even know.  I hate the term actually.  I was really adamant with the crew during production that it’s a “faith based film” – it’s based in faith.  I try to stay away from the (Christian movie) genre.

What’s so bad about the genre?

I don’t like things to be boxed in.  I think when there are film’s that are Christian films – and this is one of the complaints I get from people who watch this movie that don’t like it – overall we get vastly positive responses.  But people that don’t like it are almost always people who feel it isn’t Christian enough for them.  It didn’t have the doctrine that they wanted.  They’re upset about that, because it doesn’t fit into that box.  It definitely deals with issues of faith, and it’s drawn from my own faith journey – the lead pastor becomes the youth pastor during the course of the film - I took that from my own life.  At the same time though, it’s not a “3 steps to Jesus” type of a movie.  I don’t give the steps on how to find salvation.

There’s not an altar call scene.

Right, I was actually intentional about that.  There is a baptism that takes place in it, but I felt that was a very good representation of the transformation that was taking place with that character and to visually show it.  I’m always worried about getting boxed in and I don’t want to get grouped into this idea that I can only make films that have this certain doctrine to them.  Just look at all the different denominations in Christianity, people just have different ideas about what should and shouldn’t be there, what should and shouldn’t be taught.  I want this story to be about these characters and their journeys.