A story about a doomsday cult serves as a platform to talk about doubt in religious belief in “As It Is In Heaven,” a film by assistant professor of film and television Joshua Overbay.
The film, which will show Oct. 3 to Oct. 9 at the Zeitgeist Multi- Disciplinary Arts Center in New Orleans, is Overbay’s first feature film. He said he wanted to screen the film in Louisiana because he knew he’d be working at the University, and he hopes it establishes him in the film scene.
The film already has shown at the 2014 Cinequest and Nashville Film festivals and around the country in Chicago, New York and Seattle.
Overbay came up with the idea for the film with his wife, Ginny Lee, who wrote the screenplay for the film after they found a plot structure they liked. He said the process of writing and rewriting the script involved a lot of back and forth between the two.
“I think our final draft was probably draft 24 or 25, so we went through a lot of changes,” Overbay said.
Halfway through the process, they had to completely change the way they told the story, Overbay said.
“Stories find a way, I think, of telling themselves or finding a way of being told … as long as you’re willing to listen,” he said.
Contrary to the long drafting process, the film was shot in 17 days on a budget of less than $50,000 at one location in Lexington, Kentucky, where Overbay was teaching. By comparison, the 2012 production of Marvel’s “The Avengers” had an estimated $220 million budget and filmed in at least four different cities over four months.
“We were crazy low budget. I’d call it a nano-budget,” Overbay said.
Overbay said the success of the whole film hinged on their ability to find the perfect location. The owner of the property allowed Overbay and his crew to rent the old house for a month, where they cleaned up the place and repainted it.
“It gave me and the production designer even more control over the look of the film,” he said.
The entire cast, apart from the leading man, was selected from the Lexington-Louisville area. The lead, Chris Nelson, is one of Overbay’s friends from graduate school.
“I knew if I could land him, I could make this work,” he said.
Filming a nearly 90-minute film in 17 days is no short order, but Overbay thinks deadlines and limited resources produce the best work.
He said there’s something overwhelming and frightening about having so many options and time, so he prefers having to make things work.
“To me, creativity begins with problem solving … I couldn’t imagine having all the options in the world,” he said.