When we started this process of film-making, we (the producers) didn't know a lot of things about running a movie production set. And as we were to find out later, a large percentage of Indy films, just like ours, never get finished. So, the very first thing we have to be thankful for is a completed film. Secondly we can be thankful that it is a pretty awesome film. People who have watched it often comment on the beauty of the movie or the quality of the acting or how touching the story is. Considering the 'conditions' it was made under, lack of full crew most of the time, lack of funds, minimal equipment, many rookies on the set, it truly is amazing.

We, the producers, are people who believe that there is an almighty power, which we would call God. And we believe that God sometimes intervenes in more noticeable ways in our lives (and sometime less noticeable ways.) But, we feel that much of the credit for this film goes to God. First of all that we all hung in there and persevered, but also in more 'amazing' or some would say 'miraculous' ways. You can believe how you want, but to us, we believe we had a bit of Divine intervention happening here.

There are stories in the Bible of Jesus calming the storm. After the production of this film the idea of Him stopping a storm doesn't seem far-fetched at all.

God controls the Wind- It was really windy as we shot the scene of Alice and David on the rock. We couldn't get the voices to record without wind noise. Allison prayed. Every time Alice spoke the wind died down and then blew again as soon as she finished.

God Controls the Storm - We were in the last week of filming and the crew had other commitments. We had to finish on time. We needed a scene of a storm and didn't have any money to create the illusion. We prayed. We'd just finished an indoor farm scene and had an hour break, which was rare. Just then a big, black thundercloud approached. We scrambled to find the right costume for David and shot him racing across the field in the pouring rain. As fast as it blew in, the storm left. Soaked, we celebrated. We'd gotten our scene and were ready to start the next one indoors right on schedule.

God Brings the Right People - First, God brought Allison. Her time had been freed up for the exact weeks that she would be needed for A Thousand Hills. A bolt of lightening striking our house immobilized our computers and electronics (not kidding) so that we couldn't fax another director before we heard from Allison. In post production, we hired a big time composer who had done a Hollywood film, but he dropped our project for a higher paying job. We had struggled because he didn't seem as passionate and intrigued by our project, but when we lost him a new composer came on the horizon. Rob Pottorf, just had some time freed up so he could work on A Thousand Hills. Rob was thoroughly engaged by our film and said at one point."Thanks for letting me score your film...I really enjoyed it!". His enthusiasm showed as we couldn't enjoy his score any more. He was the right guy for the job.

God Provided for our Needs - There were several times when we needed to change the location that was to be used in an hour or two. Amazingly, usually on a hunch, Steve would go to another location that seemed impossible and the person in charge would say 'yes'. Two such notable places were the big white distributor's building and the mob-scene location outside a Newmarket theatre where the crowd ran after David and Kelly. Both of these locations 'fell into place' hours before the shoot and we had never spoken to them until less than 6 hours before we went there. Wow, that was so amazing! We had dreamed of having a helicopter sequence and the day before our production assembled for a final day of pickup shots, a month after the main shoot ended, we called the only local helicopter operator just to get his rates. To our surprise, it just ' happened' that he was giving rides at a nearby fair and agreed to hop over on his lunch break for a much reduced rate. The rate we paid was less than ¼ his original quoted hourly rate. Executive producer Steve Bowes had a brother who just happened to fly his small plane up from Florida during one of our last weeks and took the camera up for the sweeping aerial shots that found their place at the end of the movie. These were all divine 'coincidences'.

God Finds the Lost Purse - Our cinematographer had lost her purse one morning. Her car keys were in it and she had no way to get a spare key. She asked everyone if they'd seen it. Finally, at dinnertime she asked Sandy who said she didn't know where it was, but God did. They prayed. No lightening bolts, no voice from heaven. Sandy walked into the garage and spotted the purse under a table where lights were kept. It took about one minute for that prayer to be answered.

On Our Set, there were tears and laughter, anger and joy, frustration and elation, but through it all, somehow, we made the movie and it stands today, in our minds as a testament of God's faithfulness and goodness. And for those who don't believe you can just call it good luck, we sure had plenty of it.

Here are just a few more tidbits for those who enjoy trivia.

Cars
Nick's BMW was loaned to us by Jessica Schellenberg's father and was used on several shoot days to enhance the image of evil land developer Nick Coltrane. We were terrified that it would get a scratch somehow, because of what happened to our car. The Bowes' car, a Toyota Corolla was used for the interior shots of the Byrd family car. On one occasion the camera was put on a homemade tripod on the front hood of the car and tightly strapped down. So tightly however that a piece of metal from the base of the tripod protruded through the protective blankets and the hood of the car was badly scratched. Thankfully it was that car and not the BMW. The Byrd's rusted-out red car with the door that wouldn't close belonged to Joshua Layton-Wood and was used for all the exterior car shots. Right after the film was finished it was scrapped. In fact even during the shoot, it had to be trailered from location to location as its road insurance had already been cancelled.

Allison, Iaona , Doug and Jon were shooting a scene inside of the car while driving around in the countryside doing car dialogue scenes. They were crammed into the car with Ianoa and Allison BOTH in the front passenger seat. Doug was driving and they went down what he thought was a road, but turned out to be a driveway to a farm. They continued turning around at the same driveway as they did repeated takes. The residents must have thought these people crammed into a car with a camera looked sinister, because, on one occasion, shortly after the film-makers drove out of the driveway a police car pulled up behind them with lights flashing. Doug was in his costume and didn't have his license. They explained what they were doing, and the policeman was merciful and let them off, not even a seat-belt ticket, telling them to go right back to get his license and to stay out of private driveways.

Boom!
Probably the word that was heard most on set was , "Boom!" This was exclaimed by Allison, the director, whenever the microphone or the boom (long pole) holding it were visible on camera. The funny thing was that Ron, the soundman, was wearing headphones and often wasn't able to hear what was being said unless it was where the mike was pointed. So the cry "Boom!" was often said two or three times before Ron heard and moved the microphone. A close second might be,"One more time!" as Allison asked for a scene to be redone. The problem was there were often up to five more takes, each time with a promise that this was the last time. It became a joke on set. Allison's perfectionism and diligence are what yielded the incredible acting from her mostly non-professional actors. The quality of the movie shows that all those takes were definitely worth it.

Inventions
The character of GGF is loosely based upon a family friend who actually is an inventor. In a deleted scene he tells how he invented a way to make rubber from milkweed plants. This is actually true and his invention was used during WWII by a tire manufacturer. He has since invented car lights that turn on corners and a stick that takes fat from gravy. Unfortunately, some of his best ideas really have been stolen in his lifetime. The line from the movie, "Be careful who you trust." is a real warning to would-be inventors. Guard your secrets. The invention used in the hammock scene was actually invented by Francois Kern, (alias Chef Francois who catered a number of meals to the crew.) Francois has also invented many creative gadgets, including a mirrored solar oven that cooks meat in minutes with concentrated sunbeams.

Deleted Scenes
The first cut of the movie actually turned out to be too long. There were places where the pace just dragged too much and the total running time was up over 2 hours. So we began the torturous process of deciding what must go. Entire pieces of the movie ended on the cutting room floor as they say. Some ended up in deleted scenes, but there was even more than those that didn't make it. We truly learned that sometimes you just have to let it go.