Image courtesy of LIFE Creative
The Ferguson-based LIFE Creative Group got into the holiday spirit last year with A New Holiday, a Christmas-themed drama starring Wynton Marsalis, Kennedy Holmes, Sophia Stephens, Riley Adams, and Anita Jackson. Now, A New Holiday writers Stephens and Brian Owens are back with a new film, and this time it’s a modern take on the holiday comedy.
Owens directed the Stephens-written An Intimate Christmas, which will have its premiere December 14 at 7 p.m. on NINE PBS as part of a back-to-back block with A New Holiday. The film stars singer/songwriter Malena Smith as she’s thrust into the spotlight of a holiday livestream. Filmed on location at the University of Missouri-St. Louis’ Touhill Performing Arts Center, the 30-minute production also features appearances by The Mighty Pines, Joshua “Paco” Lee, and Soul Sanctuary. And the livestream isn’t just at the center of the plot, it’s also the format of the film.
“Sophia and I, and some of the other folks that were working on the developmental process, were like, ‘What if this is a livestream?’” says Owens. “And then we had to go through the whole thing. How do we make it so that people understand it's a livestream and can see that it's a livestream? How do we do it so it doesn't get redundant?”
A changing viewer count and a “live” chat within the film help reinforce the format, with the added fun of functioning like a modern Greek chorus. Owens and other members of the production team logged on to watch parts of the film in order to create the running chat.
“It was fun figuring it out and exploring it as almost a third voice, because the chat became another actor in the movie. It’s another character,” says Owens.
In addition to featuring local talent and locations, both A New Holiday and An Intimate Christmas relied on crews of young creatives of color, including both paid interns and AP for Life Artists in Residence, for scripting, set design, filming, and post-production work.
“That's what I'm most excited about, because it's viable in terms of a career opportunity. There's an industry here that is starting to bud. It's been here a long time, but there's a season right now that's happening here that I think can be accelerated,” says Owens. “We wanna make sure that the opportunities, especially for under-resourced communities that don't get a lot of infrastructure, that these opportunities exist in abundance in those places.”
Through both holiday film projects and a slew of plans for the coming year, including a feature-length film, podcast work, and a food series, Owens hopes to prove, alongside several community partners, that St. Louis is a viable place for young creatives to grow and tell stories both in front of and behind the camera. And for those who just want to see their city on screen, there will be plenty of that as well. Owens points to a partnership with UMSL Accelerate, through which LIFE Creative hopes to launch a creative arts accelerator to find more stories like the holiday musicals.
“Our hope is to give creatives the funds that they need, give them the support that they need, so that we can develop a tradition of films being made here...I wanna do what John Hughes did,” Owens says. “John Hughes films are Chicago films. I think that making things that are classic contributes to us being able to really build out that industry and be intentional about saying we wanna do films of high quality, of high value, that the whole family can watch over and over again.”
Owens says he hopes people will make both A New Holiday and An Intimate Christmas part of their holiday traditions for years to come, adding them to the yearly to-watch list alongside titles like It’s a Wonderful Life, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and The Preacher’s Wife. In addition to the December 14 airing, the movies will also be broadcast December 17 from 2-3 a.m. and on Christmas Day from 10:30-11:30 p.m. They will also be available on-demand via ninepbs.org and the PBS Passport platform, and on Owens’ YouTube channel from Christmas Day through early January.
