Indie film to soon begin shooting on Route 66

Independent filmmaker Billy Yeager, with his wife Anais, will begin shooting a number of scenes on Route 66 in Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona for his upcoming movie “Jesus of Malibu” in the next few weeks.

Some excerpts from a couple of e-mails (lightly edited for clarity) that he sent:

Growing up in Florida and never having made the road trip across the states westbound, I somehow knew in my spirit and soul that Route 66 would hold a secret message for me. I was correct, and the trip changed not only my story and script, but also became a vital central figure for our story. I think you will understand better when you visit the Web site and watch the “opening trailer” and then go to the “story” on the “About” page. […]

The footage on our Web site is not the film; I have not started filming yet. This was shot with a $100 Fuji Photo camera. It is my way of creating a visual trailer … so to speak … Most films don’t have a Web site until the film is finished, and if they did, they wouldn’t have people in character or videos and music as ours. This is created so that people can see that there is a film about to be produced that is going to not only be different from the get-go, but a lot of depth and thought went into the “characters” in the film, and content, where most films are just created from a blueprint of starting with plots and subplots, etc.

We are going back to film at those [Route 66] locations, I shot these scenes first, and then came home and wrote them into my story and script. We are not simply finding sets and filming our scenes and getting out of Dodge. We are going to live at or near those locations AS  our characters, for 1 to 2 months, we also are meeting with the Navajo Nation and tribal members, but I cannot talk about that much now.

The news release Yeager provided explains how they were inspired by the Mother Road.

Yeager chose Route 66 as an eastbound route and discovered what he calls a “little miracle.” Driving along the old historical road, Yeager wandered off the wrong exit and ended up in a place called Two Guns on old Route 66 in northern Arizona at Canyon Diablo.

Yeager noticed the large water tanks with faded and chipped paint and stopped his vehicle. When he stepped out of his truck onto the ground, something felt sacred to him like the time he discovered a mystery in the jungles of Peru. Yeager wondered the grounds for hours put on his wig for his character and took pictures and shot footage of his character. […]

But Yeager believed that Two Guns exuded a very special spiritual presence unlike others before him, and decided that this would be the place where his character Jesus of Malibu would escape from society and start life over again.

Yeager decided that Two Guns would not only serve as a location for another typical roadside story of bandits and drifters, but this sacred location would be the place where Jesus and Mindy discover the purpose of their life, their reason for existence, and discover the power to change the world.

The Yeagers also found inspiration at the old Lucille’s gas station, near Hydro, Okla. Two of the movie’s characters will start their lives over there.

Yeager’s dad was country music artist Ray Yeager, and his aunt Bunny Yeager was a photographer who discovered pin-up icon Bettie Page. Billy Yeager tried to break into the music business for years and gave it up for filmmaking (although he still uses his musical talents to write and perform the scores for his films). He’s completed two movies, “Jimmy’s Story” and “A Perfect Song,” and is said to specialize in low-budget filmmaking.

The news release says Billy Yeager was studying “sacred geometry” four years ago and that he fasted for 30 days in the jungles of Costa Rica and Peru while writing the “Jesus of Malibu” script. There are brief mentions about the Mayan calendar, the unexplained “significance” of the year 2012, and Quantum Leap Multi-Dimensional Thinking.

So it’s probably safe to conclude that Yeager is a bit of an eccentric.

However, before waving Yeager off as a crackpot, I also recalled the seemingly mad visions of Werner Herzog as he was making what turned out to be genuinely great films such as “Fitzcarraldo” and “Aguirre, the Wrath of God.” So I’m unwilling to dismiss Billy Yeager until I actually see the finished product.

And that’s how it should be.

(Photo courtesy of Billy Yeager)