Part 01: The Very Beginning

If you’re reading this right now, it’s because you’ve decided to take the deep dive on Hosea. Maybe you want to find out what on Earth we were thinking when we started making this film, or maybe you want to just better understand the filmmaking process in general… or maybe you’re here because, well, you’re my mom (Hi, Mom!).

I created this digital journal to tell the story of how Hosea came to be. Over the course of these ten journal entries, I’m going to cover the eight-year journey of making this movie, from start to finish.

I love making movies, especially this one, but I’d be lying if I said these last eight years were all fun and games. Spending nearly a decade working on any kind of project, film or otherwise, will certainly bring its fair share of challenges and frustrations. At the same time, I know that giving Hosea the time it needed to blossom is what made it the film that it is today, one that I’m so proud to share with you and the world.

I’m excited to share this journal with you because, frankly, you are the reason I made Hosea. I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s true. When I felt worn out or overly stressed while making this movie, I would pause to imagine this very moment—the moment that you, or someone like you, watched Hosea and said to yourself, “I want to go deeper with this.” I’m glad you’re here. So let’s start this deep dive, shall we?

• • •

To introduce myself, my name is Ryan (I’m on the left in the photo at the top of this entry). I’m one of the people who helped make Hosea. Similar to raising a child, I’m not the only one who was involved. There were doctors and nurses, kindergarten teachers, neighborhood friends, and bullies who are all a part of this kid’s life—and I guess I’d be one of the parents. Speaking of children, I have one who was born just a few months before the first steps of Hosea started. That’s him, staring at the script I’m working on, which would later become the movie you just watched. My son is in 3rd grade now. Yep. A long journey.

Going back even further, I attended Southern Nazarene University in Oklahoma City. At schools like SNU, chapel services happen multiple times a week and attendance is mandatory. I’m showing you this photo because it was sitting in this room that I remember having my first moment of fascination with the story of Hosea—and the character of Gomer, specifically. Someone (I don’t recall whom) was preaching about a passage of Scripture in which a man believes he’s told by God to marry a prostitute, so he goes and does that. Now, the man loves the woman. In fact, they have three kids together and build a home.

However, just a few verses later, the woman leaves the man. She starts sleeping around. As I heard this story narrated in this way, I began to do something I’d never done before. For the first time in my life, I looked critically at the depiction of this biblical character, Gomer, and I thought to myself, “That doesn’t sound like a real human being. A real person doesn’t just up and leave. If this woman was leaving her husband and three children behind, she probably had a damn good reason to do it.” Maybe the husband was abusive, I considered, or maybe the challenge of reconciling her new identity with her prior life as a sex worker proved too painful. Whatever her motive, she probably didn’t take such a drastic step just for some preacher at at a chapel in Oklahoma to use her, several millennia later, as a symbol of the Freudian id. She deserved better.

• • •

Now jump forward a decade. I’m living in Los Angeles and I have a pretty amazing small group of friends (if you didn’t catch it yet, our production company is named Small Group! I know, it’s almost too clever). My friends and I believed—and still do—that we had ended up in one another’s lives so that we could do some meaningful things in the world. These important people will pop up again and again throughout this story, and for me, their continued presence in my life is proof that what we believed about ourselves and each other was the truth.

One day, I mentioned to these friends that I had long entertained the idea of creating a modern retelling of Hosea and Gomer’s story, one that considered the context in which Gomer’s various choices might make sense. This proved to be a case of serendipity; turns out, my long-time friend, Suzanne Watson, had wanted to do the exact same thing.

The photo at the top of this entry shows Suzanne (right), my friend Lauren Miller (middle), and myself. Lauren is a gifted author and associate producer on our movie, a credit that basically means that she did everything in her power to help us make this movie. Lauren has been a Small Group guardian angel for Hosea. She was there on the first day (in fact, she connected me to Suzanne) and every day afterward. I fondly remember her gently helping me fix holes in the script during one of our shoot days in Oklahoma, bringing me down from a near-panic attack.

• • •

In October of 2013, Suzanne and I began making films together. We formed a small production company. We created a couple shorts, went to a couple festivals, and even won a couple awards. Though the work was sometimes frustrating (see this photo on the right, for instance, when we had to play zombie extras in our own movie), we kept feeling a sense of affirmation and purpose along the way.

And over the course of many years (yes, years!), I worked on the script for Hosea. I wrote and tweaked and wrote and tweaked. So. Many. Revisions, y’all. Eventually, Suzanne and I had the script ready (or at least, we thought we had the script ready… looking back, it’s hilarious that I thought our script was “ready” at any point).

With a full-length script in hand, it was time to raise some money, because apparently, that’s something you need in order to make movies. Thanks to Suzanne and a handful of kind, supportive individuals, we threw a couple parties where we pitched the film to potential investors. And luckily for us, some of those incredibly generous investors decided we seemed trustworthy enough to offer us funding. Pay attention to that last sentence. That one sentence is one of the most important things I will write in this journal, and you’ll see why as you continue reading these entries.

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