Discovering all the ins and outs of making a film fascinates me. And with Christmas just around the corner, I just had to have a look at the Christmas comedy “All Is Merry and Bright” with producer and actor Shun Lee Fong:

mytakeontv.com (MTOTV): I know Darbi and Vicki are the writers for this project. And I was wondering how you got involved with it.

Shun Lee (SL): This was Darbi’s first time as a screenwriter. She had written plays and other things, but never a screenplay. So, she came to me at The Greenhouse. We’re from the same hometown. We didn’t really know each other, but she came to me through a mutual friend. And she reached out to me for some notes. So, I gave her a bunch of notes and didn’t really expect to hear back from her. But, she made the changes from my notes and contacted me again. Then she made more changes. After that, she asked me if I would produce the project. So, I, along with Caren Kelly, who’s my producing partner, came up with a budget and submitted it. Then we all said, “Let’s do it.” So, that was my intro into the project.

MTOTV: The film has a message of faith and family, even though it’s done in a comical way.  What is it about the project that makes it a story that has to be told? What makes it “stand out” to you?

SL: Some people, both men and women, pursue the perfect Christmas. We’ve got this idealized concept of what the perfect Christmas looks like. And we drive ourselves to distraction trying to achieve this thing that we’ve got in our brains of what it looks like to have the perfect Christmas. But, really, when it comes down to it, the perfect Christmas is much simpler than that. It’s really loving God and loving people. That’s the perfect Christmas. So, we wanted to have a fun story, a comedic story, around a woman who’s chasing the perfect Christmas with all her traditions and all the things she puts on her checklist to do to provide that for her family. And chaos ensues. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong. So, she has to re-examine her concept of what the perfect Christmas looks like. This is not a Hallmark movie. This is not a romantic comedy. It’s a comedy, but it’s really more around the idea of something we all recognize. How do we approach Christmas? How do we approach family? How does our faith play into that? Maybe it’s very different than how we conceptualize it.

MTOTV: I know you used several different locations and cities for filming the project. What affected some of the choices for locations?

SL: The story is in Omaha; I’m originally from Omaha. And Omaha has just a beautiful exterior of lights, and they just do a really good job in Omaha of the “look” of it. So, we wanted to incorporate that visual into the film. Business decisions come into play as well – taxes that are available, knowing that you have an experienced crew who know how to put together a film of this size. We also went to Atlanta and shot there for 22 days with a fantastic crew. A lot of our cast was from Atlanta as well.

MTOTV: What do you think each of the cast members uniquely brought to the project?

SL: Well, the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. That’s really how it came together. We saw some amazingly talented people in the audition process – all of them good. All of them fantastic. We really wanted to not just have the right people for the cast – but we really wanted to see them gel together as a realistic family. I think the blessing of it all, the beauty of it all, was that within minutes of their meeting each other, they were relating to one another as family members. So that was really refreshing to see – this is what a family looks like. The older brother is poking fun at his little sister. They’re both picking on their littlest brother. The husband and wife, how they relate to one another and to their family. All of that became a really important part. And between me and Cory Edwards, the director, we were just like, “we can’t even picture somebody else playing these roles.” It was just spot on, perfect, and just a huge blessing for us.

MTOTV: What were some of the challenges you faced while making the film?

SL: Well, there are always challenges no matter what. It’s a miracle that any feature film gets made. We had all the usual stuff, like figuring out locations, where we’re going to shoot some of these things that are going to be authentically Christmas – things that the audience is going to lock onto and go, “Yeah, that’s what Christmas looks like,” especially in Atlanta; there’s not a lot of snow, almost none at all. And if there is snow, it shuts down the entire city. In January, we did have a snow and ice storm, and it was gone within 24 hours. There were those types of things, of running a full-blown feature film with crew and cast who are used to doing movies that are the big blockbusters. And we had to learn how to solve problems creatively and relationally instead of just throwing money at every problem. So, we had to figure out ways to come together as a team and solve problems creatively. And as much fun as it is to have more money to work with, I think there’s something about solving problems creatively and collaboratively. And I think that helps bind us together as a team as well.

MTOTV: What are some other projects that you’ve been involved with or that The Greenhouse has distributed?

SL: This year’s been a busy year for me. I’m producer on an animated series called “The Dead Sea Squirrels.” And that’s with a guy named Steve Taylor, who’s a wonderful filmmaker, musician, and all around creative guy out of Nashville, and Mike Nawrocki, who was one of the co-founders (with Phil Vischer) of “VeggieTales.” We’ve been working on that for several years now and the first season went live in February of this year. And then I was co-producer on a film project back in August called “Sketch” that went out through Angel Studios. And that was a wonderful experience, a truly imaginative film. And we’ve done a lot of short films over the last 18 years. I think we’ve done 130 some short films. Some have gone on to festivals like Austin (Film Festival), and other festivals. We just keep really busy. We’re always trying to find ways to take the community of the Greenhouse and harness the true talent that is coming through there, projects to keep people working, keep them moving forward and we love finding creative people and creating projects around resources that they each bring to the table.

MTOTV: Can you tell me just a little bit about The Greenhouse, how it got started and the main purpose of it, just a little bit about that?

SL: Yeah. The official name is The Greenhouse Arts and Media, and the website is greenhouseproductions.com. It started as a handful of people in a church basement. It wasn’t even my church. I just happened to know the pastor. He said if we just needed the room, that’s great. I think we had 4 other people, something like that. And we said, “Let’s just get together and have a conversation about what it means to be an effective, creative artist, and to help  creative artists.” How do we serve each other? How do we serve our industry, our community, in ways that are helping? How do we create an environment where the things that we value – such as excellence, a responsibility to our audience – and where we care for one another and all those things – those things just grow naturally. So, The Greenhouse got started in that church basement, and I just said to the other 3 or 4 people, “Whoever needs to be a part of this conversation – whatever their background is, whether they’re a person of faith or not – whoever they are, invite them. Let’s have this conversation.” The more that we bring together, the more that we’re serving each other, the better off we are. And we just went from there.

MTOTV: Thank you so much for this exciting interview, Shun Lee. I wish you and Greenhouse Productions all the best.

SL: Thank you.

“All Is Merry and Bright” was released in theatres in early November and will be streaming on various platforms on December 12. To find your location and showtimes, please visit amctheatres.com.