Nothing Arizona

Town of Nothing Arizona. Founded 1977. Elevation 3269ft.

In the middle of the desert stands a small town called “Nothing”.
Until 2010 there was a population of 4 people who resided there.

The city sign for Nothing stated that “The staunch citizens of Nothing are full of Hope, Faith, and Believe in the work ethic. Thru-the-years-these dedicated people had faith in Nothing, hoped for Nothing, worked at Nothing, for Nothing.

The entire population ran a gas stop and garage. The gas station had a flat bed truck selling rocks and minerals found nearby as local souvenirs. Behind the gas station, down the embankment, was a small scrap heap.

Mike Jenson and Billy Yeager in "Jesus of Malibu" 2010.

Nothing was abandoned by May 2005, and by August 2008, the gas station was beginning to collapse. An attempted revival of Nothing occurred at some time after August 2008 when Nothing was purchased by Mike Jensen. By April 2009, Jensen had opened his pizza business, run from a portable oven, with hopes of reopening the mini-mart and creating accommodations for RV’s.

Location Nothing Arizona

As of April 2011 it appears that Nothing has once again been abandoned. The building has fresh boards in the windows, and no sign of inhabitance or being open.

But the small city of “Nothing” will live on in eternity through the power of art, film and music in the feature film Jesus of Malibu, where Nothing has become on of the main locations used for the films story and premiss.
From Film Wad Interview June 2011.

Watch the Film Trailer

 

 

William Yeager; My wife and myself fell in love with Nothing because as you will notice the premise of our film has to do with discovering “truth” and how that truth can be found when you isolate yourself from the hectic world and society.
A lot of our film props were created from things we found, dilapidated buildings used for locations and a lot of “nothings”.

I think that in these times we live in, Hollywood and it’s excessive budgets, and cliche plots only multiplies the problems of society and pop culture, thinking that bigger is better, or more is what we need. Perhaps for our vanities, but not for our souls, so we felt that simplicity and finding beauty was necessary  for the film and Nothing had that character that we were looking for as a location.

When we met Bonnie and Mike we became instant friends, and Mike agreed to become one of the characters in the film. There was a lot of problems with the wind there, and the microphones are very sensitive so it took about 7 days to get the scene right , but it is a rather long scene with Mike. We sat and scripted it out about 50 %, but also improvised, Mike likes to start drinking early, so by the afternoon he was pretty warmed up to be relaxed and very natural and funny at times.

My character Jesus comes strolling along the roadside where I ask Mike for some water, and then he asks Jesus to stay for a while. We reflect on why this is called Nothing and why Mike has chosen to be at Nothing ad drink some cheap vodka together.

The film is being screened for our charity which is called “Mindy’s Wish and Foundation” where we are screening the film in the middle of the desert, Death Valley Junction to be exact, where Marta Beckett’s Amargosa Opera House is.
If you don’t know about this, you may want to tell about this story also, it has an incredible history and you can find our all about it at
http://www.mindyswishandfoundation.com