Here’s How They Make Kentucky Christmas Movies in the Spring and Summer

It's one of the all-time classic Christmas movies. In fact, it might be THE all-time classic Christmas movie. I do wonder how many families make It's a Wonderful Life part of their holiday traditions. I'm sure the number isn't small.

Growing up, the perennial favorite never failed to make me feel cold while watching it. It never made me doubt they were walking through real snow during a real winter. And over the last eight decades, it's had most adults convinced, as well.

Prior to the 1946 release of It's a Wonderful Life, films requiring snow scenes would use a wacky mixture of materials like gypsum salt, concrete dust, and bleached corn flakes, among other things, to create a desired effect. Sometimes chicken feathers were even employed.

None of that sounds appealing, does it?

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Filming Christmas Movies in the Summer

Wonderful Life's director Frank Capra needed audiences to hear the movie's dialogue that would be spoken in the wintry outdoors, so those LOUD crunchy corn flakes were a non-starter. Instead, he went with a combination of soap flakes, water, sugar, and a substance called foamite which they use in fire extinguishers. It made for a much quieter experience.

With the exciting news of a Christmas movie being shot in western Kentucky this month, our minds drift toward how they'll get what they need for outdoor ambience. Yes, it's December, and it's cold. But snow? The filmmakers likely won't get that lucky.

They certainly didn't during the filming of a holiday movie in North Carolina, but that's because it was shot in the summer. Did they move the action indoors? Nope. They did this:

Boom. Just like that. Christmas in July.

Or April. In 2023, Lifetime wrapped shooting of Christmas at the Amish Bakery in Somerset KY. Take a look at the trailer and you'll see that Pulaski County got "snow" that spring.

The magic of Hollywood, or, in this case, Kentucky-wood.

No snow in the forecast? No problem.