How Wilson Hickman Is Transforming Christian Storytelling & Leadership Through Film

Speaker: 00:00:00

we want Christians to be the pioneers of excellence in storytelling

Speaker: 00:00:03

and kind

Speaker: 00:00:04

of filled this void that Hollywood is starting to create

Speaker: 00:00:06

and say, we can

Speaker: 00:00:08

be

Speaker: 00:00:08

quality storytellers who tell compelling fiction that stands on its own.

Speaker: 00:00:24

What if the stories we need most come wrapped in Dragons, quest

Speaker: 00:00:27

and kingdoms that never were?

Speaker: 00:00:29

Wilson Hickman is a screenwriter and creator of The Lost Dealer,

Speaker: 00:00:33

an award-winning Christian fantasy series that invites

Speaker: 00:00:36

viewers to see God Through story.

Speaker: 00:00:39

We'll explore the craft of screenwriting, why fantasy holds

Speaker: 00:00:43

unique power to reveal truth, and how story becomes a mirror for faith.

Speaker: 00:00:49

Without shortcuts or formulas.

Speaker: 00:00:51

Thanks for joining us Wilson.

Speaker: 00:00:52

Welcome to Seek Go Create.

Speaker: 00:00:55

It's a pleasure to be here.

Speaker: 00:00:56

Thank you for having me.

Speaker: 00:00:57

Glad you're here too.

Speaker: 00:00:57

So, Wilson, you are, if I read it correctly, you are a storyteller.

Speaker: 00:01:03

Correct?

Speaker: 00:01:03

Is that what you tell people you do?

Speaker: 00:01:07

And and do they follow it up?

Speaker: 00:01:08

Like, come on man, what do, what do you mean by storyteller?

Speaker: 00:01:11

What does that mean?

Speaker: 00:01:17

a storyteller I think really points back to the reality that we as

Speaker: 00:01:22

humans are made in God's image.

Speaker: 00:01:23

He's the ultimate artist, the ultimate storyteller, if you will,

Speaker: 00:01:26

because he ultimately is working out

Speaker: 00:01:41

a, good story that's well told is gonna have echoes of the gospel

Speaker: 00:01:44

in it because that's ultimately the narrative around which

Speaker: 00:01:47

existence.

Speaker: 00:01:48

centers.

Speaker: 00:01:51

your, typical story beats of, the protagonist starts out in a quote unquote

Speaker: 00:01:56

normal world where everything is fine.

Speaker: 00:01:58

Then something called the inciting incident happens.

Speaker: 00:02:00

It takes them out of that normal world, and now they have to solve

Speaker: 00:02:02

some kind of problem or go on some kind of journey to grow and change and

Speaker: 00:02:12

the death of the hero moment, even if they don't literally die, There's some sort

Speaker: 00:02:15

of hopeless moment that gets introduced.

Speaker: 00:02:17

And then they find a way to come back and

Speaker: 00:02:25

is has grown and changed.

Speaker: 00:02:27

And the way I just described that, it's very obvious that

Speaker: 00:02:29

echoes the narrative of scripture.

Speaker: 00:02:31

We start in the garden of Eden everything's good.

Speaker: 00:02:34

The inciting incident is the fall of man.

Speaker: 00:02:36

Man is now separated from God and sin.

Speaker: 00:02:38

And the grand narrative of scripture is God rescued man from his fallen condition.

Speaker: 00:02:42

There's the death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus.

Speaker: 00:02:45

And so every good story is gonna ultimately point back to

Speaker: 00:02:48

the story that God is telling through all of human history.

Speaker: 00:02:50

And the cool thing about it, I don't think I want to go down this path

Speaker: 00:02:53

right now 'cause I wanna ask a little background to get prepped so that we

Speaker: 00:02:56

could get into kind of how this project you've got going now came to be.

Speaker: 00:03:00

But the fascinating thing to me from the biblical narrative is there is this

Speaker: 00:03:06

big, huge story and then there's micro stories all throughout it that are just

Speaker: 00:03:14

absolutely full of character and rich.

Speaker: 00:03:16

And I think at times, this is me just sort of, observating

Speaker: 00:03:21

something I think at times that.

Speaker: 00:03:24

Is awesome to people, but then I think at times it confuses people because there's

Speaker: 00:03:29

certain stories embedded within, but I wanna hold that, let's put a pin in that.

Speaker: 00:03:33

We may come back to that in just a little while because I think it leads to some

Speaker: 00:03:36

inspiration that might come down the path.

Speaker: 00:03:39

But I wanna back up.

Speaker: 00:03:40

I know you're not, an incredibly old and mature young man, but I

Speaker: 00:03:45

want to ask, first of all, have you always been a storyteller?

Speaker: 00:03:49

I mean, were you like, you know, 4, 5, 6, and, telling stories

Speaker: 00:03:54

either verbally or in writing?

Speaker: 00:03:57

Oh, definitely.

Speaker: 00:03:58

my love of

Speaker: 00:04:03

as soon as I knew how to write, I would literally write stories with

Speaker: 00:04:06

a pencil in my hand because I hadn't learned how to, type on a computer yet,

Speaker: 00:04:15

chapter books, which soon grew into, what you would consider

Speaker: 00:04:18

novels, like 200 plus pages.

Speaker: 00:04:23

a natural transition I think was to writing scripts because

Speaker: 00:04:26

I've always loved film as well.

Speaker: 00:04:27

And some of my favorite books have been made into films.

Speaker: 00:04:29

so for instance, I grew up on the Chronicles of Narnia Books by CS

Speaker: 00:04:32

Lewis, and I also was a kid when those came out in theaters is movies.

Speaker: 00:04:40

felt that as I was loving writing all throughout my teen years,

Speaker: 00:04:43

I would naturally transition to, writing films as well.

Speaker: 00:04:46

And that's exactly what happened.

Speaker: 00:04:47

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:04:47

the neat thing about that, and I do wanna say, I've looked at your proof

Speaker: 00:04:52

of concept of the lost Healer, and I watched that and you do have a what

Speaker: 00:04:57

I'll call a visual eye, and we'll talk more about some of this later.

Speaker: 00:05:02

And the reason it's kind of cool to me is that, my son, he's probably

Speaker: 00:05:06

a couple years older than you.

Speaker: 00:05:07

He's, I think he's like 31.

Speaker: 00:05:09

How old are you?

Speaker: 00:05:11

So.

Speaker: 00:05:11

Okay.

Speaker: 00:05:12

So, I remember when he was younger we could tell that he had more of

Speaker: 00:05:16

a visual artist storyteller to him.

Speaker: 00:05:19

And I am not that way, or at least I didn't think I was, anyway,

Speaker: 00:05:22

I've actually started writing some fiction and all recently, but,

Speaker: 00:05:26

nice.

Speaker: 00:05:27

he could tell a story and then he also could visualize it.

Speaker: 00:05:32

And Wilson, it seems as if you've got those things going

Speaker: 00:05:36

to, and not everyone can do that.

Speaker: 00:05:39

When did you realize you had that ability or talent or skill that,

Speaker: 00:05:44

Okay.

Speaker: 00:05:45

not just in words on paper, but visual?

Speaker: 00:05:52

I, it would probably be in my.

Speaker: 00:05:55

Mid-teens, like maybe 14 or 15.

Speaker: 00:05:57

my sister and I, I'm best friends with my sister by the way, so it's

Speaker: 00:06:00

no coincidence the lost healer is about a brother and a sister

Speaker: 00:06:03

because, that unique bond of siblings often find its way into my stories.

Speaker: 00:06:06

but around age 15 or 16, my sister and I started making like home movies

Speaker: 00:06:11

on our phones and that we would write the scripts and then film them

Speaker: 00:06:15

with ourselves as the characters.

Speaker: 00:06:16

And that was really, I think, a turning point for me in terms of recognizing that

Speaker: 00:06:21

I love not only storytelling on the page, but also storytelling on the screen.

Speaker: 00:06:27

you grow and learn with those experiences.

Speaker: 00:06:29

You know, our early movies I look back on now and I'm like, oh, we

Speaker: 00:06:32

could have shot them so much better

Speaker: 00:06:37

your gifts when you start to use them are gonna be, untried

Speaker: 00:06:40

and, unrefined, if you will.

Speaker: 00:06:45

you keep using the gift to get stronger.

Speaker: 00:06:47

And, by the time I was getting ready for college, I realized that, I really

Speaker: 00:06:52

wanted to serve God in the capacity of pursuing visual storytelling.

Speaker: 00:06:57

And so I, went to film school and that's where I got a lot of hands-on

Speaker: 00:07:02

experience making short films.

Speaker: 00:07:05

And that really triggered my, visual storytelling instinct.

Speaker: 00:07:10

And I came out and continued writing films.

Speaker: 00:07:13

continued making short films whenever I could.

Speaker: 00:07:15

And that's led to this proof of concept for the Lost Healer I can't really point

Speaker: 00:07:20

to one specific instance where I was like, this is where I meant to, make films.

Speaker: 00:07:23

it was definitely a gradual process, but looking back feels inevitable.

Speaker: 00:07:27

I can definitely see how God was sowing the seeds for it, if you

Speaker: 00:07:29

will, all through my childhood and even when I was just writing books,

Speaker: 00:07:32

I love too, this is a fascinating thing that, you said you grabbed

Speaker: 00:07:38

your phones or something.

Speaker: 00:07:41

I think it's really cool how some of the tools to do these things are so.

Speaker: 00:07:48

Readily available.

Speaker: 00:07:49

Oh, absolutely.

Speaker: 00:07:50

and this is what I'm thinking.

Speaker: 00:07:51

I don't know if you're much of a historian as far as movies go, but I remember seeing

Speaker: 00:07:57

the movie, gosh, I wanna say Spielberg.

Speaker: 00:07:59

No, JJ Adams did it.

Speaker: 00:08:00

It was the super eight and it was kinda like this homage to the seventies and.

Speaker: 00:08:08

These guys that would get like these old video super eight type cameras, which took

Speaker: 00:08:15

some effort and also you didn't get the instant ability to see what you recorded.

Speaker: 00:08:20

I remember my son really loving that movie because it fed the thing that we're

Speaker: 00:08:25

sitting here talking about something that he really had a desire to do.

Speaker: 00:08:29

I think a beautiful thing, probably a divine thing that you were able

Speaker: 00:08:34

to kind of see real quickly and probably get some good feedback.

Speaker: 00:08:37

It's like, Hey, that looks pretty good and I've just got this thing in my

Speaker: 00:08:40

pocket, Have you put any thought into that as to how accessible it was for

Speaker: 00:08:45

you to practice that craft early on?

Speaker: 00:08:50

It's, an amazing blessing and it is a bit of a double-edged sword though,

Speaker: 00:08:53

because on the one hand, it makes it very easy to practice your craft.

Speaker: 00:08:56

On the

Speaker: 00:08:57

other hand, sometimes it's too.

Speaker: 00:09:02

grow and

Speaker: 00:09:04

try as

Speaker: 00:09:04

hard as you possibly could to nail something.

Speaker: 00:09:06

Because the tools, the ability to get quote unquote good enough is right there.

Speaker: 00:09:11

So

Speaker: 00:09:11

trying to push yourself to be excellent is something that takes discipline

Speaker: 00:09:15

and it also takes a love of your craft because

Speaker: 00:09:18

there's also a double-edged sword to loving a craft.

Speaker: 00:09:20

And I absolutely love the craft of storytelling, but the

Speaker: 00:09:22

double-edged sword to that is you're always your own biggest critic.

Speaker: 00:09:25

I definitely will, look back on past things I've made and be like, oh, there's

Speaker: 00:09:29

so much I would do differently now.

Speaker: 00:09:30

But to

Speaker: 00:09:31

your point about accessibility, it's definitely been a huge blessing to

Speaker: 00:09:34

have that tool so readily available.

Speaker: 00:09:37

you

Speaker: 00:09:37

were also mentioning, physical film, You didn't see it when you recorded it.

Speaker: 00:09:39

You had to splice it together in this process called linear editing.

Speaker: 00:09:43

in my teen years, I used a program called iMovie, which is nonlinear editor, and

Speaker: 00:09:46

it's a resource that is readily available.

Speaker: 00:09:49

And you're

Speaker: 00:09:50

able to just cut things together and do things in a few minutes,

Speaker: 00:09:53

that would've, been a lot more work, back in the days of physical film.

Speaker: 00:09:57

you just,

Speaker: 00:09:59

stop and marvel and like,

Speaker: 00:10:00

this

Speaker: 00:10:00

is the era that God chose to, have me be created in,

Speaker: 00:10:07

it's an immense privilege.

Speaker: 00:10:08

It really is.

Speaker: 00:10:09

And it just makes me think of,

Speaker: 00:10:10

you know, I don't want to take this for granted, and I don't want to

Speaker: 00:10:13

take the

Speaker: 00:10:14

gift of storytelling for granted either.

Speaker: 00:10:16

I want to use these tools that I've been blessed with to the best

Speaker: 00:10:18

of my ability, and then, do the best stories that I can with them.

Speaker: 00:10:23

So sometimes people that have those skills, I don't wanna say

Speaker: 00:10:28

they have a perfectionist bent to them, but I've noticed some people.

Speaker: 00:10:34

Is that you?

Speaker: 00:10:35

Create, but they hesitate to share it with others.

Speaker: 00:10:39

And I think sometimes the, it's not totally perfectionism,

Speaker: 00:10:43

but that feeds into it.

Speaker: 00:10:45

I'm gonna throw a little bit more gas on that fire, then I'm

Speaker: 00:10:48

gonna let you respond to it.

Speaker: 00:10:49

And then I think that's even magnified when people have this thought that

Speaker: 00:10:55

they're doing it for the Lord that it is some divine calling or how,

Speaker: 00:11:00

whatever you want to word in there.

Speaker: 00:11:02

So having said all of that, respond, because you now are putting

Speaker: 00:11:09

something out into the world.

Speaker: 00:11:12

talk through any of those items that you had to deal with.

Speaker: 00:11:15

we love the journey here.

Speaker: 00:11:17

That's what we love talking about here at Seek Go Create.

Speaker: 00:11:19

So talk a little bit about that journey of creating.

Speaker: 00:11:23

How good does it need to be?

Speaker: 00:11:25

When do I share it?

Speaker: 00:11:26

If I do.

Speaker: 00:11:29

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker: 00:11:35

life.

Speaker: 00:11:38

absurd degrees.

Speaker: 00:11:39

Like, when I was, when I was really little, I, I would, you know,

Speaker: 00:11:42

think the world ended if I couldn't finish a story or something.

Speaker: 00:11:45

And you know, it's just, it's just writer's block, you'll

Speaker: 00:11:47

get over in a few weeks.

Speaker: 00:11:48

But because I was so wrapped up in that, it, it felt, you

Speaker: 00:11:51

know, a lot bigger than it was.

Speaker: 00:11:53

that's something that I've, that God has, has challenged me to, to learn

Speaker: 00:11:56

and grow in, is to not find my identity

Speaker: 00:12:00

the craft that I'm gifted in.

Speaker: 00:12:01

I can enjoy that craft and I can take pleasure in serving God through it,

Speaker: 00:12:10

the value of who I am and my purpose in life can't be wrapped up in the art of

Speaker: 00:12:14

filmmaking or storytelling because there will be fluctuations in productivity.

Speaker: 00:12:18

There will be days where I am not in the zone.

Speaker: 00:12:20

And on

Speaker: 00:12:20

those days, you know, if my identity is tied to the filmmaking,

Speaker: 00:12:24

then my identity's going to

Speaker: 00:12:29

you need to find your identity in God.

Speaker: 00:12:30

He's unchanging.

Speaker: 00:12:31

And so that's the first way I've found to kind of escape the trap of perfectionism.

Speaker: 00:12:35

perfectionism can also make you afraid to share your work because you're

Speaker: 00:12:43

but if you recognize that it's a continuous learning process and you

Speaker: 00:12:48

want to make it yes, the best you can, but within reasonable limits,

Speaker: 00:12:51

it

Speaker: 00:12:52

helps to set deadlines.

Speaker: 00:12:52

Deadlines are a perfectionist best friend slash worst enemy.

Speaker: 00:12:56

They're the worst enemy.

Speaker: 00:12:56

'cause they put a lot of pressure on you or you put it on yourself rather.

Speaker: 00:12:59

But

Speaker: 00:13:00

then they're also your friend.

Speaker: 00:13:00

Because if you didn't have a deadline, you would never finish anything

Speaker: 00:13:06

I was really grateful for a lot of these, film festivals that we've been

Speaker: 00:13:08

entering the proof of concept in, because

Speaker: 00:13:10

I'm very happy with how the proof of concept came out.

Speaker: 00:13:12

But the, you know, the.

Speaker: 00:13:16

require you to, okay, have it, have it finished, have the color and

Speaker: 00:13:19

sound done, and then submit it, and then it's off to the races.

Speaker: 00:13:22

And no matter how many minuscule details you might look back on and go like,

Speaker: 00:13:26

well, if I'd had more time, I might have tweaked that one little thing.

Speaker: 00:13:29

It's, it's the, and that's, that's another reason why test

Speaker: 00:13:31

screenings are very important.

Speaker: 00:13:32

We did test screenings for this to get, feedback on the clarity of the story.

Speaker: 00:13:35

and it helps to have an outsider's eye on it because,

Speaker: 00:13:37

especially as a filmmaker, you can be so wrapped up in the script that, you

Speaker: 00:13:40

know, it forwards and backwards and it's like, wait, is it clear to someone

Speaker: 00:13:43

who knows nothing about the project?

Speaker: 00:13:45

And so that's, that's very helpful.

Speaker: 00:13:47

when you let go of the project to the extent that it's not your

Speaker: 00:13:50

identity, I think you feel more comfortable sharing it with people

Speaker: 00:13:53

and getting their honest feedback.

Speaker: 00:13:54

Because then it's like, oh, they can criticize the project, but they're

Speaker: 00:13:57

not criticizing me as a person.

Speaker: 00:13:59

they're criticizing the work and we have the same end goal, which is to

Speaker: 00:14:01

make the project the best it can be.

Speaker: 00:14:05

Right.

Speaker: 00:14:06

do you recall the first time you shared some of your work with someone maybe that

Speaker: 00:14:12

didn't have the same last name as you?

Speaker: 00:14:14

You know, outside the fam someone's like, you know, I don't know about you,

Speaker: 00:14:18

but Sometimes family can be extremely critical, but, do you remember that?

Speaker: 00:14:21

Do you remember a feeling or anything that you had when someone said, man, this is

Speaker: 00:14:24

actually either really good or not good?

Speaker: 00:14:26

the feedback that you got?

Speaker: 00:14:30

the first time I shared a film with someone who was not in, my, part

Speaker: 00:14:34

of my family was in film school.

Speaker: 00:14:36

I had made a film in my first semester, a short film.

Speaker: 00:14:39

we all had an assignment to make a short film for this, editing class, I

Speaker: 00:14:41

think it was, or a production class.

Speaker: 00:14:43

we screened them all as the class finale

Speaker: 00:14:46

and

Speaker: 00:14:47

seeing it up on the big screen next to everybody else's work.

Speaker: 00:14:51

The first thing I thought was.

Speaker: 00:14:53

What did the projector do to my color correction?

Speaker: 00:14:57

I later found out this was notorious at the school, and a lot of students,

Speaker: 00:15:00

complained about the projector ruining the color of their projects.

Speaker: 00:15:03

But, you

Speaker: 00:15:03

know, as a novice color grader at the time, I really didn't know what I was

Speaker: 00:15:06

doing when it came to color correction.

Speaker: 00:15:08

And so I got it so it looked good on my monitor, not realizing that,

Speaker: 00:15:11

oh, the projector's different.

Speaker: 00:15:13

if you

Speaker: 00:15:13

push too

Speaker: 00:15:14

much color into the shadows or into the highlights or anything like

Speaker: 00:15:16

that, it's gonna show up as this monochromatic tint over the whole

Speaker: 00:15:20

footage if it's in a different projector.

Speaker: 00:15:22

that's exactly what happened to my, untrained eye.

Speaker: 00:15:24

Everyone else's project looked good because I hadn't been staring at

Speaker: 00:15:27

it for weeks on end like they had.

Speaker: 00:15:28

But then the minute I saw my project, which I had been staring at for

Speaker: 00:15:31

weeks on end, and I knew what it was supposed to look like on my monitor

Speaker: 00:15:34

and it had this big green tint.

Speaker: 00:15:35

I was just like.

Speaker: 00:15:40

is the terrible color.

Speaker: 00:15:43

but fortunately I found out afterwards that that was, that was a common

Speaker: 00:15:46

issue with, with that projector.

Speaker: 00:15:47

And I wasn't the only one who thought it had, messed with their project.

Speaker: 00:15:50

But mine stood out to me because of how much I've been looking at it beforehand.

Speaker: 00:15:54

there was a future class where I had that projector again

Speaker: 00:15:58

and I

Speaker: 00:15:59

had gotten my film looking what I thought was really good, and then

Speaker: 00:16:02

it, the projector ruined it again.

Speaker: 00:16:04

there's a student showcase at the end of the semester where you submit

Speaker: 00:16:07

your favorite project and they screen it for the whole school at the

Speaker: 00:16:17

like,

Speaker: 00:16:21

that.

Speaker: 00:16:24

but

Speaker: 00:16:25

despite all

Speaker: 00:16:26

Like, the,

Speaker: 00:16:27

like

Speaker: 00:16:27

the professor I just mentioned, I had a lot of people give me positive feedback.

Speaker: 00:16:30

And so there's also some, in a kind of odd way, there's kind of a benefit

Speaker: 00:16:35

to being your own biggest critic

Speaker: 00:16:37

because

Speaker: 00:16:38

on the one hand, you're constantly

Speaker: 00:16:41

pushing yourself to get better, sometimes to an unhealthy degree.

Speaker: 00:16:43

But on the other hand,

Speaker: 00:16:45

most

Speaker: 00:16:45

people are not as invested in your project as you are, which means they're not gonna

Speaker: 00:16:49

criticize it as thoroughly as you are.

Speaker: 00:16:50

So there's that aspect as well.

Speaker: 00:16:52

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:16:52

Did you go to film school?

Speaker: 00:16:54

Was it a Christian film school or was it, secular, I was about to

Speaker: 00:16:58

say Gentile or something like that.

Speaker: 00:16:59

Was it just a, was it a, what, what type film, film school did you go to?

Speaker: 00:17:04

I'll say it was a Christian influenced film school.

Speaker: 00:17:06

I don't know that there's truly such a thing as a Christian film school.

Speaker: 00:17:08

in that Like they only study Christian films and they only teach

Speaker: 00:17:11

from a Christian worldview because

Speaker: 00:17:13

a

Speaker: 00:17:13

sad reality of history is that

Speaker: 00:17:15

most

Speaker: 00:17:16

memorable films, most films that have stood the test of time and become

Speaker: 00:17:19

cultural icons were not made by Christians

Speaker: 00:17:21

and

Speaker: 00:17:22

don't, and therefore by extension don't have a Christian worldview

Speaker: 00:17:25

at least as it's overarching theme.

Speaker: 00:17:31

make.

Speaker: 00:17:32

not, preachy, but that, honor God's word through weaving

Speaker: 00:17:35

biblical themes organically into a character driven narrative.

Speaker: 00:17:38

but the, the school that I went to was,

Speaker: 00:17:42

It

Speaker: 00:17:46

Christian films or, or even necessarily teach from a Christian worldview and that

Speaker: 00:17:50

was another good experience because a lot of my fellow students were not believers,

Speaker: 00:17:54

and I actually was able to make films that wove the gospel in a non preachy manner.

Speaker: 00:17:58

In fact, I actually had a good friend who, became a Christian towards the end

Speaker: 00:18:02

of, our run through college together,

Speaker: 00:18:04

and he told me that, one of my films was actually

Speaker: 00:18:07

a part of what got him thinking about the gospel, and he ended up getting saved.

Speaker: 00:18:11

So that was an amazing blessing.

Speaker: 00:18:13

Wow.

Speaker: 00:18:14

so you almost brought this up, but I'm gonna go ahead and go there.

Speaker: 00:18:17

many people will also say in general that Christian entertainment

Speaker: 00:18:28

is not quite the quality.

Speaker: 00:18:31

Of let's say, we'll call it secular obviously you are in what we would call

Speaker: 00:18:40

the faith or Christian talk a little bit about when you started moving

Speaker: 00:18:44

into this arena, your observations and perceptions about the quality of work.

Speaker: 00:18:49

We're not gonna throw people under the bus.

Speaker: 00:18:50

That's not what we're doing here.

Speaker: 00:18:52

But in general, at times, I can be a little bit cynical about this topic.

Speaker: 00:19:00

that's totally fair.

Speaker: 00:19:00

And You're certainly not alone

Speaker: 00:19:06

because, there are noteworthy exceptions, certainly, but, by and

Speaker: 00:19:10

large the stereotypical view of Christian films has been that they're

Speaker: 00:19:13

basically sermons disguised as art.

Speaker: 00:19:14

They don't really have substance and story.

Speaker: 00:19:17

They're just, an excuse to preach at the audience.

Speaker: 00:19:19

when we sit down to watch a movie, we don't want to be lectured.

Speaker: 00:19:22

We don't want to be told what to think.

Speaker: 00:19:23

And that goes for any message.

Speaker: 00:19:25

It's not just the gospel.

Speaker: 00:19:26

when I was younger, I used to actually think like, is there

Speaker: 00:19:28

something just intrinsically non cinematic about the gospel?

Speaker: 00:19:31

Like, you know, Christian themes, the moment you put them into film,

Speaker: 00:19:34

suddenly the film becomes bad.

Speaker: 00:19:35

But any other message can be preached and it's fine.

Speaker: 00:19:37

No,

Speaker: 00:19:47

as the stereotypical Christian film.

Speaker: 00:19:49

They're just preaching a different message.

Speaker: 00:19:50

It's

Speaker: 00:19:51

just as bad because it's a sermon, not a story.

Speaker: 00:19:54

it doesn't invest us in a world, make us care about characters and make us feel,

Speaker: 00:19:58

rather than

Speaker: 00:19:58

think it just wags its finger and says, here's what you're

Speaker: 00:20:01

supposed to believe and here's what you're not supposed to believe.

Speaker: 00:20:03

And that's, that's not a movie,

Speaker: 00:20:07

yeah,

Speaker: 00:20:08

but getting into the faith-based, film space,

Speaker: 00:20:10

I

Speaker: 00:20:11

definitely was pleasantly surprised to find that I'm in good company with

Speaker: 00:20:15

a lot of up and coming artists who I think we're seeing a shift in that

Speaker: 00:20:19

paradigm of we want Christians to be the pioneers of excellence in storytelling

Speaker: 00:20:24

and kind

Speaker: 00:20:24

of filled this void that Hollywood is starting to create

Speaker: 00:20:27

and say, we can

Speaker: 00:20:28

be

Speaker: 00:20:29

quality storytellers who tell compelling fiction that stands on its own.

Speaker: 00:20:32

It doesn't have to be wrapped in sermon illustrations in

Speaker: 00:20:35

order to appeal to its audience.

Speaker: 00:20:37

And

Speaker: 00:20:37

like you've seen, you've seen The Lost Steeler much like, the, the Chronicles

Speaker: 00:20:40

of Narnie or, or the Lord of the.

Speaker: 00:20:43

is meant to be a broadly, enjoyable story

Speaker: 00:20:46

just

Speaker: 00:20:46

with the broad appeal of fantasy.

Speaker: 00:20:48

But

Speaker: 00:20:48

fantasy has this unique ability to explore themes of good and evil to a depth and

Speaker: 00:20:54

magnification that most genres don't.

Speaker: 00:20:56

because it's fantasy and removed from the real world, you can weave

Speaker: 00:20:59

a lot of typological allegory into it without seeming preach or forced.

Speaker: 00:21:04

And if the story's told, well, it makes the audience feel rather than think,

Speaker: 00:21:08

then hopefully, at least at a subconscious level, they're thinking

Speaker: 00:21:11

of things like the beauty of goodness and the place of humanity.

Speaker: 00:21:15

And why is humanity drawn to the struggle of good versus evil?

Speaker: 00:21:18

What does that ultimately point to?

Speaker: 00:21:20

And that just, that nudges them gently through art rather than lecturing

Speaker: 00:21:25

them and making them immediately shut the message down with their

Speaker: 00:21:27

intellectual side of their brain.

Speaker: 00:21:29

Yeah, I-L-I-L-I.

Speaker: 00:21:31

the way I word it is that people let their guards down and, they're

Speaker: 00:21:34

not trying to block things.

Speaker: 00:21:37

And, I think it's Kiva, your main character has a very,

Speaker: 00:21:42

I'll use this word attractive.

Speaker: 00:21:46

a attracting, and I don't mean attractiveness, not just the looks,

Speaker: 00:21:50

but there's an attraction that she has that pulls people in that I

Speaker: 00:21:55

think will pull people in to want to know more without really knowing it.

Speaker: 00:22:00

I think that's the power of, not having someone stand up behind a

Speaker: 00:22:04

pulpit and preach or, you know, scripture and things like that.

Speaker: 00:22:08

Not that there's anything wrong with scripture, that, you know, people please

Speaker: 00:22:11

keep your rocks in your pocketbooks.

Speaker: 00:22:13

Don't throw things at me now.

Speaker: 00:22:15

But, see that's

Speaker: 00:22:15

have.

Speaker: 00:22:28

yet

Speaker: 00:22:41

foreshadows Jesus in this way.

Speaker: 00:22:43

And

Speaker: 00:22:43

that's the kind of stories I want to tell stories that you can see types and

Speaker: 00:22:46

shadows of Christ woven throughout them, but they're not explicitly preaching.

Speaker: 00:22:50

Right.

Speaker: 00:22:51

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:22:52

And so one of the things just on it general, I guess, filmmaking and, and

Speaker: 00:22:58

art is some will say that one of the reasons for the quality difference is

Speaker: 00:23:07

the budgets, the financial resources.

Speaker: 00:23:11

And things like that.

Speaker: 00:23:13

I'm not sure that I buy into that, but I'm sure you've heard people say

Speaker: 00:23:18

that and you may have even, it may have crossed your mind at times too.

Speaker: 00:23:20

So speak to that.

Speaker: 00:23:22

The people that will say, the reason that some Christian entertainment

Speaker: 00:23:28

is not the same quality is because of the difference in money.

Speaker: 00:23:32

There, there is some truth to that.

Speaker: 00:23:34

Production value definitely helps, especially if you don't

Speaker: 00:23:37

have the budget for good sound.

Speaker: 00:23:39

Like

Speaker: 00:23:39

if you don't have good sounds, you can't make a good movie.

Speaker: 00:23:41

I'm sorry.

Speaker: 00:23:41

Your acting can be great.

Speaker: 00:23:42

Your Script can be great.

Speaker: 00:23:43

your cinematography can even be great.

Speaker: 00:23:45

But if the movie does not have good sound, it's not a good movie

Speaker: 00:23:48

I have a phobia for bad sound.

Speaker: 00:23:49

It's one of the things I fought the hardest in film school,

Speaker: 00:23:59

of money.

Speaker: 00:24:12

is.

Speaker: 00:24:19

there's,

Speaker: 00:24:19

no point in the rest of it.

Speaker: 00:24:23

the, strength of the script.

Speaker: 00:24:24

And then

Speaker: 00:24:24

once you have that, you of course need to attach good actors.

Speaker: 00:24:27

You need to be conscious of director's techniques.

Speaker: 00:24:30

I think it really helps to take acting classes yourself if you want to direct,

Speaker: 00:24:33

which I've done because you wanna understand the actor's mindset, how you

Speaker: 00:24:36

can speak to them through their process.

Speaker: 00:24:39

And

Speaker: 00:24:40

that really helps with bringing the characters to life and kind of merging

Speaker: 00:24:43

your vision with the vision of the actor.

Speaker: 00:24:45

And if you're blessed with really talented actors, like, I was

Speaker: 00:24:48

blessed to work with on this.

Speaker: 00:24:50

you mentioned Kiva.

Speaker: 00:24:51

Allison who plays Kiva,

Speaker: 00:24:53

she did

Speaker: 00:24:54

so many.

Speaker: 00:24:55

Things

Speaker: 00:24:56

on the set that were not necessarily in the script that

Speaker: 00:24:58

just enhanced the character.

Speaker: 00:24:59

There's a line she ad-libbed in the middle of a take, and I was, I liked it

Speaker: 00:25:02

so much, I actually put it in the episode.

Speaker: 00:25:04

And just these little, little emotional

Speaker: 00:25:07

subtextual

Speaker: 00:25:08

things that she would do that I hadn't written that were just naturally came out.

Speaker: 00:25:14

it was all so incredible.

Speaker: 00:25:16

So good acting is definitely important.

Speaker: 00:25:18

But in terms of scale, because we're specifically talking fantasy,

Speaker: 00:25:22

we

Speaker: 00:25:23

got very creative to bring a fantasy world to life on a small budget.

Speaker: 00:25:27

I don't know if you've seen the behind the scenes video on

Speaker: 00:25:29

our YouTube, but we actually

Speaker: 00:25:31

transformed a modern basement into a castle library.

Speaker: 00:25:35

And we

Speaker: 00:25:35

did it just by taking,

Speaker: 00:25:37

foam boards you can buy at Home Depot, painting them gray and taking a drill

Speaker: 00:25:41

and carving them to look like stone and then putting them up against

Speaker: 00:25:44

the walls and including and carving the fake window into one of them.

Speaker: 00:25:47

And we just pumped a film light through it to be the sun.

Speaker: 00:25:49

And then you fill the room with haze and light candles and

Speaker: 00:25:52

it's quite convincing on film.

Speaker: 00:25:55

so yeah, we did that very inexpensively and no one would ever guess that

Speaker: 00:26:00

if you pan the camera just a little bit to the right, there's

Speaker: 00:26:02

a modern couch over in the corner.

Speaker: 00:26:04

one of the cinematographers that I followed for a while has

Speaker: 00:26:07

a saying that I really like.

Speaker: 00:26:08

And it's, you don't have to have a high budget set.

Speaker: 00:26:12

You just have to make whatever is inside your camera frame

Speaker: 00:26:15

look,

Speaker: 00:26:15

high value.

Speaker: 00:26:17

It

Speaker: 00:26:17

doesn't matter what's off to the side, The camera's never gonna see that.

Speaker: 00:26:22

I actually think that it forces a higher level of creativity when

Speaker: 00:26:28

you don't have just a pot of money.

Speaker: 00:26:30

I mean, some of the most creative things I've done in business and

Speaker: 00:26:34

at other times, I mean, one of the toughest financial periods in my life.

Speaker: 00:26:40

I actually wrote a novel.

Speaker: 00:26:41

During that timeframe.

Speaker: 00:26:43

And I'm not sure exactly why I think it was divine, but it was kinda like, huh.

Speaker: 00:26:47

'cause I'm not, I would never call myself, actually, I am a storyteller.

Speaker: 00:26:50

but for years I wouldn't call myself that.

Speaker: 00:26:53

And so that's kinda one of the reasons I was drawn to have

Speaker: 00:26:55

this conversation with you.

Speaker: 00:26:57

You've mentioned Narnia, you mentioned Lord of the Rings, and when we start

Speaker: 00:27:02

talking about this genre that comes up quite a bit as far as inspiration.

Speaker: 00:27:08

were you, a Tolkien or Lewis just kind of geek, nerding out, growing up, read

Speaker: 00:27:15

everything, did everything they, and it's okay now, you know, it used to not

Speaker: 00:27:19

be good to call somebody a geek or nerd.

Speaker: 00:27:20

Now it's like a popular thing to do.

Speaker: 00:27:22

But was that you, were there other influences that you had other than

Speaker: 00:27:28

those, tell me a little bit about your influences that led up to the

Speaker: 00:27:32

story we're about to talk about.

Speaker: 00:27:46

\ I only recently saw the Lord of the Rings films like a few years ago.

Speaker: 00:27:51

then I'm reading the books currently, I'm actually reading The Hobbit right now.

Speaker: 00:27:57

token has Christian influences.

Speaker: 00:27:58

Lewis was straight up writing a Christian allegory.

Speaker: 00:28:01

the, but nonetheless, there are universally appreciated stories that have

Speaker: 00:28:04

a wide audience outside of the church.

Speaker: 00:28:06

And I just find that so inspiring because and it just goes to show

Speaker: 00:28:10

the potency of the fantasy genre for exploring good versus evil and even

Speaker: 00:28:13

rich theological themes in a non preachy

Speaker: 00:28:16

manner

Speaker: 00:28:17

that can make a wide audience appreciate it just through the

Speaker: 00:28:20

quality of the storytelling.

Speaker: 00:28:22

so, yeah, those, those were definitely big influences.

Speaker: 00:28:24

will say that some of my biggest influences from a film standpoint

Speaker: 00:28:28

have actually been, Pixar films from the two thousands.

Speaker: 00:28:31

Wally in particular, one thing you may have noticed if you go

Speaker: 00:28:34

watch the proof of concept episode on the lost dealer.com is a

Speaker: 00:28:37

lot of scenes with no dialogue.

Speaker: 00:28:39

They just, the stories happening visually, but there's no talking.

Speaker: 00:28:42

And I

Speaker: 00:28:43

drew a lot of inspiration from the film, Wally.

Speaker: 00:28:44

It's my favorite Pixar film.

Speaker: 00:28:59

when the audience has to work to figure certain things out,

Speaker: 00:29:04

pulls them into the story more.

Speaker: 00:29:10

don't

Speaker: 00:29:16

on me.

Speaker: 00:29:17

Sam Remy's Spider-Man Trilogy from the two thousands.

Speaker: 00:29:19

That was, one of my childhood favorites growing up.

Speaker: 00:29:21

And I even appreciate the films more as an adult now than I did as a kid.

Speaker: 00:29:24

I see deeper even Christian themes in them

Speaker: 00:29:29

the, quality of the storytelling where they really focus and

Speaker: 00:29:32

just, there is quite a bit of,

Speaker: 00:29:34

crazy elaborate, fantasy world.

Speaker: 00:29:36

The fantasy world is certainly there.

Speaker: 00:29:38

It's largely revealed through the subtext and the dialogue, but the emphasis is

Speaker: 00:29:41

on the characters and their journeys.

Speaker: 00:29:44

Hmm.

Speaker: 00:29:45

And so that was that good.

Speaker: 00:29:46

That leads into the beginnings of, of this story that, that you're

Speaker: 00:29:51

telling with the lost healer.

Speaker: 00:29:53

I, I've noticed with myself, and I think other storytellers do this too,

Speaker: 00:29:59

they somewhat start with a setting.

Speaker: 00:30:02

I don't watch 'em.

Speaker: 00:30:03

In fact, it's oddly enough I don't watch TVs and I barely watch movies.

Speaker: 00:30:08

your proof of concept is probably the, the most I've watched in so much.

Speaker: 00:30:12

I, I'm a reader and things like that.

Speaker: 00:30:14

I don't have a TV or screen or anything and I would, I think I

Speaker: 00:30:18

would love to watch it on a bigger screen 'cause I watch, 'cause I

Speaker: 00:30:20

watch it on a smaller screen, but.

Speaker: 00:30:23

I've, I'm actually working on some fiction right now, and I began with

Speaker: 00:30:27

the setting, it's a biblical setting of the time between the crucifixion

Speaker: 00:30:31

and the, destruction of Jerusalem in 80, 70, so 30 to 70, Well, with

Speaker: 00:30:36

some biblical nuance, and then I'm building characters from there.

Speaker: 00:30:40

I think I've heard you say though, that you begin with character.

Speaker: 00:30:46

is that correct?

Speaker: 00:30:47

Talk to me more about that.

Speaker: 00:30:48

I hope there's not a right or wrong 'cause, you know, whatever, but

Speaker: 00:30:52

tell me how you got the beginnings of this concept and then obviously

Speaker: 00:30:57

you're nodding the character.

Speaker: 00:30:59

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:30:59

No, there is, there is no right way to do it.

Speaker: 00:31:01

In fact, I would think that in your case, historical fiction, the right

Speaker: 00:31:04

way is to start with the setting.

Speaker: 00:31:05

Because if you're trying to base it off of history, then you wanna know the

Speaker: 00:31:08

setting and the limitations therein that's certainly the right approach in that case.

Speaker: 00:31:13

a lot of fiction writers who are writing just pure fiction without any historical,

Speaker: 00:31:17

relevance or attachment to that,

Speaker: 00:31:21

and even in fantasy, I would think you'd probably start with setting a lot, you

Speaker: 00:31:24

know, world building, fleshing things out.

Speaker: 00:31:26

for me though, I always start with a character usually

Speaker: 00:31:30

because now that doesn't mean I don't have some vague idea of the setting.

Speaker: 00:31:33

Like I knew it was gonna be fantasy.

Speaker: 00:31:35

So immediately I'm thinking, you know, forest Castle,

Speaker: 00:31:37

those

Speaker: 00:31:38

types of things.

Speaker: 00:31:39

But

Speaker: 00:31:39

rather than trying to flesh out the setting too much,

Speaker: 00:31:42

I

Speaker: 00:31:43

actually focus on the character because

Speaker: 00:31:46

the character is who's gonna come alive in my head and tell the story for me.

Speaker: 00:31:50

If you get a character that is so compelling in your mind that

Speaker: 00:31:54

they take on a life of their own,

Speaker: 00:31:56

they're

Speaker: 00:31:56

gonna write the story for you, you can have some general idea of where

Speaker: 00:32:00

you want it to go, certain plot, beats you want to hit certain, lessons you

Speaker: 00:32:03

want to be learned along the way,

Speaker: 00:32:05

but.

Speaker: 00:32:05

very often if the character has truly taken on a life of their own, you can

Speaker: 00:32:09

have a plot point set up in your mind.

Speaker: 00:32:11

And then when you get there, you realize, wait a thing.

Speaker: 00:32:19

that's the mentality I take on because when I get excited about a character,

Speaker: 00:32:22

I'm like, oh, I have a character who has this flaw and has this desire

Speaker: 00:32:27

now, what's the most interesting obstacle I can throw with them?

Speaker: 00:32:31

the, plot and the setting gets developed a lot of times for me.

Speaker: 00:32:34

do you develop backstory?

Speaker: 00:32:38

Do you develop the complexity?

Speaker: 00:32:40

Are you already thinking of the conflict?

Speaker: 00:32:42

it's so difficult for me to watch things with my wife.

Speaker: 00:32:45

we've been married for 37 years.

Speaker: 00:32:47

She doesn't like conflict.

Speaker: 00:32:51

It's really hard to weave a story without conflict.

Speaker: 00:32:55

the novel I wrote, she really dislikes it because I didn't wrap

Speaker: 00:33:00

things up just nice and tidy like she wanted it to be at the very end.

Speaker: 00:33:03

But, you know, at what point.

Speaker: 00:33:06

in developing, I believe I heard you say you started with Kiva and

Speaker: 00:33:09

you've been, layering from there.

Speaker: 00:33:12

At what point did you begin in your concept, introducing other

Speaker: 00:33:15

characters, bringing them in?

Speaker: 00:33:17

When did you put it in?

Speaker: 00:33:20

I guess the setting, because that's fascinating to me to learn that.

Speaker: 00:33:23

I mean, obviously if you had fantasy in mind, that gives you a lot of

Speaker: 00:33:27

leeway because it could be, it could be future, it could be past, it could

Speaker: 00:33:30

be space, it could be the woods, the green woods that you chose.

Speaker: 00:33:35

where did that weave in for you?

Speaker: 00:33:38

I was always kind of imagining the woods because I grew up, I grew up

Speaker: 00:33:42

in Arizona, and in a, in southern Arizona where there are no woods.

Speaker: 00:33:49

moving to Kentucky a few years ago, I said, okay, I'm gonna,

Speaker: 00:33:51

I'm gonna stop writing films that take place in the desert.

Speaker: 00:33:54

What's a, what's something that can take place in the forest

Speaker: 00:33:56

And I immediately think fantasy

Speaker: 00:33:59

where I, how I settled, in the genre of fantasies.

Speaker: 00:34:01

I just, and then actually coming here and seeing all the greenery and seeing

Speaker: 00:34:05

that we actually have four seasons.

Speaker: 00:34:07

I was just awed by the beauty of God's creation I've been

Speaker: 00:34:10

missing out on all these years.

Speaker: 00:34:16

I

Speaker: 00:34:21

Ian

Speaker: 00:34:34

the, fear

Speaker: 00:34:35

of, you know, growing up and the responsibilities that come

Speaker: 00:34:38

with that, and charting an uncertain course for the future.

Speaker: 00:34:40

struggles that I've experienced as a Christian,

Speaker: 00:34:42

such

Speaker: 00:34:43

as how do you share the gospel with a friend or a family member?

Speaker: 00:34:46

I thought to myself, well, my sister and I are both believers,

Speaker: 00:34:49

but what if one of us wasn't?

Speaker: 00:34:51

How

Speaker: 00:34:51

difficult would that be?

Speaker: 00:34:52

Or maybe one of us is a believer, They're

Speaker: 00:34:55

struggling in their faith and they're living inconsistently

Speaker: 00:34:57

with what they profess

Speaker: 00:34:58

like, how would the other one address that?

Speaker: 00:35:00

Us being best friends.

Speaker: 00:35:01

But also there's that awkwardness of how do you reach your family member with

Speaker: 00:35:04

something that they may not want to hear?

Speaker: 00:35:11

I don't think, you can tell a story without conflict.

Speaker: 00:35:14

Um,

Speaker: 00:35:14

is the situation where, Kiva wants to fulfill their father's legacy.

Speaker: 00:35:19

finish his work of finding this lost relic called the Healer that

Speaker: 00:35:22

will bring peace to their kingdom.

Speaker: 00:35:24

But her brother has been manipulated by this high king who invaded their

Speaker: 00:35:28

kingdom and is now imposing his ideology.

Speaker: 00:35:31

And in order to maintain the peace, her brother Ian wants to,

Speaker: 00:35:34

go along with thy king.

Speaker: 00:35:35

Even though the high king is essentially making him a puppet king.

Speaker: 00:35:37

He doesn't really have power.

Speaker: 00:35:39

But

Speaker: 00:35:39

Ian, with good intentions, I'll mind you.

Speaker: 00:35:44

bow and go along with that than, start this uprising that would actually

Speaker: 00:35:48

lead to, his people being freed a,

Speaker: 00:36:00

have

Speaker: 00:36:15

him

Speaker: 00:36:22

it's never the right time.

Speaker: 00:36:22

He's, never he's not, he's never gonna understand.

Speaker: 00:36:24

And so she ends up feeling like, she's on the search alone.

Speaker: 00:36:30

sometimes in life, the person we want to reach the most, the

Speaker: 00:36:33

person who's closest to us,

Speaker: 00:36:35

it's

Speaker: 00:36:36

very hard to reach them.

Speaker: 00:36:37

But that doesn't mean that we stop living for Christ and being

Speaker: 00:36:39

a good witness to, for him.

Speaker: 00:36:41

Because while we are really trying to reach the family member or the friend,

Speaker: 00:36:46

you never know who else you're influencing That you

Speaker: 00:36:48

don't even know that they're even watching you.

Speaker: 00:36:50

And that's where I got the idea for the character of the Enemy

Speaker: 00:36:52

Knight, Aaron, his name is.

Speaker: 00:36:54

So there's in the proof of concept without spoiling too much,

Speaker: 00:37:02

in.

Speaker: 00:37:02

define the empire and, and bravely living out her faith.

Speaker: 00:37:05

And it intrigues him.

Speaker: 00:37:08

by the, as the story progresses, he begins to slowly question

Speaker: 00:37:12

if he's on the right side.

Speaker: 00:37:13

And meanwhile, Kiva has no idea that she's even having this impact on him.

Speaker: 00:37:21

a message of, hey, live for Christ, because even if you don't reach the person

Speaker: 00:37:24

that you are struggling to reach, you don't know who else you're impacting.

Speaker: 00:37:29

I've been blessed to see that in life people.

Speaker: 00:37:30

I didn't even know I was trying, people I didn't even know that I

Speaker: 00:37:32

was impacting have, have come to me afterwards and said like, Hey, you

Speaker: 00:37:35

know, your film really inspired me, or just the way you live, you live out.

Speaker: 00:37:38

Your faith inspired me.

Speaker: 00:37:39

And now I'm a.

Speaker: 00:37:40

Christian

Speaker: 00:37:43

of that.

Speaker: 00:37:46

the, where those three core characters came from.

Speaker: 00:37:51

I've always, loved a story where the,

Speaker: 00:37:54

the

Speaker: 00:37:55

heroes have, you know, incredible odds stacked against them and where

Speaker: 00:37:59

they're all

Speaker: 00:37:59

coming into roles that they don't feel prepared for, but

Speaker: 00:38:01

nonetheless, are demanded of them.

Speaker: 00:38:03

So Kiva feels like she's alone on this quest and has to finish her father's work.

Speaker: 00:38:06

'cause no one, not even her brother will help her.

Speaker: 00:38:12

submit to the High King and undertake this role that he doesn't even want to do.

Speaker: 00:38:16

But it's the only way to keep peace.

Speaker: 00:38:17

It's the only way to save his sister, the only family he has left.

Speaker: 00:38:20

And so he feels like

Speaker: 00:38:24

he's a figurehead.

Speaker: 00:38:25

he's a reminder of what his people have lost.

Speaker: 00:38:26

He's a conquered king

Speaker: 00:38:32

he'll,

Speaker: 00:38:32

take that burden if it means keeping, keeping.

Speaker: 00:38:34

peace

Speaker: 00:38:41

now what do you do with that information?

Speaker: 00:38:42

Do you turn against your oppressive masters?

Speaker: 00:38:44

Who will kill you, if you turn against them?

Speaker: 00:38:48

the, overarching struggle of good versus evil, and how even in

Speaker: 00:38:51

our situations in real life that are not as, you know, larger than life

Speaker: 00:38:55

and expansive as they're in fantasy.

Speaker: 00:38:57

Nonetheless, our

Speaker: 00:38:58

actions have eternal implications, and as we watch these characters

Speaker: 00:39:01

struggle through their challenges, my hope is that people will even

Speaker: 00:39:04

subconsciously begin to think about

Speaker: 00:39:06

the

Speaker: 00:39:07

real world struggle between good and evil and how they,

Speaker: 00:39:11

in that.

Speaker: 00:39:13

Yeah, the cool thing, let me see.

Speaker: 00:39:15

There's a couple things I wanna bring up here.

Speaker: 00:39:17

How much do you have written currently?

Speaker: 00:39:22

Or maybe another way of asking it, how much of a story do you have?

Speaker: 00:39:27

Because when you start stepping into this genre, there's

Speaker: 00:39:32

this massive world building.

Speaker: 00:39:35

And I'm gonna pause there and let you answer that because it leads

Speaker: 00:39:39

to my next question I want to ask.

Speaker: 00:39:40

But how much is there currently, either in your head or on paper?

Speaker: 00:39:47

I've, written an entire series bible.

Speaker: 00:39:49

I've got a ton of outlines and notes on my computer.

Speaker: 00:39:52

the difficulty, especially with fantasy, is you can write tons of world building

Speaker: 00:39:55

that never even makes it into the story.

Speaker: 00:39:57

I

Speaker: 00:39:57

know that over here in this corner of the world, this

Speaker: 00:40:00

political situation is happening.

Speaker: 00:40:01

And I know that like a thousand years ago this thing happened.

Speaker: 00:40:04

Will that

Speaker: 00:40:04

ever get mentioned in the dialogue?

Speaker: 00:40:05

Maybe, maybe not.

Speaker: 00:40:07

I've tried to focus primarily on the character arcs.

Speaker: 00:40:11

what's the most interesting challenge I can throw at Aaron What's the most

Speaker: 00:40:13

interesting challenge I can throw at Kiva?

Speaker: 00:40:25

I let the characters and their journeys

Speaker: 00:40:27

take the lead in that regard.

Speaker: 00:40:29

I've known a lot of writers who,

Speaker: 00:40:31

they'll,

Speaker: 00:40:32

they'll, they'll go on for a long time writing lore and backstories and, you

Speaker: 00:40:35

know, political details of the world,

Speaker: 00:40:38

but then they never actually get around to writing the story.

Speaker: 00:40:41

so I again, prefer to, let the characters lead with that.

Speaker: 00:40:44

And a lot of times my world building decisions will come as I'm fleshing out

Speaker: 00:40:48

the character arc. So I might be outlining a season and saying, okay, in this season

Speaker: 00:40:51

I want this character to get from A to B,

Speaker: 00:40:53

and

Speaker: 00:40:53

along the way, here's their struggle.

Speaker: 00:40:55

And like, okay, well what's the best way to,

Speaker: 00:40:57

materialize that struggle?

Speaker: 00:40:59

Well, maybe it's an interference from another kingdom.

Speaker: 00:41:01

Okay, what is this other kingdom

Speaker: 00:41:14

makes sense.

Speaker: 00:41:15

So with that, I'm gonna ask you to maybe give a glimpse of what one might

Speaker: 00:41:21

see after they check out the proof of concept where there was some character

Speaker: 00:41:26

development, which I think is important, and we saw a little bit of the conflict

Speaker: 00:41:31

and probably got some glimpses of future conflict and where things are going.

Speaker: 00:41:35

But in Christian fantasy, we often have things introduced such as.

Speaker: 00:41:44

talking animals, dragons, things, flying, supernatural, whatever.

Speaker: 00:41:53

Not necessarily space travel.

Speaker: 00:41:54

Maybe time.

Speaker: 00:41:55

Travel to me.

Speaker: 00:41:56

What, by the way, I gotta say time travel.

Speaker: 00:41:58

I hope you're not gonna do time travel.

Speaker: 00:42:00

To me, it's one of the cheapest storytelling mechanisms that's out there.

Speaker: 00:42:05

'cause it's like, hey, everything, you know, the marvel,

Speaker: 00:42:09

everything is gone off the rails.

Speaker: 00:42:12

Let's just introduce time, travel.

Speaker: 00:42:14

what might we see in the future with additional stories as

Speaker: 00:42:20

they're brought into this?

Speaker: 00:42:23

you're definitely not gonna see talking animals.

Speaker: 00:42:25

I can tell you that.

Speaker: 00:42:27

and not just for budgetary reasons, but also because, the target demographic

Speaker: 00:42:31

of the series, I don't feel lends itself as well to talking animals.

Speaker: 00:42:34

but you, it's funny.

Speaker: 00:42:39

in the villain makes his appearance, general Graham shows up.

Speaker: 00:42:51

a I've actually written a series of fantasy books that I haven't

Speaker: 00:42:55

yet published, and I wrote those before The Lost Dealer.

Speaker: 00:42:57

and they're not the same story, but I sprinkle in Easter Eggs in the dialogue

Speaker: 00:43:02

of the Lost Dealer that reference that other fantasy series that I've

Speaker: 00:43:06

written And It's like they're supposed to take place in the same world,

Speaker: 00:43:08

but they're not the same characters.

Speaker: 00:43:09

dragons, at least a dragon may be involved in a future season, but that's why,

Speaker: 00:43:14

and

Speaker: 00:43:14

that's, that goes back to what I said about, writing and getting creative with,

Speaker: 00:43:18

with financial resources is this, this first season as, as we've written it.

Speaker: 00:43:30

crazy CG sets or large armies in the first season.

Speaker: 00:43:33

It's, it's strictly designed to, to get you invested in the main

Speaker: 00:43:36

characters and then Lord willing.

Speaker: 00:43:38

we

Speaker: 00:43:38

get first, we get the first season made and we can grow from there and

Speaker: 00:43:41

expand with scale season by season.

Speaker: 00:43:42

And then, you know, you,

Speaker: 00:43:44

the dragon

Speaker: 00:43:46

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:43:46

because I, again, when you say Christian fantasy, it kinda opens up

Speaker: 00:43:50

the doors for just a ton of stuff.

Speaker: 00:43:52

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:43:53

fascinating.

Speaker: 00:43:54

there's so many ways to get this type of visual storytelling out to the

Speaker: 00:43:59

world now there's obviously feature link films, there's streaming, there's

Speaker: 00:44:03

smaller screens, there's, there's series.

Speaker: 00:44:07

What is it?

Speaker: 00:44:09

What would be your ideal, I don't know if that's the direction you're headed,

Speaker: 00:44:12

but, 'cause obviously things can obviously adjust and change over time,

Speaker: 00:44:15

but how would you really love to see this released to the world Over time.

Speaker: 00:44:27

that's definitely the format I dreamed of it in.

Speaker: 00:44:33

as I've been talking to other filmmakers and getting advice from other producers,

Speaker: 00:44:36

I'm considering the possibility of a feature film, depending on which

Speaker: 00:44:40

one is easier to raise funds for.

Speaker: 00:44:43

that's just, a, theoretical possibility at the moment.

Speaker: 00:44:46

I'm currently re-looking over some of the scripts for season

Speaker: 00:44:49

one and scene if it could adapted

Speaker: 00:44:51

into a, into a feature film that became a necessity.

Speaker: 00:44:54

But

Speaker: 00:44:55

the, the overall story is, is ideally, conceived as a series,

Speaker: 00:44:59

but it's flexible to go either way.

Speaker: 00:45:01

And that's one of the benefits

Speaker: 00:45:03

of

Speaker: 00:45:03

being in any filmmaker

Speaker: 00:45:05

is you

Speaker: 00:45:05

spend so much time with the story, so much time developing the characters

Speaker: 00:45:09

that you know it inside and if someone were to come to me and say, Hey, we like

Speaker: 00:45:14

it, but can we make it a film instead?

Speaker: 00:45:16

I'd be like,

Speaker: 00:45:17

yeah,

Speaker: 00:45:17

we can take the characters and just, you know, reshuffle a few plot points.

Speaker: 00:45:20

But I know their arcs, I know their journeys.

Speaker: 00:45:23

I'm not gonna have to start from scratch, so to speak.

Speaker: 00:45:25

So, there's that advantage.

Speaker: 00:45:28

How much does the financial aspect of projects like this

Speaker: 00:45:33

weigh on you and weigh on?

Speaker: 00:45:35

We know we're not supposed to be anxious for anything, but we talked earlier

Speaker: 00:45:39

about the resources to get things done and then depending on how things are

Speaker: 00:45:45

funded, and I know a little bit about this as a business guy and investment

Speaker: 00:45:49

guy, there is the need for return on investment and for things like that.

Speaker: 00:45:56

Is that something that you think about a little bit, a lot more than you should?

Speaker: 00:46:02

Where would you categorize your thought process of the financial

Speaker: 00:46:06

component of this storytelling project that's in front of you?

Speaker: 00:46:13

much as me and every filmmaker, I think wishes that we could just think about

Speaker: 00:46:17

the creative aspect of you also have to think about the business side of

Speaker: 00:46:24

prove that you're worth investing in.

Speaker: 00:46:28

there's, certainly that, that element to it.

Speaker: 00:46:36

there are certain things that can be shuffled around that,

Speaker: 00:46:41

lessen the budget here and there without sacrificing the quality

Speaker: 00:46:44

of the character's journeys.

Speaker: 00:46:45

And, and that's the most important thing, is

Speaker: 00:46:47

are

Speaker: 00:46:47

the characters doing the most interesting things I can make them do,

Speaker: 00:46:51

and are they still, are they bringing us along on a compelling journey?

Speaker: 00:46:55

Even if the twists in terms of that journey aren't the thing I

Speaker: 00:46:57

first visualized when I sat down to write the script three years ago,

Speaker: 00:47:00

if it's

Speaker: 00:47:01

still, if it's still compelling, I feel that it's still takes the

Speaker: 00:47:04

characters on a memorable journey that, that audiences can be invested

Speaker: 00:47:07

in and that I myself am invested in.

Speaker: 00:47:10

the philosophy I have.

Speaker: 00:47:11

So yes, business considerations are very important and you

Speaker: 00:47:14

do wanna be business savvy.

Speaker: 00:47:15

You wanna network with producers you want to know, tax incentives,

Speaker: 00:47:17

all that type of thing.

Speaker: 00:47:20

that.

Speaker: 00:47:24

a cardboard cut out of films that have already been made.

Speaker: 00:47:27

Because then even if you do get it made, know,

Speaker: 00:47:32

it's, not truly the art that you poured your heart and soul into at the beginning.

Speaker: 00:47:36

And when a project truly has art and truly has soul behind it, it shows those

Speaker: 00:47:40

are the films that resonate and that stay with people beyond their initial release.

Speaker: 00:47:43

And those are the films that become,

Speaker: 00:47:45

you know, the re watchable icons of cinema.

Speaker: 00:47:47

And that's what I think, people should be aspiring to make.

Speaker: 00:47:50

Not just does it tick all the business boxes, that's important, but it needs

Speaker: 00:47:53

to be a story from the soul that is uniquely a story that you tell

Speaker: 00:47:58

because your

Speaker: 00:47:58

unique voice and your unique passion is gonna come through

Speaker: 00:48:01

if you do that correctly.

Speaker: 00:48:02

Yeah, Wilson, I know that the, what I've been able to see

Speaker: 00:48:06

obviously is your proof of concept.

Speaker: 00:48:08

I've actually got it pulled up right here on my computer screen, and that's

Speaker: 00:48:13

something that people can go see.

Speaker: 00:48:14

And before we finish up here, we'll make sure they've got all the links and all

Speaker: 00:48:17

of that and put it down in the notes.

Speaker: 00:48:19

But what can you tell us about the stage that you're at?

Speaker: 00:48:22

I believe you've won awards and some things like that.

Speaker: 00:48:25

So share what you've done.

Speaker: 00:48:26

I think you've done some of the film, festival circuit and things.

Speaker: 00:48:30

So where are you at the stage of the project that you can share with us?

Speaker: 00:48:37

And, then I've got a few more questions before we wrap up on that.

Speaker: 00:48:41

Sure.

Speaker: 00:48:42

So, yeah, our proof of concept episode was independently produced with the

Speaker: 00:48:46

goal of just raising awareness for the series, building an audience for it.

Speaker: 00:48:56

it's received seven award nominations and it did win best TV series at

Speaker: 00:48:59

International Christian Film Festival a few months ago, which was such a blessing.

Speaker: 00:49:03

I mean, I'm so grateful to God for that

Speaker: 00:49:16

filled.

Speaker: 00:49:18

I was surprised that we even got in much less, that we got three award

Speaker: 00:49:21

nominations and that we won one of them.

Speaker: 00:49:24

that's been an incredible blessing.

Speaker: 00:49:26

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:49:26

And the sage that we're in currently is, as I'm, preparing, as I'm preparing

Speaker: 00:49:30

and continuing to network with filmmakers and talk with potential

Speaker: 00:49:33

executive producers, we're about to enter the realm where we either find

Speaker: 00:49:37

a producer or we start, um other.

Speaker: 00:49:42

that's where we're making decisions like, is it gonna be a feature?

Speaker: 00:49:44

Is it gonna be.

Speaker: 00:49:45

both.

Speaker: 00:49:46

And, just so that's where we're in right now in terms of just building our

Speaker: 00:49:50

audience and raising awareness so that, Lord willing, if it does come to, um, a

Speaker: 00:49:55

a crowd of people who are already interested

Speaker: 00:49:57

and we've been growing that and just, anxious to see where, you

Speaker: 00:50:01

know, where the Lord takes it.

Speaker: 00:50:02

And I'm very, very grateful for the continued film festival run that's

Speaker: 00:50:05

actually still got a few to go.

Speaker: 00:50:07

So I'm looking forward to hearing from that.

Speaker: 00:50:09

Our next notification date's gonna be,

Speaker: 00:50:11

it

Speaker: 00:50:11

may even be,

Speaker: 00:50:12

it

Speaker: 00:50:12

may have already happened by the time this episode gets released, but, we've

Speaker: 00:50:15

got another notification date coming up.

Speaker: 00:50:16

And so that's been a continued blessing as well, because every time you have a

Speaker: 00:50:20

chance to go to one of these festivals, there's networking opportunities and

Speaker: 00:50:23

you

Speaker: 00:50:23

meet more people and your audience grows.

Speaker: 00:50:25

And so that's been the stage that we're in currently.

Speaker: 00:50:28

Right.

Speaker: 00:50:28

How would you.

Speaker: 00:50:31

Define your audience?

Speaker: 00:50:33

what is the, I don't wanna say ideal audience or anything like that,

Speaker: 00:50:37

but who's the audience that this is really, really going to appeal to?

Speaker: 00:50:42

You probably have started to see some of that materialize.

Speaker: 00:50:46

Yes.

Speaker: 00:50:47

So the target demographic for the series is like ages 15 to 25,

Speaker: 00:50:51

you know, teens and young adults.

Speaker: 00:50:53

And

Speaker: 00:50:54

it's,

Speaker: 00:50:55

it's

Speaker: 00:50:55

a

Speaker: 00:50:56

fantasy.

Speaker: 00:50:56

Certainly has a broad appeal.

Speaker: 00:50:58

So we've certainly seen it attract viewers that are outside that demographic.

Speaker: 00:51:01

But I would say that's been, the majority of our viewers have been

Speaker: 00:51:04

between ages 15, 25 and even up to 34.

Speaker: 00:51:08

I've seen, based on our social media data has been the most

Speaker: 00:51:10

consistent, impact that this has had.

Speaker: 00:51:13

And, I will say that it has appealed to, Christians and non-Christians alike.

Speaker: 00:51:18

We've seen that as well.

Speaker: 00:51:19

so I've been very grateful for that.

Speaker: 00:51:20

'cause that's, that was the intention.

Speaker: 00:51:23

Yeah, I actually enjoy things that have a Christian component,

Speaker: 00:51:31

but they appeal outside of that.

Speaker: 00:51:34

And, I agree.

Speaker: 00:51:35

I mean, you know, the proof of concept, nothing that I think like I mentioned

Speaker: 00:51:40

earlier, I think it would attract, I think it would draw people in, which is probably

Speaker: 00:51:46

the desire is what you're looking for.

Speaker: 00:51:49

Tell people what to do now.

Speaker: 00:51:52

I mean, I've got the lost healer.com pulled up here.

Speaker: 00:51:55

We'll include links, but just go ahead.

Speaker: 00:51:58

This is kinda like pitch time for you tell 'em what to do and then I've got one or

Speaker: 00:52:02

two more things before we wrap up here.

Speaker: 00:52:04

a big thing that helps us is if you signed up for the email newsletter,

Speaker: 00:52:08

because that's

Speaker: 00:52:08

where you're gonna be, that you're gonna get exclusive access to behind the

Speaker: 00:52:11

scenes content series updates, and, a lot more content that we've got coming out.

Speaker: 00:52:16

the email newsletter on the lost healer.com and you can also follow

Speaker: 00:52:20

our socials, encourage you to follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and

Speaker: 00:52:22

it's at the Lost Dealer series.

Speaker: 00:52:26

Excellent.

Speaker: 00:52:27

We are a seek, go create here.

Speaker: 00:52:31

Those three words.

Speaker: 00:52:32

And I think projects like this really, epitomize all three

Speaker: 00:52:38

of those for a lot of reasons.

Speaker: 00:52:40

But if I were to ask you to choose one of those words over the other two

Speaker: 00:52:43

and why, which one would you choose?

Speaker: 00:52:47

Seek, go, or create?

Speaker: 00:52:49

Yeah, that's challenging because it really is all three.

Speaker: 00:52:51

I'd zero in on create if I had to

Speaker: 00:52:55

we're, creating stories and characters that hopefully will resonate

Speaker: 00:52:58

with people for years to come.

Speaker: 00:53:00

a large part of doing that, you really can't create without seeking and going

Speaker: 00:53:03

because you're seeking God's guidance.

Speaker: 00:53:04

You're seeking to glorify him,

Speaker: 00:53:06

and then you actually have to go and do it.

Speaker: 00:53:09

I think it really encompasses all three.

Speaker: 00:53:11

but it starts with create for sure.

Speaker: 00:53:12

Because if you don't have a story that you've created and that you're proud of,

Speaker: 00:53:15

then there's really nothing to go with.

Speaker: 00:53:16

that's good.

Speaker: 00:53:18

And at some point you went out in the woods and filmed and

Speaker: 00:53:22

worked on this project anyway.

Speaker: 00:53:24

excellent work.

Speaker: 00:53:26

Wilson Hickman, thank you for joining us here at Seat Co Create.

Speaker: 00:53:30

I am applauding you, I'm pulling for you.

Speaker: 00:53:34

I'm going to encourage those that are listening in to go to the lost healer.com,

Speaker: 00:53:40

and you could watch the, I think it's 15 minutes and there's some other things I

Speaker: 00:53:43

could watch too, but it will draw you in.

Speaker: 00:53:46

It'll probably leave you wanting more, which is probably the

Speaker: 00:53:49

goal, and that's a good thing.

Speaker: 00:53:51

So, go check that out and we'll be pulling for you.

Speaker: 00:53:53

we'll be watching with expectation to see good things going on from

Speaker: 00:53:58

Wilson Hickman and The Lost Healer.

Speaker: 00:54:00

Thanks for joining us here at Seek.

Speaker: 00:54:01

Go create everyone.

Speaker: 00:54:02

We've got new episodes on YouTube, on all the platforms every Monday, so we

Speaker: 00:54:07

will see you next time here at Seek.

Speaker: 00:54:10

Go create.