Dallas Jenkins & Stephen Baldwin on FOX News

Great clip here from filmmaker Dallas Jenkins and actor Stephen Baldwin on Hollywood and faith-based films. They talk briefly about The Blind Side and trends in faith-based filmmaking.

Come What May movie made by homeschoolers

Come What May is the first release from Advent Film Group (AFG), but the production group founded by George Escobar is planning on producing many more movies in the future. Inspired by Sherwood Pictures (creators of FIREPROOF, Facing the Giants, and Flywheel) AFG has constructed its own model for creating great movies for a faith-based audience.

"Like Sherwood Pictures, we believe Christian filmmakers should always work alongside organizations already in service for the Lord. We will always be under another's covering and authority," George says. "While Sherwood has its home church, with Come What May, we partnered with Patrick Henry College."

The college's academic rigor is attractive to home-schooled students. George, a home-school parent advocate, sees the potential of these motivated and talented students to become a generation of trained and gifted filmmakers. The AFG model pays the young filmmakers as they learn the craft through the actual making of movies.

"There was a core team of 40 home schooled student from across 16 different states that worked on the movie," he says. "We tapped into the speech and debate clubs for home-schoolers, in particular the NCFCA league. That is our 'secret sauce.' These students and their parents are already dedicated to becoming 'Communicators for Christ' and have a proven track record for hard work and accomplishment. Graduates from NCFCA go on to dominate the debate tournaments in college."

With a team at the ready, George and others worked on the script. The central plot is based on a real experience that Patrick Henry College's Moot Court team faced in a national tournament. Having to choose between what is right and what could win is a challenging dilemma, especially when it comes to a life-and-death issue like abortion.

"We want to tell stories that the Lord will bless," George says. "That means removing our own agendas and ego from the writing process. We enlisted the help of PHC students and faculty during the story-development phase and during the final script polish.

"Ben Adams, a PHC alumnus, worked with me on the six-page treatment. Manny Edwards, my collaborator, wrote the first draft and together we worked on all subsequent drafts, as did David Hallbrook, the college's Director of Communications, who is a Pulitzer Prize nominee author. Finally, Dr. Michael Farris, a constitutional attorney who is the founder and chancellor of PHC, wrote the legal brief for overturning Roe. Our shooting script was the eighth draft, followed by one more draft during pickup filming."

Come What May was filmed over five weeks in Virginia during the summer of 2007. In early 2008, the crew shot an additional seven days of pickup filming. After months of sound mixing, editing, and other post-production work, the DVD was made available through AFG. Later in 2008, Provident-Integrity Distribution signed an agreement to market the movie and the Come What May trailer was highlighted on the FIREPROOF DVD.

You can read more about production in Stories from the Set.

Run Baby Run Movie

There's an interesting new movie coming out about Nicky Cruz's life called Run Baby Run. According to their website, the film is in pre-production now. No word yet on an official release date, but you can sign up for updates at the site.

C2 : Giving Movies a Second Look (DVD Small group curriculum)

Michael W. Smith, Seabourne Pictures and Randall House have joined forces to produce an innovative new small group study series on DVD called C2: Giving Movies a Second Look. C2 is designed to help individuals develop critical thinking skills when watching movies. With Love At First Sight [Volume One] and Relapse [Volume Two] shipping to retail July 7 through Randall House, Spring Arbor and STL, C2 is expected to help meet the increased demand for DVD curriculum, as well as the growing demand from fans of Christian films.

Each C2 DVD contains a twenty-minute original short film along with bonus features, which include a personal introduction from Michael W. Smith, behind-the-scenes movie features, out-takes, director’s comments and deleted movie scenes. The leader of a small group will have access to helpful tools, including study guides for three separate lessons relating directly to the movie and promoting critical thinking.

“Seabourne Pictures and Randall House have created a groundbreaking product,” says Michael W. Smith. “Nearly everyone goes to the movies, but how often do we stop to evaluate and filter what we just watched? C2 really raises the bar by providing quality short films supplemented with small group curriculum to guide discussion.”

“C2 is unique because it captures the movie experience,” adds Ryan Smith, Seabourne Pictures co-founder. “Movies can be so influential in our life experience. That’s why I think it’s important that we develop the necessary critical thinking skills in order to evaluate what we are watching.”

“Seabourne Pictures has really raised the bar for other products in this category by the level of the quality they put into every aspect of their films,” says Matt Markins, Randall House director of marketing and sales. “And on this DVD are all the bonus features that movie lovers enjoy.”

According to the Barna Group, in 2005, adults watched an average of 45 movies and “nearly one-third of adults (29%) contend that movies have had a substantial impact on the development of their personal morals, values and religious beliefs.” Barna Group research also finds that currently “two-thirds of all Protestant churches have big-screen projection capabilities. In congregations that use movie clips for teaching purposes, 77% of congregants contend that those visual media are helpful in their spiritual development.”

“The increased demand for video can clearly be seen all around us in our culture through resources like YouTube.com, Google Video and hulu.com,” continues Markins. “Similarly, the demand for DVD curriculum has largely increased over the last five years. Everyone watches movies, yet so many Christians do not stop to evaluate how the movies they watch line up with the Bible. C2 is out to change how people view movies.”

C2: Love At First Sight [Volume One] is a romantic comedy dealing with themes of romantic love, true love, judging others and accepting differing opinions.

Watch the trailer:


C2: Relapse [Volume Two] is a drama dealing with themes of addiction, grief and bioethics.

Watch the trailer:


Both volumes have been scored by David Hamilton in Prague, Czech Republic and Jim Daneker in Nashville. Hamilton is a respected arranger, conductor, producer, keyboard artist and songwriter whose work covers a broad spectrum of musical styles heard on recordings by a diverse group of artists such as Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Shania Twain, Linda Ronstadt, Michael Crawford, Point of Grace and many others. Daneker has performed or recorded with many of Christian music’s most enduring artists and enjoys a parallel career scoring for full-length feature films, trailers and commercial spots.

More information about C2 can be found at http://www.seabournepictures.com/c2.html.

Watch Michael W. Smith answer the question: "What is C2?" below:

Do Christian movies change lives?

Rich Christiano (Time Changer, Unidentified) shared this touching story in his Christianmovies.com newsletter:

I want to tell you a story that is very touching and shows the power of Christian films. Recently, my brother Dave and I had the pleasure of sitting down at the NRB Convention with Russ Doughton, the Producer of the famous prophecy films that includes Thief in the Night and a real pioneer in the Christian movie industry. Russ, who is nearing 80 years young now, is still very committed to the cause of Christ and Christian films. In fact, he is one of the few that really wants to exalt the Lord in films. My brother Dave asked him an interesting question. "Russ, what is the hardest film you ever made?" To our surprise, here was Russ's answer.

"It was back in 1954 and the first project I ever worked on," Russ said. "I was in my mid-twenties and I was hired to produce and direct a program with Henry Geiger called The Children's Gospel Hour. I got the job on a Tuesday and we started shooting the next Monday. I didn't know what I was doing. This was a weekly TV series for children presenting the gospel. But, I did the best I could and we made the program. Well, twenty years later, just after I did Thief in the Night and had started Mark IV Pictures, I wanted to make a children's film called Happiness Is. So, I went to a local church and observed a woman teaching in a Sunday School class to children. She was excellent with the way she handled the children and so I asked her if she would come to our office to help us write our script. She agreed and I met with her everyday for two weeks and we worked on the script together. Then, suddenly, she told me that today was her last day. Why? I asked. She told me that she and her husband were moving in two days and tomorrow she'd have to help him pack. I was sorry to see her go since we were still working on the script but thanked her for all her valuable insight."

Then Russ added this.

"As she was leaving, I just felt led to asked her, by the way, how did you become a Christian? She turned to me and said, well, when I was eleven years old, I was watching this program on TV called The Children's Gospel Hour and gave my life to the Lord."