Greg added this bit of helpful but bleak commentary:
"My job has me out this week working in our company's exhibit booth at the National Religious Broadcaster's convention. In Anaheim, CA. Across the street from Disneyland. I am not making this up.
Anyway, this tradeshow is a look at what's coming down the pipeline in Christian media, so by wandering around the exhibit hall, I am getting a look at what will be on Christian TV, radio, webcasts, whatever in the next year or so.
Discoshaman, I have seen the future. And it is crap. Pure crap. Unadulterated, unmitigated, unembarassed, boldly and brazenly crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. More crap.
All except the "Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" movie. It looks well-done. A gem in a septic tank."
He's not normally so reticent, but I think you can read between the lines and surmise his opinion.
You can also pop over to Winston's place and check out Christianity and the Arts. He overviews some Christian books which can help us transcend kitsch and banality.
Posted by Discoshaman at février 14, 2005 12:06 AM | TrackBack
That the future releases in Christian media are, for the most part, crap, comes as no surprise. That's what it seems to specialize in producing. Jesus isn't honored and the spiritually-disconnected have more reasons to repudiate Christian faith as irrelevant, marginal, and brainless. It saddens me.
Posted by: Mark at février 14, 2005 01:20 AMTo get in the "real" media game costs multi-millions. Who's gonna pony up that kind of cash? If Focus on the Family were to try to finance a film for $5 million, I suspect their base would cry foul. What's worse is that even a huge Christian organization like that STILL cannot afford something that small.
Money talks. And the Christians don't have the money OR they might have it but it would serve a better purpose than going into a chancy film.
Posted by: DLE at février 14, 2005 02:21 AMWow. I feel... significant. You have no idea. Years of needy wandering through career changes and counseling sessions, and now a premier posts on Le Sabot. You know, this is really a big deal for me.
Anyway, just got back from the National Religious Broadcasters convention at the Anaheim Convention Center. I don't know where to begin. It's late, and I saw a lot today. Also, I have a couple of thoughts on the topic, particularly in response to DLE's remarks. Working in "the industry" as I do, I can say that he/she is close to the mark. The costs of commercial TV and film production are astronomical compared to the budgets in the Christian world. The people I work with are In The Loop, and if I had time I think I could give you some insights into the issues associated with the barriers to getting "good" Christian TV and movies. And no, they aren't all related to Hollywood hating Christians. They have a lot to do with getting enough people to pay $10 to see your film to repay the investors for the production, marketing and distribution costs. Even an "indy" art film where unknown actors just sit around talking is gonna cost $10 million to produce, not counting marketing and distribution. Anything interesting Hollywood movie is $50 million and any thing cool is gonna cost $100 million. The production companies (not the studio) raise the "R&D" money to develop a script and pre-produce by selling shares.
How christians in the TV and movie industry are affecting and being affected by the business realities of the industry is quite interesting, and would make a worthy post - essay. I just spent a couple of hours over dinner tonight talking about that with some friends in light of some of the things we saw today. Maybe tomorrow after I get some sleep I'll send Disco an email with some tidbits he can process and judiciously dole out. I've got two more days of the show...
Posted by: Greg at février 14, 2005 07:05 AMDiscoshaman:
I think that in your francophile, metrosexual way you are accusing me of lacking... nuance. How very french of you.
Anyway, I did see some interesting things on the exhibit floor today, before it shut down for a John Tesh worship concert (really, I am not making any of this up).
On the positive side, there are people trying to do some cool things. The Chronicles of Narnia movie will at least be well-done, as WETA Workshop (people who did Lord of the Rings) made it, and the Lewis Foundation had script control. They have a booth here getting the message out to the grass roots church crowd.
Also, I spent some time today talking to the guys making the Jim Elliot movie. The story has been kicking around the Christian screenwriter world for years, but someone has finally gone and shot the thing. It's in post-production now and they launched a huge marketing campaign here at NRB for a 2006 theatrical release. Some clips I saw looked OK, and the guys making it seemed real sincere. The marketing effort is real impressive. The material is worthy. Go check it out the website for it at http://www.beyondthegatesthemovie.com/
I saw a LOT of booths containing the usual: books, movies, videos, products promising to Fix My Life. 359 steps to a better marriage/faith/body/children/etc. Some other time I'll tell you how weary I am in my own personal faith journey of all of this sort of thing.
But today I did find today one product at a booth in the exhibit hall that all readers of Le Sabot Post-Moderne MUST PURCHASE IMMEDIATELY: The Personal Promise Bible
The power of high-speed digital priting has made one-off books affordable. Harnessing this miracle of technolgy for Good, the Personal Promise Bible digitally replaces the personal pronouns in the Bible with YOUR name. So, for example, John 3:16 reads, "For God so loved YOUR NAME that he gave his only begotten son, so that YOUR NAME should not die but have eternal life."
When I got back tonight I went to their website (having taken a brochure and all the free swag they were giving away) to check it out further. You should all do the same (address below). On there they have a flash sample where you can enter your name and see how a passage would be printed and handsomely bound for you. I entered "The Inscrutable Discoshaman" and this is what it spit out:
Even when The Inscrutable Discoshaman was dead in trespasses, God made The Inscrutable Discoshaman alive together with Christ (by grace The Inscrutable Discoshaman has been saved), and raised The Inscrutable Discoshaman up with Him and made The Inscrutable Discoshaman to sit with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2:5-6)
I encourage all regular readers of Le Sabot Post-Moderne to go chip in together so that we could order the Discoshaman a real-imitation-leather bound copy of The Personal Promise Bible for Ukrainian New Year or whatever.
Again, I am not making this up. I never do. If you don't believe me, go check it out at www.personalpromisebible.com
Some booth there was giving away 3-foot long swords made of bubble gum. My mission tomorrow, other than hopefully gaining new clients for our company, is to find that booth and get a couple of those for my kids.
Posted by: Greg at février 14, 2005 07:34 AMThanks for the link! I'll keep from babbling about how it made my night and I felt like I'd written something worth reading (but I could babble about that).
I'd just like to step in and make a point about the cost of production. While I see your point: to make a movie for under $10mil is few and far between, I also believe there is a flipside to that.
Two underground hits in the past year were Napoleon Dynamite and Garden State. Both were first full-length films by directors, Jon Heder for the former and Zach Braff for the former. Napoleon had an estimated budget of $400,000, while Garden State was made for approximately $2.5mil. Each of them grossed more that $25mil at the box office and have had insane DVD sales.
Why do I look at them? Well because of what made them popular: word of mouth. Each was unique and creative - Napoleon for it's sheer comic genius (that's debatable I know), Garden State for it's cinematography and plot. Neither of them had huge hollywood ad campaigns, neither of them got interviews on big TV shows, but each did very well, because audiences connected with the movies.
I feel that as far as movies go- our starting ploy is not to make movies comparable to Hollywood blockbusters, but to make movies that people connect with.
We have this whole ideology built in that if we match what the world puts out, then people will listen to us to.
I don't think our goal is to compare the work we put out to the work hollywood or the secular world puts out; instead we should measure our work by it's relevance and impact.
If you want to know what i'm takling about, go rent the movie To End All Wars. That movie is powerful, and it has an amazing Biblically based message, yet it's tone is not preachy.
Also be forewarned, it is rated R for intense scenes- it's set in a Japanese concentration camp.
Posted by: Winston at février 14, 2005 07:51 PMYeah, money's not the issue, and for most types of art you don't even need some bigwig patron.
A good way to make hostile people sympathetic is to come at them with something worth taking seriously. The band Low is heavily mormon in composition, and even wrote songs with lots of Christ in them for their Christmas album, but cool kids across the country bought it, buy it, and love it.
The biggest problem is the reliance by some Christian bands on ambiguous "is he talking to God or some chick?" lyrics on the one hand and by the others on filling their albums with explicit worship songs, or songs that try to graft the Christian message onto a hip idea ("Dude, if I like Jesus I can be a freak too! Just like the guys in Nine Inch Nails! Hey, let's hire the guy who directed 'Closer' to do our video!"). That's fine, I guess, but I'd rather hear good art, or at least serious art, not an hour of someone emoting about the glory of God. Show, don't tell.
Posted by: leftthecapitol at février 14, 2005 08:43 PMKudos, for a great blog. I came to visit because of your insightful reportage during the orange revolution and have stayed as a regular visitor due to the urbanity of the commentary and witty rejoinders through the tossed clogs.
While I'm Mormon and don't have the same (strong, but different) evangelical Christian bent usually demonstrated on these pages, I must agree that the way to get to an entertainment industry that works for us is to start with small, independent movies that focus on great, witty scripts, strong acting and direction and bring the (costly) production values along later. The best example in the Mormon genre has been a little film called "The Best Two Years." It's about Mormon missionaries serving their two year stint in "Los Paises Bajos". There have been several other "Mormon market" flicks that had some success recently, but the best two years is actually a wonderful little movie with, best of all, a quality script, tight direction and outstanding cinematography. It manages to be touching and funny without being cloying and overtly preachy. I cry everytime I see it (my kids regularly make me watch it, since it's one of the movies we'll let them watch on Sunday).
I believe it made money, though not all that much, but my kids bought the CD and wander about humming the tunes and singing lyrics that I don't have to cringe when I hear them.
I'd put my money up to help the producers of that flick build another one of the same calibre.
Posted by: paul in utah at février 14, 2005 08:46 PMWinston, Left and Paul:
Just checking my email here online at the NRB convention, and I want to partially agree with you about the indy film thing and costs.
Let's be clear: everyone I know in the industry will tell you that the only thing there is a shortage of is really good scripts, and a great script isn't (necessarily) a budget issue. I loved Napolean and Garden State, and agree that a great film, shot cheap and word of mouth, etc. can happen.
But it's rare, and it's sometimes lighting in a bottle.
You're right, Christians can't make big budget Hollywood movies, etc. because of costs, etc.
However, the industry is full of frustrated film school grads and everyone thinks they can make a movie. Making a film is technically demanding and requires a lot of skill players who can pull it off. And it needs backing. So while EVERY christian film school grad I know thinks that they're this close to making a lightening in a bottle indy film, getting access in the industry to the people and instituions that can make it happen requires experience, resume, credibility, etc. Not to say that there aren't those rare cases, but they are rare.
There are really four major problems, in my opinion:
1. Evangelical Christians today have very little intersting to say. I spend a lot of time around christians that work in media production who argue endlessly over what is a "christian film/book/song" etc., but at the end of the day, while everyone has an opinion, there are very few people with a marketable idea for a script/book/song. As my screenwriter friends in Hollywood say, everyone has an opinion about movies or an idea for a movie, but production companies and investors don't buy ideas or opinions, they buy shootable scripts by people with the resume to get a project done on time and under budget. And I meet very few Christians -- even the ones that think about/talk about/argue about Film and all that that have an shootable script that says something interesting and original from a Christian perspective. If any of you have such a script/song/book proposal... MAKE IT.
2. Should Christians make Christian art, or should Christians make art and let their Christianity influence it?
3. We can disparage them, but there is a market out there for this stuff. People will buy it. We can wish that they wouldn't make crap, but if that's what people will buy, should they not respond to the market and produce what consumers want? Before you start in about being "culture formative" and all that, remember that people who work for Chrisitan media companies respond to the market. They have shareholders. They have jobs and mortgages and kids to send to college. They will produce what the market wants, and a LOT OF CHRISTIANS CONSUMERS want to watch/listen/read this stuff. Before you get too indignant, what would you do if you were a production exec or account manager or whatever for one of these companies? Insist that the consumer be damned, you're gonna make art? Hey, my company works for clients who I won't watch their show... but it's my job to help produce it.
4. Most secular stuff is crap too. I mean, before we single out Christian media, walk through a music store or surf the TV or look at he latest movies in your local theater. Most of it is crap as well. Truth is, producing quality art is HARD, regardless of whether you're a Christian or not.
Anyway, need to get back to the exhibit booth and find some more clients that want to be on TV...
Posted by: Greg at février 14, 2005 11:12 PMGreat points, I'll probably mull over them for awhile and answer at my own blog.
In the meantime, I will point out that one of the joys of attempting to be an artist is that one can hold onto ideals and be a dreamer.
I just hope to be a productive dreamer. Once again, great points/questions.
Posted by: Winston at février 15, 2005 12:47 AMGreg, a little now and more later. I think you're right about popuar culture generally being crap (though I think the better quality things get more of a chance there). But Christian stuff being total crap is bad because it makes Christianity seem completely ridiculous and idiotic. How many secular people were converted by the Omega Code?
Posted by: leftthecapitol at février 15, 2005 05:21 AM