Jesus People Nashville!

If you’re reading this, you probably already know that JESUS PEOPLE did a premiere in Nashville last week during Gospel Music Association (GMA) week. We wanted the chance to present the film to a Christian audience and couldn’t think of a better time to do it than this annual convention of Christian artists, radio stations, managers, publicists, labels, and media.

We wanted somewhere cool and kitschy and found the perfect venue in the Belcourt Theater in Hillsboro Village. Specializing in indie films and centrally located in an artsy part of town, the Belcourt was a perfect location for us! Our theater had about 350 seats available.

Though we had all worked tirelessly on inviting people, working our connections in town and the industry, and doing everything but begging people to come out (I may have begged a little…), we felt good about our expected crowd, but these things are always uncertain. Our RSVP’s indicated we would have a solid showing, but we still didn’t know exactly how many people to expect (Would artists follow through on their RSVP? Would people show up who had seen the Belcourt’s ad on their website? Would everyone decide to go to a random showcase at the last minute?).

The screening was planned for 7:30 p.m. sharp, with doors opening at 7:00. When we arrived on site at about 6:20, there were already people lined up outside the doors! … Okay, so it was, like, three people, but it was still a line! Artists were also showing up early, though many of them decided to hang out at a restaurant down the street until doors opened (can’t blame them for that!).

Speaking of artists, it was really encouraging to see friends like Scott Dente, Greg Long of Avalon, and Ben Cordonero of Salvador come out to support me and the project. Other artists included Aaron Shust, Cindy Morgan, Wayne Kirkpatrick, Steve Taylor, Margaret Becker, Tammy Trent, and many others! (I’m sure Dan and Jason can add more to the list!) We also had a really nice turn-out of label reps and publicists.

All in all, there were somewhere between 250-300 people in the audience…not too bad! The theater felt really full and you could feel the energy in the crowd from the first moment.

We all went into the screening knowing that the potential for offense was present. Obviously, the film is not made with the intention of being offensive, but you never know how people will react when jokes hit really close to home. Maybe they’ll be the rock stars who count “This Is Spinal Tap” among their favorite films or maybe they’ll be Scientologists who cry cease-and-desist on the creators of SouthPark. You just never know.

For this particular screening, it seemed like the jokes were well appreciated. People laughed from beginning to end – and not just chuckled here and there, but literally howled with laughter at some lines and situations. Granted, there were also a few audible gasps and a few moments of uncertainty (“You’re a big boy for an AIDS baby!”), but overall, I think people had the exact reaction we were hoping for – they thought it was funny and it made them think.

All in all, I felt really great about the whole evening. Who knows what will “come of it” in a business sense (Was there anyone in the audience who could distribute the film? Will we all become household names over the next few weeks? How many of those in attendance would actually buy a DVD?), but the night was a success and it was my pleasure to be part of it.

On a personal note, this may be the end of the JESUS PEOPLE road for me until something happens with distribution. At this point, I’d have to pass on any major travel (getting pregnanter by the day and all…), so unless we do another screening in the South (ahem, Charlotte, ahem!), this may have been my last opportunity to see the film with a large audience (again…until the awesomely major distribution deal comes through, of course!). Working on the movie, meeting and making friends with the people involved, and having the opportunity to see it through to completion has been one of the highlights of my life. I feel so honored to have been so randomly included and can’t imagine a better “first film” experience.

So, thanks. Thanks to all of those who attended not just the Nashville screening, but the others we’ve done as well. And thanks especially to Dan, Rajeev, Jason, Damon, Edi, Lindsay, Rich, Joel, Karen, Chris, Kevin K., Sambrells, Katie, Jim, Garrett, Kevin C., Mandy, Ryan, and Pete. You guys were and are awesome.

Peace. Out.

I vs. We

I’m currently reading “The Enchantress of Florence” by Salman Rushdie. I’m about 50 pages in and haven’t quite decided if I’m enjoying it or not, but the passage below really struck me as I was reading. I’ve recently been thinking more about community, what it means to be part of a community, and how much responsibility I have to the (chosen and unchosen) communities in which I find myself. There’s a lot more than that discussed here (ideas about class, monarchs, and more), but I’ve italicized the items that particularly spoke to me. These questions have stuck with me over the past few days. In particular, I’ve been going over the self-as-community line. It’s ended up leading to thoughts like…Should my first thought of myself be as an individual or as a part of something greater than just my self? Can I be a community all to myself (based on the plural selves idea)? Where are the healthy boundaries between “I” and “we”?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!
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[The emperor], Akbar, had never referred to himself as “I,” not even in private, not even in anger or dreams. He was – what else could he be? – “we.” He was the definition, the incarnation of the We. He had been born into plurality. When he said “we,” he naturally and truly meant himself as an incarnation of all his subjects, of all his cities and lands and rivers and mountains and lakes, as well as all the animals and plants and trees within his frontiers, and also the birds that flew overhead and the mordant twilight mosquitoes and the nameless monsters in their underworld lairs, gnawing slowly at the roots of things; he meant himself as the sum total of all his victories, himself as containing the characters, the abilities, the histories, perhaps even the souls of his decapitated or merely pacified opponents; and, in addition, he meant himself as the apogee of his people’s past and present, and the engine of their future.

This “we” was what it meant to be a king – but commoners, he now allowed himself to consider, in the interests of fairness, and for the purposes of debate, no doubt occasionally thought of themselves as plural, too.

Were they wrong? Or (O traitorous thought!) was he? Perhaps this idea of self-as-community was what it meant to be a being in the world, any being; such a being being, after all, inevitably a being among other beings, a part of the beingness of all things. Perhaps plurality was not exclusively a king’s prerogative, perhaps it was not, after all, his divine right…[I]t was accordingly inevitable that the men and women over whom he ruled also conceived of themselves as “we”s. They saw themselves, perhaps, as plural entities made up of themselves plus their children, mothers, aunts, employers, co-worshippers, fellow workers, clans, and friends. They, too, saw their selves as multiple, one self that was the father of their children, another that was their parents’ child; they knew themselves to be different with their employers than they were at home with their wives – in short, they were all bags of selves, bursting with plurality, just as he was. Was there then no essential difference between the ruler and the ruled? And now his original question reasserted itself in a new and startling form: if his many-selved subjects managed to think of themselves in the singular rather than plural, could he, too, be an “I”? Could there be an “I” that was simply oneself? Were there such naked, solitary “I”s buried beneath the overcrowded “we”s of the earth?

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Peace. Out.

Quality (of life) vs. Quantity (of money)

Hello, readers! I know at least a few of you are out there…I just checked my stats for this month. :) It’s been a while, obviously, since I felt I had anything to say or add or flesh out here on the ol’ blog, but I’ve been rolling something around in my head over the last few days that has brought me out of retirement.

I work in freelance TV and film production, which means I kind of have to sit around and cross my fingers hoping that work comes in every month. I do my part to build and maintain relationships with past, present, and potential clients, but it’s really not much more than a crapshoot (mixed with a healthy dose of faith). I hope work comes in. I budget for the times it doesn’t and I’m thankful for the times it does. Living a life where quite a large portion of my schedule is unknown can be scary and crazy, but for the most part, it works out.

For someone like me, landing a huge project (70 days!) in one phone call is pretty major. It’s a project that will last the whole year through and one that I will be paid quite well for. It’s basically a freelancer’s dream.

Except that I’m starting to feel like it’s more of a nightmare.

The project has the potential to be fun and cool and lead to other fun and cool things. But the reality so far has been more disorganized and stressful and, well, so completely not fun, that I’m starting to question taking the project at all.

I know the status of the current economy. I know that with a baby on the way, it would seem like a really stupid thing to do to turn down work of just about any kind. The question that keeps coming back to me, though, is “Is the money worth it?” I mean, is that the be-all, end-all of my decision-making at this point? Is there no room to weigh quality of life? Yes, money is absolutely important, and I can’t say how grateful I am to have the opportunity to work right now. But I can’t help wondering if decreasing my happiness, increasing my stress, and experiencing sort of a general sense of dread over the whole thing is worth it.

I know, I know, welcome to the real world, right? People aren’t always happy with their jobs and they often just do them for that paycheck once a month. But I don’t know if that’s what I want my life to be. I want to believe that if I turn this down for really honorable reasons, then I would be blessed with something else to take its place. That keeping this rather poisonous experience in my life is robbing me of the truly awesome things I’m “supposed” to be doing right now.

And yet bills have to be paid.

Where’s the balance? Is there hope of any?

Peace. Out.

Satire

I’m working on getting publicity and building buzz for JESUS PEOPLE in both the mainstream and Christian press. I’m starting to wonder if people (particularly Christians in this case) really understand the use of satire. I feel like I keep having to explain it to people: “We’re not making fun of Christians. We’re portraying extreme versions of them (or sometimes not so extreme versions if we’re honest) in order to address some of the issues and perceptions of the Christian subculture.”

Is it that they can’t look at their own subculture objectively to see the problems (or the humor)? Is it that they’re overly conservative about making jokes or seeming to make jokes at the expense of the Bride of Christ? If it’s the latter, I’m definitely not knocking that. I myself walk a pretty tight line as far as making fun of Christians or speaking too strongly against them or their practices. After all, I believe that a person’s relationship and experience with God, while part of a larger Story, is unique. I’m not really one to jump in and say someone else’s choices within that relationship are wrong.

However, if it’s the former – if Christians really do have a hard time looking at their own subculture objectively – I do take issue with that. Though we serve a perfect God, we are not perfect. I think it can only help our mission to spread the Gospel if we look at how we are perceived as a group. If there are things that are hindering that process of forming relationships with people, then those need to be addressed. And I think satire is a good way to point out the things that are just over-the-top.

Our pitch for the film is “It’s like SPINAL TAP set in the world of Christian pop music.” The makers of SPINAL TAP did not hate rock stars. And the rock music industry did not get all hot-and-bothered about the details of the movie. They could recognize those things as true (at least a little bit) and say, “Yeah, you know what, we are kind of like that sometimes and it is completely ridiculous…and FUNNY.”

I obviously have a lot of personal ties to this particular film (JESUS PEOPLE not SPINAL TAP), but even when I didn’t, I was really excited about the project. I hope people will eventually see it (no matter what their religious affiliation) and be open to starting up discussions about some of the portrayals and topics the film addresses.

Peace. Out.

Musings on celebrities, opinions and the fourth wall…

There’s always a lot of talk about whether celebrities should or should not share their opinions on politics, and those discussions reach a climax in an election year. People seem to get really offended by celebrities who feel they have a right to throw their opinions into the mix and expect people to listen.

I was thinking about this the other day and I realized that the whole issue just goes to show how personal politics really are. After all, we’re okay with celebrities sharing their opinion in other areas…advertisers bet on it. We look to celebrities to tell us what cars to drive, what clothes to wear, what to name our babies. But when it comes to how to cast our vote, well, that’s just too far.

I’m not saying I think celebrities should share their political opinions, but you can see how they’d get confused. We can’t expect them to take it very well when we invite them into our lives and fawn all over them, then draw a line in sand they didn’t know they were standing in. It just seems so random.

I was reading Jude Cole’s recent blog and he complains about the fourth wall being broken when celebrities share their personal opinions. But does the fourth wall even exist anymore? With tabloids and paparazzi and E! True Hollywood Stories, is it possible to watch an actor on screen and not think about the intimate details of that person’s off-screen life? As I write, The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer is playing on TV. Watching Cary Grant and Myrna Loy, I’m reminded that movie stars aren’t what they used to be. There was a time when an actor’s personal life was kept private in order to preserve their persona. In a way, I think more is required of actors these days because we do know so much about them. If an actor can make you forget about everything else and really believe them in whatever role they’re playing, that’s quite an accomplishment.

In the current cultural landscape, I just don’t see it as a big deal when celebrities want to share their personal opinions. I think it’s okay to share mine with the world (even if it’s just a small corner of it here on this blog), so why shouldn’t they share theirs in whatever way they’re able?

Peace. Out.