This is a collection of writings that were originally posted on my earlier Christian filmmaker blog for your enjoyment. I am phasing that blog out and so felt it was important to move those writings over to here:
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
A Backyard Dream
Robert Giovagnoni, my oldest friend, dictated much of this over the phone as we worked on it together to be read at the dedication of Awaken Pictures, the film business that was started in 2004. It has much humor and great memories to me as to how inspiration came to me in my calling to be a filmaker. Rob has graciously given me permission to post this for others to read.
A Backyard Dream -- 02-21-04 By Robert Giovagnoni, Tom’s oldest friend and coached along via phone conversation by Tom, himself: (He said the best way to write this… was to do it together):
We were somewhere between ages 7 and 11. The thing I remember the most… my brother with the Gartitos thing…whatever that was… that was his version of the Empire… I don’t know. We ran around with space ships in our hand and he would chase after us. We were kids and it was our creative way of having fun and exploring our dreams. It was our inspiration from Lucas’ film Star Wars. And thus Star Battles was born. It was our own creative account of how we saw his dreams in our own eyes. It was our movie… and I use the term "movie" very lightly. But to us it was just as real.
Where did it all happen? It all happened in my backyard and it would all come to a crashing halt when a tennis ball was an imaginary grenade and it landed on the awning roof and my dad came out with his slippers on to yell at us. I told you all I remember about Star Battles… my friend Rob Mangels’ funny accent, the tennis ball incident, and singing the theme song. We were verbally singing, verbally emulating instruments-- a song we concocted in our heads with our voices; every movie has to have an opening score. What would Star Battles be without a theme song? Our musical resources were limited at the time because Tom couldn’t do it on piano.
Most of our sound effects were done on the high end Atari 2600 gaming system. And as far as a camera goes, there was no room in the budget for that either. And as my father contributed unknowingly to the cause, we used his cassette recorder and this is how we recorded the scenes of our most grand adventure. Looking back today, we ripped off George Lucas… well I wouldn’t say that. But that’s pretty much what we did. We were trying to make it our own… but in essence what we were doing was ripping off George Lucas.
In closing, what Tom is doing today is not giving up on those dreams and still following them and taking the path that he was destined to do. Because everyone has a feeling or a preminition that they’re here to do something and if they’re not doing that thing… then something in their life is not right. And Tom is now going to be doing the thing that he was destined to do and that is to touch the lives of others through film. Dreams will take you far when followed to completion. And thank you for Tom for jogging an old man’s memory.
Cultural Christians by Dale Ream
Dale Ream, a good friend and Christian, with a heart for filmmaking, wrote this in order to be read at the dedication of Awaken Pictures, the film company my wife and I began in 2004. He has given me permission to share this with others.
Cultural Christians –
By Dale Ream 2-21-04
Before his death, television writer and producer Bob Briner wrote these words:
"The church is almost a nonentity when it comes to shaping culture. In the arts, entertainment, media, education and other culture-shaping venues of our country, the church has abdicated its role as salt and light."
Briner describes Christians who have withdrawn from the world’s culture and created their own sub-cultures as lambs. "Meek, lowly, easily dismissed cuddly creatures that are fun to watch but never a threat to the status quo."
It’s time for that to end.
Culturally, Christians don’t have much to show for their presence. A casual glance through today’s movies, music and bestseller lists show an amazing lack of truth and beauty.
Chuck Colson recently argued that the arts, including movies, are meant to reflect the glory of God. They’re meant to give us hints of a beauty and truth beyond our senses; rumors of another world. That people are searching for this beauty and truth is clearly evident.
The writers of the blockbuster trilogy, "The Matrix," asked the question, "What is the Matrix?" They spent millions of dollars and more than three years in pursuit of the answer. They led viewers on a breathtaking journey through a world flush with spiritual symbolism and analogies. But the end only brought disappointment.
The third and final movie didn’t answer the question at all, but instead left viewers with a void where truth should have been. Why? Why weren’t the Wachoski brothers able to answer their own question? Because they didn’t have the answer.
Simone Weil said, "We see either the dust on the window, or the view beyond the window, but never the window itself." Christians have put on blinders to God’s created world by ignoring it, looking "beyond the window," to the day they will leave it and it’s corruption behind. This was never meant to be. Jesus meant for us to reclaim the territory we handed the Enemy by force. Satan will not let go willingly, and we are called to wrench every inch of occupied territory from his hands, re-claiming it for the King to whom it belongs. We are not called to stand by while evil agents pervert what God created into tools for their agenda.
"You are salt," Jesus said. Salt preserves. What could need more preserving than the decaying culture surrounding us? How will we bring a corpse to life? By God’s power alone.
So many Christians are rising up in the entertainment industry, making their voices heard and we are beginning to see cracks in the Enemy’s Hollywood stronghold. But there is a lack of support for Christians who enter this mission field. Sure, we go to Christian movies, we watch the Christian television shows, but do we pray every day for the Believers behind the scenes, the grips, the writers, the producers, the assistants. Do we cover this industry in prayer asking God to rip it from the hands of the Enemy?
We have churches that support missions around the world. Churches that build monumental structures of worship, churches that encourage and point their youth towards a life of full-time ministry as the only valid way to fully serve God. But how many church leaders have you heard encourage someone to be a great writer, or actor? How many painters have you seen prayed over and commissioned to enter the mission field of modern art? Why do we shy away from this area of our culture? I believe it’s because the Enemy has duped us. Our lives are separated into sections labeled religious and secular, and neither category seems to affect the other. Consequently, our religious views are not taken very seriously.
We draw into ourselves and fight about things like whether we’ll be raptured before, during or after the tribulation, or whether it’s proper to drink alcohol in our homes while the world around us is staggering with the stench of their own death and decay. We have our own bookstores, t-v stations, music stores, retreat lodges and schools. As Briner argues, "I’m afraid many in the world view us as a flock of lambs grazing in the safe pastures surrounding our churches that have been designed to blend right in with the neighborhood landscape." We’re irrelevant. We don’t stand out. We don’t shine "like the stars in the heavens," as the apostle Paul urged us to do.
It’s time for us to leave the sheep pen and walk among the goats. It’s time for us to destroy the fences we’ve built to keep the wolves out of our pastures, and us out of their dens. It’s time to leave the mountain, and walk in the valley of the lepers, the blind, the lame and the sick.
It’s time for lambs to roar.
Destiny by Scott Nunnally
Scott Nunnally (a fellow Christian and one of my best friends)wrote this article which was read when we dedicated our film company Awaken Pictures, the film company my wife and I started in 2004. He's given me permission to reprint it for others to read. Reading this article 5 and a half years later makes it all the more powerful to me in what I've been through as an independent filmmaker seeking God's direction in this calling.
Destiny…
by Scott Nunnally
Way back in 1984 there was a successful movie about a young man who moved to suburban California. This young man was picked on by local bullies who all happened to study karate from this antagonistic and brutal teacher whose catch phrase was "no mercy". The young protagonist, one Daniel Larusso was befriended by an old man from Okinawa named Mr. Miyagi. We all remember the movie which was to spawn 3 sequels that went by the title, the Karate Kid.
We all remember that Daniel would go to emerge victorious and even earn the respect of his foes when he went on to fight with honor and integrity and most of all fought to find validation. Like many films particularly of this era it is replete with clichés. The one for which it may be most famous is the one that no one saw coming. That was when Miyagi would instruct Daniel to perform odd jobs around his house such as sanding his deck, painting his fence and waxing his car. We all remember "wax on wax off".
Finally when Daniel could take no more he confronted the old man and touted how Miyagi had made him his slave and how he wasn’t learning any karate. In an instant, the old man showed our young protagonist that he had indeed learned far more karate than he knew. While he had been growing frustrated performing these meaningless tasks of labor he had acquired fundamental skills to defend himself with basic blocks and hand techniques. At the same time Miyagi was able to get some much needed work done around the house. Just stop and think, does that remind you of any time of your life?
Let’s forget about Daniel Larusso for a moment. What about Joseph who spent many years of his life in prison waxing the car and painting the fence? Moses spent forty years saying wax on and wax off. Abraham painted, waxed and sanded for longer than we could fathom and the list goes on. The problem is that we only get the highlights when we read our scriptures or even watch a movie. The time in between is just that and never gets thought about. Many times when we are there, in between the moments, it is really easy to become discouraged. We also get discouraged because we serve a GOD who usually doesn’t tell us everything we want to know. HE asks us to trust and obey.
But that often just isn’t good enough. We need show the world what we can do. We very quickly forget that we are here to serve at HIS pleasure not for our own. HE has made us and given us our desires and ambitions and blessed us with the talents and skills we possess whether they allow us to be tennis pros or fertilizer spreaders. There are many parts of the body and they all serve the whole. Still we often want to be the fingernail that shines or the earlobe that deserves all of the attention. You try to drive home with your earlobe or try to walk to the store with just your fingernail.
The point is we must allow ourselves to be broken before HIM. HE needs us to be humble and obedient to HIS Will so that our talent will be truly a tool for HIS Purpose. Once this is done, once the tool is sharp enough or the pump is primed we now are convinced that we are not the right tool for the job. Human nature, go figure…
Upon meeting Tom in college many years ago I would find a kindred spirit. Both of us had reputations for being given to flights of fancy. Tom thought Star Wars was the greatest saga in the history of mankind and I thought Star Trek laid the foundation of how to deal with all intelligent life in the universe. We naturally became fast friends. We were young men but relative children in the grand scheme of things. With all of the things we had in common our dreams were probably the most binding.
Fifteen years have passed and so much has happened since those boys first met. We now have families and have let go of our dreams. Now we have a mission. Now we are bound by something far greater. We are brothers in the spirit with the same commitment to the same ministry.
For so many years we have dreamed and wished and daydreamed about what it would be like to living this reality. From children we have wished to do nothing else and the day has come that we are truly walking in our destiny. The biggest satisfaction is to know that we are truly ready. We can look back with understanding and thank the LORD for preparing us in our minds and in our hearts and equipping us with a spirit that is excited to do something we love so much to serve HIM, whom we love so much more. HE lets us understand the mighty power we wield and the mighty responsibility we are sworn to. We are poets and visionaries and we are garbage men and sanitation workers for the spirit.
Ours is a ministry very much like any other and at the same time like no other. We will rejoice. We will rejoice because we have waited so many years for the validation and the LORD himself has told us "now". We will rejoice because of the lives we can touch and the people we can influence." Mostly we will rejoice because we can do something, regardless of what it is, to bring pleasure to LORD and can do so with a joyful heart.
He took our dreams away-
…and replaced them with a purpose.
Scott Nunnally
2-20-2004
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