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A Filmmakers Journey: Insights from Stephen Kendrick
Episode 66 • 7th August 2024 • Faith & Family Filmmakers • Geoffrey and Jaclyn Whitt
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Episode 66 - A Filmmakers Journey: Insights from Stephen Kendrick

In this episode of the Faith and Family Filmmakers Podcast, Jaclyn Whitt interviews Stephen Kendrick of the Kendrick Brothers. They discuss his unexpected journey into filmmaking, rooted in a Christian upbringing and inspired by his family's commitment to ministry. Stephen shares anecdotes about how his early film efforts with his brother Alex evolved from fun home videos to their first serious film project, 'Flywheel.' They delve into the challenges and lessons learned in filmmaking, the importance of receiving and acting on constructive criticism, and the process of creating impactful, faith-based films. Stephen also emphasizes the need for humility, continuous learning, and accountability in both personal and professional growth. The Highlights:

  • Early Life and Family Background
  • Early Filmmaking Experiences
  • Making Flywheel: The First Feature Film
  • Challenges and Learning in Filmmaking
  • The Importance of Feedback and Accepting Criticism
  • The Process of Refining a Film
  • Advice for Aspiring Filmmakers

Bio:

After serving in church ministry for 20 years, Stephen Kendrick now writes, speaks, and produces Christian films with his brothers Alex and Shannon. Stephen produced and co-wrote the movies THE FORGE, WAR ROOM, OVERCOMER, COURAGEOUS, FIREPROOF, and FACING THE GIANTS. In 2021, SHOW ME THE FATHER released; it was their first feature-length documentary, for which he served as an executive producer and writer. Their newest film, THE FORGE, is scheduled for a theatrical release by Sony Pictures on August 23, 2024. Along with his brother Alex, Stephen co-wrote the New York Times bestselling books The Love Dare, The Resolution for Men, and The Battle Plan for Prayer. He has been interviewed on “Fox & Friends,” CNN, and ABC World News Tonight. He serves on the boards of the Fatherhood CoMission and the Christian Worldview Film Festival. Stephen and his wife, Jill, live in Albany, Ga. with their six children and are active members at Sherwood Church.

www.kendrickbrothers.com

The Kendrick Brothers on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=the%20kendrick%20brothers

The Kendrick Brothers on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thekendrickbrothers/

The Forge on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forgemovie/

Content Christian media Conference Discount Code: 50FAFF

Jaclyn's Book, In the Beginning, Middle, and End https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D9R7XS9V

The Faith & Family Filmmakers podcast helps filmmakers who share a Christian worldview stay in touch, informed, and inspired. Releasing new episodes every week, we interview experts from varying fields of filmmaking; from screenwriters, actors, directors, and producers, to film scorers,  talent agents, and distributors. 

It is produced and hosted by Geoffrey Whitt and Jaclyn Whitt , and is brought to you by the Faith & Family Filmmakers Association

Support Faith & Family Filmmakers Our mission is to help filmmakers who share a Christian Worldview stay in touch, informed, and inspired. If you would like to assist with the costs of producing this podcast, you can help by leaving a tip.

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Copyright 2024 Ivan Ann Productions

Transcripts

Jaclyn:

Hello, and

Jaclyn:

welcome to the

Jaclyn:

Faith and Family Filmmakers Podcast.

Jaclyn:

My name is Jaclyn,

Jaclyn:

and today I have Stephen Kendrick with me.

Jaclyn:

After serving in church ministry for 20 years, Stephen Kendrick now writes, speaks and produces Christian films with his brothers, Alex and Shannon, Stephen produced.

Jaclyn:

And co-wrote the movies, the forge war room overcomer, courageous fireproof, and facing the giants in 2021, show me the father released it was their first feature length documentary for which he served as an executive producer and writer.

Jaclyn:

Their newest film.

Jaclyn:

The forge is scheduled for theatrical release by Sony pictures on August 2024.

Jaclyn:

Along with his brother, Alex, Steven co-wrote the New York times bestselling books.

Jaclyn:

The love dare the resolution for men and the battle plan for prayer.

Jaclyn:

He's been interviewed on Fox and friends, CNN and ABC world news tonight.

Jaclyn:

He serves on the boards of the fatherhood commission and the Christian worldview film festival.

Jaclyn:

Steven and his wife, Jill live in Albany, Georgia with their six children and our active members at Sherwood church.

Jaclyn:

Welcome to the show, Stephen.

Stephen:

Thank you, Jaclyn.

Stephen:

I've been looking forward to talking with you.

Jaclyn:

Yeah, me too.

Jaclyn:

We actually, uh,

Jaclyn:

we kind of met in

Jaclyn:

passing at the

Jaclyn:

Christian Worldview Film Festival recently, but we didn't actually get a chance to talk, so I'm excited to actually get to know

Jaclyn:

you now, and I have

Jaclyn:

you, like, your full attention for this interview, so I get to ask the questions I

Jaclyn:

want

Jaclyn:

to ask.

Jaclyn:

So, Let's get started with, getting to know you.

Jaclyn:

So where did this all

Jaclyn:

start for you?

Jaclyn:

Um, you

Jaclyn:

know, like, were you always a Christian?

Jaclyn:

Did you always want to be a filmmaker?

Jaclyn:

How

Jaclyn:

did this

Jaclyn:

all come about?

Stephen:

Sure.

Stephen:

Well, uh, I did not know I was going to be getting into film.

Stephen:

that has been a surprise for me, uh, and a blessing.

Stephen:

I mean, it's been amazing, but, uh, my journey began with my parents.

Stephen:

going into ministry out of teaching.

Stephen:

So my dad was a high school science teacher.

Stephen:

Uh, my mom was a third grade teacher and they were both in the public schools.

Stephen:

And, they ended up just giving God their marriage.

Stephen:

And when they got pregnant, uh, with each of the three sons, I'm the third of three sons.

Stephen:

They prayed over us and said, God, please use our kids for your glory.

Stephen:

And my dad felt the call to go into ministry.

Stephen:

Uh, this is back in the seventies, early seventies.

Stephen:

And he was in Athens, Georgia at a little Baptist church called Green Acres Baptist Church, just as a church member attending, but God was working on his heart.

Stephen:

And so he ended up volunteering to work with the youth.

Stephen:

Uh, then he went on staff at the church and it was a big step of faith for him because he, was teaching school and that was a reliable source of income.

Stephen:

So he was trusting God, but uh, he obeyed, moved forward, and So we grew up in ministry.

Stephen:

We ended up moving to Smyrna, Georgia, my dad was on staff at a different church, you know, for eight or nine years there.

Stephen:

So we grew up in elementary school with him doing kids camps, you know, we would travel with him to Rockridge kids camps and sing the songs, even in preschool and elementary school.

Stephen:

You know, we were going to these camps, but we saw answered prayer in our parents lives.

Stephen:

We saw God working on their hearts and they were the real deal.

Stephen:

You know, they were broken and imperfect.

Stephen:

But they, they were humbly trying to walk with God.

Stephen:

So we did see hypocrisy in the church.

Stephen:

We saw, you know, the best of the best and the worst, the worst, I guess you could say, but we saw authentic Christianity live that at home.

Stephen:

And, uh, when we were growing up, my dad was trying to do things fun for families, so he actually would rent these film reels from Disney and would have these movie nights for families at our church, because the theaters were And he would pop popcorn and people would come into

Stephen:

our chapel at our church and he would hook up these film reels that he had rented for, you know, a few weeks.

Stephen:

And he would play Snowball Express and, you know, Swiss Family Robinson and Herbie the Love Bug, those kind of movies for families.

Jaclyn:

Mm hmm.

Jaclyn:

Mm

Stephen:

then when my brother Alex saw Raiders of the Lost Ark in the theaters, It was like one of the first movies he'd ever seen.

Stephen:

And it was so emotional and bigger than life, you know, as a 12 year old, Alex was coming unglued in the theater, was excited and terrified and, you know, enjoying the music and everything

Stephen:

else.

Stephen:

and he thought, I want to do this one day.

Stephen:

I want to make movies one day.

Stephen:

So if you fast forward to us getting involved in youth ministry, Alex and I both came to Christ.

Stephen:

Early on, and then our oldest brother Shannon did, and then we began to study the scriptures, and fell in love with God, and fell in love with his word, and saw him changing our lives, and that the Bible was true, you know.

Stephen:

It wasn't just a religious book, it was transformational.

Stephen:

So,

Stephen:

out from that initial spark, passion, that Alex had to one day make movies, We didn't realize

Stephen:

that we were going to end up going into ministry, going into seminary, and then move to Albany, Georgia, and then make a little tiny movie called Flywheel for our community, by faith, because we didn't have the training, the money, the experience.

Stephen:

We had nothing but the Lord, but He is enough.

Stephen:

So that's, that's where the journey began.

Jaclyn:

Yes.

Jaclyn:

Very nice.

Jaclyn:

after you decided to make Flywheel, like, I mean, a lot of people would probably make a short film first.

Jaclyn:

Did you make short films and then move into Flywheel, or was it just like, I'm just gonna go straight for it, and then you were just off and running?

Stephen:

No.

Stephen:

No, it was definitely lots of short films.

Stephen:

We growing up with a VHS camera on our shoulders, running around in our backyard, making chase em down, beat em up kind of fun movies as kids, but they were action or silly.

Stephen:

You know, they weren't drama, serious, scripture, truth, know, edifying, necessarily.

Stephen:

they were usually, chase them down and beat them up.

Stephen:

And we would plan all these, you know, fight scenes, and kung fu outfits, and you know, throwing things.

Stephen:

Swinging on vines in the woods.

Stephen:

And we were trying to be Indiana Jones and James Bond.

Stephen:

and

Stephen:

you know, we were making fun of those old Japanese dubbed movies, you know, we were doing our own versions where we would overdub our voices

Jaclyn:

fun.

Stephen:

they were funny, you know, so, so we did that.

Stephen:

And then in ministry I was making promotional videos, youth camp videos, you know, Summary videos at the end of camp, which would be both inspirational and funny, you know, at the same time.

Stephen:

And so, and Alex was doing the same thing with college students.

Stephen:

So we, we were doing

Stephen:

tons of shorts and then even on staff at Sherwood in the early 2000s, Alex did a little five minute video.

Stephen:

It was a veteran's memorial video, that he shot, to honor veterans.

Stephen:

And God blessed it.

Stephen:

And in the service, people were like crying, standing ovation.

Stephen:

It was one of the first.

Stephen:

Like, inspirational, positive, take us seriously kind of things that we had done.

Stephen:

and Alex, you know, drove that.

Stephen:

I was, I was above a

Stephen:

tiny bit, but,

Stephen:

anyway.

Stephen:

So, Flywheel was a big step for us because it was serious.

Stephen:

You know, we were having a lot of fun doing our own special effects and goofing off and entertaining

Stephen:

one another.

Stephen:

but to make something that had biblical

Stephen:

truth in it, was a, It was risky so many ways because we had done, I think the longest thing we had done, Alex had done like a, 25 minute action kind of movie.

Stephen:

He called it Mission Regrettable and it was with college students that he was discipling, but he, it was full of puns.

Stephen:

we were, because Mission Impossible had just come out,

Jaclyn:

Right.

Jaclyn:

Right.

Stephen:

with Tom Cruise, and that was like huge at the time.

Stephen:

He was trying to, copy that in a sense, and he was actually pulling clips out of real movies to be his special effects.

Stephen:

Like, he would show his college

Stephen:

students shooting the gun, and then he'd show the explosion.

Stephen:

From a real movie, you know,

Stephen:

or he would, he would show that he'd find a clip of somebody in a real movie, driving a white truck down road with a tornado chasing them.

Stephen:

And then he would just find somebody in his college of ministry and borrow a white truck.

Stephen:

And he'd have his main college student that he was discipling, hop in the truck and drive down the road.

Stephen:

And then he got to the real movie,

Stephen:

you know,

Jaclyn:

is,

Stephen:

pretty pretty good.

Stephen:

So That was

Jaclyn:

Yeah.

Stephen:

That was how we survived early on.

Stephen:

You know, you've got no money, no experience, and it's, it's baptism by fire, because you don't know what you're doing.

Stephen:

And we're making tons of mistakes.

Stephen:

We had no idea about production schedules, or call sheets, or continuity.

Stephen:

I mean, we were trying our best.

Stephen:

But if you go back and watch those early films, we had

Stephen:

no idea what we were doing.

Stephen:

You laugh because you see how low budget and cheesy and goofy they were, but you do see, you know, the storytelling and the editing and the planning being forced because you just have to, you know, so Flywheel, uh, for us was so difficult because we didn't have call sheets.

Stephen:

We didn't even know what call sheets were.

Stephen:

And, uh, we didn't know that we needed.

Jaclyn:

Right.

Stephen:

a wardrobe person.

Stephen:

It was basically, everybody just pick something out in your closet and keep wearing that.

Stephen:

You know, that was kind of, that's the wardrobe, you know?

Stephen:

And

Stephen:

so, um, and then catering and food was bring a sack of lunch, you know, that's catering and

Stephen:

food, you know?

Stephen:

And so, um, so, the only money that was spent was for, the cameras or the little hard drives or the, the tapes.

Stephen:

And we bought a little bit of, Audio equipment, but it was

Stephen:

just a few hundred dollars.

Stephen:

And Alex bought a Canon

Stephen:

XL1 camera and he found this German adapter that somebody had created that you can mount to the front of it because the Canon XL1, you could remove the lenses or change the lenses, which the GL1 couldn't do.

Stephen:

And so Alex added that little adapter to it.

Stephen:

And it's basically a little spinning wheel that has some texture on it.

Stephen:

And it gives it this fake film look.

Stephen:

It was a digital camera, but it, made it look a little bit like film through this little spinning wheel.

Stephen:

It's cheating the whole time, you know, this texture that it's adding.

Stephen:

And so, we shot Flywheel with that, because we were going in thinking, we're not gonna make cheesy Christian movies, we're gonna make real cool movies, you know, because we would,

Stephen:

we would criticize the cheesy Christian movies that were out as well, so

Stephen:

And think we're not going to do that.

Jaclyn:

it

Stephen:

funny to me is over the years,

Stephen:

Yeah, every young filmmaker goes in going, I'm not going to make cheesy stuff like the

Stephen:

Kendrick Brothers.

Stephen:

I'm going to make real

Stephen:

movies.

Stephen:

You know,

Stephen:

we've heard, we've heard that for years, but it's easy to say, I'm going to go, Everest and you

Stephen:

know, people don't realize how

Stephen:

difficult it is to make a feature film and how much

Stephen:

work and blood,

Stephen:

sweat and tears and years of investment it can take.

Stephen:

with millions of dollars of budget now and working with professionals now, it's a two year commitment for us, uh, to really

Stephen:

lock in and plan it out and write the script and vet it and cast and just all that whole process.

Stephen:

So,

Stephen:

for me, uh,

Stephen:

Anybody who completes

Stephen:

a

Stephen:

feature film, even if it's terrible, I give them a high five and say, Way to go.

Stephen:

you got the football in the

Stephen:

end

Stephen:

zone.

Stephen:

And you can grow from here.

Stephen:

You know, you can get better.

Stephen:

You can learn from your mistakes.

Stephen:

And every movie is an opportunity for you to take the criticism.

Stephen:

Not, don't take it personally, like they're insulting your identity.

Stephen:

But take the criticism on the

Stephen:

chin as you're going to grow really

Stephen:

fast.

Stephen:

And we've

Stephen:

learned like, we welcome criticism now.

Stephen:

Early on, it

Stephen:

was a

Stephen:

little bit offensive, you know, that people didn't think our baby was beautiful.

Stephen:

But now we are at the point where it's like, Hey, I want to make this as good as I can.

Stephen:

Please tell

Stephen:

me everything you hate about it, everything that doesn't work, every joke that's not funny, every line, if anything's offensive or distraction or dragging, please tell me so that we can fix it and we can make it

Stephen:

better.

Stephen:

So, um, Usually

Stephen:

our feature

Stephen:

films, when we're done, and we're releasing it, they are, it's the 7th, 8th, 9th edit of the movie.

Stephen:

Because we've had to vet it again and again and again and get honest feedback from people So

Jaclyn:

right, yeah, and you know,

Jaclyn:

it gets to that point where, it's not about You anymore, It's about the project, and when you get to that point where it's about

Jaclyn:

the project,

Jaclyn:

then, you know, receiving criticism is incredibly

Jaclyn:

valuable,

Jaclyn:

and you, like you said, you seek it out, it's not something that

Jaclyn:

you try to

Jaclyn:

avoid or hope that people say nice things.

Jaclyn:

I mean, you want to get to the point where that's, you know, what

Jaclyn:

happens, but, I know when

Jaclyn:

I

Jaclyn:

give my

Jaclyn:

script to someone for feedback, I, I don't really care

Jaclyn:

so much

Jaclyn:

about the things that they like.

Jaclyn:

I mean, it's nice to have a few comments, but most of the time I'm like, what do I need to do to make

Jaclyn:

it better?

Jaclyn:

You know, like I want you

Jaclyn:

to poke as many holes in it

Jaclyn:

as

Jaclyn:

possible.

Stephen:

that is exactly right.

Stephen:

and I would say there's a difference between an insecure person who doesn't know their identity in Christ and someone who realizes that Through Jesus, I'm loved, I'm forgiven, I'm chosen, I'm adopted, I'm, I'm okay.

Stephen:

And my identity is not wrapped up in, you, know, opening weekend of a movie, what the film critics say about it.

Stephen:

you know, and my identity is not wrapped up in my performance.

Stephen:

It's not wrapped up in my titles.

Stephen:

It's not wrapped up in any of those things.

Stephen:

So an insecure person freaks out about criticism.

Stephen:

They panic when anybody says anything negative about their art they're working on.

Stephen:

They will overreact, they'll be in depression, they'll, you know, if you can get over yourself and die to yourself and realize like you just said that it's not about you, you know, you're not creating a film just for you to watch, you're serving The viewer and their hearts and their families and their lives and their future.

Stephen:

And yes, you want the meal to be delicious and entertaining, but you also want it to be edifying and nutritious and a blessing to them long term.

Stephen:

And you can do both.

Stephen:

is difficult, but you can do both.

Stephen:

And it

Stephen:

takes a lot of prayer and a lot of work and a lot of responsibility and intentionality.

Stephen:

But I would tell people, if you think about raising a child, you know, you know that if you're going to have a baby.

Stephen:

They're going to have to roll around first, they're going to, you know, crawl before they can

Jaclyn:

Exactly.

Stephen:

and every one of our scripts is going to go through this process.

Stephen:

And every one of our projects will go through this process where I know up front the first version is going to have problems.

Stephen:

The first version of the script, the first version of the movie, the first edit.

Stephen:

The first edits of all of our movies are painful to watch.

Stephen:

I mean, they have all the warts and all the problems and all the insecurities and they drag.

Stephen:

They're always too long.

Stephen:

There's acting that doesn't work.

Stephen:

There's scenes that don't work.

Stephen:

And we know now that that first cut, we're going to feel like we're terrible filmmakers at the end of watching that first cut.

Stephen:

And we're going to feel like, why am I even doing this?

Stephen:

I'm horrible.

Stephen:

I am a horrible, horrible filmmaker.

Stephen:

Because you're still at the crawling stage.

Stephen:

And so we will go through the process.

Stephen:

It's really amazing, it's miraculous, to watch a film.

Stephen:

If you don't give up, and you're willing to keep on editing, and keep on getting feedback, and keep on trying to fix every shot, every line.

Stephen:

And Hollywood plans on it too.

Stephen:

They'll plan on their budgets.

Stephen:

We're going to go reshoot scenes if they don't work.

Stephen:

Or we're going to record lines with ADR if they sound terrible.

Stephen:

we're going to take stuff out if people hate it, you know.

Stephen:

And so, with us, we found that Oftentimes we end up rearranging the order of scenes in the movie and the final edit than from the first edit because the emotional shepherding of the hearts of the people and the curiosity of what they're feeling and thinking, if you don't get that right at the right time in the viewing experience, they can get bored or they lose curiosity or they don't care anymore or a scene sometimes is more powerful if you pull it out of the beginning and you move it to later.

Stephen:

And we found out on, let's see, Facing the Giants, we found out the audience hooked into the movie.

Stephen:

It was the inciting incident when they have the first football game, they lose.

Stephen:

She sinks down in the car because the car won't start.

Stephen:

And then at home that night in the kitchen, she says, I want to have children so much.

Stephen:

How can I miss someone so much I've never met?

Stephen:

And when she says that line, people hook into the movie and they want to watch the rest of the movie.

Stephen:

But it took 20 minutes to get there, so we ended up rearranging all kinds of stuff in the first 20 minutes, so that she says that line at about minute 12 ish, something like

Stephen:

that,

Stephen:

and we

Jaclyn:

Wow.

Stephen:

a lot

Stephen:

sooner, and we had to do that on Courageous, we had to rearrange scenes at the end of the On War Room, we had to rearrange scenes.

Stephen:

And on The Forge, which we're on right now,

Stephen:

we took a bunch of scenes out, and we had to rearrange some stuff so that we hooked the audience at just the right time.

Stephen:

but it's a process.

Stephen:

you just keep on cooking in the oven, you keep on decorating the

Stephen:

cake.

Stephen:

You keep on sampling it with friends, getting their feedback, and it's, or it's like a soup.

Stephen:

It's like, hey, you need more salt, you know, or or you

Stephen:

need more

Jaclyn:

Right, And you have to, you have to go through those stages to get to the end product.

Jaclyn:

You can't just arrive there.

Jaclyn:

that's what it takes.

Jaclyn:

And I know what you were saying too about, like, you go through that first cut and you feel like, am I even

Jaclyn:

I got to the point when I was learning how to do screenwriting and I was working with a mentor

Jaclyn:

and, um, you know, and he would tell me that I was good, but then he would tell me all these things that I needed to

Jaclyn:

fix and, and then I was really struggling at the

Jaclyn:

beginning with learning structure.

Jaclyn:

I just, I didn't get it.

Jaclyn:

It took a while for me to wrap my head

Jaclyn:

around it.

Jaclyn:

but like, I, I remember

Jaclyn:

feeling like, I don't know why God gave me this desire

Jaclyn:

if I'm not

Jaclyn:

any good at it.

Jaclyn:

But I also

Jaclyn:

knew,

Jaclyn:

I knew that this

Jaclyn:

is, um, this is where He also gave me

Jaclyn:

perseverance,

Jaclyn:

and so I'm supposed to put that in action.

Stephen:

Yes.

Jaclyn:

And so as I

Jaclyn:

continued, and I just, I kept believing I would

Jaclyn:

get there, and I wasn't

Jaclyn:

alone.

Jaclyn:

I had a mentor, and so I just kept working.

Jaclyn:

Um, you know, and then Obviously, now, like, I've written a lot of

Jaclyn:

scripts and, uh, you know, other listeners know where I'm at with that

Jaclyn:

stuff, but, but the thing is that,

Jaclyn:

even when I'm working on a script,

Jaclyn:

I do get to a point where I'm

Jaclyn:

thinking,

Jaclyn:

like, what was I thinking writing this?

Jaclyn:

Like, I'm, I'm not doing a very good job, I'm not doing this story justice, and, but then I remember, I always go through

Jaclyn:

this phase.

Jaclyn:

So, I'm just like, oh, okay,

Jaclyn:

well, that's, that's the stage I'm at, and then I'll just keep going and I'll

Jaclyn:

get past it.

Stephen:

That's exactly right.

Stephen:

and with book writing, it's the same way with, you know, I mean, we use the analogy of cooking and all those really, there's a verse that it says, um, as silver purified in the fire seven times.

Stephen:

So, are the Lord's words pure?

Stephen:

And when you think about that, when God says something, it's perfect.

Stephen:

The first time it comes out of his mouth, that's his words are pure.

Stephen:

But for you and I, we have to purify it in the fire seven times.

Stephen:

We got to put the heat to it.

Stephen:

We got to be honest about it.

Stephen:

We got to get all those impurities out and for us the impurities could be

Stephen:

Again, jokes that don't work acting that doesn't work.

Stephen:

you know scenes that drag It could be it could be anything and there have been times when we had something offensive in our movie and we didn't know it because we were writing it and Shooting it, editing it from our little world view.

Stephen:

and

Stephen:

when we listened to the honest feedback of people, um, from different walks of life and they stepped in and they said this is offensive to me and here's why and we were Like, oh my goodness.

Stephen:

I didn't even I had no desire to be offensive to you.

Stephen:

I'm trying to communicate something I'm, just trying to be creative and so we would go back and fix it and change it and I was grateful You know, for the honest feedback, so it's like faithful are the wounds of a friend.

Stephen:

I get excited about people sitting down and here's what I do, because when you're working with friends, because they love you, a lot of times they don't want to be fully honest.

Stephen:

And they don't want to violate the friendship

Stephen:

or hurt it at all.

Stephen:

So they will tend to say, Oh, it's great.

Stephen:

It's so good.

Stephen:

You're so talented, way to go.

Stephen:

But in their mind, when they walk away with somebody else, they'll say, man, that dragged, or that was stupid, or I hate that, or that's

Stephen:

going to bomb.

Stephen:

Well, I want that honest feedback.

Stephen:

I need

Stephen:

it.

Stephen:

And

Stephen:

so here's some of the things I do.

Stephen:

I will tell them.

Stephen:

Listen, I want to hear what you like, because it is

Stephen:

encouraging, but I need to know, I need people to be honest about anything at all that doesn't work, about this so I can make it better.

Stephen:

I really, really want to make it better, and I, I need honest feedback from people.

Stephen:

And so, if this were your film, What would you do differently in

Stephen:

your version is the question I will ask them and sometimes they'll say oh well in my version I would take this character

Stephen:

completely out, and I'm like wow I need to hear that you know and we've had We've had other people submit movies to

Stephen:

us.

Stephen:

In fact, there's some very well known filmmakers now that have come to us on movies and they say, It used to be three hours.

Stephen:

I've taken minutes out of it.

Stephen:

It's still two and a half hours.

Stephen:

I just don't know where I can edit.

Stephen:

And one of them handed his movie to Alex and Alex said, this character needs to come out of your

Stephen:

film.

Stephen:

He said, I would edit him down.

Stephen:

But the filmmaker loved this character, personally.

Stephen:

Like he thought his jokes were funny, but it was only funny to him.

Stephen:

It wasn't funny to anybody else.

Stephen:

And so

Stephen:

Alex was really honest and

Stephen:

Alex said, give me your film and let me re edit it for you.

Stephen:

And they were like, okay.

Stephen:

So Alex sat down and he gutted and streamlined the whole movie, took out another like 30, 40 minutes of the movie.

Stephen:

And then the whole movie fell into place.

Stephen:

It had a coherent flow

Stephen:

from beginning to end.

Stephen:

You stayed

Stephen:

attentive.

Stephen:

And Alex kept the gold in and he weeded out all the, Bronze and you know dirt out of the film and it was such a better movie but it was because you need somebody with fresh eyes who can speak into the projects.

Jaclyn:

yeah, that's a really, really good point.

Jaclyn:

Well, I want to thank you so

Jaclyn:

much for this conversation, for this interview.

Jaclyn:

It's been really

Jaclyn:

great getting to know you and I'm looking forward to talking more in the members only portion of our interview.

Jaclyn:

but

Jaclyn:

before we finish out, uh, right now, do you have any final thoughts for our listeners?

Jaclyn:

and be sure to tell us, uh,

Jaclyn:

about The Forge.

Stephen:

Well, uh, we've shot I've kind of lost count now It's like depending on whether you count our documentary a feature film or not, but we've shot about nine or ten movies We're still learning and I just read in my time with the lord in ecclesiastes.

Stephen:

It talked about How sad it was that there was an older king who quit listening to counsel and because he quit listening to counsel, he was making foolish decisions.

Stephen:

And so sometimes we'll see people early

Stephen:

on when they're young and then they know that they

Stephen:

don't know what they're doing.

Stephen:

They will listen to counsel of other people, but we've seen that sometimes as people get older or

Stephen:

they become successful.

Stephen:

They start believing their own

Stephen:

hype and they quit listening to the counsel of other people.

Stephen:

And, in fact, there are some

Stephen:

very famous filmmakers who did well,

Stephen:

but you can see a marked difference in their careers when they quit listening to

Stephen:

the honest feedback and counsel of other people.

Stephen:

So I would just

Stephen:

say be humble, be teachable, just like

Stephen:

we talked about.

Stephen:

It's not, everything's not about

Stephen:

you And, um, and for me personally, I really want our movies to be fun, entertaining, emotional, inspirational, eye opening.

Stephen:

But I do want us to be morally responsible in our filmmaking because we're shepherding the minds and the hearts of people.

Stephen:

We're asking viewers to give up two hours of their lives to us and to stare at something we have created, whether it be for 20 minutes or two hours.

Stephen:

And we need to take that seriously.

Stephen:

We need to, Be accountable and realize this is a sacred trust that God gives us to influence people.

Stephen:

and we need to be praying about our scripts.

Stephen:

We need to be dedicating our projects to God, asking him for wisdom and direction, seeking a lot of counsel.

Stephen:

because the Stephen Kendrick that was 18 or 21 thought he knew a whole lot more than he did and I look back thinking I should have listened to the older adults.

Stephen:

Uh, who loved me, but it didn't make sense what they were saying.

Stephen:

It was so outside of my box.

Stephen:

Uh, but I should have been listening to what they were saying.

Stephen:

So, that would be my two cents for now.

Stephen:

And the Forge movie is, coming out in theaters August, 23rd of 2024.

Stephen:

and we're praying and hoping, it is set up by Sony to be released across the U.

Stephen:

S.

Stephen:

in theaters and then internationally.

Stephen:

and we're excited about it.

Stephen:

We're excited about some of the special effects stuff.

Stephen:

We did it.

Stephen:

We haven't done in movies before.

Stephen:

Uh, we were using some new technologies, in the process and we were learning and growing.

Stephen:

but also the message of the film, I believe is really needed in this generation and, uh, and I hope people will be blessed by it.

Jaclyn:

Awesome.

Jaclyn:

Thank you so much.

Jaclyn:

That was a great

Jaclyn:

word And definitely I hope you have a great opening weekend and on from there.

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