Episode 178 - The Making and Mission of ‘Light of the World’ with John Schafer

In this episode of the Faith and Family Filmmakers podcast, Matt welcomes back director John Schafer for a deep dive into the making of "Light of the World." John shares the extraordinary journey behind this ambitious animated feature, from the unique challenges of faith-based filmmaking and the miracle of funding, to the intentional design choices and collaborative spirit that brought the story to life. Together, Matt and John discuss the business realities of Christian filmmaking, the importance of ministry goals, and the lessons learned along the way. 

Highlights Include:

• Welcome and Introduction
• The Fairy Tale Funding Story
• Intentional Design: Colors, Shapes, and Cultural Connection
• Directing Animation vs. Live Action
• The Power of Collaboration in Animation
• Working With Non-Believing Crew Members
• The Business Reality of Christian Filmmaking
• Ministry Goals and Self-Distribution
• Balancing Money and Ministry
• The Challenges of Theatrical Release Timing
• Defining a Christian Filmmaker
• Where to Watch Light of the World

Bio:

John Schafer is a seasoned television producer, VFX artist, and animator with over 33 years of experience in the entertainment industry. A recipient of multiple ADDY and TELLY Awards, he is best known for his three-time EMMY-nominated work on the Christian Broadcasting Network's acclaimed CG series ‘Superbook,’ where he produced 65 episodes that reached audiences in over 123 countries and were translated into more than 60 languages.

Website: https://lightoftheworld.com/ 

Facebook: @LightoftheWorldMovie

Instagram: @LightoftheWorldMovie

X (formerly Twitter): @lotwmovie

TikTok: @LightoftheWorldMovie

Facebook: www.facebook.com/john.schafer

Instagram: instagram.com/jj_schafer

IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4094635/?ref_=fn_all_nme_1

LinkedIN: www.linkedin.com/in/grafxboy68

Editing by Geoffrey Whitt

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Jaclyn's Book - In the Beginning, Middle and End: A Screenwriter’s Observations of LIfe, Character, and God: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D9R7XS9V

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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

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Copyright 2024 Ivan Ann Productions

Matt: 00:00:00

All right.

Matt: 00:00:00

We're excited to be back on the faith and family Filmmakers podcast, we are so delighted to be back with, uh, director John Schaefer.

Matt: 00:00:07

We just, there's no way to cover all of the story of The Light of the World and the making of The Light of the World in the first episode.

Matt: 00:00:14

So John, thanks for taking a little more time and coming back and being with us on another episode.

John: 00:00:18

Oh, absolutely.

John: 00:00:19

This is exciting.

Matt: 00:00:21

Well, I wanna talk about the entire process of getting this movie made.

Matt: 00:00:25

filmmakers listening, they know that it's almost impossible to get a movie made.

Matt: 00:00:31

Um, it's even more impossible to get a good movie made.

Matt: 00:00:34

And I imagine now you, multiply that complication factor exponentially and that's how impossible it is to get an animated movie made.

Matt: 00:00:42

So.

Matt: 00:00:43

you mentioned it a little bit in the first episode, about the, kind of the origins of it.

Matt: 00:00:47

But let's talk about it practically.

Matt: 00:00:49

So you've got the idea, um,

Matt: 00:00:52

Where does the production start?

Matt: 00:00:53

Where does the, producers come in with the financial backing to bring the right team together to start making this movie?

John: 00:01:00

Yeah, so for us.

John: 00:01:02

You know, the story I'm about to tell is a fairy tale story for filmmakers that you always hear about, but you, it never happens to you.

John: 00:01:09

And, for us it was Matt McPherson, like I said, the founder of the Salvation Poem project.

John: 00:01:15

This was a vision he had, and so he solely funded this film.

John: 00:01:21

Entirely himself.

John: 00:01:22

And so what happened is when we talked about it, we had to go into development, you know, kind of designed the look of Jesus.

John: 00:01:28

And once we've approved that, you know, kind of a, it was all these baby steps, but once we got to the part of what we knew we wanted and the direction we wanted to go, we now needed to higher production.

John: 00:01:39

We needed to hire writers and everything.

John: 00:01:40

And so we had to figure out what that budget was going to look like.

John: 00:01:43

And so, uh, we presented the budget to Matt.

John: 00:01:47

To be as streamlined as possible, but also this is gonna be 2D animation.

John: 00:01:52

There's a lot of stuff there.

John: 00:01:53

And so, um, the budget was $20 million, so he approved that budget.

John: 00:01:58

It's solely for production.

John: 00:02:00

he also now invested another 10 million on the p and a, the marketing side.

John: 00:02:04

But, but that's for another part of the story So it was green lit and it was green lit. Like we had a two hour block meeting with Matt to explain everything about the item.

John: 00:02:13

And in 20 minutes he just put his hand down saying, guys, I totally get it.

John: 00:02:17

Let's do it.

John: 00:02:18

And I've never had that ever happen.

John: 00:02:20

And so part of the other dream side of it is.

John: 00:02:23

He trusted Brennan and you know, his son, who is the producer of this film, president of this organization, but also he trusted me and with, as we built the team of.

John: 00:02:34

You find a way to tell the story, all that stuff.

John: 00:02:37

So he really, outside of the designing of Jesus the disciples, and Mary, he kind of stepped back and trusted us.

John: 00:02:44

There was none of that micromanagement, or he wasn't funneling all his notes through his son.

John: 00:02:50

Brennan had total creative liberty to do what he felt strongly for both the creative side and the ministry side.

John: 00:02:56

'cause we are both.

John: 00:02:57

And so, uh, yeah.

John: 00:02:59

So we started from there.

John: 00:03:01

We hired a company called Epiphio and Epiphio outta Cincinnati, Ohio.

John: 00:03:05

And they were actually, uh, John Collins was one of the founders of Epiphio from the Bible project.

John: 00:03:12

So as Epiphio was doing these, uh, kind of, uh, animated shorts and things like that, John started developing the Bible project within Epiphio and once it became its own thing, John separated John and Tim formed their own organization, which was The Bible project.

John: 00:03:27

So the very company that is designing the look and feel of our world, it was Epiphio but it was, uh, something founded by John Collins.

John: 00:03:35

And so we really worked with, uh, Luke Auer Art.

John: 00:03:39

Or a production designer and he brought on a big team of people to, you know, create characters that, and, you know, everything was very intentional.

John: 00:03:46

Our characters, when you look at Jesus and that, all of the Hebrew characters, they're based off of the Hebrew.

John: 00:03:53

Lettering that the shape, language and all that, all the Roman characters or the villains, so to speak, they're based off of the Roman characters.

John: 00:04:01

And so we were intentionally about our shape language, our color palette for our film.

John: 00:04:06

Our art director, uh, Mike Dutton went to Israel and when he went there, he saw the colors of the spices.

John: 00:04:12

So he started researching the spices in the old market, and it is the very same color, spices around the world, India, China, Japan, you know, so he wanted to find that common color palette.

John: 00:04:23

So we were very intentional with everything we did with this film, because at the end of the day, we are making a film about the life of Jesus who came to this world, and we needed to figure out how to incorporate the world's colors, the world's art, the world's instruments into our film.

John: 00:04:39

So it was a connective tissue to every culture who watched this.

Matt: 00:04:43

I had a producer one time.

Matt: 00:04:45

Early in my career, tell me, you know, he's like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna define the job of the director for you.

Matt: 00:04:50

the director's job is to be the liaison between the story and everyone who works on the story.

Matt: 00:04:58

And so if, you need to make quick, smart decisions and be decisive, um, but allow filmmakers who are working with you to do their job, to make the story better.

Matt: 00:05:08

And so I understand what that looks like in practice.

Matt: 00:05:12

In terms of, you know, talking to the gaffer, talking to the dp, working with the actors, working with the production designer.

Matt: 00:05:19

What do you think the differences are or are there any differences in, kind of being that liaison in a live action film versus an animated project?

John: 00:05:27

So I've never directed live action film, but I've directed live action commercials and I'll just say one thing.

John: 00:05:32

I can talk to the actor or actress and say, Hey, this is a scene here.

John: 00:05:36

You, you explain all that.

John: 00:05:37

They're gonna bring their nuances, their subtlty, they're gonna make it their own and, really you got that shot there and you might shoot it a few different times, few different angles and all that.

John: 00:05:46

But man, getting into an animated scene.

John: 00:05:49

So let's say I'm just gonna deal with.

John: 00:05:51

Young John and Jesus talking.

John: 00:05:53

You know, Tom and I first, we are working with the story team to get that dialogue.

John: 00:05:58

Then from there, we're working with storyboard artists and what you wanna do with a storyboard artist, you don't wanna tell 'em exactly what, well, I'll just say this.

John: 00:06:06

Because every director is different.

John: 00:06:08

For me, I didn't wanna tell them exactly what I had in my head.

John: 00:06:12

I wanna tell the storyboard artists what's the most important thing that's being said and what I think those possible reactions could be, but how they wanted to stage it, how they wanted to kind of perform those nuances...

John: 00:06:24

You want those storyboard artists to push it out and create stuff and really kinda give you options and opportunities and, and if you're not being scared by what they're doing, you're not pushing outside your boundary.

John: 00:06:36

And so we wanted the storyboard artists to be very super creative.

John: 00:06:39

And the one thing I wanna say with everyone here is most of the people in our film were not believers that, you know, Tom and Tony were, Brennan, obviously, the key leadership people were, but our, a lot of our storyboard artists, our designers and all that, they loved the look of our film, but that's why they joined on.

John: 00:06:57

But yeah, they weren't people of faith.

John: 00:06:58

But what happened, they were the perfect people that work with story.

John: 00:07:02

Because when Tom and I are working with them, and if they come back with something and it's like, oh man.

John: 00:07:08

We're not telling it right?

John: 00:07:09

'cause they're not getting it.

John: 00:07:11

Or they might bring something to the table because they didn't understand it and this would help.

John: 00:07:17

And so that collaboration really pressure test us to tell a better story so people could understand it.

John: 00:07:24

And so, so for us, you know, you want to give everyone the most creative opportunities to bring it to the table, but then Tom and I's job is now to execute, "Which is the most effective way to do that"?

John: 00:07:36

So yeah.

John: 00:07:37

I feel like when you hear the term, like all these behind the scenes stuff, everyone will say like, you know, whether it's Pete Doctor or them, they'll or Andrew Stand, they'll say, oh, animation is the most collaborative form of media ever.

John: 00:07:49

Man, it is truly, really well.

John: 00:07:51

'cause you need all those things.

John: 00:07:53

'cause once it goes to storyboards, then it's gonna go to the voice talent, the voice talent's gonna bring their own, then it's gonna go to the animators.

John: 00:08:00

So what happens by the time we get that one scene with John and Jesus, over a dozen different people gave their interpretation opposed to live action.

John: 00:08:10

The director just talking directly to that actor.

John: 00:08:13

And so It was a longer journey, but it was the most rewarding of that output 'cause so many people got to speak into it.

John: 00:08:20

It wasn't just a director and an actor.

John: 00:08:22

It was an army of people to make that scene go to the next level.

Matt: 00:08:26

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Matt: 00:08:27

Well, one of the things that jumped out at me as I was... like I said, I was halfway through the movie and I realized I gotta talk to these people.

Matt: 00:08:33

and so then my mind went to, okay, what are the things that interest me most about the actually making of, of the movie?

Matt: 00:08:40

And.

Matt: 00:08:40

as I've directed live action features, but I've never ever come close to anything animated.

Matt: 00:08:44

So one of the things that, that fascinates me is how important timing is, because you can't just shoot it and then let the editor take care of the timing.

Matt: 00:08:53

Right.

Matt: 00:08:53

I would think that the timing is set, you know, from the, vocal performances of the voice actors to the animators.

Matt: 00:08:59

And it's such an important element of it, and I thought the timing on this the action and the, and the delivery, that, was really, really, really well crafted.

John: 00:09:07

Yeah, I would say we had an amazing editor, Rob Ziegler, and so he's come from the animation world.

John: 00:09:13

He is, you know, worked on the Lego movie, you know, and all that with Lord and Miller and all that.

John: 00:09:19

So having him really helped, but also having Tom and Tony.

John: 00:09:23

Both of them have worked on 13 or 14 animated feature films from Disney and, Tony, you know, co-directing Mulan, having those experts in the room.

John: 00:09:32

So like if I watch John in an animatic, you know, he's going from here to here.

John: 00:09:37

I'm timing it out based on what feels good.

John: 00:09:39

But then Tom and Tony will have to step in and they'll be like, no, we need to add a few more frames here because.

John: 00:09:45

John will be running him, you know, super fast.

John: 00:09:47

You know, and so it was having the experts of the animation side, Tom and Tony, having the experts of Rob on the editorial side and really push that.

John: 00:09:57

But yeah, timing was everything, especially our nuances with our jokes.

John: 00:10:00

Like when Mary turns to look to Jesus at the wedding and her, his eyes just goes up.

John: 00:10:05

'cause that could have gone.

John: 00:10:07

One way or another, but it worked perfect, you know?

John: 00:10:09

And so and then you are adding the animators working with the red line notes, Tom and Tony's given.

John: 00:10:15

So yeah, it was tricky, but it paid off.

John: 00:10:17

and like I said, animation is very hard.

Matt: 00:10:21

It goes back to something you said earlier.

Matt: 00:10:24

Um, you know, if you're thinking, gosh, how do I get my vision on screen?

Matt: 00:10:28

The, simple answer there is hire the people who know how to do it.

Matt: 00:10:31

And that goes back to something you said earlier, with regards to who you hire.

Matt: 00:10:35

I think it's important to bring in crew, especially, um, and experts who are experts at what they do, even if they're not believers.

Matt: 00:10:43

And then your job as the director, and the producers, if you're running a good set culture, uh, I think there's maybe a.

Matt: 00:10:49

thought that people who are not believers may somehow, advertently or inadvertently sabotage the message because they're not believers, but that's not how it works.

Matt: 00:10:57

they're trained their goal is your vision.

Matt: 00:11:00

So if you, as the director are a Christian, then the people who work under you don't have to be.

Matt: 00:11:04

And, also, it's actually not a bad mission field.

John: 00:11:08

No, uh, I would say, There was some people we reached out to that we really wanted and, and they really felt like, Hey, I respect your faith.

John: 00:11:16

I respect what you believe in.

John: 00:11:18

I don't believe that.

John: 00:11:19

So for me, I can't commit two years to a pro.

John: 00:11:22

So they, they vowed out, but they were really respectful.

John: 00:11:26

But for the most part, they were excited about how passionate, why we wanted to tell the story, the reason why we believed in it.

John: 00:11:33

And so for those people, anyone who's an artist, whether you're a cinematographer, lighting, whether you're an editor or a musician, whoever you are in the film industry, if that director's got that passion and the way they wanna tell the story and they have that vision, they will do their best to now get it to that next level.

John: 00:11:50

And that's what we really found.

John: 00:11:52

And we found, like I said earlier, they were the best ones to help us tell the story better because of what they didn't know or understand.

John: 00:12:01

But I will say this, There was times where we'll be in a meeting and there's like 60 people on a Zoom call and you know, production's tough and there's deadlines and all that and there's some times where I would just say, Hey, I don't have the answer, but would you be okay if I just said a quick prayer because I know one who can help guide me.

John: 00:12:22

I never wanted apply it to them like, guide you.

John: 00:12:25

But like if you know, we become that end.

John: 00:12:27

You know, in the very beginning everyone said yes, and they allowed us to pray.

John: 00:12:32

And what happened during the entire production, we'd have people who would reach out to Tom and I or to Brennan privately and just say, Hey, I'm going through this.

John: 00:12:42

You know, I've always heard of Christians and what I've learned about Christians and what Christians don't like, what Christians don't want.

John: 00:12:48

You know, but you guys are different.

John: 00:12:51

We changed a perception of what they thought a Christian was, and they started asking questions for themselves.

John: 00:12:57

Or they would say, Hey, I know you believe in God and you know, could you pray for this over me?

John: 00:13:03

And it opened up the doors.

John: 00:13:06

And so we were witnessing to people, praying with people or, or explaining stuff... and our movies not even done, but it's affecting people already.

John: 00:13:14

And so, the one thing when the film was over, how many people have come back saying they've never worked in an environment where... it had the deadlines of regular stress, but it was just because it's production, that's the nature of production.

John: 00:13:25

It was never because the directors or the producers were ruling over them or demanding they, they weren't used to working with people like us or like, Hey, we never get to talk to the directors.

John: 00:13:36

We never made it that.

John: 00:13:38

We wanted as much collaboration as we could, but also, we may be the first exposure of a Christian to them, and we wanted them to know like, hey, what the world might think and what you might hear, that's not Christianity.

Matt: 00:13:52

That's exactly how you do it.

Matt: 00:13:53

I love that.

Matt: 00:13:54

I love that.

Matt: 00:13:55

I wanna dive into the part that a lot of, especially Christian filmmakers are a little uncomfortable talking about, but I think we gotta be able to open ourselves up to these conversations.

Matt: 00:14:04

Um, 'cause a lot of.

Matt: 00:14:05

And filmmakers will say, well, this is not about the money for us.

Matt: 00:14:08

This is about, you know, sharing the gospel.

Matt: 00:14:10

And that's of course, 1000% true.

Matt: 00:14:13

However, I do think that as filmmakers we have to have a good understanding of the challenges, um, that the financial and the, industry aspect of filmmaking in 2025 brings us.

Matt: 00:14:25

You mentioned earlier, I think that was in the very beginning of this episode, how blessed you were that, you had this idea and it was gonna be a $20 million budget and it just came.

Matt: 00:14:34

So filmmakers, this is a great lesson.

Matt: 00:14:36

That's never going to happen to you.

Matt: 00:14:39

It might, but probably not.

Matt: 00:14:42

it's a, huge road and especially then to get an additional $10 million p and a. P and a- prints and advertisements.

Matt: 00:14:48

It's basically the marketing and distribution, money for a film.

Matt: 00:14:52

that's a giant hole to dig that the film itself has gotta find a way to dig out of, in order for you to kind of make more films.

Matt: 00:14:59

But it's a very difficult place we are in, in the film industry, and not just for Christian films, but for secular films too.

Matt: 00:15:05

I like to look in the numbers.

Matt: 00:15:07

I like to look at opening weekend per screen averages.

Matt: 00:15:09

That used to be a really good way to tell, whether a film had the momentum and the trajectory to kind of get whole again and not only get whole again, but is it actually reaching the number of people?

Matt: 00:15:19

Are the metrics saying we're reaching what we wanna reach?

Matt: 00:15:21

10 years ago, kind of at the, I would say the financial peak of the Christian film industry, you would see, you know, films like.

Matt: 00:15:28

I don't know, war room with a $13,000 per screen opening weekend average, or God's not dead up at 16,000 per screen average, I can only imagine was in that, um, in that ballpark.

Matt: 00:15:39

But now after the pandemic, the opening weekend per screen averages, even for the biggest ones like King of Kings.

Matt: 00:15:45

It was only $8,000 per screen.

Matt: 00:15:47

And I mean, even the, even like the recent Kendrick Brothers was only $2300.

Matt: 00:15:51

So the point being the world changed.

Matt: 00:15:54

People aren't going to theaters as much but you have to do a theatrical release in order to, you know, really spread the film like you need to, but you're almost walking into an impossible business model.

Matt: 00:16:05

So, did you guys, have you all experienced these, challenges?

John: 00:16:09

Yeah, so there's, twofold.

John: 00:16:11

One, so for Matt, his return of investment.

John: 00:16:15

Was eyeballs.

John: 00:16:17

So whatever light of the world was going to make theatrically domestically, globally.

John: 00:16:21

And then when it goes to P-O-V-O-D or streaming, whatever that may be, that money would always stay with Salvation Poem Project to translate to film into more languages.

John: 00:16:32

Uh, what we are looking at... our film, Light of the world is a 20 to 30 year project for us, you know, to scale up to 500, 700, 800, 1000 languages.

John: 00:16:41

That's, it's kind of like what crew did with Jesus film.

John: 00:16:43

And so that's our number one goal.

John: 00:16:46

Uh, but obviously, you know, we needed a strong box office because That's allows us to operate more, to create other content, translate and dub this film.

John: 00:16:57

And so when Light of the World opened up, uh, domestically in Canada and that stuff, and also on September 5th, our opening weekend was, you know.

John: 00:17:05

You know, for the industry, for the world was lower than, than that.

John: 00:17:09

For indie films people are thinking, oh man, you know, you, you guys had, you know, almost $3 million.

John: 00:17:14

I forgot what our opening weekend was actually.

John: 00:17:16

But you know, it, the thing was is, um, the numbers were, were lower for the world's standard, but for us We had to get an awareness out there.

John: 00:17:26

internationally.

John: 00:17:27

Um.

John: 00:17:28

We if, if you become successful in the US you have a, you know, an opening... it opens up more doors there.

John: 00:17:34

But the biggest thing that I want everyone to understand is.

John: 00:17:37

We didn't go with Lionsgate, we didn't go with Sony Affirm.

John: 00:17:41

We didn't go with any major studio 'cause we had to make this decision.

John: 00:17:44

And this was that one decision where if we would've went with Lionsgates or Sony or Universal or Paramount, could we have made more money being with a big studio?

John: 00:17:53

what we had to do is we are a ministry, so once we do the theatrical one, we need to make sure we own every aspect.

John: 00:18:04

We own the streaming stuff.

John: 00:18:05

We own P-O-V-O-D and all that, because we wanna release this film to ministries around the world.

John: 00:18:11

So we didn't have to carve out rights.

John: 00:18:14

Like if we go with all of these bigger players like.

John: 00:18:16

Lions Gate and Sony, and even with Angel Studios, they want that exclusivity.

John: 00:18:21

We have streaming rights.

John: 00:18:23

We have this, if we have streaming rights in these territories.

John: 00:18:25

We couldn't let ministries use it there, so we became our own distributor.

John: 00:18:31

Not only did we become our own studio to make this film and that way we bought out all the talents, rights for the voice talent.

John: 00:18:39

We bought all the music rights, everything.

John: 00:18:41

That way.

John: 00:18:41

We controlled everything.

John: 00:18:42

But for distribution, we did the same thing.

John: 00:18:45

So yes, if we would've went with Angel Studios or Lions Gate could we have made more money opening weekend or could have stayed in longer?

John: 00:18:52

Absolutely.

John: 00:18:53

We had to make our own destiny because of, What the end goal is.

John: 00:18:57

We want this free to the world and so, so yeah.

John: 00:19:00

So we also are in a different situation, you know, where most filmmakers, they have to pay back those investors immediately.

John: 00:19:07

You know, first money in, first money out.

John: 00:19:09

We had a donor, you know, basically Matt gifted this money to us and make it for the biggest.

John: 00:19:15

Goal as possible is to get this to as many eyeballs around the world.

John: 00:19:18

Do not put it behind any paywall.

John: 00:19:20

Do not limit anyone.

John: 00:19:22

You know, and that's what our vision and goal was.

Matt: 00:19:25

Right.

Matt: 00:19:25

And with that goal in mind, you're able to make decisions that are able to back up that goal.

Matt: 00:19:30

And I'll say that for self distribution, you guys opened on 2,500 screens nationwide.

Matt: 00:19:35

That's a giant self distributed, theatrical open.

Matt: 00:19:40

So that's a heck of an accomplishment in and of itself.

John: 00:19:42

Man.

John: 00:19:43

You know what?

John: 00:19:43

Looking at just making the movie... it's like, oh my gosh, everything has been, everything has been this major goal That was like, oh, how did we do this?

Matt: 00:19:54

Well, yeah, you guys definitely did it and I, think that's a good, lesson is to say at the beginning... I had a distributor ask me one time.

Matt: 00:20:01

When we were kind of shopping distributors, they said, what's your goal for the movie?

Matt: 00:20:04

Are you, do you wanna make money or do you want to get eyeballs on it?

Matt: 00:20:08

And I think as a young filmmaker, I was a little offended by that.

Matt: 00:20:10

I'm like, what?

Matt: 00:20:11

You, you want me to just give this thing to you for free?

Matt: 00:20:13

Well, of course I've gotta get my investors paid back.

Matt: 00:20:15

But no, it's a legitimate question because it really goes to, what are your goals and your goals are like you said, it's a 30 year ministry, 20 year ministry.

Matt: 00:20:24

you approach that very, very, very differently and I think you are in a blessed position to be able to do that.

Matt: 00:20:29

and also, for us, like I said, we are so different in so many areas, but man, I, I wanna encourage, because, you know, if you are a Christian filmmaker, you definitely need to make money.

Matt: 00:20:41

It is a business side.

Matt: 00:20:43

There is that ministry side.

Matt: 00:20:45

And the one thing I've learned too is, you gotta be careful.

Matt: 00:20:48

Like, for us, we are gonna give our movie away for free.

Matt: 00:20:51

Man, when you give a movie away for free, that costs a lot of money.

Matt: 00:20:54

Yes, it does.

Matt: 00:20:55

It.

John: 00:20:56

yeah.

John: 00:20:56

there's that side, but also we had to find that balance.

John: 00:21:00

If you give something away free, then there's no value to that.

John: 00:21:05

And so we had to really negotiate and find that balance.

John: 00:21:08

And so I, I've watched people who've created some amazing content and they end up giving away for free.

John: 00:21:14

But the ministries or those different churches around the world don't use it to the potential.

John: 00:21:20

So I would say this as a Christian filmmaker, get the business plans for those ministries or those churches.

John: 00:21:25

Find out, well how will you use this movie if, if you want me to lower my distribution cost to you for licensings, or you're asking for free in this territory, what is your plan?

John: 00:21:35

'cause if they don't have a good plan, don't go with it.

John: 00:21:38

They have to have a good strategy to make it worth your while making this movie, you know?

John: 00:21:44

So I would just really, I think it's a fair thing to start asking ministries if you want me to give you a lower licensing fee for this certain territory, how are you going to use it?

John: 00:21:53

How's it gonna be effective?

John: 00:21:55

And, we've learned that through this experience right now.

Matt: 00:21:58

That's kind of what this podcast is all about, is getting those nuggets.

Matt: 00:22:01

It's a wisdom from people who've experienced it.

Matt: 00:22:03

I think a lot of Christian, young Christian filmmakers especially, or new Christian filmmakers, just have this feeling that God's told me to do this and I'm gonna make this.

Matt: 00:22:10

The money will come, and then churches everywhere are gonna want this, and that is not the case usually.

Matt: 00:22:16

Churches are very, very, very hard to get to and get to cooperate.

Matt: 00:22:21

Giant churches, they've got a lot going on and what I've noticed with, especially the mega churches, they don't have time for anything outside of what they've already planned to do for the past 18 months.

John: 00:22:31

Yeah, and I would say probably for like Salvation Poem project, we went to the churches... so we had like 55 screenings across the country, inviting church leaders and all that stuff.

John: 00:22:40

There's a bunch of things.

John: 00:22:41

You know, September's not the best time to launch a film because kids are going back to school and everything.

John: 00:22:47

you know, king of Kings had their, they launched a week before Easter, but also that was spring break for a lot of places.

John: 00:22:53

And then a week after Easter, really did well.

John: 00:22:55

'cause it's still spring break for a lot of areas.

John: 00:22:57

And so we didn't have that.

John: 00:22:59

We were trying to launch our film in the summer.

John: 00:23:01

In the very beginning, the summer window was wide open because it just, this Hollywood just came off, the writer strikes, you know, the actor strike.

John: 00:23:09

And so we had this wide open But all of a sudden, here comes fantastic four, Superman... here comes Jurassic World rebirth, the remake of, how to Train Your Dragon.

John: 00:23:18

And all of a sudden it got crowded.

John: 00:23:20

We had to move it to kind of, it went from June to July to August now to September.

John: 00:23:26

Then here comes October.

John: 00:23:27

We can't move it there 'cause we've got Tron and all this stuff.

John: 00:23:29

But then you got the big one avatar coming out, so it can't be that Christmas one.

John: 00:23:33

So we landed in September.

John: 00:23:35

But also, you know, with the churches, you know, so They're reopening back.

John: 00:23:38

'cause a lot of people were on vacation, not with the churches.

John: 00:23:40

So it was very challenging.

John: 00:23:42

And also we're a nonprofit ministry and so now you're introducing Salvation Poem project.

John: 00:23:48

you know, we're churches afraid, possibly could there be deflection because oh, they might start giving to, you know, and I don't, and I'm just all the stuff we had to think about.

John: 00:23:56

but yeah, it, was very, very challenging and, and we did have some great churches that really responded to help us.

John: 00:24:02

But also, it was a busy time for the church.

John: 00:24:04

It's coming back from summer for everyone.

John: 00:24:07

Schools gearing up, but we felt we had to launch in September because we would have no other window.

John: 00:24:13

And also we didn't wanna sit on the movie.

John: 00:24:15

Our goal is eyeballs, so...

Matt: 00:24:18

Right.

Matt: 00:24:18

I've not found anywhere in the Bible where Jesus said that it would be easy.

Matt: 00:24:21

And that is, that's pretty much, uh, proven true with most every film that's, ever been made in the name of Christ, so...

Matt: 00:24:29

John, uh, if there's anything that, that we haven't covered that you feel like filmmakers need to know, before we go, I'd love to kind of get some parting words of wisdom from you.

John: 00:24:38

I would just wanna give this to all Christian filmmakers.

John: 00:24:41

You know, at one point in my life I really thought you're defined as a Christian filmmaker because of the story you're telling.

John: 00:24:49

And a lot of times we're really trying to push that biblical side, make it, you know, all, all the stuff.

John: 00:24:53

And my experience with light of the world and working with all of these people, over 400 people involved on this movie, what Will Make a Christian filmmaker is not what you put on the screen.

John: 00:25:05

It's how you get it there.

John: 00:25:07

And so.

John: 00:25:08

I don't think you need to make a movie about the life of Jesus You can make any type of film, a sci-fi action adventure or, whatever it is.

John: 00:25:17

Just who you are is gonna be the representation of Christ to those people you work with.

John: 00:25:22

And so I always say it's more important about not necessarily what you're making, it's how you make it.

Matt: 00:25:28

Amen.

Matt: 00:25:28

John Schafer, director of Light of the World.

Matt: 00:25:31

Um, if you haven't seen it, go find it wherever it is, but before you leave.

Matt: 00:25:36

us right now, how can people go see this movie?

John: 00:25:38

So you can go to light of the world.com and there's a theater finder there.

John: 00:25:43

Obviously it's, you know, we've been out for three weeks, so starting to leave theater.

John: 00:25:46

So this week would be our big push 'cause we still are in over a hundred theaters.

John: 00:25:51

But, you know, I don't know what'll happen after the next week.

John: 00:25:53

So I. Uh, yeah, if you could support us that way, you know, it'll be in theaters.

John: 00:25:58

until probably, like I said, after next week is probably, we're pretty much gonna be out, I think.

Matt: 00:26:03

Are you gonna be in streaming pretty soon after that?

John: 00:26:06

So like, you know, I think sometime mid-October we start the different platforms that way.

John: 00:26:11

I think the Blu-ray, DVD, 'cause believe it or not, man, physical media's coming back.

John: 00:26:15

So just go to light of the world.com and you'll start finding out all the platforms will be on when the Blu-ray, DVD will be released and all that stuff.

John: 00:26:21

So everything where we're moving our, next phase of light of the world will be there.

Matt: 00:26:25

We can follow you on social media for updates as to when, when the

John: 00:26:29

yeah, I would say I, I would definitely say Light of the World, uh, on the website, the Facebook page, uh, Instagram for Light of the World is the best place 'cause we are still rolling out uh, internationally.

John: 00:26:39

So by December 11th I think, Light of the World would be in 33 countries theatrically.

John: 00:26:43

And we're always adding more countries.

John: 00:26:45

So that's why we have to navigate how we do the streaming and all that stuff.

John: 00:26:49

'cause we're still going theatrical around the world, so...

Matt: 00:26:52

It's a lot.

Matt: 00:26:52

Well, John, thank you for making this movie.

Matt: 00:26:54

I appreciate it.

Matt: 00:26:55

On behalf of my family, and

Matt: 00:26:57

thank you again for joining us on the Faith and Family Filmmakers Podcast.