Spears, Missionaries and Movies

this is from January 19, 2006 but expresses something that seems to frequently happen.

OK, I love movies. I’ve always wanted to make a movie. But for a whole host of reasons, I never have. It’s not for lack of ideas. Could be living in the Midwest and taking care of a family, a small sheep farm and working one of those City jobs might just be keeping me busy with other things.
So most of the time I either read about them or watch them.
But, and I caution you that I’m not making this up, I had the idea to make Schindler’s list before Steven Spielberg. OK, I can’t prove that but I read an abridged version of the book Schindler’s Ark in the mid-80s and immediately thought, ‘this would make a great movie’. But seeing as how I didn’t have several dozen millions lying around, I quickly dismissed the thought. It was years later when I heard the movie had gone into production. My point in this is to say I usually have a good eye for stories that work well as movies.
My career as a wanna-be movie maker started in the 1970s. Surprisingly enough the movie that kicked off this desire was “The Hiding Place” and even more surprising is that I didn’t actually see the whole film. I just always felt that the best way to communicate the Gospel was through stories. After all it seems much of what Jesus did was tell stories. We religious folk call them parables but essentially they mean the same to me.
I got sidetracked and apart from a few student films and working on one “B” movie in Dallas, I never worked on a feature film or any film for that matter after 1975.
Sidebar – I went to school with a Ron Judkins. Now that name may not mean anything to anybody outside a very narrow niche of film people but he has two or three of those gold things called Oscars on his mantle – or wherever people keep them. I read that Emma Thompson keeps her two Oscars in her bathroom. I digress.
Ron and I took classes together for two years and worked one very hot Texas summer on a low budget “b” movie that if produced today would have gone straight to video. In the 70s it went nowhere. We worked for very little money (can you spell “deferment?”) but had a great time. I learned that on movie sets, there are flurries of activity and periods of inactivity. The classic hurry-up-and-wait. We were both lowly grips.
He spent his spare time hanging out with the sound crew. I gravitated to the camera crew. In one of our chats, he told me that he wanted to work sound on motion pictures. Sure. And I wanted to be a cinematographer for Jacques Cousteau. So what?
Fast forward to sometime in the 90s. I was reading Mix magazine, a periodical for audio professionals, and they did a profile on Ron Judkins. Low-and-behold the same guy. And what was he doing? At that point I can’t recall specifics but suffice it to say he had achieved his goal. In 1999 I met him for breakfast in LA and by then he was the primary sound recording guy for one Steven Spielberg and had won Oscars for Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List. Check him out on IMDB to see his full filmography.
My point here? Some people know exactly what they want to do and simply go do it and some of them (obviously) very well.
How does this relate to me? Other than an extreme amount of envy it relates in that I’ve never been quite crystal clear on what it is I want to do. In the back of my mind I always recall that idea of working in movies and using them to help share the Gospel. I’ve spent a goodly portion of my earthly years working in Christian television and – I’m sorry. When I look at Christian TV now (and I don’t do this often), I can’t believe I did that. But it seemed like a good idea at the time. I’m not angry about this; just that I don’t think I could do that again.
I think early Christian television was pretty good – and by good I mean it did what it was supposed to do. Share the gospel and be reasonably entertaining. But somewhere along the line it evolved into this large beast that had to be fed and the energy and creativity that could have gone into evangelism and teaching and the like, had to go for food.
So I spent more than 20 years at this before I found myself looking for work and wound up working for a city government. It is reasonably fun, pays the bills and keeps me off the street and out of trouble. But this was never on my short list of what I wanted to do with my life.
So much of my life just happens and that frustrates me. I don’t know if I am adult ADD or what but I have trouble staying on track or sometimes even getting on a track.
In between all this I have managed to stay married for 30 years, raised two girls and adopted three more, moved enough times to almost qualify as a military family, travel quite a bit of the U.S. and even see a number of foreign countries.
So back to making movies. I read a lot. Maybe too much because all my reading probably keeps me from doing. But all this reading gives me lots of ideas. Sometimes original ideas and sometimes ideas that say what I’m reading really should be made into a movie or a television program.
Another one of those nagging things was the desire to write. Even if I never did well in literature or English classes (lot of ‘c’s). Then I started thinking about trying to combine the two – my love for movies and the desire to write.
It wasn’t until 1999 that I actually did something about that. Oh, I wrote plenty of things. Little essays on this or that and even sent a few of them to magazines etc. I got published a few times. In 1999 I wrote a spec teleplay for the TV show “Touched by an Angel.” I did it for a class in grad school which gave me a sorely needed deadline to get something done. I wrote it and then began an 18-month process of trying to get people to read it. Numerous letters to agents etc. and only two responded to my queries. One promised all sorts of things but never delivered. Before anything happened, the show went off the air.
During this same time my pastor preached on taking action on your dreams. I had read a book by John Grisham called The Testament. I remembered well my Schindler’s Ark experience and didn’t want to go through that again and kick myself for not trying. So I began trying to find out something about this book. All his books are bestsellers and even some have been made into movies but this one hadn’t gone anywhere. I thought it was one of the best portrayals of the restorative power of simply living out the Gospel. I sent letters to Mr. Grisham. I wrote his agent several times. It was over two years before finally someone got in touch with me to tell me that Mr. Grisham was not interested in granting an option for that book. Sorry. I still tried but I guess not hard enough. Eventually I gave up on this one.
In 2001 I listened to an audiobook of Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides. This story riveted me for two reasons: it was just so compelling that I didn’t want to get out of the car while listening and I had an uncle who was a Japanese POW. He would never talk about his experiences, so I could and would not ever know exactly where he was during his POW time. I imagined him at Cabanatuan – the very camp that is liberated in the book. I decided to move faster this time but quickly found out that Miramax had already snatched up the movie rights. I waited and waited and it wasn’t until 2005 that I learned there were actually TWO versions of this story being made into a movie. Too bad. I’ve not seen either one but understand neither was very successful.
In mid-2005 I ran across the diaries of Jim Elliot and the story of his (and three others) massacre at the hands of the Auca Indians. I was fascinated with this almost 50 year old story. The search and the race was on again. I began to Google Jim Elliot, Auca etc. to see what I could come up with. Surprisingly nothing except his books and those of his still living remarried widow. I couldn’t believe this story had not been made into some kind of movie. I knew we were not talking Hollywood blockbuster material but at least something along the lines of The Hiding Place.
Before you think I’m an idiot I know that on Jan. 20, 2006 “The End of the Spear” was released in theaters across the country. Now for some backstory:
Having not found ANYTHING on this subject related to a movie I figured my best bet was to first get permission. I wanted to get at least the blessing of Elisabeth Elliot, widow of one of the four slain missionaries. It took a few days but I got an e-mail address. The e-mail dead-ended. I got a snail mail address. (When was the last time you wrote a real letter?) So I wrote a very polite letter to Mrs. Elliot (actually Mrs. Gren.) A week or so later I got back a real live letter from Mr. Gren (apparently Mrs. (Elliot) Gren is not in good health) who informed me that I had their blessing to proceed and that if I could somehow come up with $4–5 million, I could do a nice movie. He referred to several who had been trying without success to get something going.
I need to point out that between writing my letter and the receipt of Mr. Gren’s I did more googling and found that not only was there already a documentary circulating on the 1956 events but a feature film, “End of the Spear” was going to be released in January 2006 (my efforts being in the early fall of 2005). I don’t know how I missed this in my first go-round but I’m equally puzzled by the apparent lack of communication between the movie-makers and one of the key subjects. I have to concede that age, memory and other factors may have simply come into play.
But once again I feel the proverbial “day late…” My goal for 2007 is to take some chances, research better and see what can happen.