by Doug Lanza
One of the coolest things about making a Christian film is that we have an entire source of financing that is not available in the traditional Hollywood system. The Christian filmmaker has the church as a resource. Many churches are now getting the vision of how a film can affect the vast world outside of the 4 walls of their sanctuary. The power of film is incredible. The movie “Titanic” grossed over 1.8 billion dollars worldwide and the Jesus Film project has shown the “Jesus” film to over 6 billion people worldwide. Pretty staggering figures when you consider the potential effect that just one movie can have. The “Jesus” movie alone has been responsible for over 200 million decisions for Christ.
I remember seeing this movie when it first came out in theaters. At the time, I was resisting the Lord as I had other plans and aspirations for my life and I felt that being a Christian and serving God would interfere with these. As I sat and watched the Jesus movie in the theater, my heart began to melt and the walls of resistance I had put up were rapidly falling down. As I saw the miracles that Jesus performed and the crucifixion and resurrection acted out on the screen, something deep inside my spirit-man began stirring and my heart was turning to God. Shortly after this, I was saved and have been a Christian ever since. Ah, the power of the medium of film.
So, you ask, how can I finance my film? Well, as I mentioned above, one way is to get the church behind your project. Our church, The Voice of Pentecost in San Francisco, received a call to the film ministry in 1995. We look at this as our “Foreign Missions” department and a way to reach out to many people with the message of the Gospel.
This call should definitely be God-initiated and is not for the faint of heart. I’m not trying to urge you to get on the band- wagon but we know that it is the path that God has us on. The first film we ever made started when a visiting evangelist gave us an $8000.00 donation and told us to go make a movie. At the time, we thought, “Yeah right. That’s not even enough to get a movie camera, let alone the film that goes in it.” But we knew that if God was starting something that He would finish it; so we started up our first film project, “Guardians”. We rented all the equipment we needed including a top-of-the-line 35mm film camera from Panavision. The pressure was on and for 16 days we filmed and worked around the clock to complete the shoot. When it was all said and done, we completed the filming and raised close to $200,000.00 in donations from our church to finish the entire production.
Our second movie, “The Roman Trilogy”, was a bit different. Once again, a visiting ministry donated $10,000.00 for us to begin the filming. This time, having learned our lesson from renting equipment, the first thing we did was to run out and purchase a JVC Cine Camera. This alleviated the pressure of renting equipment and allowed us to take as much time as we needed in filming “The Roman Trilogy”. The film progressed a step at a time and God continued to provide everything we needed as we went along. Many things happened that lead to greater miracles down the line. One was that we decided we wanted to film one of the scenes in Slow-Mo. The JVC Cine Camera we had purchased was not capable of this so we searched for something that would work for this shot. We found an obscure company named Vision Research that had developed a high-speed digital camera mainly used for military applications. We contacted them and rented their camera package for a few days. When the camera arrived, we opened the box and were super excited about being able to utilize this new technology in our film. We ran some incredible tests by breaking a water balloon over my son Matthew’s head and filming it at 2400 frames per second. The results were mind blowing!!!!
After filming, we packed up the equipment to return it and stored it in our office. The next morning when we came in, we were horrified to find that the custom laptop that went with the Vision Research package had been stolen. We reluctantly called Vision Research to tell them what had happened, which was not the most pleasant of experiences. When we contacted our insurance company, we discovered that they would not cover the cost of replacing the computer. We were determined to do the right thing and pay back Vision Research but we had no money with which to do this. The next day, a brother from our church came up and said, “God spoke to me to donate $3000.00 to your film ministry”. This was the exact amount needed to pay off Vision Research for the stolen computer. Wow!! God is amazing!! Several years later when developing our High-Resolution 70mm Digital Film Camera, “Abraham”, we once again contacted Vision Research. The first thing they said was that they remembered how integrous we had been in our past business dealings. We ended up partnering with them and they paid 5 million dollars on the development costs for the “Abraham” camera. We also ended up completing “The Roman Trilogy” with a budget of over $200,000.00, all received from donations from the church.
It’s amazing what one church can do with a vision from God and the faith that “all things are possible through Christ”. Take the Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia who produced the film “Facing the Giants”. The film was made on a budget of $100,000.00, all from funds donated by members of their church. To date, the film has made 10.2 million dollars at the Box Office, 12.5 million dollars from Video Rentals, and has sold almost 1 million units in DVD sales. The film has also been seen in 56 countries. Sounds like “Foreign Missions” to me. Here’s a short blurb from a review of the movie that explains how Sherwood Baptist Church produced this project:
Facing the Giants took a remarkable path on its way to the big screen. Alex and Stephen are associate pastors at Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Ga. Their senior pastor and executive pastor-Michael Catt and Jim McBride, respectively-believed that making the film would be an “out of the box” approach to ministry. So the brothers’ project became a church-wide project.
With no traditional fund-raising, the $100,000 undertaking was supported by private donations from Sherwood members. All the actors and most of the crew volunteered their services. Church members pitched in to help, doing everything from lighting to catering.
It’s incredible what the body of Christ can do when we come together with one common vision and purpose. This week we’ve talked about many different ways to finance your film. The most important thing is to first pray and pray and pray some more and make sure this is God’s project and not yours. Once you know that you know that it is the Lord leading you to make a movie, you can move forward in confidence knowing that He will supply your every need. There may be obstacles along the way but God will provide everything you need in ways that you never expected. Maybe He will use the church and your entire project will be financed through donated funds or maybe He will choose an entirely new method that you’ve never even thought of before. However your Christian film is financed, remember that our light should always shine to a lost and dying world. Christian Film Makers have great power and with that comes great responsibility. Let’s go out and change the world!!!
