Making movies for people to watch at home by themselves, I don't think has nearly the impact of getting a group together to have a communal experience. This is Just Being Intentional with Thomas Harris. My name is Thomas Harris, I'm your host. We thank you for being with us, welcome to the show. Please be sure to like, subscribe, and follow us, and we will greatly appreciate it. My guest for the show is a filmmaker, he's a husband, a father, a fellow believer, and a friend.
He is also the Chief Creative Officer at Kingdom Story Company. If you see the background, we've got some posters here. This is where we're actually recording today at Kingdom Story Company, Andy Erwin. Good to be with you Thomas. You're persistent man. You kept asking me and my schedule can get squirrely, but I appreciate your persistence in making this happen. Good to be with you today. I can't thank you enough for being here.
When I decided to do this thing, the show, you were actually the first person I asked to come on to get a guest on the show. That's awesome. I greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much for letting us use this space as well. This is a beautiful set up you guys have here, and I'm just honored to be here. Yeah, man. It's an office with a lot of love. We make all of our films in this building and from idea all the way to finishing it. It's a place of storytellers.
When you were talking about what you're doing, I was like, man, yeah, let's come over to the studio. Let's have a conversation. Sweet. Let's start from the beginning. What's the origin story of Andrew and the Erwin? Man, we're just a bunch of creative delinquents. When we started, this whole thing has been just kind of a hobby as kids that grew out of control. I never thought that this would be a career. It was just, my dad was in television growing up.
He was a news anchor in Dallas, and then we moved to Birmingham, Alabama, and he took a news director's job there. We kind of grew up behind the scenes. We were studio rats. I remember when I was five years old, four years old sitting off to the side of the set, well, my dad did the news. We grew up around it. My dad got into radio. It was radio host for a while. Then he had this little side cable access TV show while he did radio.
My brother was, I was 15, my brother was 12, they needed help at the station. We just said, that sounds like fun. I think we broke a lot of child labor laws, and we got paid like $10 a day. If we ran camera behind the scenes, then we got to use the equipment from midnight till 4am. We would go lock ourselves in the studio and night. We're homeschooled, so it kind of gave us a chance to set our own hours.
This became something we fell in love with, just kind of figure out how to tell stories, how to edit and do our thing. When I went off to college, there was a small Christian college I went to in upstate New York, and they found out that I had some experience with doing film type stuff. They said, could you make some short films for the kids?
They had this camp, the summer camp that they'd have during the summer on this 90-degree island in upstate New York, and 500 kids a week would come to this camp. It gave us a chance to test out these short films and stuff. The first one that we did was this night to the round table, Epic. It was like Lord of the Rings, we thought. Shot it on little high-age cameras, and it ended live on stage with pyrotechnics. It was this epic thing.
I remember 500 kids in this big meeting room, and we're watching it, and it gets to the end, and it's crickets. There's no sound at all. One kid on the front row, this 12-year-old kid is like, is that it? To this day, I can't watch a film that's one of our films at screening in a theater because I'm convinced that this guy's going to show back up as a 45-year-old man. Is that it? It was our testing ground. We got to try things and learn how to motivate an audience.
My brother came home and started this production company just at home in the bedroom of our house. Then on the weekends, we worked for ESPN at Cameron. He got a job as a cameraman for ESPN, and I was like, that's way cooler than what I'm doing. I dropped out of school, came home, and we started this company. My dad always said, whatever you commit 20 years of your life to, you could be successful at. We jumped into it.
I was 21. We got into everything from music videos to then eventually trying our hand at feature films. Our breakout hit was, I can only imagine, which was 20 years, almost to the day of us starting the company. God's just allowed us to tell stories for 11. Wow. So your brother started Kingdom Story Company? Well, it started, it started, it wasn't Kingdom. We started Kingdom together. It started as a little company called HE Productions.
My dad, Hank Irwin, and my dad got a loan for the equipment, and he had a agreement with us if we would work hard to pay off the equipment when we paid it off, he would sign the company over to me and my brother. So John hadn't quite started it. We started it together, but he had planned it out. So we started that, that became when we paid it off, that became Irwin Brothers. Then Irwin Brothers had a couple of different variations of it over the years.
Then after I can only imagine, that's where we were like, God, I just kind of really, imagine was on the back of a precarious moment in our career where this was either going to be a hobby or we were going to quit or it was going to become a career.
We'd done several movies before that, a lot of music videos, but imagine when we kind of went all in on, and when that worked, this little $7 million film it did almost 90 million in the box office, we went to Lionsgate, they wanted to start like a long-term deal with us. We had always dreamed of having a label and something. So our producing partner Kevin Downs and I said, all dreamed of having a place where we could.
So there was a guy named Tony Young that came to us with this idea of what can we do together that known as can do apart from each other. We stepped in and said, let's start a place where we can fuel other filmmakers' visions. So we started Kingdom Story Company. Tyler Perry was leaving Lionsgate and we were like, we want Tyler Perry's deal. So we hired his attorney, scanning Matt Johnson. Didn't know if that was good or bad, but he negotiated the deal we shouldn't have ever had.
Came to find out later that the rest of his client list was like LeBron James, Oprah Winfrey and the Obama's. So he had a power list and I guess he either felt sorry for us or believed in what we were creating, but we have our deal there at Lionsgate. We've been there for six years. We just re-up for another three. And it's been a great place for us to make movies. What would you have to say to that, that heckler from back in the day today? First of all, he was right. He was right.
I think every creative or every person that achieves something has to have a villain in the story that's that splinter in your mind that drives you towards excellence. I watched the documentary last dance and watched it a couple of times. And Michael Jordan was really good at always inventing these villains and these scenarios in his head. So I think that kid was a gift because number one, it motivated us to get better. We've kind of adopted a policy that quality is something you always chase.
It's not something you ever catch. You just want to get a little bit better each time. And then secondly, we learned to value that person in the front row. Who is the person that's consuming your product? Why are they buying a ticket for it? Why do they care? And what gives them an experience that's worth their price of admission? So we serve, you know, and I think a lot of times, especially as filmmakers, but it goes for writers, it goes for musicians.
A lot of times it's easy to become indulgent and be like, no, this is myself expression. This is what I want to say. And you know, the problem with that is they get into a rut where it's like they're not valuing the audience. And so I think for us, we just began to be like, no, we serve the audience and what do they want to consume? And so I think if I were to go back to that 12 year old kid, if he showed up as like a grumpy old man, I'd be like, man, thank you.
Thank you for helping us to figure out what to value. And I think we've grown a lot in that. Yeah, it's you say valuing the audience. It's customer service. Yes, essentially. We're in a service industry. Absolutely. Right. Right. You know, I did 15 years of customer service with Trader Joe's and my focus was always looking at presentation through the lens of the audience, the customers.
You know, say if people see a beautiful production or display, they're more likely to buy from that, that place because it just looks enticing to them. So it's the same thing with movies. Absolutely. How fun is it to be in this kind of job career with a brother, your brother? I remember growing up with my brother, one of my brothers, we as kids, we made our own comic books. Yeah, we just took playing sheets of white paper and fold them half.
We staple the size and we just do, we just drew pictures and had captions and it was fun. I wish I had those still today, who knows where they are, but just a joy to be involved in something with your brother to share those experiences. So you developed a passion for filmmaking. Was there any particular filmmakers that inspired you early on? Man, I think, I think, you know, as any filmmaker, for me, I was backed all thing Spielberg. I mean, I think Spielberg is just, he's a master.
And I think there's a couple of different scenarios. And I think with the brother thing, you know, I'm grateful that my brother played a big part of my career. We motivated each other and John has the ambition and drive that I don't naturally have. And so he pushed things for years. And so it's been a great ride. I think we kind of got to a place in our careers where we wanted to pursue different things.
And so John's really developing this streaming idea that he's doing with Amazon with the Wonder Project. And, you know, we kind of got to a place where it's like just because we've come up together, it doesn't mean we have to be handcuffed each other. And he felt this drive to kind of create new things. And John always loves to be kind of on the bleeding edge. And I like to sustain things.
And I don't think either one's right or wrong, but we learn that as we pull in different directions, there is this point that's created partners where he comes to a place where like, I think we've earned the right to kind of chase our things. So you know, John's often re-shootin' stuff for his thing. And we're developing a bunch of stuff feature-wise here with Lionsgate. And there's things we're partnering on that were projects that will co-produce on at points.
But you know, I'm grateful for the drive that he brought, you know, for a number of years. You know, I think for us as filmmakers, we looked at, there was a group of filmmakers that Spielberg was a part of that Francis Forkopola back in the day had this kind of backpack of filmmakers that all worked for him. And so they started out together and then they became just kind of this loose grouping of allies.
And I think if you go look at Zoidrope and all those guys back in the day, it was fascinating this rebel unit that really revolutionized film. And they did it through collaboration, they did it through friction with respect. But they worked for Francis. So Francis said, you know, he was working on Godfather and doing all that. But that group of guys, it was George Lucas, it was Spielberg, it was Martin Scorsese, it was Brian Dupalma before he did Scarface.
There was a bunch of them and they would all sit around and just talk about film. And the way that they motivated each other and out of that, you know, during a time where film had become very indulgent. Like the film industry in the 70s had become very indulgent. And out of that, that group, I mean, went on to do some of the greatest cinema, you know, over the next 25 years. And so, but they all started together.
You know, Spielberg was working on Jaws, you know, George Lucas had just done American graffiti. He worked as an assistant editor on Godfather, you know, and then, you know, George started working on Star Wars. And so he brought Star Wars in to show it to the guys and they screened it for all these guys. Spielberg was the only one that saw that it was going to be a hit movie. And Spielberg was like, oh, that's going to be it. That's going to be a hit. Nobody else understood it.
It was rough, the edit was rough, it was slow. And it was Brian De Palma that, that in the midst of all that stood up at dinner. And he was like, it's like, George, I don't know what the heck I just watched. It doesn't make any sense. It's like this spaghetti western in space. And there's a talking robot. And I like it does. Who are all these people? And why should I care?
And so in the midst of that, he's like, you know, it should be like the old spaghetti westerns where you start with the text at the front of the movie that says, these are all who the people are and why they why we should care about them. And then George is like, huh, we could do that. So the famous scrolling text at the beginning of Star Wars movies came from Brian De Palma to Scarface. Wow. And so, you know, it was this group of guys.
So I think there's this idea of collaboration of friction with respect. And that's kind of what we've tried to emulate it, a kingdom. And so I think it goes back to that group of guys that I think were the rebel unit of their day. Wow. That's awesome. New information for our audience. If you are not a movie buff, I mean, I consider myself a movie buff. I love film. I love the art of storytelling. The whole production is, you know, what I'm a big fan of. Speaking of production and projects.
You guys do some pretty good stuff. You know, notable projects like the one you mentioned first, the big one was I can only imagine. You guys have done Woodlawn, American Underdog, Jesus Revolution, ordinary angels. And most recently on Sunky Road, which is doing quite well in the box office, took the family to see that. And it was a huge hit. And I was pleasantly surprised, not discounting your talents, you know, but it was way better than I thought it was going to be. So pleasant surprise.
And it really shows that you guys are really into your craft. And you want to produce quality to present to the audience. So that just solidifies what you said about, you know, customer appreciation. What would be some of those challenges that you face in some of these productions, you know, behind the scenes? Oh man. Making movies is agonizing at points. And it's never easy. No movie wants to get made. It's really hard to make a really good film.
But what we found was it's actually almost as hard to make a bad film. You know, it's difficult to make a film period. So why not push it a little bit harder to try to get it as close to great as you can? And so we really, really sweat the process. And it's uncomfortable.
I mean, being on the hot seat as a filmmaker, whether it's, you know, with what they did it in the early days at Pixar with Ed Capmo and John Lasseter or what they did back in the day with Francis Forekoplin, his group of misfit rebels. The idea of pushing for greatness is really, really hard. But I think we've got a track record. And it was funny one of the reviews for ordinary angels that I liked as they said, equality reviewed faith film from Kingdom. What a shock.
But let's face it, they become the A24 of faith films. And that kind of made me smile. And I was like, okay, you know, so to have, you know, a movie like ordinary angels that John Gunn directed and it be a, you know, to be certified fresh, to be the highest rated thing we've ever had with critics, you know, American underdog, very similar. We've got a track record of the majority of our films since I can imagine had been, had been, uh, fresh, rotten tomatoes.
And I think the thing that I have pride in is when we stepped into the market, the idea of faith film, we got laughed at a lot. All of us did. You know, we had to learn how to really do the craft that none of us really understood when we stepped into it. And to invade a weak market where there was not much expected of us, it was hard to get really good actors in front of the camera. You're not that good. We had good, good actors, but get, you know, well-known actors like name actors.
Yeah. Because nobody really take a chance on us. So we studied other genres that had done it really well. And, um, and the genre that we landed on that we learned from the most was horror films. Back in the day, horror films, similar to like superhero films back in the day, you know, in the early days of both of those, we're considered like the wasteland. It was like the cheese. It was the, you know, this, you're going to be in a cheesy slash or film or a cheesy superhero film.
And, uh, they were kind of a joke and they were kind of where good actors went to die. But then there was an individual that stepped into that market and said, it's a weak market. What if we raised the bar? So you had Jason Blum with Blum House. Jason stepped into it and was like, well, if we keep the budgets moderate and we push the quality better. And we serve these horror fans with a really good product.
As long as you service that, there's a chance every now and then you can do a universal overlay and have something to say and you have a big breakout moment. So he did these films that were really interesting, uh, from that standpoint. And that's where you get a movie like Get Out. Little four million dollar film, but he took a chance on a comedy writer director in Jordan Peele. Uh, they shot it in Alabama, uh, right down the road from where we shot, I still believe.
And this tiny little micro budget film had this universal overlay of, of a civil rights kind of, you know, social justice kind of message. Right. But it delivered everything that you want out of a scary movie. And all of a sudden, it blows up and then quiet place comes along and, uh, with Paramount and kind of steals that same formula and did the same thing. It was an alien movie, but, but it was really about a dad trying to keep his kids safe and unsafe world.
And so those films really kind of elevated what you expected out of a thriller. And as a result, they stopped being cheesy movies. We're like, well, why can't we do that in faith? You know, why can't we take what people expect the experience to be and raise the bar and earn the right to be heard and stop having this entitled chip on our shoulders, Christians of saying we deserve people to support our films just because of the message. Like, no, it needs to be entertaining.
It needs to be worth the price of admission. And so the exciting thing to see is we've got four films that are cut that have, two of them have come out, two more coming out this year with Lionsgate. I didn't direct any of them. I produced on them. And the quality is every bit as high as not higher.
And I think the reason why the fingerprints stay the same is there's a creative group of us that we push and refine and refine and refine to the point of it becoming uncomfortable at points to try to make it as close to great as we can get each time. And so to have unsung hero directed by my buddy Joel Smallbone, who's a musician and he's moved into filmmaking and it's new for him for him to play his father in the film and co-direct it with Richie Ramsey and the quality to be fantastic.
I'm really proud of that. And so it's been amazing. It was amazing. You and I have had conversations about the difficulty of seeing such poor quality that makes it and makes money. Sure. Whether it be writing or directing the whole production is just playing a simple sucks. And as a fan of film, like I am, like you are to see some of those things actually make it and make money. It's got to be extremely frustrating.
But I want to segue since you brought it up talking about these faith-based projects from your perspective. Why do you think it's so difficult for these faith-based films to gain success? You know, the challenges are, I mean there's so many. The challenges for it, multifaceted. Since COVID, it's become more and more difficult to figure out how to create an event. People got comfortable watching things at home.
And a lot of times what they say is, "Oh, just wait till it comes out on home video and I'll buy a copy of it on iTunes and Apple TV and watch it then." The problem is, you know, you significantly impact the amount of product that's going to get made. And so for us as a filmmaker, we have to create an event that's a reason for people to get out in theaters. So I mean, you look at like, "Jesus Revolution, that was a great moment for us." And my brother, McCorkle, directed that film.
We were able to create an event around it. And part of that was God of just what was going on with Aspery and all that. It was a revival that broke out there that we had nothing to do with. You know, it was a God thing. But it created a communal event where everybody wanted to get out in the theater for the same weekend. So to make a movie work, you've got to get a minimum of a million people out to the movie theater in a weekend.
And you look at any other Christian event that's able to get a million people out of their houses. You know? I mean, that's, you look at that being, you know, the combined total of, you know, every Christian concert for a whole year and one weekend. That's a lot. So you have to create an event. You know, the thing that we're grateful for is to have a support of a studio that really believes in our audience. So Lionsgate has doubled and tripled down on, we believe in this audience.
And they're spending money on it. And that's a big deal. And then secondly, we're just grateful to have a bunch of friends that have social impact toward we can really spark grassroots movements. So when it came to like, uh, unsung hero, we got to the opening week. And we're like, guys, you know, we don't have a big name actor to get on all the tonight's show and all that. We've got to really spark a movement.
And so, you know, it was grateful to have, it was me and Joel Smallbone and Candace Cameron. We all got together on a text thread and be like, everybody opened up their Rolex. And we've got to go to all of our friends and ask for support. And it turned into almost a game where, you know, where we just everybody was saying yes. And it was super exciting. We tallied up that week. How many of our friends posted for us and all their social followers.
And we tallied up the amount of people that posted in. It was 160 million followers. And that's what sparked that in combination with a lot of the efforts that had been done. It sparked a moment that weekend. And that's what leads to a hit movie. And so those are the challenges of getting noticed. The thing that isn't as challenging that I'm grateful for is we're for the first time attracting really big name talent to the space.
We've got best Christmas page never that Dallas Jenkins was chosen directed. And we were on a call last night at 10 30 at night going through notes on that. And it's got, you know, Lauren Graham in it and Judy Greer. And it's a really great film that comes out in November. And, you know, and it's just exciting to see the talent that's coming to the table that's available that makes these big, big movies work.
And so, and Lionsgate and others are starting now to spend more money on bigger products. So we've got some mainstream films that are in, you know, in the pipeline that I think are going to be really big. Yeah, that's awesome. Some of those names that you see on the screen, you know, when your movies roll in, it's like, wow, how did it get those guys? How did you get a Hillary Swank? Yeah. You got the guy to play Reacher and T-Reacher. Yeah, I'll reach it.
You know, it's like, who's literally the biggest dude on the planet? Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure he's bigger than life if he's seen it for a huge. Yeah. So let's transition into balancing roles. Sure. The life of a filmmaker is a very busy and rigorous lifestyle, but you are husband and a father to three kids.
And being a writer, a director, producer, you know, chief creative officer at Kingdom Story, like how do you successfully or attempt to become successful in balancing the life of a family man and then a filmmaker? Yeah, man. I mean, I think you do it really well. I've watched it with your kids, you know, particularly with your daughters, I've watched just, you know, how present and safe they feel. And I think that's the sign of a really strong dad in the home.
For me, I struggled with it for a long time because I tried to make everybody happy. And I thought my job was to make everybody happy. And I constantly resented my role and I always felt like it was failing. And there's a man at Lionsgate named Jason Constantine and Jason's. He was in charge of acquisitions for a long time and one of the higher ups in the company and was one of the people responsible for recruiting us to Lionsgate. But he's a believer and a strong believer.
But you know, it really strong dad. And I've learned more from him about being a father than I have from being a filmmaker. And Constantine would constantly call me, "It's still this day calls me." It says, "Hey, how are you doing as a dad? How are your kids?" And I asked him, "I remember we went to Santa McCahn one year right after I can only imagine." And Santa McCahn, they have in Vegas. And so Mandy went with me and we were at this table of a bunch of people from Lionsgate.
And we went out to dinner at like it was a sushi place. And it was no boo and so big expensive sushi place. But I remember I was sitting by Jason and he asked me some of the questions about being a dad. And I finally turned to him and I was like, "Jason, how do you find balance in this job as a filmmaker and as a dad?" And he looked at me and he didn't blink. He's like, "You don't." And I was a very unbalanced job. So if you're looking for balance, this isn't the job.
What you will find is seasons. And I was like, "Huh." He's like, "There's seasons where your life is going to be crazy because you got to go make a movie." The same thing as being in the military. Well, not same. It's a lesser. It's very a lot harder for him being military. But being deployed in military, you're gone for a season. There's nothing you can do about it. Like it's your job. But there's seasons where you're home.
And he said, "What you find is a lot of guys get so addicted to the adrenaline of being, you know, as a filmmaker deployed on a film, that when they get home, they try to find something to always keep them busy so they're never present at home." He's like, "Don't miss your seasons at home. When you're at home, be home. Be present. Invest in your kids and see them as the priority." So it really gave me permission that there's times where my job is really busy.
And when I go to do my job, I work my tail off and I do my job with the best of my ability. I'm fully present doing my job. But then I look for moments to be present when my kids finding ways to do that while I'm doing that. And then when I get home, I'm home. And finding ways to invest in them. Where they feel seen, they feel safe, they feel the priority, they feel important. My wife, Mandy, you know, she is the rock of our family. I feel like she's the heart.
She absolutely gives me strength and we're partners in that. And so we both feel fully committed. You know, I've told her all along, like if at any point this becomes detrimental to our family and you feel like we're not supposed to do this anymore, you let me know and I give up this job in a heartbeat. You know, we'll do something else. But as long as we feel called to this, we've got to be strategic. And she's been my partner in that and helping me to find that way to embrace seasons.
And I've found that my job has gotten busier, especially as I stepped into being chief creative officer because it's like, you know, I'm not just responsible for one film at a time. I'm responsible for the creative on five films at a time. And so that's a lot. And so at times I feel like I'm drinking out of a fire hose. But my life has gotten busier, but I feel like I've been able to learn how to, my family to feel, still feel chosen in that.
So it's not necessarily about being the victim of your schedule. It's about being intentional with your time. And that's what I've been learning. I'm still learning. Funny thing about coming here from to Tennessee from LA is that I was able to connect with people here that had connections with people back home. Jason is a great dude. You know, our families went to church together. I did a biblical counseling course with his wife. So that was, that was pretty awesome.
Like we said earlier, you know, I've been trying to track you down for this. You're the first person I asked. And we finally made it happen today. And when we finally locked down a date, we were talking at the kids, Peter Pam play. And your son made a great captainhood. He was fantastic. Yeah, it was a proud dad moment for sure. But one thing I told you just in relation to what you were just saying about the family dynamic balance.
Andy was sitting next to you as we were speaking about scheduling this. And I said, she is your priority. I am not. I say, it's going to happen. I'm faith that it's going to happen when it's supposed to happen. But I don't want you to neglect your wife. And, you know, the free time that you have, I want to respect that, that's family time. Because I know that you can get on the road and be gone for a period, long periods of time.
So I just wanted to let you know that that's, I fully support that. I fully support that. And I'm sure that your wife does as well. So with recent strikes that we had last year, the writer strike, let's talk about some of these struggles with the industry. So what were some of those frustrations that you guys have had with the industry, the changing trends? You know, I think the bigger issue for us is, you know, the industry as a whole, yeah, I, and I don't know how to solve any of those things.
But for us, we're small enough to where we're able to kind of be a little bit more of a delta force and kind of work around the system. And so I'm grateful for that. We kind of are naturally kind of inclined to be rebels, which I like. You know, I think the biggest challenge is always society as a whole because of where technology is. And I think it plays into the AI thing. I think it plays into the, the COVID of it all.
I think that that society as a whole is pulling more and more towards isolation. You know, people would rather have a relationship with their computer than a human being. And you know, that creates challenges for us as an industry. But I think it's even bigger challenges as a society. And I think trying to get people to get out of their houses and stay connected together. And I think it's a fundamental of what we believe is Christians.
I mean, I think there's a reason why Paul said don't forsake the assembling of together, as some have grown accustomed to do. I think as a whole, the enemy loves to pull us into isolation. And the communal aspect of being connected to groups of individuals, I think is a bedrock principle that is needed to have a strong faith. So what I do as a filmmaker is not critical to that equation, but it is a tool. You know, it's a tool to get people out of their houses and to get people connected.
And I think you look at that as, you know, storytelling has always been a form of that throughout human history of sitting around a campfire and sharing stories. There's a communal aspect of being able to share that. And you look at how that translates today that, you know, a group of us get together. And the first thing to talk about is like, what have you seen lately? Share stories.
We just add that extra element of being able to start those conversations about faith and the value of the things. But it's the challenge is how do we get people out of their houses and get people to stop just being content to have a relationship by themselves with their computer. And AI is just another version of that of just replacing, you know, what is human with something that's artificial. And I think the artificial is easier because it doesn't require the other side of a relationship.
It's messier to have a relationship with a human being. Which also explains why we have self-checkout lines. Exactly. It's just we want at least interaction with people as possible because we want, you know, technology that serves us without asking for anything in return. But that's not a relationship, right? You know, that's transactional. And I think we become more and more of a transactional society. I don't know how to change that.
You know, I really feel like we learned to navigate around it. You know, but I think it's a spiritual condition that is just the nature of the treadmill we've chosen to be on. And I don't think you can really, I don't know how you pull that back. But that is the challenge is people and more and more have relationship with people on social media and not people in real life. You know, it's a, it's a, it keeps people at an arm's length distance. And socially awkward. And socially awkward.
And so, you know, I think that's a challenge. That's a real challenge. And I think it, but I think we were meant to have community. We were meant to have relationships with people. And so that's why we've been so committed, you know, on the kingdom side to the theatrical experience. Because, you know, making movies for people to watch at home by themselves, I don't think it has nearly the impact of getting a group together to have a communal experience.
There's a difference from listening to music in your car by yourself, which is fine. That's a part of it. There's a different experience when you can go to a praise and worship concert and experience it as a group. And I think it's a needed part of the human condition is to connect with people. You know, COVID for a lot of people was a very devastating time. Yeah. For me, it was presented as an opportunity.
One of the main motivations that I have for even doing this, what we're doing now was coming out of COVID, you know, in 2020, I was going through all the contacts on my phone and just calling people and checking on them. Because people were isolated, like you said. And getting people to realize that you are being thought of, you know, and rather than just keeping it at, I wonder what someone's so-and-so is up to, I pick up the phone and I call them or just text them.
And so many of those conversations were so timely for people because they needed somebody to reach out. So I was being intentional with that. That's cool. And it was an everyday thing. I was just like, you know, in Los Angeles, you have horrible commutes. You know, 17 mile commute was hour and a half. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. So I used that as an opportunity to just get on the phone and start using that time to check in with people. That's awesome.
And it, you know, it was like I was driving in a Tesla on self-drive. That's cool. But my vehicle was far from a Tesla. It was a hoop-dee-dope, but the intentionality of that was rewarding for me because I was able to make an impact in people's lives. That's cool. But they were, some of those folks felt like they were forgotten about. Everybody was doing the same thing, isolating, sheltering in place. I was like, no, this is not the way God designed us to be.
We were, we were created to be social creatures. And this is anti-social creatures. So speaking of being intentional, what is it that you, and you kind of touched on it already, but what is it you need to really do to be more intentional? You know this is what I need to do, but you just got to make it happen.
Yeah. I mean, I think it goes back to the community idea is, as guys, especially we get so task-oriented that it's about a checklist and the thing that we're afraid of more than anything is somebody feeling like we don't know what we're doing. We want to be competent in people's eyes. And I think we protect that. And I think it naturally gears towards isolation. It naturally gears towards control and it naturally gears towards being low-wulfs.
And I think I've learned from falling on my face enough times that what's required is being intentionally vulnerable and having a group of men that know me inside now that there is no nothing hidden seeking out individuals like that that are safe. And I think what makes a safe individual like that is I don't believe relationships are safe unless they go both ways.
Like, you know, if it's somebody that's always there to help you and you never help them and you don't know their stuff, it's not a safe relationship. It's a therapist. You know, there's nothing wrong with therapists. I have a therapist, but it's a transactional relationship. But a community relationship is somebody that they know your stuff, you know their stuff. They're there to help you, you're there to help them. It's common interest.
And, you know, it's hard to find individuals that have that same alignment. And, you know, on that list, I have, I'd say I have 10 of those people where they know me and I know them. And then I have maybe four of those people that are, you know, an every week kind of thing. And I've got one or two that are like an everyday thing. And just intentionally, you know, especially the busier life gets, the more you should be talking to those people. Because it's so easy.
I meet too many guys and I potentially been one of those guys at points where you get to go and so fast and then I'll have said and you do something stupid and you talk to guys that have really blown up their lives. And like what happened? Like I didn't see it coming. I don't know. It was just things were crazy. It was busy and all of a sudden boom, you know, my life exploded. And you're like, well, there's warning lights along the way and just pay attention to those warning lights.
And when those warning lights go off of like caution, they're like, I need to talk to somebody. And I think that's really what has, you know, the older I've gotten, the more my mistakes have been painful enough to learn from, the more I've intentionally sought out and maintain those kind of relationships. And you and I have had some of those conversations too because I asked, you know, I was interested in, you know, we're not just going to talk film. That's not life. Right.
My angle is what's really going on, what is real life. And that's, especially as men, that's what we need to be to each other. And that's part of the iron sharpening iron is like, you got to get real. Sometimes you got to get raw. You got to get things off your chest. You got to be transparent and vulnerable. You know, my first episode on this show was me being vulnerable. I can't help it. It's just how I'm wired. I love that about you. I'm going to talk.
I'll get into some deep stuff and I'll share some tears. But, you know, I'm comforted by the shortest verse in the Bible, Jesus web. So that gives me full authority to say it's okay to let out shed some tears sometimes. Passion projects coming up. I've got a lot of them. You know, it's exciting. We've got several that are about to go into production. You know, we're wrapping up the rest of the films for this year.
We've got a project that goes in June that we're doing with Amazon called Sears Oil. It's a fantastic story. Then my buddy, Si, is directing. I've got a couple of friends that are starring in it. So Zachary Levi is going to be back in that one. And then Soniko Martin Green, her husband, Kinric, man, these two individuals, I'm fired up about them. But she's the star of Star Trek Discovery. And she's a believer and has been looking for the right opportunity to explore expressing what she believes.
And so, Sarah's Oil is a period drama. It takes place in Oklahoma about the first black millionaire in the history of the country. It's a little girl named Sarah that they found oil in her land. And her fighting to keep it as the community tried to take it away. That's a beautiful story. So that one goes in production in June. It's going to be great. And then I've got three that I'm developing to direct. One of those being fearless. The Navy SEAL story that is a passion project that I'm chasing.
So Jason Hall that wrote Americans, snipers writing the script and trying to get that one ready to go. And then I've got to get, I've got a list, a short list of movie stars that I've got to get one of them on board in order to get the budget that I need. So that's me to talk to them. I might, I might, I might, and so that one's exciting.
And then I've got a sequel to a film that I'm really excited about that hopefully are going to production in the fall that not quite ready to announce, but it's going to be exciting. And that one's a passion project and it's going to be huge. So it's going to be really cool. So yeah, we got a bunch of stuff.
And then we're also pitching beloved best selling novel that my buddy is directing that we're pitching around right now that will be announcing shortly that's going to be earth shattering when we announce the news, but not quite ready yet. Yeah, that's exciting stuff. I'm really looking forward to this Navy SEAL story. Yeah. Because we've been talking about it for a while. And I love anything that has, that's war related being a veteran.
It just connects, it connects me that much deeper to our veterans when I, when I hear those stories and I see them on film. So I'm excited for that. I want to thank you for your time, your insights, your story is greatly appreciated. And I'm glad we finally made this happen. And I appreciate you as a brother and love your family and continue success to you, sir. Thanks button. I appreciate you Thomas.
I love that your whole podcast being about intentionality forces me to slow down and be intentional today. So well done. You're doing something right, but thank you, sir. I appreciate you. God bless you. Yeah, man. Thank you guys for checking in. This has been just being intentional with Thomas Harris. Please like, subscribe, follow. And we appreciate you. Thank you. God bless. [Music] [Music]