Act One Podcast
Act One Podcast
Producers Aaron Benward and Cliff Young
Act One Podcast - Episode 38 - Interview with Producers, Aaron Benward and Cliff Young.
Aaron Benward comes to Watershed Motion Pictures by way of the music business where he started his career as one half of the award-winning father/son duo Aaron Jeoffrey. He followed that up as the founding member of the 3 time CMA and ACM nominated duo Blue County. Aaron’s creative skills continue into his acting career where he can be seen recently in the Netflix Original series “The Ranch”, Sony’s “The Song” and City on a Hill’s “Acts of God.” He joined the Watershed team by packaging and negotiating a worldwide distribution deal for The Watershed Short Films Collection.
Cliff Young began his career as a founding member of Caedmon's Call. The band made 16 albums, sold over two million records and toured 48 states over 15 years. Cliff also served on the board of the Dalit Freedom Network, which helps the “untouchables” of India. Cliff began working full time for Second Baptist Church in 2006 as the Media Director. Cliff oversees the worldwide broadcast The Winning Walk and also has produced commercials, documentaries, and short films for the past 11 years.
GOD. FAMILY. FOOTBALL. features the rich, diverse personal stories of Evangel’s players, coaching staff, and the broader Shreveport community, set against the dramatic backdrop of the 2022 Louisiana high school football season. With the perennial high school football powerhouse—14 state championships in the last 20 years—coming off their worst season in school history, redemption is everyone’s goal. Pastor Denny Duron has returned to the head coaching position to lead this talented group of kids, with dreams of playing in college and the NFL, into prominence on the field, while molding them into future leaders off of it. As the team faces struggle and triumph on and off the field, they are united by coach Duron’s formula for success: “God first, family second, and football third.”
GOD. FAMILY. FOOTBALL. hails from Propagate and is executive produced by Ben Silverman, Howard T. Owens, and Drew Buckley. The series was created and executive produced by Aaron Benward of Watershed. Jared Goetz of Ascending Media Group, NFL quarterback Russell Wilson in association with Why Not You Productions and Rob Gehring serve as executive producers. Cliff Young, Cody Bess, Scott Brignac, Chelsea Friedland and Matt Woolsey serve as co-executive producers.
GOD. FAMILY. FOOTBALL. is available to stream beginning September 1st on Amazon’s Freevee channel.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/dqUkf2DikBA?si=uOHPX4bGr-2NlWZc
The Act One Podcast provides insight and inspiration on the business and craft of Hollywood from a Christian perspective.
Look, myself, my partners, we are men of faith. We know the story we want to tell. We are partnering oftentimes with production companies, people on our crew, things that don't necessarily have the same lens, right? So how do we shepherd what we the story that we want to tell? And that is to be as truthful and as honest as possible.
James Duke:This is the Act One Podcast. I'm your host, James Duke. Thanks for listening. Do us a favor, and if you like what you hear, please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. My guests today are producers Aaron Benward and Cliff Young. Both Aaron and Cliff came to prominence in the Christian music scene in the 1990s, and now they are filmmakers. Aaron and Cliff joined forces with filmmakers Scott Brignack and Cody Best to launch their film company Watershed Motion Pictures, which is a collective of forward-thinking filmmakers passionately dedicated to weaving redemptive narratives that inspire change, evoke emotion, and ignite the imagination. Their latest project is the new show God Family Football, a new docuseries that features the rich, diverse personal stories of high school football players, coaching staff, and the broader Shereepport community set against the dramatic backdrop of the 2022 Louisiana high school football season. God Family Football is available to stream beginning September 1st on Amazon's Freevie channel. I really enjoyed my conversation with Aaron and Cliff, and I think you will too. Enjoy. Aaron and Cliff, welcome to the Act One podcast. It's great to have both of you here.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. Thanks, man. I'm excited for what we're gonna see in Act Two and Act Three.
James Duke:That's right. Yeah, yeah. The Act Two and the Act Three podcast. Very exciting. Um by the way, where am I speaking to you guys from? Are you guys are you both in Nashville? Where are you guys from?
SPEAKER_01:I'm in Houston right now. And uh Aaron's in Nashville, I think, right? Are you in Nashville?
SPEAKER_00:I'm in Los Angeles right now.
James Duke:Oh he's in LA. He's in LA with me. Yeah, all right, very cool. Do you do are do you split your time or do you mostly live here? Do you mostly live where are you where do you hang out, Aaron? Mostly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so uh gosh, about 11 years ago, uh my wife and kids and I moved to to Burbank, uh, and we lived in Burbank for 10 years. Uh our kids were in sixth grade, 10th grade, and seniors in high school. Crazy times to take your kids across the but we did it, man. We've been all always kind of an adventure type family, and so we did, and then we recently a year ago moved back to Nashville. So uh my wife and I now are getting ready to celebrate 29 years of being married, and we're empty nesters, and we have a grand, our first grandbaby. And dude, we're just living our best life between Nashville, LA, and Houston.
James Duke:So awesome! Congratulations, by the way, on that. That's awesome. Hey, Clifford, you have you always been a Houston boy?
SPEAKER_01:I have, yeah, I have since I mean I moved here when I was about, I don't know, four or five. So I have always been here. Now I've traveled for a long time, so I I don't feel like I've always been here, but uh uh I have.
James Duke:Now, I there's so obviously there's people who are listening to this podcast and they're like, wait a second, this says that you're talking to Cliff Young and Aaron Benward, and they're gonna recognize these names from from music that they might have listened to, well, at least for me in my college years. So when you say you traveled a lot, Cliff, it's because you were on tour, right? For years with Cademan's Call.
SPEAKER_01:You were the you were the I was one of the I was one of the singers, myself and my wife, uh, who we started the band back in 93. And uh then also there's uh Derek sings as well. And so uh we got a seven of us, so it's a small orchestra, but yeah. Traveled full-time for uh, I don't know, 15 years, something like that.
James Duke:You guys did you tour you toured for 15 years?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Wow, a long, long time.
James Duke:So that's and and for people who don't know you so you now I'm in try, I'm trying to help me clarify this. So I have a solo album of yours, but you started with your dad, is that right?
SPEAKER_00:I did, man, right out of high school. Uh my dad was a gospel singer growing up, and right out of high school, I was like, he's like, That's something we can do with your life. I said, Dad, I want to do what you do. He goes, Oh my gosh, we gotta pray. And so anyway, we he just said, Man, look, why don't we go into college? Um, why don't you come travel with me a little bit, see if you even like being on the road and da-da-da. And so that turned into me singing one song with him in his concerts, turned into you know, making albums together, and we we were we were uh I think the first and only father-son duo in Christian music in most genres to be to be exact, by Aaron Jeffrey. And so uh I was always singing with my dad and wishing I could sing cool music like Cliff and his band.
James Duke:Yeah, for us and you went so then you did it, so then you um did you make a couple of solo albums? Was that yeah?
SPEAKER_00:So um after uh my dad and I made four albums together, and then I had an opportunity to make a solo record, uh, and it came out to a thundering applause of nothing, landed just on its like a dead rat. And um, from that point on after that, I actually had another career. I've had like nine lives, like a cat, man. Uh, I had uh a career in country music, and I signed a record for country music. The duo is called Blue County, one of my close friends. And we had some hits in country music and toured for about five years there. So I've kind of had in the Christian world and in the mainstream world, um, on the music side of things. And you grew up in Nashville? I did. So we moved. Well, I met Cliff when we were eight years old. We started playing basketball uh together uh and became the best of friends and still to this day. And um my dad was actually uh on the staff at a church where that at Cliff's dad's pastors and still pastors called the Second Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. And um, and then my dad got to sign a record deal when I was a freshman in high school, and so we moved to Nashville then, and so then it was Nashville.
James Duke:Yeah, I lived uh my my one little brief connection to you guys is I lived outside of Houston when I was between the ages of six and ten. We lived in Alvin, Alvin, Texas.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alvin and and then right next to Pearland at uh yes, my dad worked in Pareland.
James Duke:A little different, but uh yeah, yeah, a little different. I remember we we would uh uh my dad took us a couple times to um to camp in Galveston on the beach, and um I remember that. Remember spending the night I was a little kid, but uh yeah, I I I I remember Alvin's claim to fame is it's the hometown of Nolan Ryan. That's how everyone in Texas knew it.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, that's true. That's true. And uh a friend of ours just did that uh facing Nolan documentary.
James Duke:I I I really liked it, I watched it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was really good.
James Duke:Yes, it was really good. Um, so yeah, so Cliff, you uh Aaron mentioned it. You so basically both of you guys came from families where both of your fathers were in ministry, yes. Um, and you, Cliff. So your father is a very well-known um pastor, he uh uh second Baptist there in Houston. Right. Uh-huh. And so I just want to kind of start there for both of you guys, and we'll start with you, Cliff. Um oh, what do you tell people today in terms of what it was like to grow up under kind of the Christian microscope of being a pastor's kid at a large church, um, people knowing your dad. Um, what was what was it like growing up? Was it was did faith come to you more naturally or or or you know, a lot of preacher kids talked about, you know, faith, they had to go find their they had to go find faith their own way. Just curious how it was for both of you guys.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, I I uh of course I was baptized and and all of that when I was seven, um, in the church and all of that. But yeah, when when when I uh went off to college, uh that was really when I guess my faith kind of became my own. It wasn't not really until then. I mean, think about all the sermons, all of the Bible lessons, all of everything that I never heard in my life. It wasn't until I got into college really on my own in my dorm room that I really grasped the gospel and it really uh became my own. But look, there's there's growing up the way that I that I did in the finish bowl, as I say, um with everyone watching all that. I I'm sure I have many scars, seen and unseen uh from that. And uh, you know, therapy is great. I recommend it. Uh so yeah, you know, it it I I I don't I didn't know anything different, but yeah, yeah. I mean when you when you leave and you're traveling you know all over the country, you can be on the other side of the world, and you still have that feeling that people are watching you because they know who you are, and they're whatever you you know there's uh some some baggage there. I promise so yeah.
James Duke:How about you, Aaron? Uh you're because your dad obviously it was a pretty you know, I mean, it's one thing to be a pastor, but your dad was a performer. That's a whole other kind of level of scrutiny and people looking and paying attention.
SPEAKER_00:Really interesting you said, James. I mean, because the thing uh just kind of hit me as I'm thinking about it is that word performance. And I think, you know, I could talk a long time about this because of the journey for me in faith, you know. On one hand, the the what I was given fundamentally and learned fundamentally uh in the church, uh I don't man, I I treasure and don't take for granted because it really rooted me in the truth of the word and truth of of what it is, and it's alive and it's it's it's breathing and it's moving amongst us and all the things. However, you know, also the church really, really, I don't know. I shouldn't, I don't know how much credit I should give the church. Being raised in the church, I then took on this kind of identity of okay, I gotta make sure everything looks right, feels right, is right, says right, da-da-da-da-da. When um, and that became a a major identity crisis for me as I continued to grow up. Um, and that felt like value, my value was completely immersed in if I was performing right, if I got it all right and looked right and was successful and all the things. And honestly, James, I wanna it was only about it was through COVID, man, to be quite frank, that I got really, I got right on my face before God said, God, I I I I I want to be honest above all. I want to be integrous above all, which means it doesn't matter what I do, it's a matter of about who I am. I began on this journey of uh of identity and really, really accepting who I am, who I am in God, who I am in Christ specifically. And that's changed everything. And the peace that I that we talk about so often, you know, and quote, peace that passes understanding the whole thing, I found when I surrendered that. And um, so now, man, it's just this beautiful daily journey of giving everything and let letting God take care of it all and just showing up and and giving who I am to the world. That's great.
James Duke:Now, uh, so Aaron, you're you know, you're a dad. Clifford, are you are you are you a dad?
SPEAKER_01:Uh I got five.
James Duke:Okay, so yeah, I'm I'm talking to I'm talking to a couple of experts here.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I would say, yes.
James Duke:What do you guys do do you do things? I mean, of course you do things differently, but I'm curious, what did you take from your fathers in terms of how they raised you as well-known Christians in in certain spaces, at least in Houston, right? To kind of how you guys have raised your kids. Um, was there um were there aspects where you were like, Yeah, I'm not I'm not gonna do that? Or I was you where you were like, no, no, no, this needs to be a part of of how I raise my kids.
SPEAKER_01:Honestly, I I for me, I uh honestly, I think most people do this in some way. And I think I'm my parent has my parent as a reaction probably to the way I was parented. To be honest. And some of that is good and probably some of it is bad. My my my dad is a very is a is a very kind of uh uh you know, type A large he's the equivalent of four people when he's in the room. And uh so roaming uh uh that way is is um you know it's tough in a lot of ways. But my dad, like Aaron just said, I I I mean, I I grew up in the truth and I grew up with uh the the scripture and the knowledge of Christ and very Christ in our home. And that is that's that's really the most important thing, honestly. We talk about a lot of psychobabble and parenting. Uh but I definitely so that's a definitely a good thing. But in my reaction, I think I think probably I'm I'm a very permissive parent. I'm uh pretty relaxed and fun and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, I think I think you know, we all uh if we're honest, take try to take the good things of our parents, um, emphasize those things, and then also look at the things that we maybe that causes trauma, that causes wounds or whatever, because we all do it, we've all done it to our kids. And and hopefully be able to, you know, change that pattern in our life and with our children generationally. Um my dad, man, he was he's he's a creative man, he's he's a he's a feeler. And so what he one of the things that I so thankful for is he was very honest with me in our in our communication about you know being a young, being a teenage and you know, being horny and going through all the things we go through. It wasn't a situation that you let's not talk about that. It was let's dive into that, yeah. And uh consequently, that's been one of the things that you know we how we raised our our kiddos is is the there's nothing off limits, man. You know, let's go, you know, let's do life together.
James Duke:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know. I every day I I I I ask myself, boy, at the end of the day, I go, Well, what can I do to screw up my kids today? I think about what did I do or not do? What can I say or not say, you know? Yes. Um, exactly. So, you know, like I I as long as they can pay their own therapy bill, I guess one day.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. Hey, I'm I rely on my wife for all that. I, you know, yeah, I think she do, I think she's doing a great job.
James Duke:Yes, I think all of our wives are doing great jobs. That's really funny. So I was really excited to talk to you guys today because obviously I have this background as a you know, as a fan of you guys. Like I said, I I remember um I remember hearing bus driver, right? Like my freshman year in college or something, right? Or sophomore year, right? And it was just like, what is this? You know, this is cool, you know. And um so cool. You guys, and you guys did that cover to to to um to Rich Mullins. Anyway, I just right, and um so you know, I've been a fan of you guys, and like I said, I like I said, Aaron, I Aaron, I think I think I could have sworn it was you, but maybe I'm wrong. But I could have sworn I heard I can't on I was my music was shuffling the other day, and I could have sworn I heard a version. Remember that old worship song, Shout to the Lord. Yeah, that was my very sworn that was you. Was that you?
SPEAKER_00:It was my very first relief in the solo artist.
James Duke:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, so obviously I have a this background. I think a lot of people have the background of of uh of you guys as fans and stuff, but you guys have since transitioned from um touring musicians and all and and and singer songwriters, you guys have transitioned into filmmakers, and um the name of your company is Watershed Productions. Is that right?
SPEAKER_01:Watershed Motion Pictures, yeah.
James Duke:Sorry, what sorry, watershed motion pictures. And um, you guys have been uh producing some content. Matter of fact, you have something coming out um soon. Aaron, you want to uh tell people a little bit what that is? It's it's a new docuseries on Amazon.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, man. I'm this is this is uh wow, it's a major passion project. Um basically the backstory is um I've had a mentor since I was 12 years old. Um I'm third I'm I'll be uh 50 in September, so you can do the math. But his name is Denny Duron. He is the the pastor, the chancellor, has been the head football coach of a school called uh Evangel Christian Academy, connected to Shreveport Community Church. Well, I met him at 12 years old, he made a major made a major impact on my life, and since then has been a very vocal part of my life. And um over the years and moving into wanting to tell stories and things, I've always had this in the back of my mind and often talked with Denny about telling the story of Evangel Christian Academy. Well, we were working on kind of but started to develop a scripted version of it because it's pretty unbelievable because they started their football program in 1989, um, borrowing jerseys and and and equipment from a neighboring school in Shreeport, practicing in park and parking lots, and within four years, uh they won a district championship. And by year five, they won their first state championship. And so um they went on to be have have gone on to become just a pedigree program and a powerhouse in all of high school football. Well, it's because of the culture uh that Denny created. And um it was it was 2020. He and I were just catching up. He was retired, he's got uh seven kiddos and I think 13 grandbabies. He and his wife were enjoying uh retirement, and we were just catching up as we often did about once a quarter. It was football season. I said, How's the football team doing? He said, Wow, he said, Aaron, we're first time in our history, we're oh and three to start the season won a game. And I was like, What? What why? He's like, Man, we've we've lost the culture. Uh we're a really young team. I said, Well, what are you gonna do about it? Because I mean they they went on an 85-game home winning streak. I mean, this is the type of football team they've been. That's right. And he said, Man, I'm gonna I'm gonna come out of retirement, I think. And and uh and I said, Are you serious? He goes, Yeah. I said, when? He said, Tomorrow. I went, Wow, can I uh maybe this is the way we're supposed to tell the story because the story is so powerful. Uh, maybe we're supposed to do it in real time. Can I bring some cameras down and see if we can't put together a little sizzle? Uh he said, absolutely. Long story short, we had uh deals from Peacock, close to one from Discovery Plus, and through the process is too no need to go into it all unless you want to. We uh finally signed a deal uh with Freebie, which is the new ad-based platform for Amazon. Uh, and uh this will be their basically their first piece of faith centric content because it's called God Family Football. And we we document the journey of Danny coming back to bring the the program to national prominence and bring the the the culture of God first, family second, and football third uh to the forefront. So we're really, really excited.
James Duke:That sounds great. That sounds that sounds really exciting. So it yeah, it does sound like It just kind of almost out of not necessarily of necessity, but just it just sounds like uh the docusary, the nature of it being a docuseries just kind of developed naturally because he was coming back and it just like, hey, let's do this instead of a scripted version or whatever. What were the challenges that you guys faced in creating a docuseries? I mean, this is obvious obviously, um, you know, a lot of people that are listening to this uh work in the business, so they understand the difference between scripted and unscripted, but you you you have no script, you're you're gonna get a bunch of cameras, you're gonna film a bunch of high schoolers. Um and uh what were some of the you know, what were some maybe the unique challenges that you guys faced as you were trying to craft a narrative, craft a story?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, I will say, like Aaron said, this is Aaron. Aaron came to uh Watershed and I mean he he was he started talking about this almost immediately. I mean, really. And I mean, I mean, we knew about Denny and his relationship to the team and all that stuff. And so this is something he was gonna do something eventually, scripted or unscripted or something with this, like he said. And so uh uh, you know, it's interesting once you and Aaron's Aaron's been way more involved, uh way more involved than than I have. But you know, when when you come in and you're like, hey, Amazon's gonna do it. You're kidding me, it looks great. Oh, we you know uh hired the share one of the guys that did, you know, uh um what you call it. Aaron Help me. Hard knock. And all these different guys are gonna be great. And you're like, man, it's gonna they're gonna get him in town, we're gonna start, season starts, and then bang, here's gonna come this great show. And uh I think Aaron might tell you that it's a little bit more uh a little bit more to it than that.
SPEAKER_00:I'm telling you, look, look, it's been a you know, and it's it's it's it's a good I'll do I'll do I'll do two different uh viewpoints of it. Let's go to the brand, just kind of the how the how to scripted, as we all know, we have we we know what we have to accomplish every day on our schedule. We have an X amount of pages, blah blah blah. And it's it is there, and if you don't get it, you're gonna have to find figure out a way to get it, right? On the unscripted side of things, which is our this is our first foray into that. Um, it is the to me, it is the most um tangible version in storytelling of surrender because you are literally going after and following stories and hoping to discover and believing, of course, life is full of conflict, so we'll find conflict, we'll find it's all about relationships anyway, character, the whole thing. Our way in was this national prominent high school football team. They'd send more division one and NFO players to to to these places out of this little 300-member high school. We know that's our way in, but once we get in, we really hope there's something there compelling, right? So it's this every day of surrender, and and as you do that, you begin to to follow, follow the stories and follow the scenarios. And man, I gotta say, some days you get to the get to the production office and going, oh my gosh, what have we done? Is this uh they've given us X you know X amount of millions of dollars to do this? How we you know, and then then again, it happens every single time. And um, so that was one of the biggest things. But I think ultimately this is the this is a testament and a testimony and a story, James, for your listeners, of miracle of the miraculous. Here's what I mean. Nowhere, I get I get um the mandates about quarterly from our agency as far as what the networks are looking for, and of course, as filmmakers and people that are trying to create content, we're going, okay, what what are some things? How can we, how can what are the right pitches? Nowhere ever have I seen on a mandate high school football, faith-based docuseries needed, wanted, anywhere. And it really came down to, and we stayed with it, man, for over two years. And I gotta give him credit, I'm gonna make sure he listens to this to Jared Getz. Jared Getz was a was a former uh president of uh television for Lionsgate. He went for many years and did Disney before that. He now has his own company called Ascending Media, and he got a hold of our sizzle and literally said he what I mean. He was basically a representation to uh to everyone. And without him, honestly continuing to stay with it. We had gone to free, we had gone to IMDB, which now is freebie originally, and they had passed. He came back to them, they had dinner. He goes, I have dinner again. This is a year and something later, a year and a half later. I've dinner with them tonight. I said, Man, go one more time with God family football. And that was the that was the the breakthrough that night at dinner, they said, you know what, we think we missed it, and there we are.
James Duke:That's awesome. I love hearing those kind of stories. It's great. One of the things I think that a lot of people don't get about this business is how important, and you know, I don't mean to maybe they do, but but but the importance of relationships, building relationships and connections with people who who advocate for you when whether you're in the room or not in the room. And so, like when you build relationships with like with like this executive and these other producers and people like that who know how to come in and advocate for you and for your projects, it makes all the difference in the world. And that all starts with just being authentic, just building relationships with people, just being human with them, just just connecting with other people and such a level where they want to work with you. They they they like the projects you're bringing in because there's I'm sure there's a lot of projects that everyone sees, and but but they're that they might be interested in or at least think are somewhat interesting, but then the people who are making it um uh is the thing that oftentimes puts it over the top. It's like I want to work with that person. I think that person has a unique perspective, they have a unique POV. And so I imagine a docuseries coming in with this kind of topic, like you said, no one's asking for this, but yet you guys saw it, and this guy saw it, and and and now Amazon and Freebie saw it. So um I I love hearing those kind of stories.
SPEAKER_01:What and Aaron's definitely a great example of you know, uh, someone who went in and kind of really had just formed a great relationship with Jared, and uh uh it's it was definitely not just uh hey, here's this thing. Oh, it's great, I'll sell it in a business type thing. I mean, Aaron's done such a great job, and I and and they really do have a uh relationship now, and it's it's it's amazing.
James Duke:And you and so you guys filmed for how long did it take you to film season one?
SPEAKER_00:So we we filmed the entire football season. So we were basically there from August to November.
James Duke:Okay. Yeah. And so and then you then basically you you did you find I guess here's my question. Did you find the show in the edit? Like where do you feel like you found the show?
SPEAKER_00:Um that's a good question. Um we've had we started with a particular uh team initially in post. Um we weren't getting we weren't getting to a place that the network was really feeling like we could get to. It was just a subjective, honestly, a subjective viewpoint of it. Sure. Um of course, then we kind of brought on some a new guy. His name is Matt Matthew Woolsey. He's been for 16 seasons. He basically ran posts for Big Brother and was able to really kind of dive in. And it was, I think it was honestly at the time, you know, people, it's frustrating for people that are there from the beginning and let down and what's all going to happen. But I think, you know, hindsight being 2020 has been a blessing. He had no, he came in without knowing one frame of content that we shot in the field. He came in and then had to assess. So it took him like two or three weeks just to go through hundreds of hours of footage to get his head wrapped around it. He and I had so many different just conversations around it all just so he could wrap it. But once he did, I feel like he had a he had a at a viewpoint and he had a POV back to that, that we didn't have because we're so forced for the trees sometimes. Um he was able to go, dude, this this is this is this is this is a gem, this is amazing. This started pointing out things and really pacing it in a way nothing changed content-wise. So it is what it is. It is a school that puts God first, family second, and football third. And they have created champions because of that formula. That's the show, right? You get to see the lives of these kids. There's a lot of drama, there's a whole thing that happens because they're high school kids. However, it was just a pacing kind of uh version of what we had, what we had filmed that began to step it up and really create something that created a lot more energy, a lot more excitement, a lot better TV, as we all often tell.
James Duke:Yep, yep. Uh I love I love I I really um I'm looking forward to the to seeing the show. I look if if uh what's that network? If Bravo can make you know shows out of people selling real estate and and rich women fighting each other, you know, it's like you can make a show out of anything. And and um, and uh what I think there's wasn't there another high school football show like on Netflix or something?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, was that a few, yeah.
James Duke:Yeah, was that like a comp for you guys? Like when you guys went in, was that were those shows um I don't like I don't even know if those shows were necessarily successful or anything, but um, but when you were pitching it, was that like a comp for you guys?
SPEAKER_00:I think so. I mean, in some respects, it's like look, you know, having a high school football docuseries and nothing new. What is new for us? And what one of the things that Freebie said to us, because I, you know, early on, I'm like, look, this is not a faith-based show. However, it's faith because that's what they used to be create champions and and create kids to believe in themselves more than they thought they ever could. And they go, no, no, no, that's what makes it different. That's why we like it, that's why we want it. So Title Town, I think Title Town is the one you're thinking of in Netflix. You know, that was about a similar, very successful program, I think, in Georgia. Uh, but but you'll see the coach had a very different philosophy, very different. He was degrading, he had a lot of controversy around him, that kind of a thing. Our our our POV, Danny, coach Coach Danny Duran, is all about elevating, encouraging, believing, putting putting priority in this right place. You know, football is not going to be God around here, is what is one of his big quotes. And really raising up them to be young men, that's what he's doing it for. Yeah. Is to create young men rather than you know, just these little boys running around with pads.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Denny's coaching method is almost counter to any coaching method you've ever seen at times. I mean, I mean, there are times where they go, Oh man, he's about to rip that guy's face mask off, and that's when he goes grace and he's calm and and all of that. And there's times when you're like going, oh, this isn't that big deal, and he'll just get all over him. You know, it's uh he just he just uh I don't know, he just has a different way of doing everything, and it really does, and it's driven. I've never seen anyone who takes their faith like he does and uses it both practically and and and like he does. Wouldn't you agree? I mean, I've never seen anyone, I've always said, you know, when you're when you're parenting, don't use God, you know, your parents like I know the Lord doesn't want you to do this, and would would Jesus do that, you know, to their kids, and then you know, then God and you know, then God becomes this like disciplinarian God that sits back and's like, you shouldn't be doing that. But then he is able to use scripture, his faith, the Bible, his relationship with God in just the most unbelievable ways in huddles, pre-game talks, post-game, when they win, when they lose. It's it's actually incredible to watch.
James Duke:That's really that's neat. It is it when you're dealing with a true subject, when you're dealing with a real life person who clearly, Aaron, you have admired for years. I mean, he's a mentor of yours. How do you and how and I'm just you know, how did you guys, because obviously I haven't seen it yet, the audience hasn't seen it yet. How did you guys handle maybe the not so great moments, you know, where someone maybe isn't at their best? And because that makes good television, conflict, and and and so how do you honor the person that you see as a mentor and you want people to appreciate, but at the same time, you know, make portray them in a very authentic real life where real light where maybe they aren't uh at their best 24-7 because they're because they're human.
SPEAKER_00:Show the truth, you know. This is all about the truth. Um, and you know, the one of the things going into this is uh somebody who has such a heart connection, and and he's one of my he is probably my favorite person on the planet with Denny, is I was incredibly uh protective of him. Um not protective of him from the standpoint because there's anything there that I people don't need to see, because he literally is what you see is what you get, and how you see him on screen is exactly how you would see him if you were eating having Mexican food with him. But making sure that because you look, myself, my partners, Cliff, Scott, and Cody, we are men of faith. We know the story we want to tell. We are partnering oftentimes with production companies, people on our crew, things that don't necessarily have the same lens, right? So, how do we shepherd what we the story that we want to tell? And that is to be as truthful and as honest as possible. Now, in the wrong hands, certain shows can become something that they weren't intended to be. In the right hands, they continue to be the thing that they were intended to be. And so, to your point, there is an instance this season where one of the one of their best football players who will be a five-star recruit, he'll be a senior year is coming in this fall. He's already recruited by 20 plus schools, and we'll have more. He had a major, major freakout moment at halftime of a game. I mean, I I was like, is he okay? Like, is he losing his mind? Okay, I think typical Hollywood would have rushed the cameras and stuck it in his face and done that. And I'm not doing this to like pat myself on the back. I'm telling you that to your point of how do you monitor? I I did the opposite. The guys, we're gonna stay away, we're gonna allow this, we're not gonna we're gonna because it could have been detrimental to his future. If college coaches would have seen a crack in his armor or a mental scenario that maybe hasn't been developed fully yet, and maybe been detrimental to his future. So, my point is it's about telling the truth at the same time protecting the integrity of the people and not exposing it and making it bigger and making light of it so that we can it can be a better TV. We already have great TV. We have great TV by showing the truth.
James Duke:I I mean, I just can't help but think about myself, right? And just go, imagine your worst moments in high school are recorded and broadcast for everyone in the world to see. And yeah, I mean, I look, I've watched plenty of reality TV shows where you've, you know, you look, you know who on Survivor who they are casting as the villain. They they know what they're doing, right? They that's kind of how those shows are structured. But I like what you're saying here, because as people of faith, we have to be different. You know, that's one of the things we talk about at Act One a lot, which is how are you different? How are you different? We're supposed to be different. How are you different? And is it is it is it the content that you create, or is it who you are when creating that content?
SPEAKER_00:James, no, no, you know, I don't want this to be be offensive to anyone listening because it's not intended. Cliff and I and our partners don't view our competition as faith-based filmmakers, right? We view our competition with Mark Burnett, with those that are making shows like this at the highest level, or Steven Spielberg Spielberg and making movies at the highest level. Because, you know, we we talk about acknowledgement. I'm sure you have on your podcast that, you know, just because we're people of faith, we we allow ourselves, we allow the the standard of our creation and the standard of our art to be compromised. Going back to the initial thing you said earlier, how do you show real conflict? Well, in our show, we're beep, we're bleeping out F bombs. Not I honestly, I wanted to keep them. The network wanted to bleep them out. Seriously, because these are high school kids that are pursuing a lot of them pursuing God, a lot of them buying into the culture that that who they are in Christ. But okay, so they don't say F-bombs? Of course they say F-bombs. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's a little thing, but um to to your point of the of showing things in a way that's honest and truthful and authentic and still glorifying God.
James Duke:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, look, uh I think all of us know like that a lot of this content that we kind of were talking about, and we have we talked to a lot a lot of people about it, is we just want to we just want people to tell the truth, you know, just tell the truth. And when you put a glossy veneer on everything, like the glossy veneers, you know, work fine on some things, um, but when you put a glossy veneer on everything, that's that's not that's not how real life is, right? Like real and and so that's the question. If everything is a felt board Sunday school lesson, then you know we're not getting to the real heart and the real root of the truth. It's not that's not that it's not that you should never do a felt board Sunday school lesson, it's just that you shouldn't make every single story a felt board Sunday school lesson. You have to have a good perspective on this, yeah. So let's talk a little bit about how did these two, you know, CCM Christian music artists, these two guys that grew up in the church and started doing ministry and are musicians, singer-songwriters, uh touring on the road. How did you guys transition into uh film? When when had you had you always made film and uh or was this a uh a brand new thing for both of you guys? Just uh Cliff, how about we start with you?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I mean, uh basically what happened is uh uh Aaron called me up and he's like, Hey, you want to go to uh you know uh Waffle House and have breakfast? Yeah, and he went over there and he goes, Hey, I think it's time for us to stop doing music and go into film. I go, Okay. And that was it.
SPEAKER_02:It was a straight part of the uh but now, you know, it's interesting.
SPEAKER_01:From so Aaron, I'm not well I'll let Aaron speak for himself, even though you know I may do it better. Um, I uh I was working at uh the church, uh I was touring still some and the church, and um we basically started doing these short films we would do for something we call beach retreat, we take like 5,000 uh you know teenagers and stuff to the beach. You know, they have the service at night and do all that. And so one year we had an idea for us to do like a short film. We we'd you know done some different things here and there, and uh the interesting thing about it was they said don't don't preach in the film, just kind of just tell a story that we can use, that the the speech. The pastor, student pastor, whatever can use uh almost as an illustration, like a parable. And so we did. I got it together, the first film, and that's kind of how it started. And uh we ended, we've made, I think we're maybe about to be on the 11th, maybe, but somewhere in there we called Aaron because Aaron got the film through a totally different way, and he was living in LA. So I called Aaron just to watch the the films and see what he thought. And I don't know, now we can transition to Aaron's side of it.
SPEAKER_00:So my uh so back when I was in Christian music, um, my my wife and my son, Luke Benward, who's now gonna be 28, he was five years old. My wife's an actress, she was hosting a show on CMT, she's an acting coach now. Um, and she got a call from her agent in Nashville to say, Hey, he was in kindergarten. Hey, they're looking for a five-year-old to play Mel Gibson's son in a movie called We Were Soldiers are gonna be shooting in Fort Benny. Do you think your son would do like an audition? She goes, I don't know. He's in kindergarten right now, but I'll take him. Long story short, he got the role. That began his career in as an actor and has been still to this day. And so everything from Walmart movies like Because of Win Dixie and How to Eat Fried Worms to multiple Disney Channel films to Dear Johnny played the autistic son of uh with Chane Tatum. And the guy, my son has had an incredibly illustrious career. He actually leaves today for another movie in Virginia. But because of that, I would come in and off tour to where they were on location, whether it was Spokane or Austin or or or LA or whatever. And I just, you know, when I would come off tour, it was the you know, the father of the child actor, and but he's a musician and da-da-da-da. And I would talk, I would chat with producers and kind of watch the process. And you know, knowing that the artist journey is a short-lived oftentimes, I was thinking, you know, I've always been one who's very interested in tour budgets and sponsorships for the tours and merchandise and more than just the writing the songs and being the singer. And I'm like, man, this is the same thing in a different medium where I'm able to be creative, able to have kind of do the A plus B equals C side of my brain as well. But really, it looks as if it's really based upon relationships because I watched producers and I watched them with directors and I watched them how they navigated certain things. And anyway, long story short, I was like, man, I think maybe one day I that's something that my skill sets would would really really work well with. And long story short, I had started kind of we moved to LA. I was still, I had I still and still in the music business in certain in certain ways from and started the first project with a friend of mine, a movie that actually we shot about three and a half years ago, finally. But through that, is when Cliff called me and said, Hey man, we got these short films, we watch them. And I was thinking to myself, oh my gosh, there's no how am I gonna tell my buddy, you know, these films are really bad without even watching them. And so I drug my feet and finally, like three months later, he goes, dude, sit down right now. I want you to watch the first 90 seconds of this particular movie called The Assignment. I did, and I was like, Whoa! Like, you guys know what you're doing. The the production quality was incredible, they were all local actors, their budgets of like 30 grand, no money. And I'm like, who's doing this? So, long story short, he told me I flew to Houston, I sat with Cliff, Scott Brignack, and Cody Bess, who the four of us now make up watershow motion pictures, and we started dreaming. And I turned to Scott Brignack, who has so far written and directed our our our features and was doing the shorts. I said, What do you want to do? And he said, I want to make feature films. I said, Do you have an idea? He said, I do. It's called Playing God. It's a con movie, small time con. I said, Have you written anything yet? No. So we speak. I said, Cliff, I turned to Cliff and I said, Cliff, God has afforded you so many relationships when it comes to people that have kingdom hearts and kingdom pockets. And do you know anybody who might want to fund a movie? He said, probably. He calls he calls one person. The first person he called agreed to fund our first project called Playing God, which is now in Hulu. Um, my son's one of the leads, Michael McKeon is one of the leads. Um, Alan Tudik. It's a great, great little movie, con movie. And I'll let Cliffix kind of explain it. But that's what we we began with, man. And we be now, and that has then turned into we have a multi multi-uh project slate of things, God Family Football being one that's our first time to sell to a network. We have another YA movie starring Jordan Fisher that we're going to be going out with in this summer, um, and multiple other projects in development. And it just started with guys getting together, like-minded, like-hearted, desiring to do something different, and really trusting God to open the door to make it happen. And um, it's really it sounds simple, but it really is.
James Duke:Yeah, yeah, that that is that sounds like it's so easy peasy, everyone. Just go find yourself a cliff young who can get some money, find you a Scott Brigand who can write and direct everything. You got it, you got it, baby. You got no, no, no. I mean, honestly, though, I love the idea of you guys coming together. I mean, man, it makes all the difference to the world. This is something I I always preach, always preach to at Act One about, which is find your tribe, find the people that you want to do this together with because you it's so hard. The last thing you want to do is do it alone. And I love the fact that you guys found each other and working together. It's that's that's uh it's fantastic. I I you know, I'm curious because of your backgrounds in music, what what what have you guys found that is, if at all, um, is translatable between the two industries? Uh, what skill sets or issues or whatever that you guys um had in the uh music business uh that you have found has come to either help you or hurt you or benefit you in some way as you transitioned into the film business?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, I think look, there there are definitely similarities there and and with storytelling and everything like that. But I know that every time we're having a meeting and we're discussing something or especially talking about marketing or sell something, Aaron and I always, you know, or I don't know if Aaron and I are trying to relate to each other so we understand, or whatever, we always bring up music something. I mean, it's like back in when we did this in music and we're trying to put whatever on the and then they're always like, okay, listen, this is not music. Doesn't it probably, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I promise it does. I promise we'll get there. And so yeah, I think we might try to relate music, the music industry to it a little bit too much. Um at times, you know, I'm Aaron and I can be like, well, back in back in '96. But no, you know what's interesting, and I've talked to Scott about this recently. Uh, my band Cadens, we just did a 25th anniversary of our first national release record. And um we went to uh we did like a Kickstarter thing and re-recorded the record uh last year in Nashville. And we just uh went and did two shows at the Ryman uh in Nashville, which is like you know the original Grand Old Opera or whatever. And and um it was it was fun, it was great as nostalgic. Uh not we're not I'm not planning on touring anymore or anything like that.
James Duke:You're not gonna make any announcement? This is this is not using our podcast.
SPEAKER_01:I still sore from those two shows, just from standing up and playing the guitar and singing, but um just from standing up and playing. Yeah, but I was telling Scott because uh Scott and the guys actually filmed, we're doing kind of a documentary making of the record and all that. So, Scott, our you know, writer director with Watershed, I was talking, I was like, you know, it's interesting because uh myself and my wife, and then a guy named Aaron Tate, who's a songwriter, wrote all the songs with us and all that, he had an amazing way of writing. And he had an amazing way of how do I even say this? His perspective, the way he came around to the crux or the meaning of the whatever of songs was such a roundabout way, and it was so just kind of in the back door, like you didn't realize, oh, that's what they're saying. Something that it may be a song where the chorus was seemingly uh negative. A great example. The first uh lyric and song that we ever worked on uh was when I was in college, and the the chorus is everything I do is not enough for you, everything I do is not enough for you. I know that song.
SPEAKER_02:I know that song.
SPEAKER_01:And so that it sounds like it's like nothing I can do to you know please you, everything I do is not enough for you. But the whole song's about grace and relationship with God, and how there's nothing we can do that is that is good enough, and nothing we do that's bad enough to thwart his plan and his mercy and his grace. And such an incredible way of coming about writing that. All of his songs, his lyrics had that in it. And so Scott is the exact same way as a storyteller. And I know that that is what attracted uh uh me to Scott creatively was when he would go about doing something, it was just in that you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh you think he's gonna write a story about somebody running away from home, and he ends up being the exact opposite, and you didn't realize until the end that he'd actually run away from home. You know, I mean just incredible things like that to where you're uh it takes you a while. Almost for lack of a better way of saying for me, I uh it's almost like a uh, you know, Tarantino-esque kind of pulp fiction world where where you don't really realize what's going on until a certain point, certain moment. He had a he has a great way of writing twists that really, you know, really, really hit you where you are in a great way. And um I don't know, I just love the way he writes stories and tells stories. And uh I think that's really the main thing that I was like, man, this is very much like the way I felt when Caitlin started. And um that's I don't know, that's that's my side of it as far as how I apply that music. Now there's there's marketing and there's all the different things that are similar and and and all of that. But uh as far as that goes, that was to me is like, man, he's like a songwriter, and these these films are like you know, songs, and it's just incredible to craft them and to work on them and to see where they go and to see how people respond to them. And that's the you know, the biggest thing.
James Duke:Well, and I cannot and I can only imagine too. I mean, as a performer, when you tour, when you tour songs for all those years, you know, I'm sure, you know, at this point, probably for the most part, what parts of what songs are gonna hit the audience in a particular way. When are they gonna when are they gonna stand and cheer? When are they gonna raise their hands and work, you know, whatever. Like you probably know, and that that's something too that when it comes to film is knowing your audience and knowing what works. Like, we used to have a um act one faculty that used to use the Beatles to teach screenwriting, and her whole point was um how the Beatles got their start were in a bunch of rowdy British pubs, yeah. And they they if so, if you all the early Beatles stuff starts with you know, downbeat boom, and they get right into it because they learn that if they took too long, they people start all the drunks would start throwing things at them so and so they had to get right into you know, can't pay me right there to get right into it right away, and that's kind of what led to their early popularity and things like that was that their their music was so right away, you you're right into the song, and um, and in a sense, as screenwriters, it's like get me into the story right away, get me into you know, get me to that inciting incident as quickly as possible. Help me, you know, capture that audience's attention, that opening seek that opening sequence. Like, how how is it how is it immediately pulling someone into a new world or a new adventure or whatever? And and as and I'm just assuming as a musician that has served you guys well. I mean, would you say that, Aaron?
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I mean, I think part of uh part of understanding uh what will what you hope will work. I'm gonna of course we never know exactly what's gonna work until it does, but what you hope is that um I think I think one of the things that in this I love being partners with uh my three partners. Um Cliff, his understanding of the big pic of a bigger picture um scenario creatively, um, as well as understanding the nuance of what we're trying to do as a as a company and what the stories we're telling is amazing. Scott, to Cliff's point he just made is is absolutely simpatico with that and is tirelessly pursuing uh how to have those types of parable and nature stories that and playing God is a prime example, and we should talk about that in a second. How we did that, and Cliff can speak to that really well. But I think thirdly, when probably I call our MVP is is our our last partner, Cody Bess. Cody is our DP, he also uh edits everything with Scott. The guy if he was in Hollywood, would be one of the biggest DPs on the planet. He is a his eyes insane, his his creative um breadth of work is unbelievable from high, high fashion for photography in Italy and all the high fashion stuff all the way down to the most minimalist lighting to create most beautiful images and motion picture. He's got it all and and he understands intricacies of story character. So we have this kind of model where we do the way the way we develop our projects is very much the heavy lifting, the pen to the paper, Scott, so far, because we haven't done anything outside of him when it comes to writing. But the collective is 25% equal share, equal weight, equal voice, equal inspiration. And we believe that as we sharpen, we get to the best thing that we can possibly do for this particular picture. And you know, that's how it works in songwriting, you know. Sure, you have those enigmas who write everything by themselves, but more times than not, you got you're in the room trying to create magic in three in three minutes on tape, and it really takes the give, the the yin and the yang, the give and the go. And sometimes it could be one little story that takes you to the the hook of the song that has nothing to do with what you just said, but it takes you there. Similarly, with with creating content on screen, is it it's it's all about the process and the journey to get to the ultimate story.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's it's interesting. Yeah, I mean, uh uh we were very collaborative, and Scott is very much like that. I mean, Scott will come in and he'll have written uh, you know, uh uh first, I don't know, the first 30 minutes of a film or or whatever it might be, or the first episode of something, and he comes in and literally will look at it. Aaron or myself or Cody might go, Holly, I don't know, I don't like this at all. That is not the right direction. No way that's gonna work. And he'll just go back and go, okay. Well, let me, I mean, not that we don't have these big discussions, we go, yeah, but whatever. And then the people are kind of agreeing, ah, it's just not working. I'll go back and rewrite it. I mean, it's it's just, you know, it's it's it's it's fun. It's it's really fun. I couldn't sit down and write a script to save my life. I can't even can't focus for that long.
James Duke:But taking notes. Taking notes is a sign of a being able to take notes is a sign of a good writer. That's one of the first things that we we've learned is that you gotta be able to take notes. And um that that's a that's a really important attribute. If you want to be a successful writer, you gotta be able to take, gotta be able to take the notes. You gotta be able to figure out how to make it work. Um, Cliff, the uh Aaron's mentioned a couple of times, you guys' first feature film um uh playing God. It's on it's available on Hulu, is that right?
SPEAKER_01:It is available on Hulu or anywhere where you can uh you can get on Hulu if you already have Hulu, it's on there. Uh, but if not, you can obviously you can uh rent it uh or buy it, whatever. Um pretty much anywhere.
James Duke:Yeah, tell the audience a little bit about how that film came to be and um and and kind of what the film's about a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:Well, again, kind of what I was talking about earlier about writing in the different way of writing. The whole idea was it started out. Uh we were gonna do kind of more of a shorter, a shorter film specifically for uh our retreat that we're talking about. And it was the idea was uh four people, and I guess at the time it was three people um basically uh argue the point of the existence of God as that all started, but none of them believe in God or relationship with God themselves. So the whole idea was they're doing this con and they were trying to con this rich guy and it's uh um brother sister con team. They recruit their mentor, their old crime uh mentor in crime is uh Michael McKeon. And uh they um they then uh go in to try to basically this guy's searching for why his daughter died, and uh the the millionaire is going up and they're trying to take advantage of that and use that to uh basically rob him. And he's searching around trying to find who is God, going to get like take a ayahuasca, and he's traveling all over the world. He's you know, different different religions and different things. And so they're basically setting out to pretend that uh to play God, basically, and to uh basically, you know, trick him out of his money, not him out of his money. And so anyway, started this whole thing. We're like, so you have these people that are well, we'll call them godless people, just for sake of ease, these godless people, these criminals who are gonna try to pretend to be God to this person who is seeking uh who God is. And so it's this very interesting way of trying to this kind of like apologetic kind of world that we got into, uh, told by people who were atheists or agnostic at best. And so they got to go in and research and figure out who's God, who wants, you know, and then you end up one of the big lines in it is we don't need to give him uh uh the God of the Bible, the God of Oprah, the God of whatever. We just give him need to give him the God that he wants. And so that kind of sets him off on this journey. And so there's just some great stuff like that where they end up talking about dying and why why bad things happen to good people and why his daughter died and all that. Now it's interesting when you walk out of this movie, uh when you watch this movie, we we literally have we tested this movie a lot in LA all over the place. Austin, different places, all over. And there would be a questionnaire, of course, if you've been to a testing of film before. And there'd be a questionnaire. Most of some logical filmmakers, some are not. And they would tell us something almost a hundred percent of the time. The person on the end would say, I don't believe in God because of da-da-da-da-da-da. Or someone would say, I am a person of faith. And this was a movie that really spoke to me because I can tell that this is a movie that people that were atheist, agnostic, or whatever else, they did had no idea any clue that we were people of faith at all. Um, but yet they always said something about how what they thought about God and what is God, who is God to them. And the people of faith that would go, yeah, we can tell this is a faith movie. I mean, it it's it's uh it was a very interesting. It was almost 100% across the board. And um so I you know it's great. I don't think it's a a perfect film, but I I don't it's it's a fun journey. It's it's uh it's it's definitely a con movie has that oceans 11 thing in there, but it's also very dramatic, very um uh uh uh there's some very hard-hitting places and very tough places to watch. And it's I don't know. I think it's a I think it's a good first go at a feature.
James Duke:And is it and did you guys shoot it? Did you shoot it like right before COVID, like before the pandemic? Or we shot it. When did we shoot it? 2017? 17 or 18, yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. So it was a couple years before. Okay. And and uh what uh you know, Aaron said you, you know, you went out and you raised the money or whatever. What was that like scaling up from short films up to a feature film? What were some maybe some challenges you guys experienced that you weren't expecting? I asked these kind of I asked the I asked the challenge question a lot because I always say that I think people learn more from valleys than from from mountaintops. And everyone loves to talk about mountaintops. And I'm like, but tell me about the valleys because I think that there's uh there's so that's where most of the lessons are learned. So, like in terms of just the maybe some of the struggles or issues that you guys had, what were what what what kind of takeaways do you have?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, for for me, I would say the it was actually tough. We definitely made some mistakes. I mean, we definitely, I mean, I know Aaron would say this 100%, and that I would as well. There are definitely things that we spent money on that we did not need to spend money on. And there were uh things that we should have spent money on that we didn't spend money on. You know, and you know, it it's uh I and I, you know, funny, when we go into a when we go into about to go into a film, I'm filming a short film right now in Houston for the Beach Ree thing and working on it, and um, you know, Aaron or I or whoever kind of like to we feel like we're in charge or we can we have a handle on things and we like to treat people a certain way. And because there was what 50 something people on set at all times, not even including cast, I think, or playing God. Um you know, I don't even know what to say. Like here I am. I'm I'm one of the guys who created this film. I'm sitting there around all of these film crew that done all these movies all over the world and country and everything. I'm kind of going, okay, I guess I'm just kind of along for the ride here, you know. And so there are a lot of things like I don't know, the the the hierarchy in filmmaking bothers me so badly. Just the whole, you know, one of the PAs would sit in the in one of the actors' chairs just for a second to get a photo of themselves, and then one of the you know, older PAs that have been around longer, or one of the you know, co-directors, people, whatever would go around and be like, hey, you know, you can't sit there, you can't sit there, you know, that kind of stuff. And I'm like, that's bull crap, I ain't doing that. So I'm like, next time we do that, we're treating everybody the same. No, I understand you have actors come in, you know. We have big time actors come in that you know are used to being treated a certain way and they have certain things, and that's fine. I get it. Uh and that's that's a different story. But when it comes to the crew and all that, we ain't we're not doing that. You don't sit there, you don't sit, you're not supposed to go in there. Uh that ain't happening. So we we uh everyone's a everyone's uh in a family, and they're oh, we're all a team from the person who gets coffee to the to the director to the whoever.
James Duke:So I love it, I love it. Spoken like a man who toured in a band for 15 years.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
James Duke:Everybody, no, you're not you're not the only one that gets the coffee. We all get the coffee.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right, exactly.
James Duke:No, that's that's you know, that's so fascinating too, because you're right that that Hollywood is built on all these different hierarchical systems, and some are necessary because they're they they're they're about production flow, they're about they're about trying to get you know expediting process, but then so many other of them, it's just ego, it's just about and and money and right and and uh all that kind of stuff. And and yes, that's once again, how are we different? You gotta ask that question, you gotta answer that question. Right. How are we different?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I think you know, but coming from the actor's perspective, I'll say this being a musician for so long, uh you know, we used to say, I can't believe these people have all these writers and contracts, and they have to have what vegetables and who meets, and they have to stay hot. Well, then after we had toured for about four years independently, and we said, give us whatever you want. So we had Subway for lunch every day, and we had pizza for dinner every day for four years. We finally realized, okay, we get it. Maybe we need to have some things here. And so look, when I, you know, when we were picked up at the airport or if we're to fly data, or we're we go into a place, you know, yes, we would like to have things pseudo-familiar, know where we're going, have the green room, have a place we eat. I get it. And so actors are a different story. I don't go in there and going, oh, actors are a bunch of you know jerks and all that. It's not that at all. I mean, it it's they need some familiarity. They knew Aaron knows as well as anyone does with Luke. Um, but and we want to take care of the actors, but at the same time, I mean, when it comes to the crew and the the people and the directors and all that, I mean, I can't I can't stand the hierarchy and then the the egos, I can't stand it.
James Duke:I mean, it's why I banned um it's why I banned pizza from all my film sets. I mean, it's I I love pizza, lots of people love pizza. But if you're a crew member going from show to show and and all they're doing is shoving, you know, cheap pizza down your throat, it's like, no, give these crew guys something good to eat, give them something good, give them something healthy. Don't like it's like it's not like pizza's wrong or bad, it's that that no, I'm not gonna be a set where they're gonna that gaffer's gonna come in and be like, What? You're giving me pizza, you know, kind of thing. I don't want to eat well, you know. Yeah, of course. So, Aaron, you you know, your son stars in the film. He's one of the one of the actors that stars in the film. Um, what was it like working? Was that the first time you produced a movie that your son starred in? What what's what what is that like to to work with your son uh at that level? It's got it's gotta be fun, but it's also there's gotta be other parts of it maybe not so fun. I don't know, maybe maybe for you, but maybe for him.
SPEAKER_00:Man, thanks for asking that question. I it was uh it was amazing, it was a dream come true, you know. Continuing the kind of the legacy we have on the in the in the Benward side of me working with my father and not him working with with me. Um the the the the experience was uh you know, you have to ask him for his take, but I think he would say it was enjoyable. It was incredibly collaborative. And you know, as a as a father, there's no greater joy than to watch your your children do what they love and what what they're what they've been created to do. And so to be able to be there firsthand and watch him and his process. And obviously, as he's grown into a young man, um from five years old to now the time when he shot a movie, I think he was 24, 25 years old, 24, 25 years old. Um, and to see him and his processes and see him as an artist, uh, as a young man. Um taking, you know, how he dealt with our director, you know, uh for me to step, step back and allow him, whether he was frustrated with certain things or he was over the top about certain things or he needed other things, to not to allow that to happen, that that transaction, that relationship to develop a couple of times was hard, to be honest. Um, because he he got frustrated a few times that were pretty big frustrations. But allowing him and the director to to really work through that created an incredible uh, I think trust ultimately through it all between the two of them that you'll that you'll see on screen. Um, and he he learned through it, you know, and I think I think Scott learned through it as well. And instead of inserting myself in there to make sure it was all okay, allowing that tension that then created you know uh even stronger performance, I think.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and Luke had been Luke had been in a lot of big uh uh sets like that and everything, way bigger than that, and Scott never had actually. So I think it was a learning experience for Scott.
James Duke:Yeah, that's what I'm curious what Scott would say, like that. And you know, even though you're friends and partners, there's an I'm sure there's some level of intimidation and maybe worry or anxiety that I've got dad on this shoulder as my producer, and and I'm trying to trying to direct his son, like you said, on a big film set that maybe I haven't been at.
SPEAKER_01:So um and and uh Aaron's oldest daughter was a scripty.
James Duke:Yeah, complete control, Bunward had every aspect of production under complete control. Uh that's funny. She's like feeding new lines to a yes, totally, man.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's true, she really was. Yes.
James Duke:Wow, you guys. Sounds like a lot of great stuff. Um, I think the audience uh is really gonna get a kick out of uh if they haven't found playing God already, and and then and of course, um God family football and all these other projects. So congratulations, thanks so much. This has been uh just a fantastic conversation.
SPEAKER_01:And I will say one thing too. I'm gonna say, and I'm thinking about Aaron on this as much more than anyone is that uh I will say this that it takes serious hard work to be in this world in this business. And you know, Aaron, for one, works his tail off all the time. And he it's constant, constant, constant. It it is it is not a thing where it's like, ah man, we're just gonna go and make this movie, and you know, we're gonna, you know, have a you know, an altar call at the end, and men's gonna be a great movie, and we're gonna get this, you know, we're gonna get this actor who used to be really good and famous, get him in there, and boom, there's our movie. No, it to make good film and to make great films, it takes some serious, serious work and serious dedication and serious perseverance. And uh we're we're we we're learning that, we have learned that, uh, but I will say that we we we do uh work hard at what we do.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. James, I was gonna ask you a question before before we go.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Someone who has been doing this in Act One and very connected to the industry and the creatives and people like ourselves, what would you say to us as we get off of this? What would you tell us? What would you encourage us with or suggest to us or challenge us with? Or what do you feel is needed right now?
James Duke:Uh I mean, that's a boy, that's a great question. I and that's a whole we could do a whole, we record a whole other podcast on that. Um you know, one of the things that I think that I'm impressed with you guys on is a little bit kind of what Cliff touched on there is there's a there's a level of humility that you have to have in working in this business where you have to go, look, I just have to keep trying. Things are not going to work out. No's almost never mean no. They they in this context, they just mean not right now. And you have, and it's so hard to train your brain to think when you have that meeting, when you have that pitch meeting, when you meet with that producer, when you meet with that financier, potential whatever, and you get a no to retrain your brain to be like, no, it really just means not right now. And um uh perseverance is something that is woefully underappreciated. But every single person that I know that has made any kind of mark in this business has done it over years and years of just hard work, of just stick to it and just staying in there and just trying to get stuff done. And um, and I think you guys are doing that. And I would just say, I think more than anything, you just have to keep going. And uh even when you taste a little bit of success, it's it's not like all of a sudden the ball, the the boulder starts rolling down the hill. It's just like it's like, oh, there's a larger hill now that's even steeper, and I gotta push the boulder even even even harder. And and that is kind of, I think, in the end, Aaron, to your question, man. My my hope and my prayer and my blessing for you guys is that you would dig your heels in and just push harder, push harder. So I don't know if that's kind of what you were behind, but that would be my thanks for uh stick to it.
SPEAKER_01:Did you coin that stick to it?
James Duke:Yeah, that's right. That's a Jimmy.
SPEAKER_01:I like that.
James Duke:I like that. Hey, listen, I love you guys, I appreciate you guys. This has been fantastic. I always like to close our podcast by praying for our guests. Would you allow me to do that? Absolutely. Uh Heavenly Father, we just want to stop and um just thank you for who you are, and just thank you for what you're doing in the lives of so many people around uh around the world. I especially want to thank you for the work uh that you are doing in the lives of of Aaron and Cliff and um God, uh not only in them, but in their families and and just uh through the work that they're accomplishing. God, I just I just pray that you would continue to work in them and through them, that you would continue to uh uh fill them with your creativity and your inspiration. Uh God, I pray you would continue to fill them with your stick to it. Um God, that they would uh that they would persevere, that they would persevere um through all the different challenges that come our ways. And God, I pray that you would just bless them. I pray a blessing upon all their endeavors, I pray a blessing upon their families, their children, their marriages, uh, and of course their work, God. And um we trust you in all of these things uh because you are a good God. And uh we love you. We pray this in Jesus' name and your promises we stand. Amen. Thank you for listening to the Act One podcast, celebrating over 20 years as the premier training program for Christians in Hollywood. Act One is a Christian community of entertainment industry professionals who train and equip storytellers to create works of truth, goodness, and beauty. The Act One program is a division of Master Media International. To financially support the mission of Act One or to learn more about our programs, visit us online at Act One Program dot com. And to learn more about the work of Master Media, go to MasterMedia.com.