Engaging Children in a Digital Age

Matt: 00:00:00

All right.

Matt: 00:00:01

Welcome back to another episode of Faith and Family Filmmakers Podcast.

Matt: 00:00:06

Um, as the announcer said, I am Matt and I am really excited today to be joined by Nathan and D'Lytha Myers.

Matt: 00:00:14

Did I pronounce your name, correctly?

Matt: 00:00:15

D'Lytha.

Matt: 00:00:15

D'Lytha: You did.

Matt: 00:00:16

Thank

Matt: 00:00:17

It's such a lovely name.

Matt: 00:00:18

D'Lytha.

Matt: 00:00:19

Hey there, D'Lytha.

Matt: 00:00:19

Eha.

Matt: 00:00:20

And you too,

Matt: 00:00:21

Nathan.

Matt: 00:00:21

You're here as well.

Nathan: 00:00:22

Yeah.

Nathan: 00:00:22

Yeah.

Nathan: 00:00:23

I, you know, chopped liver.

Matt: 00:00:25

So you guys are, um, you guys have quite a background in filmmaking.

Matt: 00:00:29

I'm gonna go a little bit into your bios just so people know who you are and what you do.

Matt: 00:00:33

Uh, and then I'm gonna get into what you're doing, which as a dad, I'm very, very excited to talk to you guys.

Matt: 00:00:38

Usually I'm talking to people as just another filmmaker, but today I'm, I get to talk to you guys in my role as.

Matt: 00:00:44

Father of three.

Matt: 00:00:45

So I love what you're doing.

Matt: 00:00:47

So,

Matt: 00:00:47

uh, deli that you're a seasoned stage and screen actress, producer, and probably most importantly, homeschool mom of two.

Matt: 00:00:55

Uh, you're a creator and producer of the award-winning musical feature film, aria Appleton Shines, which I saw the trailer earlier.

Matt: 00:01:02

Very, very interesting stuff.

Matt: 00:01:04

You serve as director of Fort Worth Actors Studio, I could go into, you have quite a background, a, a very, very impressive, uh, pedigree.

Matt: 00:01:13

I see that you are in Man of La Mancho, one of my favorite all time musicals.

Matt: 00:01:17

Did you play Al Danza?

Matt: 00:01:18

I.

Matt: 00:01:18

D'Lytha: I was, I

Matt: 00:01:20

You were the niece.

Matt: 00:01:21

Okay.

Matt: 00:01:22

I, I got to be in that one years and years ago.

Matt: 00:01:24

And then Nathan, you were your husband.

Matt: 00:01:26

You're an award-winning filmmaker, actor and production designer, which I'm excited to talk to you in the next episode about your work in the production design.

Matt: 00:01:34

'cause as a director, I don't think most people understand that a director's best friend is the production designer and all that you do.

Matt: 00:01:41

That's kind of one part of filmmaking that we as directors get to step in and just go, wow, this is amazing what you guys have done for us.

Matt: 00:01:47

So.

Matt: 00:01:47

But you've also done many, many other things.

Matt: 00:01:49

You've served as lead designer for, uh, Capernaum Studios, like you said, featured in the chosen, uh, in seasons one and three.

Matt: 00:01:56

You've been a production designer for a matter of time, which we know starred Sean Austin, all kind of things you guys have done in film.

Matt: 00:02:02

But what I wanna talk to you guys today about is how are you guys are approaching filmmaking for the, purpose of doing good for our children.

Nathan: 00:02:10

That's a, it's a big subject, right?

Nathan: 00:02:13

And there's not very many people out there approaching it with any sort of confidence or boldness.

Nathan: 00:02:18

Um, I think a lot of people in Christian film in particular, or faith and family film are, uh, reticent.

Nathan: 00:02:25

I. We can speak from experience.

Nathan: 00:02:27

For instance, during the pandemic Fort Worth Actors studio, had to end all of its children's programming, dealing with parents, and a lot of the issues that were going on at that time in history.

Nathan: 00:02:37

That was a huge challenge.

Nathan: 00:02:38

And I think just dealing with kids in general can be, can be challenging, you know?

Nathan: 00:02:41

And they say when you get into movies.

Nathan: 00:02:44

Never work with kids and animals, right?

Nathan: 00:02:45

And, uh, that's been this old adage for years.

Nathan: 00:02:48

But our first feature that we decided to do well, that's what we did.

Nathan: 00:02:53

We first and foremost said, well, we want to work with kids.

Nathan: 00:02:56

we want to see more material in that space.

Nathan: 00:02:58

Less than 15% of what's produced anywhere in the world is even child appropriate.

Nathan: 00:03:04

Much less does it have a faith message.

Matt: 00:03:06

Mm-hmm.

Nathan: 00:03:07

So there's a far smaller percentage of things that have a message that is God honoring even amongst that 15%.

Nathan: 00:03:13

and you guys are all arguing and talking about and griping about that 15% all the time going, well, we wish there was more stuff for our kids and.

Nathan: 00:03:22

I didn't want to have to have this conversation with my kids, but now I am.

Nathan: 00:03:25

Thank you for, you know, this unexpected propaganda or unexpected ideological positionality that I now have to explain to my kids because it took 'em to the cinema and that's all within that 15%.

Nathan: 00:03:37

And so we have been committed to get involved in that space and try to create good art there.

Nathan: 00:03:44

Art that is Christ-centered art that's stimulating and good tools for parents.

Nathan: 00:03:49

Entertainment, the whole nine yards that's been in our heart.

Matt: 00:03:53

Amen.

Matt: 00:03:53

And thank you for that.

Matt: 00:03:54

Your one sheeter says that Christian parents were watching their influence fade schools, media and tech are shaping their kids more than they are, and that line really, really jumped out to me.

Matt: 00:04:06

It's a fight in my house every single day.

Matt: 00:04:10

To get the kids off the screens, get my 8-year-old son to stop you because you said there's not a lot of content that is produced for kids.

Matt: 00:04:18

Certainly not good content, certainly not God honoring content.

Matt: 00:04:21

But what is out there is just hours and hours and hours of mind numbing content of people just playing video games and my kid hopping on YouTube and watching some guy play Minecraft for three hours.

Matt: 00:04:33

That kind of thing may not be, you know, a.

Matt: 00:04:36

a terrible influence in terms of, it may not be, you know, satanic or, or demonic, but it's mind numbing and it is not God honoring.

Matt: 00:04:44

So how do you compete with that kind of content, which is just kind of like a dopamine overdose with what you do.

Nathan: 00:04:53

I wouldn't say we're necessarily competing with it yet.

Nathan: 00:04:56

We do as parents though, have to battle that every single day.

Nathan: 00:04:59

We have a 12-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son, and both of them deal with it in their own ways and, uh, we have boundaries and protocols and house rules and I. All the things that would be advisable, you know, dealing with that kind of thing, so on.

Nathan: 00:05:15

We have our own way of dealing with it at home and D'Lytha might be willing to speak to that, but

Nathan: 00:05:20

D'Lytha: Yeah.

Nathan: 00:05:20

Well, you know what's funny is my daughter's now trained.

Nathan: 00:05:23

My son is not, and he is the one where I'm like, what are you watching?

Nathan: 00:05:28

How, how does he even know how to get to these things?

Nathan: 00:05:31

But he does, he knows how to work that phone, work that tablet, and he can find it.

Nathan: 00:05:34

If he should not be watching it, he can find it.

Nathan: 00:05:36

And I don't know how, but he can.

Nathan: 00:05:38

And what we've created is, uh, it's a musical and so it helps break up.

Nathan: 00:05:44

The monotony of just dialogue between amazing people that these kids, you know, they're just so used to like, okay, well that was three minute video.

Nathan: 00:05:52

Let's do the next thing.

Nathan: 00:05:52

Let's do the next thing.

Nathan: 00:05:53

And so we, we break it up with music.

Nathan: 00:05:55

We have animation in the movie from time to time, which helps.

Nathan: 00:05:58

Um, my 3-year-old loves the animation parts.

Nathan: 00:06:00

His favorite.

Nathan: 00:06:01

Aria escapes into her mind if she can't handle a situation.

Nathan: 00:06:05

And so there's lots of like.

Nathan: 00:06:06

Fantasy moments that help break up the monotony of a feature film, which I don't even understand why we have to have this conversation, but thank you TikTok and YouTube.

Nathan: 00:06:16

Mm-hmm.

Nathan: 00:06:16

But yeah, I, so I think we've tackled just that mind, like they're, they're just, ah, that ADD generation.

Nathan: 00:06:23

Yeah, the, the speed at which you have to give them something and, and that's a balance because with kids process rather quickly.

Nathan: 00:06:28

But you know, we don't want to overstimulate kids and participate on that side because studies have found that.

Nathan: 00:06:34

Kids that are, are watching older school tv like Mr. Rogers and things like that, that they don't suffer the dopamine problem.

Nathan: 00:06:43

They don't tend, you know, you take that away from them and they're like, you know, well, I'm good.

Nathan: 00:06:47

Or they finish the episode and they're calm and they move on with their day.

Nathan: 00:06:51

That's not true for the, the quick.

Nathan: 00:06:53

Hit stuff that's going on through YouTube.

Nathan: 00:06:56

So our, our project has a bit of a balance of trying to keep pace with the expectation of a modern viewing audience, but also kinda staying in a kind of methodical thing that kids are captivated by and attracted to.

Nathan: 00:07:10

So we've, measured that to some degree in the edit and in the pacing, and I tried not to fall over the cliff, so to speak, in, in terms of going along.

Nathan: 00:07:19

To get along with the rest of the world and what they're doing.

Nathan: 00:07:22

YouTube also, by the way, uh, statistically right now they say that 60% of kids and teens are getting a hundred percent of what they watch from YouTube.

Nathan: 00:07:33

And so that is crazy.

Nathan: 00:07:35

I mean, if you think about that, statistically, it used to be some of our major movie companies, right, or television.

Nathan: 00:07:41

That's not where they're getting their stuff anymore.

Nathan: 00:07:43

They're getting it through YouTube.

Nathan: 00:07:45

So we are eventually gonna move our project into that space.

Nathan: 00:07:48

Right now it's just marketing videos and there'll be some lyric videos and music and things like that available to kids through those sites.

Nathan: 00:07:55

But, uh, that's kind of a scary statistic when you think about the, quantity of content that they're getting there.

Nathan: 00:08:01

And so we do intend to, I. Move into that space.

Nathan: 00:08:05

I can't believe that there's just very little content being purposefully made for kids and young people for the purpose of giving them something quality to look at or to participate in, in that space.

Nathan: 00:08:17

So, um, it's a challenge.

Nathan: 00:08:18

D'Lytha: Yeah, and I'm also, I hope that parents use our movie as.

Nathan: 00:08:22

A movie night.

Nathan: 00:08:23

Movie.

Nathan: 00:08:23

Right.

Nathan: 00:08:24

Gather with the whole family.

Nathan: 00:08:25

'cause it's funny for even adult men, like they laugh.

Nathan: 00:08:28

It's funny.

Nathan: 00:08:29

So just gather with the whole family and watch it together.

Nathan: 00:08:31

And then we have a, we made a parent and leaders guide, that's got like seven chapters, you know, just one pagers.

Nathan: 00:08:38

That talk about some of the different themes in the movie and give some great talking points.

Nathan: 00:08:42

They get scripture if you wanna dive even deeper into what it means.

Nathan: 00:08:46

And then I created, um, some kids worksheets for like the littles so that they can do something while they listen.

Nathan: 00:08:52

So the parents talk to the older kids.

Nathan: 00:08:54

So it can be a big family discussion just to, you know, process and, and talk about it.

Nathan: 00:08:58

'cause we have themes like cyber bullying, which is.

Nathan: 00:09:01

A big deal in like using technology for bad versus using technology for good.

Nathan: 00:09:06

These are very important things right now that we're all dealing with, and so it's a way to present these things to talk about as a family in a fun way.

Nathan: 00:09:16

There's so much talk about this dangerous technology or the misuse of this.

Nathan: 00:09:20

The conversation right now everywhere is about AI and it's gonna destroy the world.

Nathan: 00:09:24

And I'm like, well, wait, wait, wait.

Nathan: 00:09:25

What if the world was.

Nathan: 00:09:26

Full of people who were connected to Christ, who were gonna take that technology and use it for good, then we would view it very differently.

Nathan: 00:09:35

We just don't trust ourselves and we don't trust everybody else to do that, and to treat it in a respectful way, and then engage it in a spiritually productive way.

Nathan: 00:09:44

We're not accustomed to that being the first conversation.

Nathan: 00:09:47

Everyone's in a very reactive space right now.

Nathan: 00:09:50

We've been reacting to everything from.

Nathan: 00:09:53

The internet and wifi to this type of social media for quite some time.

Nathan: 00:09:57

But you know, now we're doing the same type of, oh no, here we go.

Nathan: 00:10:00

Brace for impact with ai.

Nathan: 00:10:02

And so we're trying to go, well, no, um, let's just take that territory and use it for good.

Nathan: 00:10:08

And if other people use it for evil, well that's on them.

Nathan: 00:10:10

People reap what they sow and God is the judge, and he's got this, why don't we take it?

Nathan: 00:10:16

And we will use it for good in, in whatever capacity that, that we can.

Nathan: 00:10:20

And that was kind of the driver for us with film in general was, well, we've been involved in the film industry and in the arts for a decade.

Nathan: 00:10:27

We got kind of called into the, the faith and family film space and it's like, well take what you do well take what you know and now go keep me in mind and make something that is palatable, suitable, and useful and helpful to people.

Nathan: 00:10:42

And that's kind of been our primary driver.

Nathan: 00:10:44

Let's take it and use it.

Nathan: 00:10:45

Use it for good.

Nathan: 00:10:46

Use our gifts for good, uh, created in Christ Jesus for good works.

Matt: 00:10:49

Yeah, that.

Matt: 00:10:50

Amen to all that.

Matt: 00:10:51

You know, one of the things that I think.

Matt: 00:10:53

Scare us as filmmakers.

Matt: 00:10:54

We don't wanna say scare alarm us as filmmakers is what we were talking about earlier is.

Matt: 00:10:59

You know, competing content wise with the YouTube content.

Matt: 00:11:02

So it's very difficult to make enough high quality narrative content to succeed on YouTube.

Matt: 00:11:10

YouTube is all about keeping people, keeping their attention for as long as possible, but you gotta put out so much content that it's, not affordable to put out a lot of high quality content, and so your kids end up staring at a guy who just.

Matt: 00:11:26

my, my son the other day was I walk in the room and he's watching a YouTube show.

Matt: 00:11:30

It's a 35, 40 minute episode of a guy just calling random numbers to see if he could get people to hang out with him, right?

Matt: 00:11:37

And it was actually kind of funny.

Matt: 00:11:39

It wasn't terrible.

Matt: 00:11:40

However, those of us who make, you know, higher quality and narrative content, look at that and go, well, how do we compete in that market?

Matt: 00:11:46

However.

Matt: 00:11:47

Look, we've got Jesus on our side in a lot of ways, but even in, the way we communicate, he told us how to do this.

Matt: 00:11:54

He said, when the disciples were asking him about, why are you telling stories?

Matt: 00:11:58

Why are you telling parables?

Matt: 00:11:59

Why not just preach to them expositionally?

Matt: 00:12:02

He's like, well, they're not gonna understand.

Matt: 00:12:03

They, they have ears, but they can't hear.

Matt: 00:12:05

and that's why he said tell 'em stories.

Matt: 00:12:07

And so that's why, as, filmmakers, I think the, the position we claim is narrative.

Matt: 00:12:12

Storytelling, and that's what you guys are doing here with, Aria Apples and Shines.

Matt: 00:12:17

You're actually telling a story and yeah, you're working all these themes into it, but that's how you connect with their heart is we have to all find our way, find our outlets to tell narrative stories.

Nathan: 00:12:28

Yeah, in our film, it, like she said, is broken up into these kind of manageable bites and chapters that are a little shorter form and structurally, even as a screenplay, it is a three act form, but it's broken into four chapters and it's a little unusual that way.

Nathan: 00:12:42

But we did that for kids, we did it kind of on purpose.

Nathan: 00:12:45

And um, later, once the film has been out for a while, we can break the film up.

Nathan: 00:12:49

Episodically and drop it into short form into YouTube, just in its pieces.

Nathan: 00:12:53

And, uh, we think it'll do reasonably well, even in that form for people that maybe not have seen the whole thing.

Nathan: 00:12:59

And it might drive traffic later, you know, for people to go, oh, hey, I'd like to watch that whole movie instead of watching it in chunks on YouTube.

Nathan: 00:13:05

I'm gonna go back over here and, and actually go pick it up at Amazon or wherever it's available.

Nathan: 00:13:10

So that's a way that we're gonna approach this.

Nathan: 00:13:12

And that's kind of thinking like there's a lot of short form soap opera going on right now.

Nathan: 00:13:17

It's kind of thinking it in those terms.

Nathan: 00:13:19

It's like, well, we have a feature, but you could break it into that type of short form, uh, little episodes if you need to.

Nathan: 00:13:24

It's kind of both, and . It wasn't really designed that way.

Nathan: 00:13:28

It just kinda happened that way as a byproduct of being intended for kids and going, well, what's the attention span we're dealing with here?

Nathan: 00:13:35

And, you know, how far can we drag this scene?

Nathan: 00:13:37

D'Lytha: Our 3-year-old sat through it just a week ago and he watched the whole thing.

Nathan: 00:13:40

I was very proud of him.

Nathan: 00:13:41

I was like, well, if you can do it, other kids can do it.

Nathan: 00:13:43

Yeah, if how a 3-year-old will watch it, then, we're expecting to, and a 23-year-old will sit there and watch it and laugh.

Nathan: 00:13:49

So we think we've got a pretty good, broad interest.

Matt: 00:13:52

a a packaging problem, right?

Matt: 00:13:53

Like I was talking to a young filmmaker and I was asking him the same thing on a podcast last week.

Matt: 00:13:58

I was like, is your generation or is the 90 minute feature narrative gonna die?

Matt: 00:14:03

And he said.

Matt: 00:14:04

It's funny, he's like, you know, you ask somebody my age if they'll watch a 90 minute feature.

Matt: 00:14:08

Nah.

Matt: 00:14:10

You ask him, will you watch a nine hour movie?

Matt: 00:14:12

No way.

Matt: 00:14:13

Will you watch nine hours of, uh, 18 episodes that are 30 minutes each?

Matt: 00:14:17

Will you binge that in one sitting?

Matt: 00:14:18

Absolutely.

Matt: 00:14:20

You know.

Nathan: 00:14:21

Mm. Yeah.

Nathan: 00:14:22

Yeah.

Nathan: 00:14:22

It's hilarious.

Nathan: 00:14:23

Or will you watch the Lord of the Rings, uh, all at once.

Nathan: 00:14:26

Certain men will, this guy will, this guy will.

Matt: 00:14:28

Well, we love Tolkien.

Matt: 00:14:29

He's one of the greats.

Matt: 00:14:31

So you guys also speak, and I wa and I was looking at the, the different topics that you speak on, and I think, I just feel like parents would line up to hear your thoughts on these topics.

Matt: 00:14:40

Things like, you know, restoring parental authority in a culture that's trying to erase it.

Matt: 00:14:45

So how do you guys work through narrative storytelling?

Matt: 00:14:49

In order to achieve things like that.

Nathan: 00:14:51

You guys know our biggest family movie company has spent a lot of time over the years trying to turn parents into buffoons.

Nathan: 00:15:01

So instead of embracing that fully in our film though, you do see it a bit like you see that through the perspective of the point of view of the main character who's our anti-hero, main character.

Nathan: 00:15:10

And she does see adults somewhat to that degree.

Nathan: 00:15:13

But that's not the end all, be all of the story.

Nathan: 00:15:14

It's not the end of the story.

Nathan: 00:15:16

In fact, the reason that our main character goes through such a kind of fish outta water transformation is because she stays with a home that does.

Nathan: 00:15:24

Have boundaries.

Nathan: 00:15:26

They do have rules.

Nathan: 00:15:27

They do have parental authority in place, and they have kids who are respectful and she's entirely impacted by that.

Nathan: 00:15:33

And so we're showing a picture of what that could look like to some degree in the film.

Nathan: 00:15:37

And then of course, we as parents are trying to create that in our own home.

Nathan: 00:15:41

And we, of all, people know how difficult that can be and, how challenging that can be to maneuver.

Nathan: 00:15:46

But that's at least one way.

Nathan: 00:15:48

we're trying to flip the buffoonery programming back to a, a place where.

Nathan: 00:15:53

Parents are respected and adults are appreciated.

Matt: 00:15:56

in doing so, you're a counterculture rebel.

Nathan: 00:15:59

Right.

Nathan: 00:15:59

That crazy.

Nathan: 00:16:00

It's so ridiculous,

Nathan: 00:16:02

D'Lytha: and we also have another dad in a movie who just, he stands up for his daughter and he's an authority.

Nathan: 00:16:07

Figure and you just don't see that very often.

Nathan: 00:16:10

Um, and I think also, you know, in the movie there's a couple of prayers to God, the ultimate authority figure, and

Matt: 00:16:16

How dare

Matt: 00:16:17

D'Lytha: that in itself is different.

Nathan: 00:16:19

yeah.

Matt: 00:16:19

Well, like you say, you're creating pro God content, not just clean or anti badd content.

Matt: 00:16:25

That's another one of the, the points that you guys have made, and isn't it kind of crazy how a lot of the, the content distribution outlets who claim to be.

Matt: 00:16:35

Faith friendly.

Matt: 00:16:36

I've heard this.

Matt: 00:16:37

they'll tell you behind closed doors, look, maybe just kind of make it clean or, or not bad.

Matt: 00:16:43

Let's don't say the word Jesus.

Matt: 00:16:46

You know, maybe don't talk about God so much, and they're just trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Matt: 00:16:51

They're trying to follow culture while capitalizing on the so-called faith friendly audience.

Nathan: 00:16:57

Yeah, absolutely.

Nathan: 00:16:58

We were watching a really fairly well-known faith-based movie the other night, and I enjoyed the movie, but I noted while I was watching it, the name of Jesus is not in this film.

Nathan: 00:17:07

Everything's very.

Nathan: 00:17:09

Very watered down in terms of the themes are strong, the themes are there, but it's fairly watered down in that regard.

Nathan: 00:17:16

And that's fine.

Nathan: 00:17:16

It is what it is.

Nathan: 00:17:17

And I, I understand they're trying to kinda make a universally palatable thing no matter where people are coming from.

Nathan: 00:17:23

And people could look at our project and say, oh, well it's not a strong enough.

Nathan: 00:17:28

Um.

Nathan: 00:17:28

It's not heavy enough.

Nathan: 00:17:29

And so we are not standing in judgment of people who are making whatever they're making.

Nathan: 00:17:34

We are doing what we felt led to do the way we felt led to do it.

Nathan: 00:17:38

It was kind of interesting.

Nathan: 00:17:39

I was talking to a publisher a couple of years ago about this movie and he had watched an early cut and he said, well, you know, it's not a traditional Christian film.

Nathan: 00:17:48

Like it doesn't really tick all the boxes.

Nathan: 00:17:49

And I said, I think it does.

Nathan: 00:17:50

I just don't think that it.

Nathan: 00:17:52

Looks the way you think it's supposed to look.

Nathan: 00:17:54

In fact, he said, well, there's not a clear presentation of the gospel in your film.

Nathan: 00:17:58

And I said, "Do movies have to have that"?

Nathan: 00:18:00

And we had this very candid conversation.

Nathan: 00:18:03

I said, I think if you'll be honest, the 11 o'clock number is our main character praying a prayer to God in song.

Nathan: 00:18:11

And that is this moment of transformation for her.

Nathan: 00:18:14

This is her giving her life.

Nathan: 00:18:15

And this is that moment.

Nathan: 00:18:16

It's just

Nathan: 00:18:17

D'Lytha: Stop the film and speak from the pulpit and then reset the film

Nathan: 00:18:21

Yeah.

Nathan: 00:18:22

Or have a, you know, some, well-known country artist, step in and deliver the gospel.

Nathan: 00:18:26

That's from a park bench.

Nathan: 00:18:28

Nothing wrong with that.

Nathan: 00:18:29

It's just that that's not this movie.

Nathan: 00:18:31

I. In fact, genre wise, it's not this movie.

Nathan: 00:18:34

This movie is more Diary of a Wimpy Kid or, uh, and it's for, it's for elementary and junior high school kids primarily, and they're, they're not interested right now in their life in listening to that gospel presentation, hellfire and brimstone from some minister.

Nathan: 00:18:50

They're not ready for that.

Nathan: 00:18:51

They're not interested in that.

Nathan: 00:18:52

For the most part.

Nathan: 00:18:53

And so this is approaching this in kid friendly ways that allow ultimately the film and the process and the all of that to give that back to the parents.

Nathan: 00:19:03

'cause that talk about restoring parental authority is we are giving you a tool and helps where if you wanna sit and have family movie night, you can do what God has appointed you to do, which is manage your own household well.

Nathan: 00:19:16

And so you go do that.

Nathan: 00:19:17

Here's some stuff you can use to do it.

Nathan: 00:19:19

Here's a movie that'll inspire some conversation and we're kind of helping set you up for success in that regard.

Nathan: 00:19:24

We're not gonna do it for you.

Nathan: 00:19:26

I don't want you to do it for my kids anymore than I want that movie company over there to do it for my kids or YouTube to do it for my kids.

Nathan: 00:19:33

I want to do it, but you know, we are giving you guys some.

Nathan: 00:19:36

Tools, things we're thinking about, we're writing and maybe, hopefully it'll be a help to you too.

Matt: 00:19:42

I think it's very accessible the story too, because just the sheer premise that Aria Appleton is this talented girl who's gonna do anything to achieve stardom.

Matt: 00:19:52

I think, unfortunately, too many of our kids, that is their ultimate goal to become the famous YouTuber.

Matt: 00:20:01

And so I think that that's a great premise for this.

Matt: 00:20:03

'cause immediately you've got 'em, now you've got, you've got the kids, they wanna know what happens to this girl.

Matt: 00:20:09

D'Lytha: That is what she's doing.

Matt: 00:20:10

She's creating her own YouTube channel.

Matt: 00:20:11

We don't say YouTube 'cause we don't get to suit, we

Matt: 00:20:13

don't wanna do that, but she's creating her own little channel and she's using it no matter what the costs.

Nathan: 00:20:19

At, at the cost of relationships, at the cost of her reputation, at the cost of everything she's willing.

Nathan: 00:20:25

You that, and we want parents to be able to talk to their kids about that in a truthful way and say, you know, here's an example of this gone awry and we're just poking fun and all the funny that that can happen.

Nathan: 00:20:37

But there's also the collateral damage part of that.

Nathan: 00:20:40

The reality part of that is that you can lose friendships, you can lose.

Nathan: 00:20:44

Things permanently as a byproduct of the misuse of this or not treating it with the, the respect that it deserves.

Nathan: 00:20:50

And in the case of one character in our story, you know, she almost nearly sorta kind of gets kidnapped.

Nathan: 00:20:56

And so it's like a byproduct of what are the dangers of this tech in general.

Nathan: 00:21:00

You know, one of the primary human trafficking scams of.

Nathan: 00:21:03

the early two thousands was a fashion model scam, and it would happen via internet, you know, and it would be an email that some kid would get, and so we're kind of brushing on some of the dangers of that too, hoping that it'll help inspire some street smarts and some common sense in the next generation.

Matt: 00:21:19

That's what this world desperately, desperately needs is, and our children desperately need that.

Matt: 00:21:25

We need stories told from a Christ-centered perspective, but also in a way that's palatable for them to watch.

Matt: 00:21:34

And that's what, what Ariana Appleton shines really seems to be So.

Matt: 00:21:38

I hope everybody listening will go check out Ariana Appleton Shines.

Matt: 00:21:42

Can you guys just tell us how can we watch it?

Matt: 00:21:44

D'Lytha: Yeah, you can watch Aria Appleton shines on Amazon.

Matt: 00:21:47

So if you just get on Amazon and search, all you have to write is Aria, ARIA Appleton, and it'll pop up and you can rent or buy it.

Nathan: 00:21:55

And we are@ariaappleton.com if you wanna link tree out to all of our social media.

Nathan: 00:22:00

And we are also on Give Send Go if you wanna help support our marketing endeavors because we are grassrootsing this on purpose.

Nathan: 00:22:08

We're grassrootsing it through Amazon at the moment.

Nathan: 00:22:10

Uh, not because we haven't had distribution.

Nathan: 00:22:13

In fact, we've had multiple distribution, traditional distribution offers that were for various reasons, different kinds of reasons.

Nathan: 00:22:22

Unacceptable to us, and I'm sure Matt will understand this too, having done this himself.

Nathan: 00:22:26

And so, uh, it was interesting though because we just, we honestly went for two years.

Nathan: 00:22:31

Sorting through distribution offers.

Matt: 00:22:33

That sounds very familiar.

Nathan: 00:22:35

long, excruciating conversations with people that would sometimes go six months.

Nathan: 00:22:39

And then you get the contract and you look at it and you go, we can't do that.

Nathan: 00:22:42

And in fact, the Lord would slap our hands at times when we were tempted to do it.

Nathan: 00:22:45

And we'd be like, well then what, what are we doing if not that?

Nathan: 00:22:49

And, uh, we did this with a very five loaf, two fish, uh, experience from the get go.

Nathan: 00:22:54

It was just what we could bring to the table.

Nathan: 00:22:56

And God.

Nathan: 00:22:56

As soon as we moved in the obedience to make it, just opportunities and resources enough appeared for us to do it.

Nathan: 00:23:04

But when it came to distribution, we had these offers, but the doors kept closing.

Nathan: 00:23:08

I kid you not.

Nathan: 00:23:09

As soon as we turned down our last offer and, and we decided, I think the answer to this is self-distribution right now.

Nathan: 00:23:17

We got set up with Amazon.

Nathan: 00:23:18

We were one of the last accounts to make it in through Amazon Prime, direct and Slate.

Nathan: 00:23:23

They changed it again.

Nathan: 00:23:24

They changed, they moved the cheese again.

Nathan: 00:23:26

And as soon as that happened and we committed to, we're gonna just take again our five loaves and two fish and dedicate it to the marketing of this project, which we didn't have.

Nathan: 00:23:36

We really didn't even have a loaf or a fish at the time to dedicate to the marketing.

Nathan: 00:23:40

In fact, I just, I told her, I said, I don't know.

Nathan: 00:23:42

I mean, at this point, literally, 'cause when we first started the move, we had this much to put in.

Nathan: 00:23:48

But right now for marketing, we had nothing.

Nathan: 00:23:50

Literally nothing.

Nathan: 00:23:52

And.

Nathan: 00:23:52

We just took our nothing and we committed it in faith to the Lord, like, we're gonna do it.

Nathan: 00:23:57

We're gonna do it.

Nathan: 00:23:58

And the next day and the next day, money appeared for us to, to get some of our marketing in place.

Nathan: 00:24:04

And we went, okay, we surrender, we get it.

Nathan: 00:24:07

This is the right course of action for whatever reason and love it or hate it, this is the way we're going.

Nathan: 00:24:13

And within a week or so, we were live on Amazon.

Nathan: 00:24:17

Even though everything that everybody else said about that was, oh, it could take you three to six months to be approved.

Nathan: 00:24:22

We passed right through publication

Nathan: 00:24:24

and we, and we went, oh, alright, well the boat is cut free from the dock and we are now at sea.

Nathan: 00:24:31

And so here we are.

Matt: 00:24:33

Filmmakers and storytellers get to become experts at cost of customer acquisition and check out value in such marketing terms as that, that now you get to live that life.

Matt: 00:24:43

Well, I hope everyone listening will go to Amazon, and check out Aria Appleton, ARIA.

Matt: 00:24:48

Aria Appleton Shines.

Matt: 00:24:50

Let's just all go download that or go stream that, watch it with our kids and then tell everybody on social media about it.

Matt: 00:24:56

That's the way that if you wanna support great Christian filmmakers and their work, um, it's not just going and, checking out their work.

Matt: 00:25:04

It's telling everybody, on social media to check out their work.

Matt: 00:25:08

All their links and everything will be in the show notes.

Matt: 00:25:10

I hope you guys go check that out.

Matt: 00:25:11

But Nathan and D'Lytha thank you so much for joining us on Faith and Family Filmmakers Podcast.

Matt: 00:25:17

And Nathan, we're gonna come back with you next episode 'cause I got, so many questions about production design.

Nathan: 00:25:22

Awesome.

Nathan: 00:25:22

Can't wait.