Testimony Series: Filmmaking, Stewardship, and Community Support - with Jarrett McIntyre

Jarett: 00:00:00

Hello everyone.

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I am Jarret McIntyre.

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I cannot be more honored to be on the Faith and Family and Filmmakers podcast.

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I share all the values, the same mission, um, and obviously the passion of pursuing truth and art at the same time through the medium of Christian cinema.

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And so to be asked on this platform to have an opportunity to add to the conversation means the world to me.

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Um, yeah.

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So the next minute or so I will introduce myself and then I'll share, um, a brief testimony about how God did a lot with little, um, as it relates to movies and specifically Christian films in my life.

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And so, uh, yeah.

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I'm Jarret McIntyre.

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I'm from a small town in Oklahoma called Boswell, moved to the Branson, Missouri area for college.

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I met my wife there, of which we now have our firstborn son.

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He is four months old as of, uh, yesterday.

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Um, at the time I'm recording this and, uh, yeah, we are, um, by day we are educators.

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Uh, we both.

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Drive across the state line to Eureka Springs Middle School in Arkansas.

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I'm a fifth grade and sixth grade teacher, and my wife is a school counselor.

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Uh, and yeah, so God has blessed us abundantly.

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Uh, but, uh, my, my, my passion, my obsession, uh, is filmmaking.

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And so the story I'm gonna tell today starts, uh.

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During my college years, and so probably around my junior year, uh, when I should have been studying, uh, I was, um, staying up late, uh, using my nocturnal powers and, um, and learning as much as I could about indie filmmaking and also just indie film marketing and, and everything that goes into, um, that business.

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Um, because I knew this was a self-made business.

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Um, and, and there's no real, um, you know, you're not lucky unless you're lucky.

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And so, uh, this involved anything from, you know, if I saw a movie that was particularly, uh, you know, benefited me or I, or I liked it.

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It was interesting and it was quality.

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But I realized, hey, somehow these people landed awesome distribution connections.

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But, um, I don't know of these people, I don't know the production company.

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I would do, I would go on LinkedIn and find that production company and go into their acquisitions department and track down a specific person that landed that distribution deal and like figure out who they were.

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And, uh, as creepy as that may sound, um, that is what I was doing and, and I realized.

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Just from being so observant in my area, although Branson has quite the vast commercial art scene, um, there was this underground film scene, both, um, at my college, at College of the Ozarks, but, but in the atmospheres and circles that extended.

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Beyond that environment, and it kind of, uh, unfortunately was being overtaken or overshadowed by the commercial Branson shows.

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Um, and I wanted to create kind of an identity, a local hub for the filmmakers, just to yeah, just to be seen and, and to be brought to life.

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And so this started out, I created a very small Instagram account, um, that I called the Branson Filmmakers Association.

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It, uh, I, I thought about naming it the Branson Filmmakers Organization that sounded like I was risking having to pay taxes.

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So I stuck with association, um, and.

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And yeah, it's just an Instagram account.

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And I started, uh, kind of shouting out people that I knew were working on projects well in, in the local area.

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The go-to coffee shop, um, for that crowd is vintage pairs coffee shop, technically in Hollister, Missouri.

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And I was there talking to a buddy, Caleb Williams, who manages.

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And we were talking about film and the local film scene and how there should be kind of like some sort of event that these people that we know that are talented can participate in and be showcased.

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And so he said, Hey man, let's do it here.

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And uh, he said, if, if, if you can bring filmmakers, I'll make it happen.

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And I took 'em up on that.

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And so the Branson Filmmakers Association, AKA, the BFA, had their first charity event of September.

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Of 24.

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And it was a small humble event, but it was of an event nonetheless, where we had filmmakers from the area come and showcase their films and, and all proceeds there was not a die made.

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Uh, went to two nonprofits in town, elevate Branson and House of Hope, um, and that it was a good test pilot.

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Uh, since then we, we had our second annual event.

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Uh, the September, the September of 25 and we could not ask for for more.

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Uh, it was so amazing.

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First off, the variety of filmmakers was great.

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We had hobbyists to semi-professional getting their, um, features screened in local theaters.

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Um.

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And what it was was, one, the art, right?

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People show up, we, we showcase their project, they get to speak on their project.

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But um, the community, um, was just so pulled together that night.

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Um, it was a full house there, people standing because we did not have enough places for people to sit.

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And we were able to, although maybe in some other circles, these are still low numbers for us.

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Uh, this was a big deal.

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We were able to raise over a thousand dollars, uh, to go towards these nonprofits.

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Um, and the reason I, I, I, I see God in this, uh, outside of, um, the, the nature of giving right is, um.

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I, I had been praying for so long that God would use my, my art to benefit his people.

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That's ultimately the goal.

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And sometimes we feel like we have to have that, um, Spielberg budget in order to do so.

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Uh, the BFA is still a small Instagram account, although it's growing and people are more interested now.

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Um, but he took something that barely existed, barely had a voice, and turned it into a. Physical, tangible event where art and truth was proclaimed.

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Uh, the community was directly, Ben benefited through monetary means, and, and he took something that I, I, I believe I just kind of stewarded and surrendered to him out of obedience, along with a couple other guys.

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And, and he took it and, and blessed the local community, blessed the art scene.

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And not only that, but blessed me and gave me a platform that I hopefully, uh, that hopefully will grow into something bigger and greater in the future.

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And so that's my small testimony about how God has used movies and, and, and film to not only bless my life, but the community that he has placed me in.

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And so, wherever you're at in life.

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Uh, whatever budget you have, even if that's no budget at all.

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Um, please know that through your creativity, through your skills, um, through the vocation he has given you, uh, you can steward that.

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You can steward those short films.

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You can steward, uh, the, the feature you've been writing for five years and, and whether it's through the classic traditional means or not.

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Um.

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Your obedience will be rewarded and people will be blessed.

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So keep making faith-filled films.

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Keep stewarding your art towards truth.

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All right, uh, God bless y'all, and thank y'all for having me.