Light of the World: Behind the Animation with Director John Schafer

Matt: 00:00:00

So a couple of weeks ago, my wife tells me, Hey look, I saw this, uh, I saw an advertisement for an animated film called Light of the World.

Matt: 00:00:07

We need to go see that.

Matt: 00:00:09

And so I looked at the trailer and I was like, Hmm, that looks pretty interesting.

Matt: 00:00:12

And so we did.

Matt: 00:00:13

We took the whole family.

Matt: 00:00:14

We went and saw it one night.

Matt: 00:00:15

And as I'm sitting in the movie about halfway through the movie, I'm already trying to find where I can contact the producers To be able to talk to somebody from this movie, and that movie is called Light of the World.

Matt: 00:00:26

And today we are here with, John Schafer, the director of that movie.

Matt: 00:00:29

John, I just can't thank you enough for taking a little time to have a conversation with us about your movie.

John: 00:00:35

Thanks for having me, Matt.

John: 00:00:36

It's exciting, to share and talk about it now, especially since it's out in the wild now released.

Matt: 00:00:41

Exactly.

Matt: 00:00:42

Someone once told me after a movie that I put out that like, you are now among the elite.

Matt: 00:00:46

You were probably already there, but if you've actually made a movie and put it in theaters and it had a, a theatrical release at that point, you're among the elite.

Matt: 00:00:53

So, good for you guys.

Matt: 00:00:54

Lemme just tell everybody a little bit about you, John Schafer, he was born in Toledo, Ohio.

Matt: 00:00:58

He is best known for being the senior director of Christian Broadcasting Networks, computer generated imagery revival of Superbook.

Matt: 00:01:06

That's all the way back in 2011.

Matt: 00:01:08

John founded Sparta Wisconsin's award-winning production studio, uh, the Salvation Poem Project with former Disney animator Tom Bancroft back in 11.

Matt: 00:01:17

Um, his passion in his work is music and visual effects, which is clear from the movie Light of the World.

Matt: 00:01:23

His coworker Bancroft and his brother Tony, they concentrate on storyboard, lighting and supervision for animation.

Matt: 00:01:29

But recently together they wrote, I guess, produced and directed certainly Light of the World, A theatrically released 2D animation that covers the life of Christ in a very cool way.

Matt: 00:01:39

So, John, I hope that's, uh, that about covers your background.

John: 00:01:42

well, let me clarify a few things there.

John: 00:01:44

' so Salvation Poem Project is, is a ministry I work for, and it was founded by Matt McPherson and Brendan McPherson is the president of the studio as well as the producer for Light of the World.

John: 00:01:56

So, uh, I brought Tom on.

John: 00:01:58

We were on production for about a year, and you know, when you look at like Disney or Dreamworks for their feature film animation, you always see two directors on there.

John: 00:02:08

I never knew why that was until about a year into light of the world working on it.

John: 00:02:13

It is such an immense project, you know, working with the character designers, working with the layouts, working with the writing team.

John: 00:02:20

Brendan kind of headed up all the writers and so it was just a herculean effort and I had worked with Tom for... man, for almost 18 years.

John: 00:02:29

I've known him for 18 years.

John: 00:02:30

We worked together about 15 on Superbook, which was a, the Christian broadcasting networks, re-imagination of Superbook.

John: 00:02:36

And, there I was a senior producer and so I got to know Tom really, really well.

John: 00:02:42

And so.

John: 00:02:43

I reached out to him to see if he would consider, uh, co-directing the film with me.

John: 00:02:48

And, the big thing too is, you know, both Tom and Tony, the Bancroft brothers, they are Disney legends.

John: 00:02:53

You know, uh, Tom was like the designer of Mushu, animated Young Simba and that his, uh, twin brother Tony was actually a co-director on Mulan and that.

John: 00:03:03

So, bringing them on to uh, kind of help us reimagine if we were gonna retell the story of life of Jesus, what could that look like?

John: 00:03:10

and so that's kind of, I just wanted to clarify a, a lot of stuff there.

Matt: 00:03:14

love the.

Matt: 00:03:14

That story.

Matt: 00:03:15

What I usually do, because we're talking to a lot of filmmakers in this audience, what I usually do is start off kind of with not the story of the film, but the story of the production.

Matt: 00:03:24

And maybe in the next episode we'll talk about the story of the film.

Matt: 00:03:27

But I kind of wanna reverse that right now because I want to get nerdy in, in terms of creative 'cause I have the director here.

Matt: 00:03:34

Um, and really go into that.

Matt: 00:03:36

'cause that's what really jumped out at me.

Matt: 00:03:38

Several things really jumped out at me as I was watching, with my family.

Matt: 00:03:42

let's just start off talking about why make this movie.

Matt: 00:03:45

There have been a lot of animations about the life of Christ.

Matt: 00:03:48

I but I wanna know, why did you guys decide that this was what you're called to do?

John: 00:03:52

Yeah.

John: 00:03:52

So, uh, I had just, uh, moved here to Sparta, Wisconsin.

John: 00:03:56

I originally lived in Virginia Beach, Virginia, lived on the beach, rented a condo.

John: 00:04:00

And so this was a radical change for my wife and I. But it was because, uh, I was being brought here to develop, animated shorts.

John: 00:04:08

Really short , for a new believer course.

John: 00:04:10

How after you accept Christ, these are your next steps.

John: 00:04:13

And they were like, between one and a half to three minute longs.

John: 00:04:15

And that's what I was gonna really do.

John: 00:04:16

And, uh, the founder, Matt McPherson, he took Brendan and I, and like I said, Brendan is his son.

John: 00:04:21

He's the president of, our, of our ministry.

John: 00:04:24

and just said, you know, back in the nineties, I really felt like the Lord put on my heart that I'm supposed to make a film about the life of Jesus.

John: 00:04:32

you know, and he says, anytime God puts something on his heart, he just doesn't try to make it happen.

John: 00:04:37

It's like, Lord, if this is what I'm supposed to do, you show me the time, you show me how, and now you fast forward to, uh, you know, August 19th, 2021.

John: 00:04:48

And here I am at this coffee with Matt and he says, John, I just feel like this is the time.

John: 00:04:54

I feel like, you know, you being here, your background in animation, but also he just felt this kind of a, a sense of urgency of, of.

John: 00:05:01

Wanting to tell this story again and he wanted to do a retelling.

John: 00:05:05

So it is more or less like, you know, if we're gonna retell the story of the life of Jesus.

John: 00:05:09

Let's find a new, unique way.

John: 00:05:12

First of all, find a unique style to the look of Jesus 'cause that will inform us what our characters will look like, what our world will look like, because he just didn't wanna rehash something.

John: 00:05:20

And so for me, I had traveled around the world working on Superbook.

John: 00:05:24

And one of the things that I love to do is go to bookstores.

John: 00:05:28

And I get fascinated.

John: 00:05:29

Look in all the children's books, whether I'm in Beijing, whether I'm in Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, wherever I'm at.

John: 00:05:36

And the one thing, it doesn't matter what culture.

John: 00:05:39

Children's storybooks, they look really illustrated.

John: 00:05:43

They have that painterly feel.

John: 00:05:45

And so I thought if you wanna find commonality to try to tell a story globally, I thought, hey, if we could.

John: 00:05:52

Make this like a storybook, a children's storybook come to life.

John: 00:05:55

Have that painterly feel.

John: 00:05:57

All of those uniqueness, it will become familiar in every culture right off the bat.

John: 00:06:02

and one of the things is, is, you know, uh, this is before we brought on the Bancroft Brothers, we really made a decision.

John: 00:06:07

We wanted it to be 2D animation.

John: 00:06:09

in the United States, you don't see that much And we wanted to kind of do that, retelling that story, using that media that we loved.

John: 00:06:15

And if you looked at the nineties, with The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, we kind of wanted that family event feel of that.

John: 00:06:23

But also with 2D animation, and this is kind of on the more deeper side of one of the decisions we discussed about... you know, 2D animation, hand drawn, because it is hand drawn.

John: 00:06:33

There is.

John: 00:06:35

Imperfections.

John: 00:06:36

And when you look at our background paints in our movie, you can see the brush strokes.

John: 00:06:40

You could see the patchwork in our stuff because it's supposed to look like that storybook come to life, but also it, it's kinda that work in progress feeling.

John: 00:06:47

What we really felt strongly is, hey, if we're gonna tell this story and we wanna tell it artistically, we are work in progress.

John: 00:06:56

Much like our matte paintings, our background paintings.

John: 00:06:59

We are imperfection like, just like our hand drawn is not perfect.

John: 00:07:03

And so we thought, if we're gonna tell this story, let's tell it in the style of "we as Christian artists and filmmakers are imperfect".

John: 00:07:12

We are work in progress, so let's put that as part of our style.

John: 00:07:15

And, that's why we really shifted in 2D that look and feel.

John: 00:07:18

And, but it, it really started because Matt had a heart that there was a sense of urgency.

John: 00:07:24

Fast forward to now the movies come out, you know, in the United States, September 5th, 2025.

John: 00:07:29

When you look at what has all happened in the world: multiple wars, just the darkness that's been happening.

John: 00:07:37

Here we are, the light of the world and the irony was we actually had a title.

John: 00:07:41

We felt like it was supposed to be called Light of World before we even written the script, and so we just really feel like God had orchestrated all of this, but not just for us.

John: 00:07:49

Look at all the films that's come out in 2025, like the Chosen Releasing Season five as a fathom event.

John: 00:07:55

The King of Kings from Angel Studios.

John: 00:07:57

Something... We really feel like God's doing something.

Matt: 00:08:00

That's beautiful.

Matt: 00:08:01

Now I didn't, I'm gonna, I'm gonna agree with you in a way.

Matt: 00:08:05

Um, in terms of from my perspective, the storybook feel just popped.

Matt: 00:08:09

It worked so beautifully.

Matt: 00:08:11

I didn't notice the imperfections.

Matt: 00:08:12

I'm, I'm not a visual.

Matt: 00:08:13

Artist at all.

Matt: 00:08:15

but SubT contextually, it's, definitely there.

Matt: 00:08:17

I focus more on vocal performance and, and story in general.

Matt: 00:08:21

Now, what I often say is that if you understand story in terms of the Hero's journey story, you read the Bible and you can... it's such a confirmation that the Bible was not written as a story.

Matt: 00:08:36

It's written as historical accounts, uh, especially the Old Testament, but certainly the New Testament when you have to kind of parse together the, the four different gospel writers, uh, kind of perspectives in the life of Jesus.

Matt: 00:08:47

And so you're not, getting that perfect hero's journey story.

Matt: 00:08:51

What I really, really liked about Light of the World was how beautifully you took these biblical stories and you stitched them together, without too much artistic license - with the original tellings - and, and just crafted like structurally the perfect kids action adventure animation with the life of Jesus.

Matt: 00:09:14

I just thought that was a really brilliant way to, I don't think I've seen it done so well before.

John: 00:09:19

Uh, you know, thank you for mentioning that.

John: 00:09:21

We had an amazing writing team.

John: 00:09:23

Uh, it was a brother team, David and Drew Armstrong.

John: 00:09:26

And, and with Tom and I and Tony with Head Story and Brendan.

John: 00:09:30

The balance, what we're trying to do is we wanted to make it, you know, stay true to scriptural beats the spiritual truth there.

John: 00:09:37

But also just like you said, the Bible itself, when you read it, it can be jarring.

John: 00:09:42

How it goes to it doesn't flow.

John: 00:09:44

And so we did move stuff around chronologically compared to what's in the Bible, but it was to tell the story so that you could follow the story arc of John and, and we, through our research, we saw that, you know, a lot of historians and theologians truly believe that the disciples were teenagers, probably in their upper teenagers.

John: 00:10:02

And we thought with John being the youngest, you know, it gave us, it gave us two things.

John: 00:10:08

One, it's that coming of age film.

John: 00:10:10

Let's make him in that 13 ish age where he's coming into adulthood of the Jewish culture.

John: 00:10:15

He's trying to prove himself to his father.

John: 00:10:18

But also it gave us how to tell the scope of the story.

John: 00:10:22

If we're telling it through his eyes, we know what story beats we need to happen.

John: 00:10:27

'cause if you got 90 minutes to tell the story of life of Jesus, what are the most important moments there?

John: 00:10:33

And since he was the only one at the cross, that's why we really leaned into John.

John: 00:10:38

Making this his story.

John: 00:10:39

And so we took a lot of that stuff in consideration.

John: 00:10:42

And you know, and the one thing is, you know, I come from Superbook, and Superbook is trying to be as historically and biblically as accurate as possible for everything.

John: 00:10:50

And you know, so a child, if they open up the Bible, they're not going to find, "John lost money that put his mom and dad in jeopardy, and now he's gotta hunt for this Messiah".

John: 00:11:02

What happened is we wanted to tell the story of, hey, he would've heard the story about the Messiah.

John: 00:11:07

Maybe his mother would tell the story, tell the story of creation and about the Messiah King that's gonna deliver them.

John: 00:11:13

And we applied the real world pressures of that time period of Rome taxations to John and to his family.

John: 00:11:19

And, and so we thought if we could weave historical, accuracy stuff there and then stay true to the key biblical moments and we consolidated characters.

John: 00:11:28

'cause you see the Roman soldier Lucius, who's trying to chase him down, but also he's the guy, the centurion with the uh, sick servant.

John: 00:11:35

And he's also the one who says, truly this must be the sound of God.

John: 00:11:39

We wanted to kind of condense it so it would be easy for a child to follow.

John: 00:11:44

And especially for a non-believing family, it would be understanding for a mom and dad to watch it and have a grasp of it, to have that dialogue, you know?

John: 00:11:53

And so that's what we made this for.

John: 00:11:54

You know, we made the film for everyone, but we wrote it in mind -if you had no concept of the Bible, no concept of Jesus, and that was our goal.

Matt: 00:12:02

Again, goal achieved.

Matt: 00:12:04

I remember sitting there at one point, I think it was, uh, it was certainly in the third act right before the, you know, all is lost moment, when, Jesus and John are together and Jesus has left the disciple as he's about to go up on the, uh, the mount there, I remember thinking, you know, If someone watches this or, or let's say we lived in a world where the story of Christ had not been told in different ways to different people, and people saw this movie, this would be fascinating.

Matt: 00:12:33

People would be so fascinated by it, 'cause it really is a fascinating story.

Matt: 00:12:37

I took my, my wife, my 8-year-old son, my 11-year-old daughter, but I also took my 15-year-old daughter and her boyfriend and, um.

Matt: 00:12:47

They were honest.

Matt: 00:12:48

They said, you know, at first, kind of in the first five minutes, the 15 year olds, as they would with any, Quote unquote kid story.

Matt: 00:12:54

They were at first like, oh, come on.

Matt: 00:12:56

But they got into it.

Matt: 00:12:58

You captured them, you grabbed them, and they really, really enjoyed, the telling of the story.

Matt: 00:13:03

they both go to a, a small private Christian school, and so they're in Bible class every day.

Matt: 00:13:08

They're immersed in it.

Matt: 00:13:09

And so they, even at 15 were, very impressed I think, by the way you told the story.

Matt: 00:13:14

I want to go back into one of my questions, one of my first questions was "why choose John"?

Matt: 00:13:19

And you kind of, answered that question already, but it was, I think, a brave thing to make him as young as he was.

Matt: 00:13:26

And you said that, you know, it makes sense through biblical research.

Matt: 00:13:29

Disciples were young, they were in their teens.

Matt: 00:13:32

John in particular in the story.

Matt: 00:13:34

his voice hadn't changed yet.

Matt: 00:13:35

He still had a kid's voice, so we still feel like.

Matt: 00:13:38

how old is this kid?

Matt: 00:13:39

Are they taking too much creative license?

Matt: 00:13:41

Making him too young?

Matt: 00:13:42

But yeah, like you say, there are 13 year olds who's haven't hit puberty yet, so he still kind of comes from that, young perspective.

John: 00:13:49

Yeah, and, and like I said, you know, when we also studied the Jewish culture and the fact that at 13 for a young boy, they are treated as an adult.

John: 00:13:56

And that's where we wanted to really lean in there and, and like I said, really it's that coming of age film, and my experience obviously was Super book, but also Tom and Tony's experience with Disney, where, you know, kids can see themselves, they see themselves, and that's really what we wanted to do.

John: 00:14:12

So when you, when a child watches this film and you watch him, John and Jesus start developing a friendship, and then you start to see that love, we want to kind of reflect that to them... that, Hey, this is this Jesus, what you see him doing with John interacting, he wants to do that with your life.

John: 00:14:30

And so that's why we really leaned into it.

John: 00:14:32

we were really thinking we were gonna get a lot of flack possibly, you know, and actually.

John: 00:14:37

We were really embraced by like all denominations worldwide.

John: 00:14:41

cause we've screened this worldwide, I've gone to Istanbul where there was over, uh, a hundred ministries there from 70 countries to screen it.

John: 00:14:49

And what we were fearing everyone really embraced

Matt: 00:14:53

I'm glad to hear that.

Matt: 00:14:54

but I think maybe the chosen has kind of paved the way a little bit.

Matt: 00:14:57

Dallas Jenkins often takes flack for that.

Matt: 00:15:00

you know, you talked about one kind of creative license thing you did making, John and his family kind of the, the, uh, targets of the, of the tax collectors and that's the, the hole they've dug themselves in.

Matt: 00:15:12

Dallas Jenkins, I think went the other way and it was kind of Peter who was in tax, uh, kind of tax trouble in, in the chosen in, in that first season.

Matt: 00:15:21

Um, but I don't.

Matt: 00:15:22

I just don't feel like those type of creative licenses take anything away from the overall truth of the story you're trying to tell.

Matt: 00:15:29

And as Dallas Jenkins often says, look, if you feel like I'm, there's some inaccuracies that actually mean something, and it causes you to dive into your Bible to find them.

Matt: 00:15:38

Great.

Matt: 00:15:38

You're diving into your Bible.

John: 00:15:40

Yep.

John: 00:15:41

Absolutely Dallas, definitely paved that way.

John: 00:15:44

And also what I love, what Dallas also says is The Chosen is not replacing scripture.

John: 00:15:50

It's not replacing your Bible.

John: 00:15:52

And if it gives you an opportunity to, now you wanna explore more... And that's what we wanna do.

John: 00:15:57

We want Bible engagement with children around the world.

John: 00:16:00

We want ministries when they use our film around the world, like you know, we already know One Hope, Jesus film, CBN, all them will be using this internationally.

John: 00:16:09

We want this to be that launchpad to engage into Bible reading.

Matt: 00:16:13

It's not a lens through which people should view the Bible.

Matt: 00:16:16

It's a reflection of the Bible and Even at my age, if I'm gonna dive into a book, often I'll open the gospel project and kind of watch their animation of the, of a 10 minute recap.. or The Bible Project, excuse me,

John: 00:16:30

The Bible Project, yeah.

Matt: 00:16:30

Watch their 10 minute recap of, you know, the, the Book of Exodus.

Matt: 00:16:34

And that really helps me, is then I dive into the text so that's exactly what this movie will do for children, I believe.

John: 00:16:40

Man, you're making me feel good with everything you're saying.

John: 00:16:42

Talking about your 15-year-old, her boyfriend, all this stuff.

John: 00:16:45

It's like, oh man, we're hitting all the, uh, the checklist.

John: 00:16:47

What we are hoping for.

Matt: 00:16:49

Well, it's, it's difficult to get someone their age to choose to go see a kid's movie.

Matt: 00:16:53

Um, but if like, Hey, hey, 15-year-old daughter, only way you're hanging out with your boyfriend tonight is if he comes with us to this movie.

Matt: 00:16:59

Um, that's a different, different kind of marketing and it worked.

John: 00:17:03

Oh, awesome.

Matt: 00:17:04

but again, I, I do want parents to understand that you had intention.

Matt: 00:17:08

This is, it's a great movie for parents to see, but the intention is for that.

Matt: 00:17:13

Eight to 11-year-old to be able to make the stories of the gospel very accessible.

Matt: 00:17:18

And like I said, stitched in that, kind of Hero's Journey, Save the Cat framework that they're all used to.

Matt: 00:17:23

That's the language that they speak when they watch movie after movie after movie on Netflix.

Matt: 00:17:27

And you just nailed it.

Matt: 00:17:29

You just nailed it.

Matt: 00:17:29

That's why I was so excited to reach out to you and talk to you about it.

Matt: 00:17:32

So how is, uh, I always like to ask this question of most every filmmaker.

Matt: 00:17:36

You've seen this movie 5,000 times, I'm sure.

Matt: 00:17:39

For me, one of the joys of watching your own movie so many times is not watching your movie, but being able to experience the audience's, experience with the movie.

Matt: 00:17:49

So how, how has that been?

Matt: 00:17:50

How do you like sitting in theaters and watching audiences watch your movie?

John: 00:17:54

So when I was in, uh, Istanbul a couple months ago, there was, like I said, um, over a hundred ministries from 70 countries.

John: 00:18:01

And when all of a sudden everyone's laughing at the same joke, they're all crying at the right moments when what we were hoping for, that emotional moments.

John: 00:18:11

But we actually had people come up to us like, uh, they had a translator and I forgot what part of Africa this group of people was.

John: 00:18:17

There was no subtitle in our film and there was no real time translation.

John: 00:18:21

So they did not understand any of the dialogue, but they were definitely familiar with the Bible.

John: 00:18:27

But they said that just watching the visuals because of how you did everything with the visuals and the emotion they were tracking and they were crying and all that stuff.

John: 00:18:36

So just from that perspective that someone who doesn't even understand our language, but visually and emotionally, they were hit with that.

John: 00:18:44

Uh, I was just in, uh, Trento, Italy for Religion Today Film Festival.

John: 00:18:48

And so this is like, different religions there.

John: 00:18:50

There's, you know, Hindus, that's there and, at that theater, when they all watched it, it was really cool of how much people respected the story we were telling, why they were all emotional to it.

John: 00:19:04

We had people from different religious backgrounds where all together, where they said, you know, I've heard about the life of Jesus.

John: 00:19:10

Uh, I even looked at the Bible and it's very complicated, but you made some things very understandable in that Jesus really isn't complicated.

John: 00:19:19

And the thing that we got the most comment was, Jesus feels very approachable in your story.

John: 00:19:25

He feels like he is your friend.

John: 00:19:27

and that's the opportunity when we can say, because he is.

John: 00:19:30

Everything you see as reflection in this movie is what we felt as, as the writers, as the directors, as the producers and all that as, That's what Jesus is in our life.

John: 00:19:41

So we're not making this up to tell a story.

John: 00:19:43

We're putting our heartfelt relationship with Jesus into the story.

Matt: 00:19:48

Beautifully, beautifully said.

Matt: 00:19:50

I totally agree with that.

Matt: 00:19:51

Um, and it also felt like a lot of, we can, we can often go to church and the, pastors preaching from the gospels and it just feels like a lot of words.

Matt: 00:20:00

A lot of people sit around talking, but somehow you told the story in a very fresh and unique way without taking an anti-biblical or a, or beyond biblical approach to it.

Matt: 00:20:12

And it felt like an adventure.

Matt: 00:20:13

It was an adventure story.

Matt: 00:20:15

was that intentional?

John: 00:20:17

Yeah, I mean for us, like I said, it's that coming of age film, but also for us, you know.

John: 00:20:22

All of us who've had a relationship developed that relationship with Jesus.

John: 00:20:26

It is an adventure.

John: 00:20:27

And we have our ups, we have our downs, we have our, you know, crisis of faith at times and that stuff.

John: 00:20:32

And so we obviously, we had to apply it to make it work for a child, but yeah, we wanted that and we wanted to make it feel like, hey, when you accept Christ, your life will radically change.

John: 00:20:44

And it, it is gonna be a great adventure and he has the best for you.

John: 00:20:48

I'll just give you this background about me.

John: 00:20:50

You know, 1973, my mom and my dad and my brother are watching tv, you know, and I'm, over five years old and the Charlie Brown Christmas special came on, and it was the first time I had ever heard the word savior.

John: 00:21:05

Or, God.

John: 00:21:06

and when Linus is explaining the meaning of Christmas to Charlie Brown, and when I asked that to my mom and dad, what is that?

John: 00:21:15

And they didn't have that answer.

John: 00:21:17

And you know, that planted a seed in me.

John: 00:21:19

Animation is a very non-threatening form of media, and it planted a seed.

John: 00:21:23

Fast forward, literally 19 years later, I accept Christ.

John: 00:21:27

I now understand what that was, and I've always been fascinated with filmmaking.

John: 00:21:31

I'd always thought if I ever had an opportunity to make a movie about the life of Jesus, I wanted to make sure that that child, after they watched would never have to ask someone who is this?

John: 00:21:44

I wanted to make sure they understood at the end of it, they would want to develop that relationship.

John: 00:21:49

And that was my goal, my hope, and, and then everyone else's goal as well.

John: 00:21:53

But it comes from that personal Charlie Brown special.

Matt: 00:21:57

Amen.

Matt: 00:21:57

You know, you, you are the second guest in the past two weeks who has brought up being influenced by the Charlie Brown Christmas special, and in fact, the last guy had a, a frame of that, uh, that special displayed behind him in his office.

Matt: 00:22:13

For me, what that says is like.

Matt: 00:22:14

just, it underscores the importance of being able to tell these stories in these accessible ways to children, 'cause it will have an effect on them.

Matt: 00:22:22

And that's what you've done here.

Matt: 00:22:23

Look, John, I've got a ton of questions... we'll get into the nerd stuff and the business side of things because I have a, I I, I believe it is important for us to have a good, kind of a realistic view of the industry in order for us to do these kind of things successfully.

Matt: 00:22:37

So let's bring you back for another episode, and next time we will dive into the kind of the, the story of the making of the movie.

John: 00:22:44

absolutely.

Matt: 00:22:45

Well John, thanks so much for joining us today on the Faith and Family Filmmakers podcast.