Email This Article

Ken Wales is Paying it Forward

Nathaniel Bluedorn at ChristianFilmmakers.org has just posted some great video clips HERE from the Biola Media Conference 2009 that he snagged from ConversantLife.com.  Some really good stuff in there but wanted to call out one clip in particular.

It’s an interview with Veteran Producer/EP Ken Wales who talks about a life changing week he spent with the legendary Walt Disney over 40 years ago.  In it there’s this quote:

Walt Disney “Everybody that tries to copy what we do doesn’t quite get it right, because they make it too saccharine, too syrupy sweet, too nice.  Life isn’t like that.  You know you have to remember 2 ingredients that have to be in every film:  there needs to be JEOPARDY and DANGER.

 Bambi’s mother has to be killed by the hunter.  Bambi has to run through the forest fire.  It’s what Bambi does with all that, that’s the story .” 

What is hard to believe is that we’re still discussing this after 4 decades in Christian Film 2.0 (the new and improved Christian Film industry developing today).  It’s one of the most oft-quoted mistakes in Christian filmmaking that they’re too “saccharine, too syrupy sweet, too nice” and everything resolves nicely and neatly and they all live happily ever after.

Listen to the masters.  Add Jeopardy.  Add Danger.  

Raise good questions, don’t answer them all.

Your good guy can only be as good as your bad guy is bad.  You want an awesome Hero?  Create a monstrous villain.  Luke Skywalker would not be near so great if Darth Vader’s worst transgression was a tendency to talk back to his elders and believe the wrong Tribulation theory.  BOR-ring!  

Also, a movie’s high point where stuff starts to finally work out can only be satisfactory depending on how low the low point is.  Drama=Conflict.  Conflict=Drama.  No drama? No Conflict.  No one cares about your characters.

If Bambi just loped around the woods with the skunk and the rabbit, we might not ever have heard of Walt Disney.  We’d never have known what being “twitterpated” is all about.  It would have all gone down like the Laugh-O-Gram.

Changing people’s lives through Film and Video is not a new idea.  Even for Christians.  It’s at least 100 years old.  Let’s stand on the shoulders of giants and pick up the convo where they left off…we don’t need to reinvent the film wheel.  

As Ken Wales talks about below, Walt Disney picked him up and carried him on his shoulders. And Ken has repeated the process for countless other young filmmakers.  That’s how we make progress.  That’s how we grow an industry.

Ken Wales: Producer, Amazing Grace from CJ Casciotta on Vimeo.

Let’s make a movie!
###