FEATURE: NO GREATER LOVE - Official Thread - Feature Film

I have no problem with any Christian-themed film (although I'm not a member of any organized religion) as long as it's billed as such, which they almost all are - if not overtly then at least clearly enough to discern that that's what they are. "No Greater Love's" website makes it perfectly clear that it's a "faith" based film and IMO the average filmgoer should know what that means.

I would have a problem if a film was marketed for general audiences, and turned out to be an ideologically driven one (such as a Christian-themed one). I'd feel tricked by that, and would not be pleased. Very few films make this mistake though.

Otherwise, I do think the issue concerns ideology - is the film in one way or another overtly 'selling' an ideological point of view? If so, then it's fundamentally not a 'general audience' movie - it's aimed at viewers who either share the ideology (religious, political, philosophical or any other kind), or are curious about the point of view presumably espoused in the film. These types of films (most of which, it seems, are faith-based), IMO, should be presented as such.

I think an interesting borderline case is "Avatar". It wears its POV on its sleeve, very much like a faith-based film might: Selfish, Greedy, Arrogant Military/Industrial Complex Companies/People = bad bad bad, and Pure, Spiritual Peace-Loving Indigenous Naturalists = good good good. The message is delivered with a hammer, not a velvet glove. It's about as close to an undisguised ideological theme in a major dramatic film (which is to say, not satire [Dr. Strangeleove], outright fantasy [Star Wars] or documentary [Bowling For Columbine]) as I've seen since "1984". But it's *just* this side of the line, so...technically...it's not.
 
Ted Spencer said:
I would have a problem if a film was marketed for general audiences, and turned out to be an ideologically driven one (such as a Christian-themed one). I'd feel tricked by that, and would not be pleased. Very few films make this mistake though.
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You have that problem today, because you live in a modern ultra political world where everyone is a coward and afraid someone's ideas may infect them. In 1973, there was a little film called The Excorcist. It was a film that was truly based on real life events (unlike some films based on a bottle falling from a shelf) and it was distributed by a major company. It wasn't a Christian film but openly explored Christian themes. This is what I would love to get back to. When people just excepted there where people who had Biblical beliefs and films about that were just as acceptable as anything else and you DIDN'T HAVE TO say it was "Christian" you just put it out.

But what I would like to know is what makes a "Christian" film not suitable for general audiences? Many films that come out have some form of religious or societal belief belief attached. As much as I liked the shooting and action scenes in Crank2, a lot of the content was gratuitous. Why is this okay for the "general audience" but not NGL or other "Christian films"?

It wasn't always like this. In the 70's or 80's "No Greater Love", "Fireproof" and even the "Left Behind" films would've just been considered families films, been PG (or maybe even G rated) and no one would've batted and eye. Why not do you have to know there's Christian content to feel safe. And I will agree with Robertson6 that there are many Hollywood films that have no problem slamming Christians nor our values and people think it's funny. And sometimes it has nothing to do with the movie, it's just there. That's having a belief rammed down your throat. And this is now the norm. No one puts a warning on these films but having an openly Christian theme can actually make a PG film a PG-13 or make a PG-13 film an R.

-Nate
 
Nathyn said:
You have that problem today, because you live in a modern ultra political world where everyone is a coward and afraid someone's ideas may infect them.
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Really? Wow. I guess I should probably let you run my life for me then. Thanks for explaining not just the entire world, but my true inner self to me as well. Saved me years of hard work, and all it took was one post in DVXuser! Cool!

One question though:

Would the world, and everyone in it, be better off if we all believed exactly what you believe?

If your honest answer to this is "yes", then first of all, congratulations - you're officially a card carrying ideologue! Only problem is, about 65% of the other 'card-carriers' out there think the same thing, except that they think *your* version of it is nonsense...

So it goes with ideologies.

Me? I prefer to seek the truth wherever I can find it, and thus far the wheat/chaff ratio of the organized religions I've looked into (and that would be just about all of them) is way too high for me...

YMMV
 
Ted Spencer said:
One question though:

Would the world, and everyone in it, be better off if we all believed exactly what you believe?

If your honest answer to this is "yes", then first of all, congratulations - you're officially a card carrying ideologue! Only problem is, about 65% of the other 'card-carriers' out there think the same thing, except that they think *your* version of it is nonsense...
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But herein lies the point, whether I feel the world would be better off believing as I do or not, I'm not afraid of the ideas of others. If you read my post unbiasedly you will find that is the point. But because it comes from a Christian POV you take it as a person attack. It is not a personal attack you, but in the post modern "take offense at everything" world we live in it's hard to create art when even your religious belief (believe it or not Christianity is still considered the "norm" in America) are offensive if you don't specifically spell it out that you're making a film with the beliefs in it. It wasn't always that way and I bet there are non-Christians on this forum who would agree. Make the film, why does it need a label. The genre is label enough and the only reason for the sub label is there is to sale the product.

Ted Spencer said:
Me? I prefer to seek the truth wherever I can find it, and thus far the wheat/chaff ratio of the organized religions I've looked into (and that would be just about all of them) is way too high for me...
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Modern day Americans are trained to feel attacked. It's systematic programming. Once you acknowledge and admit to it, you begin to see when it's happening. You can then speak to people without fear or feeling someone is attacking you. For instance I find it amusing that you think we disagree. Again if you re-read my post, nothing seems to say I feel people should all think like me. You took one sentence out of context and built on it. In fact you haven't touched on not one thing I said. To drive the point home, you said
Ted Spencer said:
Me? I prefer to seek the truth wherever I can find it...
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Yet, you say this as a response to me saying, "...everyone is a coward and afraid someone's ideas may infect them." Somehow you're blinded to the fact you're in essence agreeing with me.

And having said that, keep in mind how we're taught to relate to people translates in our art and filmmaking.

Much of what I would have to say would stroke many Christians the wrong way, yet I myself am a believing Christian, but my theology, though Biblical, doesn't match the theology that is spoon fed to most. Herein lies my problem with Christian, Black, Female or any other form of sub genre filmmaking. To me my beliefs are a form of freedom, not bondage. Why should I be put in a box, no one else is?

-Nate
 
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Nathyn said:
Modern day Americans are trained to feel attacked. It's systematic programming. Once you acknowledge and admit to it, you begin to see when it's happening.

-Nate
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See, there you go doing my thinking for me again. No reason for me to read further.

I don't feel "attacked", nor was I ever "trained" to feel that way. As they say, you're entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.

Sorry. Bye...
 
But you just proved my point. You took a general statement so extremely personally you couldn't read the rest. We're all filmmakers but can't speak to one another artistically about things like this without someone getting angry. And yes, there's always a need to read further. You made points that have nothing to do with what I'm saying. You angrily agreed with me then then got mad and left. What kind of "art" are we making when we can't express ideas? Is this really art anymore when it gets to this point? I don't know. Maybe it's the point of art. I don't think anything said was so horrible. For the sake of the thread I will leave too.

Good luck with this Brandon, much success in the future. I hope to see more about NGL. Though I'm leaving I will be keeping an eye on the thread and hope you keep an eye on the Divinity thread too. I hope for a day like those of old where films like NGL don't need to be labeled "Christian" but can be made and simply considered good movies.

-Nate
 
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I'm not mad, I'm just not going to have a conversation with anyone who wants to 'tell me the way things are'. That's all. I'm not mad, I'm just not playin'...

I'm sure you're a very nice guy Nathyn, and so is Brandon. You're both thoroughly entitled to your points of view on this and all subjects, and I'm entitled to engage with you in conversations about them or not as I wish. No hard feelings, bro. None now and none before.

Peace
 
thisisapocalypse said:
Wow, simply remarkable. I guess like many have said before, I also can have a hard time with films that push an agenda too hard - I think the problem with many of those films is that the message isn't crafted well into the story and it can be very abrasive.

Not the case here by any stretch - and your message is so much more powerful because of it. I'm just blown away by how good this is - you have absolutely outdone yourselves - incredible job.
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So glad you enjoyed the film! :)
 
The only thing left is to buy the DVD. The movie found an agent, the agent found a distributor and the distributor put the movie out. There is no point in discussing the movie anymore. The thread is now only a vehicle to sell DVDs. That's how it should be. As far as I'm concerned, it would be great to know if this movie made it possible for the filmmakers to make a living.

The movie was marketed as a Christian movie. The agent is a Christian movie distributor. Lion's Gate is not a Christian distributor, so the movie must have fit into one of their niche markets.

The NGL thread is one of a few successful threads here in dvx users. It proves there is a way to make Christian movies and make money. I didn't think so when I commented at the beginning of the thread; but I was wrong. I will have to reconsider...
 
Not only that, but of course comments are great, and we're still learning, and critique is welcome! :)

The movie has made it possible for us to make a living. We're in the writing stage of our next film, that will (hopefully) be shot this calendar year!

Thanks! :)
 
We recently released a music video from one of the songs in the film. I edited the video. Enjoy!

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I AGREE


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrWuSWTVq8g
 
NO GREATER LOVE at AOF 2010

NO GREATER LOVE at AOF 2010

No Greater Love was just rescheduled at AOF, and is now being shown on Saturday, July 24, 2010, at 6:00pm. Please check out www.aoffest.com for tickets and information! See you there!
 
In case anyone was wondering, No Greater Love is available at most places for $9.99. Target, and Walmart are selling it at that price. So, if you want to pick up a copy, possibly for a Christmas gift, or if you're curious to see it, check it out! :) Thanks everyone!
 
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