What's wrong with Christian filmmaking?

the vast majority of people with money and power in hollywood have no interest in making christian movies. so you have to go the independent route. now it's possible to make a good independent film, but without that big time backing it's going to be a lot harder to get it done. .
 
Anybody else love "The Hebrew Hammer"? Here is a film with a lead character that is driven by his religion, and like Andrius Simutis wrote, that is what separates the niche market's interests from the mainstream market. What's great about The Hebrew Hammer is it's a satire to Judaism and is able to reach a fairly mainstream audience. It's generally considered to be a holiday film but because of the humor it's so much more than that.

 
I wanted to love Hebrew Hammer, really did. As a "Jew" (quotes indicate my practice level), and having done stuff along those lines, seemed like it'd be great. But actually sitting and watching it, to me it's just long, draggy, and interminable. It has that problem with many lower-budget (I'm guessing, nay, hoping) indie projects where it seems more like a solid 10-15 minute short that someone stretched to a feature film length.
 
Jimmy Pierce said:
Anybody else love "The Hebrew Hammer"? Here is a film with a lead character that is driven by his religion, and like Andrius Simutis wrote, that is what separates the niche market's interests from the mainstream market. What's great about The Hebrew Hammer is it's a satire to Judaism and is able to reach a fairly mainstream audience. It's generally considered to be a holiday film but because of the humor it's so much more than that.

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I don't see any mainstream appeal here.
 
Finn Yarbrough said:
???
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Sorry it is "snuff porn". Snuff porn is where you get off anticipating, then watching somebody die. In the trailer when Noah realizes Mr Big is going to wipe out the human race except for him and his, it looks like he is ready to.... you know.... The End Time series is similar, page after page of detailed death for your erotic pleasure. Millions of years of evolution wiped out because Mr. Big gets cranky, and there is always a delusional human ready to help him.
 
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Well, if that's all snuff porn is, then we're a snuff porn nation, aren't we? What major film in the past decade has not involved an audience eagerly anticipating somebody's (often brutal, tragic) death?
 
Interesting P.O.V lightstrum althought I personally disagree with that analysis. It is a valid opinion though.

I am looking forward to the movie as well.
 
I watched this recently like 5 times in a row. In fact I think I'm going to watch it again:
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Solid! No thoughts on Christian film making from me, but I did go to high school with the guitarist! ^ She was a few years older, though.
 
Josh Bass said:
I wanted to love Hebrew Hammer, really did. As a "Jew" (quotes indicate my practice level), and having done stuff along those lines, seemed like it'd be great. But actually sitting and watching it, to me it's just long, draggy, and interminable. It has that problem with many lower-budget (I'm guessing, nay, hoping) indie projects where it seems more like a solid 10-15 minute short that someone stretched to a feature film length.
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I agree it suffers from being low budget, but it does have it's moments. I love the idea of the Hebrew Hammer, there aren't too many films like it out there.


Gillvane said:
I don't see any mainstream appeal here.
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They broadcasted it on Comedy Central (it's made by them) every year. I don't know if they still do, so it has some mainstream appeal during the holidays.


The bottom line about the typical religious film that follow the lines of the article is there is a niche audience and that's what separates the film geared towards people looking to educate themselves or others in the religion presented versus the general public looking for entertainment.
 
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Gillvane said:
This is a good article about why Christian films do not often make big box office
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Depends on what you consider big. God's Not Dead did $9.2 opening weekend on just over 700 screens with a 12k average. It crushed it. It's doing 850-1m every day this week and will pass $20mil by the end of week #2. That's huge for an indie movie, any indie movie, let alone one in this genre. FIREPROOF is one of the most successful in the genre and didn't pass $20mil till Weekend #4 was over.

The article is good, but it misses a fundamental fact: There's quite a few people who make up the Christian audience who like what God's Not Dead is, even if the article calls them bad. I've heard people say it's the best movie ever, or its a masterpiece and be totally sincere or serious. I think they're nuts, but does that matter? There's a whole group of people who think those sorts of movies are awesome. It's a niche market...and with that sort of opening weekend, it's caught the eye of a lot of people.
 
Saw "Noah" today. What I like about it was it was not preachy. It seems like it was made to appeal to people on both sides of the fence. There was some very intense drama going on toward the later part of it ...especially involving his new family members. Though I (as well as many others) know the story growing up this was told it in a different way....and though a lot of it didn't match up to what I know it was still good story telling. Good acting. Nice visual effects (ILM). Great audio. Just a good big budget "Hollywood" produced film. In other words....it didn't try to "play it safe." I can appreciate that. I think it will do well at the box office.

As a consumer I wrestled with going to see "Noah" vs "God is Not Dead" and while I think the later will probably be something I would also enjoy I chose the former because even the name didn't come off as if it wanted to preach to me. I felt like Noah was something that would allow me to suspend my disbelief vs something that is trying to push me into believing what is being said. That to me are the issues we are really dealing with when going to or making movies like these. The name of a movie by itself can either draw or push away potential viewers. Though I am a Christian myself I don't necessarily want movies to preach to me.

For me, movies in the theater is expected to come off larger and more grande than stories that are made for television etc. But my problem with Christian based films over the years is...they remind me of glorified Hallmark movies. Nothing bad about it...but I wouldn't want to spend my hard earned cash to go out and see them in a theater. They feel better watching at home on the television. Noah...was not made for TV. That is certainly meant to view on the biggest possible screen you can find.

Then there's the movie "Son of God." Now...I'm not sure but it looks like the same cast of folks that were part of the miniseries that came on earlier this year on Television. That series was made for television. It looked like..."made for television." It's not as gritty and dirty as ..."Game of Thrones" or shows like that. It feels...."safe." Which is good for certain audiences.... But for the mainstream theater...I'm not too sure. I might go see it in theaters...but if a lot of folks are like me...then I don't know if it will do well at the box office. "Passion of Christ" is an example of a movie that did not play it safe. Look how well that did.
 
refocusedmedia said:
http://acculturated.com/good-vs-bad-faith-based-films/
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Boy, that was weird. Before you posted that, I had been contemplating the nature of art, what true art is, and good art. One of the things I kept coming back to is, it has to be exploratory. The writer can use art to explore ideas, sort of feel them out. If you know exactly what you're going to say before you even start writing, well, that's very different from a writer who says, Here's the situation, now how would each of these characters respond.

That may come across stupid to someone who's never delved deep into screenwriting or maybe some other form of art. How can a writer not know what he's doing, you might say. But in high school, my favorite book I read was Crime and Punishment. I had to report on an author for an assignment, so I picked Dostoevsky. One thing a biographer said of him is that his novels were "psychological experiments," much in the way I've already said. And then someone (later!) posts an article that mentions Dostoevsky.

In college I made one short film that I think came closest to artistic honesty. (I wanted to explore what it would be like if your best friend killed the girl you liked in a drunk-driving accident). It was very poorly executed, but still I hold it up as my most honest artistic endeavor, because I was being open and honest and wasn't really trying to "tell" somebody something that I thought they should know.
 
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