Two Handed Warriors

A look at one of Hollywood’s thriving Millennial-focused churches: Basileia Hollywood, average age 26 Part 15 in series How Millennials Who Gave up on Church are Redefining Faith and Re-engaging Community   “Basileia Hollywood may be the only church in America where a celebrity can get up to visit the restroom and have his seat stolen [...]

Like Tevye, the stories of Scripture provide not only fertile soil for nurturing reinterpretations of our philosophy and culture for a new generation, but also irresistible bedrock for grounding the story of our own life in the mind of God.

The good news is there is a process to finishing your screenplay The bad news: the process doesn’t make the shoe easier to chew… by Christopher Riley Follow up to Chris’s post: Why Story Structure Matters, Even If You Don’t Want It To Back in the late 1970s when documentary filmmaker Errol Morris was struggling to [...]

Telling (and more importantly, living) stories that leave a beautiful feeling even as the credits role is the heart of genuinely Christian Filmmaking Part 3 in series The Future of Faith-Based Filmmaking by Gary David Stratton, PhD “I wondered about the story we were writing and wanted even more to write a better story for my life, [...]

Many Christians see these movies as a safe alternative to Hollywood’s immorality. Are they?  Part 2 in series The Future of Faith-Based Filmmaking by Brennan Mark Smith People have asked me to write on this for various reasons, but let me say at the outset: my goal is not to mock anyone’s creative endeavors, but to [...]

Christian Movie, Faith-based Film, or Christian Worldview Movie? Can you tell the difference? Part 1 in series “The Future of Faith-Based Filmmaking” by Mike Rinaldi What is or isn’t a Christian movie? What is the difference between a “Christian” movie and a “Faith-based” film? Many people use the terms interchangeably but they are very distinct [...]

Without a sound structure a two-hour film collapses under its own weight. Here’s why. by Christopher Riley Beginning screenwriters hate structure: Structure chafes. Structure kills creativity. Structure is for paint-by-the-numbers hacks, mindless, slavish screenwriting hordes laboring in the sweatshops of Snyder, Aristotle, and McKee. Structure is a four-letter word. Count ‘em. Str-uc-tu-re. Four toxic letters that spell [...]

Classic wisdom from a classy TV Writer and Man of God by Ron Austin This article is a revised version of a speech given at a conference concerning the role of Christians in the entertainment industry, sponsored by the Act One screenwriting program held at the Mears Center of Hollywood Presbyterian Church nearly a decade ago. [...]

One of today’s most articulate voices for faithful engagement in culture, Dean Batali, is best known for his work on That ‘70s Show, where he served as a writer for seven years and as an executive producer for the show’s final season.

Answering God’s faith-building call By Patrick Wood Called to Hollywood? It wasn’t that I had a difficult time believing Dr. Stratton had, in fact, received such a command from the Lord. His ability to hear from God—an area I hoped to grow in myself as a young grad student—is what drew me to pursue a mentoring [...]