THE SHIFT INTERVIEW: Writer & Director Brock Heasley | Hosted by Darren Scott Jacobs

[Music] welcome against the tide media i am so excited today uh this is a different take on entertainment that needs to be seen and what i mean by that is the chosen has got second season let's all celebrate that that was our intent that was our hope that's why we're doing all the things we're doing for the chosen but guess what now today we're going to switch some gears here and we have brock heasley brock is both writer and director of an absolutely stellar amazing story called the shift and we're going to be discussing it today so you can understand why we're supporting it what can be done to support it and celebrate what brock and his cast and crew are trying to do as well brock thank you so much for being here thank you thanks darren i'm a huge fan of the chosen uh so it's awesome i mean i'm seriously honored that against the tide to be willing to support the shift in this way and have me on here it's fantastic well we consider it an honor i mean and on a personal note i've seen the uh the 20 minute short that you've done i don't want to call it a shirt because it's so dense and there's so much in there it's almost like a mini movie so short is not working for me so but i've seen what you've done so here right out of the gate i got to ask you brock okay i got to ask you this so watching the shift i have to say what came to mind immediately i am a huge cs lewis fan um and the screwtape letters is one of his masterpieces absolutely you're you're the writer of the script correct yes right so as hider where did the story come from and what were your influences to find that narrative so the screw tape letters is definitely top of mind like that was a huge influence i first read that back in high school and i'm a huge admirer of c.s lewis the way that he thought about christianity and and the things that he wrote you know the shift is the story of a man who's having just about the worst day of his life his marriage is going bad he's about to lose his job and then he gets into a major car wreck and he wakes up from that and there's this man helping him and that man turns out to be satan and satan is there with a job offer and so the film is really just like kind of like a job interview between between satan and our main character kevin and it's all about whether or not kevin is going to take the job and so in that sense screw tape letters came in handy because the screw tape letters is all about a a head demon uh writing letters to an apprentice team and you're thinking well that doesn't sound very christian i think it sounds kind of evil but when you read the screw tape letters you understand exactly the game c.s lewis is playing and what he's doing is he's he's exposing the tricks and so the whole thing is told from the point of view of somebody who practices the art of evil and by doing that c.s lewis is able to expose the tricks he's able to expose how satan works on us how evil works on us and how it tricks us to get away from god and so by having kevin have a have an encounter with the devil by actually hearing satan say this is what i want to do this is how i do the things i do what kind of work is that you know lie cheat steal murder i've never hurt anybody my whole life no but you have such potential you're a halfway decent guy it's the other half i'm particularly fond of and it takes over in the end we're exposing the tricks with the shift we are telling the truth as i like to say we are telling the truth with lies by hearing it from satan's own mouth we completely expose everything that he does and it's just very apparent um that it is a trick and then the other part of that besides the screw tape letters you know the twilight zone was a huge influence huge influence in the terms of the way that i structured it and the way that i thought about you know how the ending would how it would twist um and what we would leave with i'm a huge fan of comic books so there's some sci-fi and some comic books in there um and then also you know there's been a lot of stories in fiction about man versus the devil right we see a lot of those narratives and i've always been very frustrated with those narratives because i've never seen a character in any of those stories handle the devil in the way that i would as a christian the way that i would as a person of faith they never do what to me is the most obvious thing in the world to handle somebody like that to handle being actually faced with the devil and so the shift was my way of working that out of of responding to those stories and saying no this is how it should be done this is how you should respond to the devil and kevin he struggles with that before he gets to that point and we show that struggle in the film but it really is about how do you as a person of faith how do you get out of a spot like this what do you do what is your recourse for something like that yeah i'll tell you something um that's what makes it so compelling i love what you're saying about the tricks the tricks of the trade and that there is an absolute agenda with evil that evil is operating in a certain way for specific reasons and i sensed that in this 20-minute like i said not a short 20-minute movie where you're moving in directions where you're actually gonna you know probably explore all sorts of stuff in the world of temptation but right out of the gate was absolutely amazing so look you're also the director yes you're the director i see reminiscent i see m night shyamalan i see the twilight zone i see hitchcock in there even kind of hints of the ominous presence of evil that in david lynch's uh twin peaks i mean i just see all sorts stuff that you're messing with what films influenced you to find that tempo that goes all throughout the 20 minutes there's an honest you can feel you know what i mean absolutely so i'm a huge fan of twin peaks too and and of david lynch's stuff you know and you're right it has twin peaks especially which i just rewatched recently with my daughter it does have this kind of ominous feel and you know lynch's stuff it's kind of low rent like it's it's really simple what he films and you almost don't even really understand why you're kind of unsettled as you're watching a ceiling fan spin its blades you know why is that ominous but it is and that was definitely very much an influence and a feel that i was trying to evoke with the shift you know and it's a faith film it's like why would you want it to feel ominous and i think when you watch it it'll make sense a lot of pretty much the caveat to everything i'm saying here is watch the film and it will make sense because it is it is a different kind of film um but yeah shyamalan hitchcock you know tension suspense these were the things that i wanted to have embedded in the film not only because it's basically two guys talking and how do you make that interesting well my way it was was to inject it with tension and suspense so that you're kind of hanging on every word and you want to know what happens and you're kind of afraid of what's going to happen and maybe something bad is going to happen and that's kind of the feeling that i think that i try to put into the whole into the entire film when i was making a shift i had just come off of a year working with a production company that had a horror film come out from blumhouse uh just that previous summer but when i thought about you know how do we tonally how do we construct this i was really thinking about horror films which is an odd inspiration to have for for a faith film and i'm not actually i'm not really much of a fan of horror films it's not the genre that i seek when i go to watch you know a movie on a friday night and so my instruction to my sound designer and my instruction of my composer was think horror hey horror let's put some stings in there let's put some things that ramp up the tension um because we are dealing with evil i don't want to you know get into the evil i don't i want to make an appropriate film that can be watched by families but at the same time i wanted to have a certain feeling and so when it came to the editing when it came to the sound design when it came to you know just the visual language of things i was thinking in terms of horror two guys sitting in a diner just talking to each other i think that's what part of what makes it kind of compelling even though it on the face of it it's it's a very very simple thing and i also have to give a huge shout out to my to my director of photography and my crew you know this was my first film i've never done anything like this before and they very much helped me evoke that feeling and keep me on on point and make it what it is so huge huge hats off to them as well honest question so the shift would you say it's taking personified evil seriously it's actually absolutely on saying here's something in our reality that works in specific it has a construct so i'm thinking about ephesians six in ephesians six great letter where paul and that early on i think it's in the second chapter he said ford is by grace you've been saved uh not by work so that no man can boast that's the the centerpiece of christianity uh for for paul's general letter to the church of ephesus but at the end he finishes it's only six chapters long with mentalities and powers that comes to mind watching this i think of a machinery almost industrial and i think of it as devoid from emotion but it has an agenda and it's going to meet it whatever it has to do to destroy there's no issue ethically from i love the you know the dialogue between them you don't feel like uh the character of satan is struggling with any kind of ethical concerns you know why because he's not that's not a construct in his being so what biblical truths uh helped influence and shape the narrative and the narrative is really muscular in this so i have to ask that because i think that you probably went to the bible and said what am i playing off you're right about that no you're absolutely right about that so in constructing the narrative and really in constructing the character of satan because you know as as the writer i'm i'm faced with the task of actually personifying evil of actually writing the words that he says c.s lewis when he wrote screwtape letters he talked about how he absolutely never wanted to do that again because just the just the writing out of of that dialogue and those words was was taxing for him um and so it was an interesting exercise to to go through and try to give voice to things that honestly i don't believe in at all i don't believe you know that we're doomed and that everything's terrible and and and that the things that he's saying are right but by giving voice to it we're able to instruct and so what i looked at in the bible was to look for similar instances where in the bible is satan being given voice where do we hear from him and what does he say and why are we being told what his words are in that moment because the bible's the word of god and yet some of the words of the devil are in the bible and one of the big touchstones for me was matthew four you know when christ is being is in the wilderness and he's being tempted by the devil and he comes to him with three temptations and the third temptation he's given and and i'm assuming this was face to face we don't have any reason not to think to not think that it was the third temptation that christ is given the devil says to him worship me and i'll give you all the kingdoms of earth and all the in and all the my glory essentially um and of course i'm thinking why in the world of christ want that his kingdom and glory is so much greater than anything on earth but that was the temptation a temptation like that to christ he was able to overcome and he went on his way a temptation like that to a regular person like kevin worship me and you can have all my kingdoms and all the glory you could possibly want you do accept this offer you're out there kevin doing my work and you're rewarded for it you're you're a captain of industry you're a leader you're you're a hollywood producer you're a king and i can provide all of those things for you everything you ever wanted i have a thousand different versions of you on a thousand different worlds doing my work and they aren't hampered by an unfaithful spouse or an idiot supervisor who can't recognize their talents swear allegiance to me kevin and i will lift you out of this embarrassing farce you call a life and into something glorious [Music] you can do that just say the word it would honestly be my pleasure [Music] that's a strong temptation that would be something that would be very very tempting for people and that's essentially what the temptation is in the shift um but what's most interesting to me about matthew 4 is how that ends and what happens to jesus after he refuses satan and says no absolutely not i'm not going to do that and what happens in the very next verse angels come and they visit him and they support jesus in his weakened state they are there to to support him and buff it him up and bear him up jesus receives a witness after his trial and that's really key for me that's where i feel like the ending of the shift especially and if you haven't seen it i'm not trying to try not to give away the whole thing but the ending of the shift is to me biblically sound in the sense that we have a character who is goes through a temptation he goes through a trial and then he receives his witness he receives that when as he receives that support that he that he longed for because he shows his faith well it's a fantastic moment in in the narrative structure look uh going back to when we we started the interview um very first interview that we did for against the tide media uh in promotion of the chosen which we're still going to be doing um they got second season we want them to have seven or eight seasons so we'll we'll continue is i had the privilege of uh interviewing uh giovanni cairo uh welcome giovanni so glad to have you here yeah man it's good to see you i'm glad uh glad to talk to everybody and who is a great actor he's become a really good friend who plays thaddeus and we talked about this and this is something i i want to hit kind of hard with you as you're a faith-based filmmaker is that generally when you look at um christian entertainment let's put it that way okay or movies fall into two camps or either they're really designed to uh they're designed for the believer they're to maintain the the people that are already in the in the camp so to speak and i'm not there's nothing i don't think there's anything necessarily bad about that i talked about this with giovanni this is back a while ago the first interview then there's other filmmakers that are trying to kind of tell stories a little bit outside the box where they're trying to find stories that maybe could infiltrate the the camp of the non-believer where does your where does the shift fall so that's an interesting question and it's one that honestly when i when i made the shift i wasn't really asking myself the shift came from a pretty pure place in that sense it was really a place of hey here's a story that's on my mind that i really want to tell and initially it was just the idea of can i even write in the raft because i didn't know if i could and so i made the shift very much as a i don't know if anybody's ever going to see this but it's in me and i need it to be out of me and so i made it and then i took it around to um festivals film festivals and almost entirely secular film festivals and in fact it was from a secular film festival that i got um an award for outstanding film maker of the year uh just based purely on the shift um yeah and it was it was a moment it was it was a really cool moment and i had several other moments like that where i would take it to these festivals where it's not there's no other film there that expresses any kind of faith and yet my film was accepted people were enthusiastic about it and sometimes they were enthusiastic on the level of well that was really interesting it had a faith element and other people just completely ignored the faith element and just were like that was just a really cool story and i really enjoyed watching it um in fact i had uh one woman um on facebook recently she saw it on on our website and she commented and said well she had some actually some not so nice things to say about god um she does it takes a pretty dim view of religion and of god in general but she had some really nice things to say about the shift and she watched the whole thing and she was very upfront and she said to be honest with you like i i'm not a you know god and i we're not we're not really there but this film i hope you get to make it i hope you get to make the full feature because i want to see it i want to watch it and what's significant about that to me is that whether or not she knows it a seat has been planted in her and that's what i think that this film can do that's what i know that the short film has done and that's what i think that the feature film would would do all the more which is it would reach those non-believers those people who maybe would never walk into a faith-based film but they'd love to see a cool science fiction film a cool christopher nolan type film you know that they can that they can enjoy with you know on on the level of it's just a great story and it's interesting but at the same time i very much feel like this film if it's going to be embraced by anyone and and the people that i have seen who embrace it the most are those who have faith because it speaks to something within them because it came from a real place within me and it came from a real place of faith and so when they see it they see so much more than than people who don't have faith or who maybe have a dim view of faith than they're able to see one of the things that's happened as i've gone and shared this at churches for example is um always afterwards you know we'll have a little q a session and get comments from the audience and that's always fun because i'm always curious how they're going to react because the shift is really different you know the big quote in the chosen my favorite quote from the chosen is get used to different uh which is a lot of people's favorite quote and i feel like the shift is is the difference is is one of those different things the chosen is but so is the shift and so when i bring it to churches i never quite know how they're going to react and what's actually been really cool is that the reaction has almost no actually has been entirely uniformly positive in a way that i didn't expect one of the things a lot of people say is you know this isn't like a hallmark movie i hear that so many times this is this isn't a hallmark movie you know as though a hallmark movie is the only thing a faith movie can be but for some people that's what they're used to getting you know these these cute comforting hallmark movies which have their place and that and that's i'm not knocking those and people enjoy those that's fantastic but this is not that's not what the shift is and that's not what the chosen is and so there's a real appetite there even for people who are watching the hallmark movies that reinforce their faith there's an appetite from them even to see something different to see something that's maybe a little bit more challenging goes a little bit deeper and that can be shared with people who don't believe like them comfortably without any reservation at all and that's really what i'm trying to do is make a film that is a crossover in that way in the same way that i feel like the chosen is we're just doing it with a completely different type of film a different tactic well said across the board the thing that resonates with me is that the honest appeal that evil is real and that we talked about this in one of our conversations on the phone that christianity is a struggle and i think it's like your friend that has issue with with faith you know from the get-go the idea of uh a portrayal that where it's an honest depiction of the the thorny brazil's ahead um and i and you know like you said hey homework okay hallmark knows what they're doing um right for him personally um but you know they've got they know what they're doing and people that that kind of entertainment has its place but i really think they're it what you're trying to do with the shift i think is absolutely essential because there are people out there that are going to see this that are going to go i can't believe they're being so honest i mean the the chosen is that's their hallmark they're like jesus of nazareth it's his ministry but it shows the backstory and the struggle and and the confusion and the humanity of it all down to some self um and it's incredibly honest about that in its approach you know these these are real it treats these characters not as characters but as real people with issues like we have and that that's what's impressed sorry i just interrupted you but i'm a fan and it's it's an amazing shot listen the people want to hear from you they don't really want to you know what i do my goal is to hit uh uh speaker view and get away from this so that's my goal but anyway no don't don't worry about that but i see in the shift you're doing the same thing look when kevin leaves a diner and this isn't gonna this isn't ruining everything this isn't a spoiler and the door just slowly shuts closes about six seconds i actually count it off um i want i know that i want to know where he goes i want to know why he goes there and what happens now without divulging too much of the script is the rest of the storyline as compelling as the first 20 pages um more a lot more um the short it's kind of it's funny because it's kind of it's hard for me sometimes to talk about the shift because to 99 of the world the shift is the short but to me it's not anymore to me it's it's the full feature film which which i've written and gone through several drafts of and the short is such is so much the tip of the iceberg it really is it really represents kind of the first of the the end of the first act you know the full film is so much more and it takes those themes that that the shift is just kind of hinting at some of the ideas that the shift is just that the short film is just hinting at and it takes them to their logical conclusion the feature film really really is a riff a modern day riff on the story of job that's that's what it is and if you're familiar with the book of job then you can kind of guess maybe not to me it's obvious where it's going and and what the feature film will be about in the feature film and i'm not going to give away a whole lot obviously but you know one of the central things in in the short is is kevin and his wife molly and kind of the the argument is the whole thing starts off with an argument between the two of them in their kitchen that's great kevin way to take a stand i'll just i'll call the bank and tell him that you're too and then you kind of just don't see molly again she's just she's just kind of gone after that point um she's talked about but she's gone hello hi honey where are you um i'm all the way home look i'm sorry about this morning i'm out with friends i'm not sure when i'm gonna be back a feature film you're gonna see their marriage you're going to see how they got together you're going to see what drove them apart and and in that sense the film becomes kind of a love story about the two of them that that's really a big part of what the feature film is but yeah you're absolutely going to see what happens to kevin the second he walks out that door i'm like you i want to know what happens to him where does he go after he leaves that diner at the end of the short and so we're going to see that and i think the thing that's important to realize about that and i think the end of the film hints at that is that it's not over for kevin not by a long shot in the same way that for you and i just because we have a witness of faith or just because we have a moment of clarity that god is real and and we have a moment where we say i'm committing myself to to christ and and i'm committing myself as a believer that doesn't mean that it's over for us at that point that doesn't mean it's just smooth sailing and we're not going to be tried anymore and everything's going to be great it's the same way for for kevin in in the future film it's it's far from over from him there's there are other trials ahead of him and what's worse is that he's that's when the battle begins right that's when the battle really begins it's not when you when you come to your moment of faith it's it's after the moment of faith and the problem with kevin is is that he just really ticked off satan father are you ready to do you really think that god will help you after what you've done your tainted goods you're not even worth this effort anymore and even if she does help you do you think i will ever leave you alone ever you can't put me off i am relentless i am at your heels i know [Music] jesus christ again he ticked him off he proved him wrong and he ticked him off and he made him mad that's not a great thing to do if you want to have a happy carefree life and so kevin is he's in for it and like job kevin's going to come to a moment where he says god where are you where are you right now because i'm really having a hard time and uh and that's what i want to show in the feature film and show what happens to a guy that goes through that who's really just kind of gonna get pummeled and and is there any way for him to be back with his wife that's one of the big questions he has is can i can i be restored in my marriage can i be restored to god is god gone now or is he still there and is there any hope for me at all i'm getting teary just thinking about it i mean just i'm just so excited to tell this story grass tax i mean think of it what's the biggest thing we probably have going in the united states right now is the destruction of the family marriage relationships broken left and right i mean something to look at how does that what are the you know is it just social construct is there something more going on so look right off to both your casting crew i just thought yeah big like you guys right there with you guys nailed it um how did y'all come together and how long was your shooting schedule i mean how did this what does it look like like making the film so um the film was shot over three days uh not consecutively we we sat on weekends and it was right around christmas we actually had to skip a couple weekends just because everybody was busy but it came together pretty quickly uh we uh all of the the entire cast with the exception of like two people um came from a haunted house we'd all worked a haunted house together uh and um and it was at the end of the last night of the haunted house i wanted i was the house manager so it was my job to just you know i did timesheets and did all kinds of crazy things um and just ran up and down stairs and it was and just managed to everybody so i knew everybody everybody knew me and at the last night one of the actress came to me and he said hey i hear you're a writer i'm an actor if you ever do anything i would love to be in it and to that point i hadn't thought about that really i hadn't thought about me making something and somebody else starring in it i was working with a with a production company but i hadn't thought in that direction and so as soon as he said that a light bulb went on and i thought oh my gosh i know all these actors i'm working with this production company so i have access to a crew i could put something together and i could actually make it and and that was how that started and the actor that that's that approached me and said that was gregory c tharp who plays kevin in the short and i did not know at that time that greg had only ever done comedy i had no idea i had never seen anything he was in he was just an actor who was willing to act and i said you got the lead and he did such an amazing job and really blew away everybody who who only knew him from comedy um if i had seen his comedy stuff i may have been a little bit more reluctant but i just had faith in the guy and i knew he could do it and he did um and then and then travis clough he he plays satan travis was a was a friend and also um the directors uh he one of the directors of of the film the production company i was working for uh he was one of the directors of the film that had come out that summer but he's also an actor in his own right and i just i saw him as satan i asked him to do it and that was it um and then everybody else tina the waitress the cj leonzo uh played the boss brendan there in the very beginning he was from the haunted house and then because it was a cheap location we used my house for the kitchen and i used my wife as the wife kevin's wife she plays kevin's wife um so it was really just kind of a ragtag crew of people we got together uh over you know three days in in december and and we made this film for 500 that was all the money i had i was very very poor at the time my wife and i had lost our jobs a year prior and still we're having a hard time so i had no money and i had a lot of friends and a lot of friends who were willing to to help me out that's basically how that film got made wow wow amazing i'm so glad you made it so i have to ask so favorite scene and hardest scene to shoot and why it's the same scene for both questions the scene that was the hardest to shoot uh and and my favorite is definitely the diner scene which is the bulk of the film anyway it's satan and kevin talking to each other and everything that happens during their conversation that was a that we did that all in one night it was a 14-hour shoot it was a 14-page scene it was stressful it was hard it was way too ambitious my naivete got the better of me that night because i really did not know that that was a bad idea to shoot that many pages in one night but it worked out it really worked out we were we were incredibly blessed that night we actually i had worked for a month to secure a location just the perfect location for that scene and four days before we were set to shoot the location pulled out and i did not have a backup and i was really freaking out because anybody who works in film knows that scheduling actors scheduling crews scheduling a location all of that is is difficult and you've got to line up everybody's schedules at once so everybody was ready to go except for that location now which which would just mess up the whole thing thankfully we we found a new location within a matter of a couple of days they came through we showed up at the place in the afternoon they literally tossed me the keys and said here you go i didn't know them they didn't know me they tossed me the keys and they walked out the door and i locked up later that night when we were all done at five in the morning little things like that happened a lot on that shoot things that should not have happened things that if you had told me ahead of time they were going to happen i wouldn't have believed you nobody just gives the keys to their restaurant to somebody they don't know but that's what happened they trusted me and and i can only look at that as a blessing and only look at that as this film from the very beginning felt like something that needed to be and here i am years later trying to get funding for for the feature film and i feel exactly the same way wow wow yeah love it okay so next steps i mean how can the fans and i can only imagine um our of course our our big push here is to bring people into this and they're familiar in 20 minutes how can the fans help uh what can be done on social media what can be done to move the process along uh farther or further and and further more but you know bit angel you have there's a relationship you have with them i'm going to let you talk about that because i don't specifically know and i don't want to say the wrong words and also dallas jenkins who is that you know the creator and the and writer of um the chosen is a fan of the shift and gave you a big thumbs up uh and i can only imagine the fan base is going to grow exponentially our goal is specifically to bring stuff like this uh to people out there we did the same thing with the chosen and we're going to continue on with the chosen but we you know i i've had long talks of people that are enamored with this project how do we help you yeah first of all dallas you're right dallas is a fan he he was kind enough when he didn't know me at all to take a look at the film early on when i first started my relationship with vid angel and he was kind enough to look at the film and watch it and give us a fantastic quote uh from him is his endorsement is on our our website um at studios.vidangel.com the shift and um he was just he was really kind and he since then um we've had some talks here and there and he's been kind enough to share his thoughts on the film and his support um so that's been amazing and such such an honor for me personally because i'm such an admirer and a fan of his work and i think his stuff is just top notch um and exactly where christian entertainment needs to go vid angel came on board when i you know i saw what they were doing with the chosen and i saw that that there was a call that went out for you know additional projects they under their vid angel studios arms they were they're interested in producing more quality projects under their banner and so i submitted the shift really just with the intent of hoping to get it on their website so it could stream and i can make a little bit of money because up to that point i hadn't made any on on the film but once they saw it their thoughts were a lot bigger than that they scheduled a call and they basically asked me is there more can you do more with this can we do with the shift what we're doing with the chosen and i said yes not not a tv show but i have a great idea for a movie and subsequent to that i went on and wrote the script and that's all done but at the time i just had an idea but it was enough of an idea what i pitched to them at the time they felt was strong enough that they wanted to go forward and go ahead and throw their weight behind the shift and you know set up a crowd funding for the shift and set up some marketing to let people know about it and so that's what's happening and that's what we have right now is that we have a website that's dedicated where people can go and they can watch the film anybody can watch the film for free on the website it's also available on facebook right now you can check it out on our facebook page at shiftyfilm and yeah and on the website though studios.vidangel.com slash the shift you can watch the film and you can also invest in the same way that people invested uh with the chosen and thankfully with with the shift we don't need you know even half of what the chosen got um we need about about a tenth of what the chosen got for their first season and then we'd be off to the races and we'd be making this movie um so the best thing that people can do honestly um we do need an investment we do we need investment and and we need to you know get get that budget but if people can't invest then i'd encourage them and even if they can we need this too we need it from everybody we need we need to put the word out there we need it to be shared we have our page on facebook anything that's there please share it with everyone come and see what we're doing um if you can't invest you can always pray too we can definitely use your prayers we need to pray right now my prayer is is that this can get the shift can find its way to people who who can invest in it and and who can support us in that way so that we can make this film and i and i believe strongly that that will happen i believe strongly that there are people out there who want to see a story like this come to the screens and that's really the ultimate goal is let's get this in the movie theaters you know let's let's get this to where people can see it and then streaming from there and all kinds of things but ultimately you know i know that this is in god's hands ultimately it's on his timetable and i believe strongly that his hand is on this project um and if i didn't then i wouldn't be doing it but ultimately it's going to be up to him whether or not it happens yeah yeah so listen yeah all this is uh this is important it's important stuff and i would love like i said i'd love to see the conversations uh derived from the shift uh where people are talking about it uh you know uh talking about the reality of personified evil in in terms so then of course big question for you is this let's see how do i ask this appropriately i'm oh i'm scared now the sci-fi twist sci-fi twist how did you come up with that and does that play all the way through and furthermore i mean i mean i dig it i love it i love sci-fi coming into supernatural realm did you think it was risky to do that or how i mean when when you brought that in because it's because it's almost character on its own really how did you feel about that so putting sci-fi science fiction putting that into a work about faith it's not something that i have really seen before so in that sense i knew it was a little bit of a risk because it's it's what's what's the template for that right where has that been done and been done successfully um nowhere i haven't even seen it done unsuccessfully so unless there's something i'm not aware of it's it's new territory and that's where we talk about it being different that's probably the thing that makes the shift really different is that there is this science fiction thing in there and when i tell people that they look at me like what like it's it's a confusing thing how does that work how can you put science fiction with faith aren't those aren't science and faith aren't they aren't they opposites aren't they supposed to never come together um and at which point i say just watch the film watch the film and then tell me if you feel the same way after after you've seen it the comments i get most from people is or an interesting comment i get my mom has said this a lot of other people have said it i don't like sci-fi but i like this because there's something different happening we're using the sci-fi element in a different way um but where it came from was that i was out of a couple of things first of all without giving can we keep saying this without giving too much away the sci-fi twist is that it deals with parallel universes there's not a thing you can imagine that doesn't already exist somewhere some when is no fiction parallel earth so good so good so good when he gets it and this idea that our choices put us on on a path but but another choice would have put us on a different path and those paths are represented by actual parallel universes actual places actual other earths where our lives played out a different way and satan is able to let's say manipulate that idea to his advantage to tempt us and to try us and i'll let you watch the film to figure out how he does that um he's pretty he he lays it all out a lot better than i could right now but um the idea for that came honestly was it was a really small moment it was me driving to work listening to the radio listening to this morning show these morning show dj's i always listened to and the dj i liked the most was not there he was just gone and there was no acknowledgement of the fact that he was gone or that he was ever there at all and i had this moment where i thought to myself am i some kind of weird parallel universe where this guy just doesn't even exist anymore like am i going crazy what is happening and there was this confusion that took over me and i thought to myself well that's interesting i'm so confused and i'm so put out by this this dj who's just gone which is ridiculous but it was what happened it was what my mind went to and i thought that's interesting what if what if that could be weaponized what if you could take the confusion of suddenly being in a place that looks like where you're supposed to be i'm i'm here i'm driving to work it's what i do every day but it's not like i thought it would be and that's confusing to me and what if you could take that and you could mess with people that way and you could put them in situations where they're having a disagreement over what's going on because they come from different places where two different things happened and they come together thinking they're both from the same place it's very abstract sounds that's that's what it is it sounds so fantastic but i actually think probably there's more truth to that than fiction i really do you never know you know we know that there's different levels to reality that we don't experience we just don't there's different dimensions and all that kind of stuff i just like the fact of actually bringing those two genres together they collide together but it seems to be cohesive it seems to work and i think that that's one of the strengths of the storyline so i was just thanks for the it was a really good answer i mean i'm glad you thought so because i was like oh my gosh what am i even saying because it's a tricky place to be because here's the deal we want everything neat and tidy and reality is not no it's not eating tidy to any degree so here here uh uh we have a we have a tradition with against tied media we always let our guests have the last say and the question is simple what one thing would you say to um those who are supporting this the fans in the coming days so the first thing i would say is first of all thank you for giving the shift a chance you know anytime somebody takes the time to watch it that's always impressive to me because i know it doesn't fit into what we think of as faith entertainment and so anybody who gives it a chance um and i got to have somebody come away from that and say oh man i just wasted 20 minutes of my life people generally feel like that was time well spent um but to take that initial chance take that leap and say you know what i am looking i'm going to be open to something a little bit different here and and something that that could be inspiring let's see if it actually is i feel like that's kind of the attitude going in for people and so when they make that leap i'm just appreciative of that um and and and i think i think the other thing i would say and that's the thing i already said before which is that god is in charge here i really believe that i believe that he's in charge of this project when i hear dallas talking about how this is his life's work when he's talking about the chosen he talks about it as this is this is one of the things that he knows he's supposed to do that's a very familiar thing for me it's a very familiar feeling that's exactly how i feel about the shaft it really is and um and so i know that because i feel that way that this is coming from a place of inspiration and i know that it's in god's hands and i might my prayer is simply that that it will remain in his hands and that people will come and support it share it pray for it and invest in it if they can so brock i have to just say thank you so much for your time um you know against tide media i mean our our goal really is to bring we're trying to bring entertainment that matters to the masses so so people look at jesus differently look at evil differently look at look at the reality of what's going on in our world there's a lot of despair and there's a lot of lost people and movie theaters where people go for truth unfortunately they really do i mean it's our virgil it's our our dante it's our homer it's our chaucer it's where masses go so we best people of faith best have the the best stories to tell i mean our muse is better than anyone so absolutely so why so why not do it that way so brock thank you so much for this best to you thank you probably catch up with you down the road again uh i would love that let's do something else as you move forward with the project update something like that but we're we're behind you we hope the best for you and i i you know i personally i see i see great days for what you're trying to do i think it's coming i think it's coming down the pipe so thanks so much you got any last words or you i boy i tell you what i i'd rather people just watch the film instead of hear from me there's a reason that i am not an actor in the film and i think we've all seen that today but uh but please just watch the film cc for yourself if if anything i'm saying is true i think and and i and i actually i will say one more thing i'm going to backtrack on that i would say pay attention to your feelings when you when you watch the film i think by the time you get to the end of that my hope is ultimately there's a witness of christ there and that should produce good feelings and i think that's what happens and that makes it worse at all really right absolutely that's the whole point that's the whole point thanks so much and uh appreciate your time we'll be talking to you soon thanks darren [Music] hi my name is brock heasley and i'm the writer and director of the shift a short film about the struggle between an ordinary man and the mysterious stranger who offers him untold power and fame a stranger who turns out to be the devil himself it's a story of great temptation and quiet faith that deserves a bigger canvas and now in partnership with vid angel studios we you and i we have a chance to expand the story of the shift by turning it into a feature film if there's one thing everyone always asks me about the shift it's this what happens next what happens after satan is defeated and kevin walks out the door the answer is a lot and my team and i are ready to bring that larger story to life my name is orlando j gomez and i'm a producer on the shift the team we've assembled has worked on films for the big studios including sound designer brandon jones who worked on films like the gallows transformers last night christopher robin and a quiet place now we're ready to bring our talents to a film that more closely aligns with our faith my name is kyle jensen and i'm the director of photography for the shift christian viewers are smart and we deserve intelligent beautiful entertainment that speaks to our values and does not condescend kevin's dramatic journey of faith is going to look incredible we're planning for a theatrical release and national and international streaming distribution reaching our budget goal will allow us to pursue top-notch on-screen talent to give the shift its best chance on the marketplace my name is erin heasley and i played the role of molly in the shift short film i can't wait to find out who replaces me is it jennifer garner can can it can it be jennifer garner jennifer i'm so excited to bring you the rest of the story of the shift i want to follow kevin out the door i want to see what happens to him after he's had this incredible witness of faith and he knows it's not going to get any easier it's actually going to get harder kevin will try to hide holding on to his faith and fading scraps of hope even as the devil keeps coming after him this is the chance to tell the story of a modern day job a person who already had faith and was then seemingly abandoned by god and severely tested kevin like job will have to make the choice every day to still believe despite all hardship and evidence to the contrary that's life as a believer that's who we all are we believe and yet it's tough and there are times when it's way tougher than others i think about the years of struggle my wife and i had towards understanding our daughter with special needs i think about the time after we both lost our jobs within 24 hours of each other and we wondered what in the world are we going to do and i think about how many good people i know who struggle with chronic illness and children who go astray and more and worse and in those long moments knowing that god is real and knowing he exists and we wonder when he's going to help when he's going to show his face again that's what this feature film will be about a man who has already seen god's hand in his life and that's when a true trial of faith begins i don't know a single believer who doesn't know exactly what that struggle is like and by telling that story we have a chance to entertain encourage and bring hope to so many check out the site for more details on how to invest now at studios.vidangel.com the shift okay now this is my recommendation so here's the deal you don't need to use this that will be your call but i thought it might be kind of fun [Music] if we opened going into opening title sequence with our little our little ditty our little song um if i was juggling and what i mean by that is i'll show you what i mean and you can see if it works for you but i thought why not plus look i mean how good this shirt looks oh maybe i mean come on awesome shirt so i'm going to give this to you i think it should be quick short it's like galen always says be brief be bright be gone so here we go i'll count down five three two on behalf of against the tied media we're so happy to bring you another interview but this one's going to be a little bit different than what we've done before and guess what what do you mean by different well here's the deal why is darren juggling right now well i'm juggling because i'm happy because there's a shift in my understanding and what we're going to do basically today is [Music] you didn't see that just edit that we're going to talk to a man that is amazing as far as a filmmaker both writer and director and we're gonna do that right now bam okay so something like that even though i just you know so the thing is i was gonna do here let me show you this is kind of cool i was afraid that i might that i just bought my new uh my new iphone i was afraid i might break it so here here we go ready dang it one more time i'm gonna get this put this in slow mo ready that's not slow that's not good at all one more time take 78 take 78. oh [Music] boom [Applause] take it to the bank brother anyway tell me what you think and i'm gonna go take a shower and probably need a doctor yep i am recording cool i am two and i am in gallery view hi i am what about you darren i don't know um i mean no i'm not in gallery view now i am uh i was in speaker you know what switches it's the opposite you know the funny thing is when it says no you're not you can go to speaker view um so i've got recording going on and things look good i see three participants and things look all right i i'd probably be okay even if you did bomb me but uh but i appreciate i appreciate the effort to have as good as an interview as possible because it does it does help to know ahead of time i've definitely done plenty of interviews where i didn't know it all and it is this plus we know noah's gonna edit it and make it the important thing was great i love that it's juggling and i think that that's what's going to make everything perfect just messy now darren i can't juggle like you're here you want me to juggle with these i have two water mugs to water do that you have a professional career yeah breaking break juggling a half hour you could both be doing three and i mean that anyway that's a whole other discussion probably probably wouldn't be of great interest to our audience right now hey teach you how to juggle whoo i'm trying to get it where i just don't glow like a cadaver that's a little better yeah i warmed up my light hoping that that would not make me so ghostly yeah i have my lighting right in front of me but i didn't bother to turn it on because it's i'm not in it anyway and that's fair yeah i don't turn this thing on otherwise because it's kind of blinding okay no you don't have to do anything we get it so anyway uh basically just to let you know when we get into this number one if we mess up big deal uh sure look and take it out let's try and get let's try and hit it right as much as we can but the thing the thing is is that i gave you the questions i'm probably going to play off them and and embellish an ad lib a little bit here and there for sure i i'm not an actor so if i read them verbatim it's like watching the shift the stick tape letters by cs lewis you know and you know like wow this is boring so i just look up for a reminder and then kind of and kind of go for it that's the [ __ ] so anyway so bye noah okay you want to be in the you want to be in the midst of this now do you want to be how about you you can be on this if you want i mean maybe you could have stuff well i don't think it'd really be necessary for me to be on it but it would be cool i'm up for whatever you know it says recording though it's blinking red does that mean it's doing it um is that if i mess up we got it on the other side i think that's one new to make sure it's recording on on your end you see at the bottom where it says pause stop recording let's see don't click it i do um yeah then that means you're recording from you're in great uh hover over at the bottom you can see that you just just don't touch it yeah so if you've got the if you've got the red light blinking at the top you're fine okay it's the recording is blinking red at the top i go in it says record on this computer but i think i'm already doing that so do you want me i think that means that just the other people are recording in the meeting okay let me see let me see record on this computer [Music] oh shouldn't say oh now it says recording and it's okay thank you okay oh great [Laughter] nick loves me anyway but that's just the way it works yeah i've done that i've done the whole shoot so then oh crud we didn't record the sound it's terrible we had that a little bit in our first interview with giovanni uh i did get the updated version with no music um and it was just kind of trouble playing over this um kind of gentle music and it sounded a little bit weird if you really listen closely to it so got it uh trouble is not gentle i'm sure no it's not it's just kind of whimsical and for you guys to see this film as something worthy of promoting like the way you're promoting the chosen i mean that's just that blows my mind that's just so exciting and humbling for me so i appreciate it well it's good it's that good all right listen noah thanks for all you do maestro go crazy good stuff thank you i know you're doing multiple stuff right now okay i'm going to let you guys get to this and i appreciate it thank you thanks all right thank you noah bye bye bye looking forward to watching this okay there we go all right let me figure out this whole speaker view that's hard i have to press that button oh okay so i'm going to pull this up a little bit i'm going to move your head as close to the center of my computer as possible so that i'm looking at you and it looks like i'm looking at the camera yeah there we go looking at the green light i just i just don't like that but that just seems to be the deal uh you know when i'm looking at you right now does it look like i'm looking at the camera or that i'm looking down below it it looks like you're looking at me how did you do that so i reframed my zoom and and and then kind of so that it's so you're as close to the top border as possible and then i centered your face with my green light so it so basically your face is about an inch away from the camera now so it looks like i'm looking straight at it i like that i'm cheating though i have the questions uh in a word doc behind the zoom uh i have that too i got i got this i got the questions right next to your head but i can see you and i can see the questions okay well let's see let's do this so i have a tendency to move so you're good i got to figure out if you could see me i'm like my my foot's hooked into the desk anyway no no uh but yeah let's just do it so so here we go we're recording so noah um here we go i'll do count five four three two one welcome against the tide media i am so excited today you darren i'm a huge fan of the shift i'm sorry wow i already screwed up let me back up all right just go back one two thanks thanks darren i'm a huge fan of the chosen it's it's the end the answer look yeah you go back into the garage there in the laundry room so this is this is gonna still this is gonna be here that's just gonna be there we're ready all right sound ready speed canvas camera speed all right the shift scene one take one mark i don't mind at all what we'll do is we'll just keep going noah uh we're we're doing questions one and two correct um let me bring it yeah he's noah isn't on well yeah i'm just i'm saying that so oh okay gotcha so interview questions he makes things look so much better i've seen something yeah i've entered i trust him oh my goodness and then i see it and i'm like that's not so good hey i feel like you know that's all the special yeah yes okay so um all right so you ready here i'm gonna get this in position really quick drop that in got it there pull this down okay no so i'll just count off i shared my bacon with him some bacon bacon in case you don't know our name you know what it is well done well done thank you keep going thank you keep going i'll talk to you soon take care brother sounds good all right leave meeting boom i sign and leave why would i assign him assign a new host no i don't want to sign are you being able to just leave i don't want to leave are you are you do you really think that god will help you after what you've done your tainted goods you're not even worth this effort anymore and even if she does help you do you think i will ever leave you alone ever you can't put me off i am relentless i am at your heels i know [Music] shut up already

Channel: Against the Tide Media

Views: 910

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Id: V_oqxNEkaGg

Length: 63min 51sec (3831 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 08 2020