The Highs and Lows of Making a Film: Behind the Scenes of Eden's Twilight

In this episode, I talk about the journey of making my third film in three years, Eden's Twilight. We've had so many amazing God stories and some pretty big challenges along the way. We're taking a leap of faith on this project and I invite you to jump with us. With a budget that's over double the amount of our first film, we're seeking $250,000 and we're already well on our way, needing just $86,000 more to be fully funded.  

LINKS MENTIONED IN EPISODE

Help Fund Eden's Twilight:
www.givebutter.com/edenmusical

Production Company email list with weekly encouragement for creatives:
www.firelightcp.com

Worship Leader email list with weekly encouragement for worship leaders: 
www.justinrizzotraining.com 

Chapters

• 0:03 Eden's Twilight Film and Casting Process
• 7:51 Update on Film Funding Progress
• 12:13 Partnering

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hey, what's up everybody, Welcome back. Super excited to share with you guys about this Eden's Twilight film that I've written with a couple of friends of mine and that we are heading into the studio this week to record the live album for, and then we will be beginning rehearsals end of August into September and then shooting this film will be on set for the beginning of October shooting this stage musical. So super excited about this show, about the songs that we've written for this show, the story that we're telling. So if you've not been following me on socials or, you know, on my email list, first of all hop over there and follow me on Instagram and all that, and then join my email list. You can join my worship leader email list at justremizotrainingcom. You can join my production company email list at firelightcpcom. Those will both be in the show notes. Would love to keep you guys updated on what we're doing.

Speaker 1: 1:05

But this Eden's Twilight film takes place and begins the seconds after Adam and Eve are cast out of the Garden of Eden and the musical basically shows what they have to go through to process their trauma of experiencing the fullness of God's presence to suddenly going to none of God's presence, and they have to figure out where in the world do they go, what in the world do they do and, more specifically, who in the world can they trust? Who is in this world outside of the Garden of Eden? And so that's the story that we're telling, and it's really, really fascinating. There's some twists and turns in there that you're not going to expect, and it's always fun to imagine. What might this have been like post Garden of Eden? I've thought about that. This show has been in my heart since 2008. I've been kind of thinking about concepts and different pieces that we could put into this show since then, and it's just been so fascinating to me, because the Bible really does not give us much about. Even about the Garden of Eden we don't have much, and even post Garden of Eden we have even less, and Adam and Eve both lived over 900 years, and it's like man, that's a long time to be here on this rock. What did they do? Where did they go? And again, the Bible gives us so little about that. We're grateful for the bit that Moses gave us, but he doesn't give us much, and so what we've done is we've imagined and prayed into and thought and discussed, and prayed and thought and discussed what story could we tell that is true to Scripture, that does not go against the authority of Scripture, but that would draw the heart of a believer and even an unbeliever into this story of Adam and Eve's exile from the Garden of Eden. And I feel like what we've come up with in the story that we're telling is going to be so, so impactful. And the Garden of Eden part of the reason why I wanted to tell the story was it's just filled with so much mystery, and I feel like, no matter what your religion is, no matter where you might find yourself in terms of religion, there's just this fascination with this idea of paradise with God, and even so many religions have a paradise promised to them in the afterlife. We know that the one that we're going after is the true way, right Spending eternity with Jesus.

Speaker 1: 3:31

And so this week we're in the studio recording the songs, and so I just want to kind of give you guys a couple of awesome things that the Lord has done to bring this show together. First, I'll say it has not been easy. I'm going to give you guys some cool, you know kind of testimonies here today, but I want to make it really clear it has not been easy and I'll share in some upcoming episodes some of the trials and testings that we've gone through with this show and we're still not across the finish line, right. I mean, we're getting to the studio is a big step, obviously, but then we're into rehearsals and then we're into the sound stage and we have to shoot the thing and then edit the thing and then it premieres early next year. But I want to give a couple of positive, awesome things that have happened with this film. So first of all, with casting, when you write a film and you go to cast the film, we're not using casting directors and all that. Hopefully on future projects we will be using that.

Speaker 1: 4:27

So we're having what's called an open audition, which that's pretty self-explanatory Anyone who's interested can come and audition. But our parameters for this show we're looking for some specific age groups. That was the main thing. That kind of removed older actors and then younger actors as well. So that was like a real, but we really felt like man. We really want Adam and Eve, we want these other characters to be a certain age, and so that majorly lessened the pool of a lot of people who usually audition for one of our shows and so there's only seven cast members.

Speaker 1: 5:02

That was another thing. In one sense that's working for you. In another sense that's working against you, because there's so many awesome people out there who would come and audition but we only need seven. So that's like man like can be a really, really positive thing, can also be a negative thing. So you're turning so many people away, but it can also be a really negative thing because seven people, you really you want them all to be strong, you want them all to be like at the top of their game, because if you have one weaker actor, singer, whatever it is amongst that group, then it'll really, really stand out right, whereas if you have a cast of 15, 20, 30 people and the ensemble, obviously you want everyone on stage in your film to be top rate, right, but there's less room for error when you only have seven people.

Speaker 1: 5:50

And so we auditioned this thing and we cast it about a month and a half ago and I was just blown away at the kindness of the Lord, of who he brought through our doors at those auditions, at those callbacks, that there wasn't even the deliberation process, because sometimes on some of the films and shows that I've done, you have the auditions and you have the callbacks, and it can take even a couple of weeks after that and that's okay, it's not the end of the world To finally land all of your cast members. Maybe you didn't have the right people show up the right talent, and then you have to go out and recruit different people, whatever to finally cast your show a week, two weeks, sometimes even three weeks past the point of callbacks and auditions. But for this film, the day of callbacks, we had this thing cast and I just kind of sat there in the the callback room, you know, staring at my Excel sheet that have my whole cast on it and you know all the different people who had, who had auditioned Some amazing people we were not able to cast because it was just, it was just so challenging and tough to land the seven that we needed. But so that's, that's the first thing, just a huge, huge, you know, testimony of the goodness of the Lord. So application point for your life. You don't have to have everything planned out perfectly. Sometimes all you have is step one. You're going to, you know, make the call. Hey, I have this creative idea, I have this business, I have this. You know, whatever it is, lord, if you don't bring the people, like literally, I cannot do it on my own strength. I don't know the, the seven people you know. I don't know the Adam, I don't know the Eve, I don't know the, the different characters that we have in this show. You have to bring them to us and it's just amazing to see the Lord work and I'm sure that you guys have testimonies out there of how the Lord has done that in your life. Would love to hear from you. Hit me up on socials, leave me a comment on the podcast, shoot me an email. We'd love to hear from you guys.

Speaker 1: 7:51

Second awesome testimony that Lord has done that. We're not quite fully there but compared to our previous two films, were way ahead of of schedule and that is financially. We still have some pretty significant financial needs that we have with this film and I'll get I'll put a link down in the, the comment, the show notes, if you want to check that out and look at being a part of helping us produce this film. But the rays for our first film again, I'm just speaking super open in Canada about these numbers. Our first film was only a sixty five thousand dollar raise, which is Really really small number. That first from Patmos film was a shoe string budget, second film between two worlds. Last year we more than double the budget, we had a hundred and seventy thousand dollar raise, and then this third film. We have a quarter of a million dollar raise, so 250 thousand dollars that we are seeking to to make this film. We're upping a lot of things and in terms of our production quality and we're really excited about that, and so we are only about 86,000 away from being fully funded for this film, which is which is amazing we still have a couple of weeks left here before we start shooting.

Speaker 1: 9:04

First of all, just want to say that that is a against. We're not fully there, but that's still a testimony of the goodness of God that that he's with us in this journey, because that's way more funded than we were for our previous film at this point in production. But also want to say if you are interested in being a Part of making this happen, you can click the link in the show notes and and check out our progress and consider donating would be so grateful. There's no gift too small, but if you're, if you're someone out there listening who could be a you know, executive producer level donor, you know then by all means, please check out the website below would love to have you join us and Get your name in the the credits of this film and help us produce something that we know is gonna just impact and touch a lot of people.

Speaker 1: 9:50

And then, final positive testimony thing I'll say and then I'll wrap this, this episode, up is the Lord has been so kind and so Strategic in in how he is kind of shown us this, this path forward of having a Intercessory, even prophetic, team come around us, my wife and I as kind of the leaders of this production company in these films, and then even our, our greater team and our staff and this was kind of in place in a previous film, but not not in the full sense but having a group of people who believe in what you're doing and are our intercessors, who have a deep life of prayer, who will bring you before the throne of God on a regular basis, someone that you can text when there's issues, when there's challenges of a hey, we're going into casting, hey, we're going into financial stuff, whatever it is, you can reach out to these people, and we have had such a beautiful group of people come around us that we are so, so grateful for, who hold us up before the Lord in prayer, and I fully believe that where we find ourselves today with all these films obviously, is due to a submission to the Lord's leadership, even in our, you know, messing things up and not knowing sometimes which way to go. The Lord's so gracious even in our weakness, but to just purposefully make yourself dependent on the Lord and bringing others into that has been such a gift, such a gift. And again, I love prayer, I'm a prayer guy, right, but I feel like I've seen it at a new level, specifically with this third Eden's Twilight production, and the intercessory team and the prophetic team that we have around us has been so encouraging. You know they've shared some words right at the right moment. You know we've had some different things happen, you know, in an intense, negative way which again I'll talk about in a few episodes, trying to keep it positive here at the beginning and we've had some of our intercessors just speak that word in the moment. That just fully confirmed you know what we were already feeling and we just went to prayer and they went to prayer and it was just immediately. You know, you felt the shift in the spirit immediately, the spirit of having us laughed. Immediately there was clarity. You know all kinds of different scenarios that have happened and so just so grateful.

Speaker 1: 12:13

And so again, application point for you guys who are listening out there if it's a entrepreneurial idea or a business or a ministry or a creative endeavor, bring people around you Doesn't have to be weird, doesn't have to be, like you know, full on Zoom meetings or whatever it is. It can be a simple text thread, it can be an email thread that you have and you might know a couple of people. You might not know anyone. If you don't know anyone who's you know, you feel it could be the intercessory team on your behalf. Ask the Lord to reveal some people who are those prayer warriors, for lack of a better term and I believe that it's so on the Lord's heart, that you partner with other people, that we partner with other people. In doing this, you know not just your staff or your. You know investors or donors or whatever, but, like in the spirit realm, people who have that authority. Yes, we all have the authority, but there's just a reality of this, you know, shoot it straight like the more you exercise that authority, the more confidence you get as a spiritual man or woman.

Speaker 1: 13:16

And there's also, you know, gifts of prophecy, gifts of healing, gifts of encouragement, all those different types of things, and you wanna seek to surround yourself with people who carry those different kinds of gifts and that's called the body of Christ being the body of Christ. It is not Justin Rizzo's MO. It is not my greatest desire to be weak, to need other people. My personality repels that. You know. I wanna be strong enough, diligent enough, faithful enough. Yeah, me and God got this. We're good. Thanks, we don't need your help, thanks, so much you know.

Speaker 1: 13:47

But it's just such a positive thing that the Lord has revealed to me, specifically in this third film of like. No, you are not meant to journey alone. You need the beautiful body of Christ to come around you and we've seen that in such an amazing way. So hope that is encouraging to you. Be in prayer for us this week speaking of prayer, if you think about it, as we're gonna be in the studio recording this record and we have this beautiful cast, they are ready to go, music rehearsals wrapped up this Tuesday and we're hitting the studio this week and it's gonna be an amazing, amazing time. So appreciate your prayers on that and I'm gonna send you guys off with how we started the show, having a little bit of the instrumental music from one of the songs from Eden's Twilight. I'm not gonna tell you who sings the song, cause that would give away the story, but it's a song called Woods and Wildflowers.