This was a fascinating session where Nancy Beach interviewed Ralph Winter, an extremely accomplished film producer in Hollywood. Here’s part of his bio:

As a producer of Hollywood blockbusters, Ralph Winter has earned the attention and applause of audiences, actors, film crews and film studios for producing such favorites as X-Men, X-2: X-Men United, X-Men 3, the 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes, and two of the most beloved Star Trek movies (IV and VI). Ralph also is a man who is outspoken about his faith.

This interview was really intriguing because it mixed Nancy’s probing questions and Ralph’s authentic answers with clips of movies he’s made and commentary on what went on behind the scenes. For context, the four of us from Fellowship went the night before to see X-Men 3: The Last Stand so we’d have some of Ralph’s work fresh on our minds. I have to say I’m very impressed with his work. I’m not huge into sci-fi movies, but the special effects were amazing and it was great to think a Christian was behind a piece of art this excellent.

It was very refreshing to hear a well-respected Hollywood producer talk so openly about his faith. He no doubt is a strong believer and doesn’t hide it. It obviously seems that his amount of work is not suffering. He keeps getting asked to produce films!

In response to one of Nancy’s questions, Winter admitted that, as you would see in the X-Men series, he is drawn to the more dark films. He enjoys the tension that is built as dark and light are juxtaposed and the darker the dark, the lighter the light. In fact, he said “Don’t be afraid of the dark. We rob people of opportunity for the light to shine in the darkness…” He gave such a great perspective on how we need Christians producing dark so they are able to be the ones who most effectively portray the beauty of light.

Nancy effectively brought the purpose of the conference to bear in the interview when she asked him about collaboration and film-making. He talked extensively about what a matrix of collaboration it is to produce a movie - and do it with excellence while keeping it under budget. She asked him what is the correlation between collaborating to produce a movie and collaborating to produce a worship service, and he said it’s virtually the same process with many of the same issues. Only, worship services come around every 7 days while it might take a couple years to produce a movie.

He talked about three components that would be similar to most creative collaborative endeavors: Content, Structure and Style. A film needs a lot of attention given to all three. So does a worship service. Its incumbent on the leader to serve the process and make sure the team gets all they need within the constraints to pull off the project.

One of the biggest takeaways came when Nancy asked him about his role as producer as it relates to all the other roles like director, writer, actor, etc. He said he sees his role as the producer as being a servant. Serving everyone on the team so they are able to carry out their role properly. He said it’s his goal to serve everyone in whatever way he can so that they are successful both individually and collectively. That was very encouraging and I pray its my attitude as a leader as well.

He closed by citing some of George Barna’s research saying that “Film makers are the new teaching pastors of the next generation…and movies are the sermons.”

I don’t agree that movies should supplant sermons for delivering the gospel, but I think I got his point. We live in an MTV and movie generation. And films ARE going to reach a huge segment of the population if done well.