Beyond the Mask & Veggie Tales

Director Chad Burns and his wife Angela met with Phil Vischer (Creator of Veggie Tales) last week in Chicago for lunch.

Phil has many years of experience creating Christian media content for families and it was a real privilege to sit down and hear from him. Phil had a lot of advice and a few connections to offer us.

Phil’s faith journey is similar to the journey traced by the hero in Beyond the Mask. Phil spent years thinking that his good works and fine efforts for the Lord would please God and earn favor. After a lot of hard lessons, Phil came to see that the Lord is more concerned with the orientation of our heart toward Him than the work of our hands. You can read a more about Phil’s journey and the Savior he loves in his auto-biography, Me, Myself, and Bob.

Phil’s timeless advice was simple....

Click Here to read the full article!

Jelly Telly BIG NEWS!

I've blogged about Phil Vischer's Story and the Creation of Jelly Telly, but now there is more news that I found to be quite exciting...you'll understand why in a minute...

Phil Vischer
1) "First, we have a new partner for JellyTelly. That partner is Focus on the Family, the giant Christian ministry that sort of started the whole Christian kids media movement with projects like McGee & Me and Adventures in Odyssey. They believe JellyTelly is a wonderful way to serve families in our web-savvy age."

2) "Second big news - we're also launching the most ambitious educational project I've ever been involved in....We have begun production on a 13-DVD series starring all the characters from JellyTelly that will walk kids all the way through the Bible - from Genesis to Revelation - and explain our faith and what it means to live it. The project is called "What's in the Bible?" and we will bring it to market with Tyndale House Publishers, the folks that brought us the Living Bible, as well as all those early Focus on the Family videos like McGee & Me and Last Chance Detectives."

This last paragraph here is really what I'm excited about! A dvd series that hopefully doesn't just entertain but teaches children what is IN the Bible and how it relates to current events and our life. I have high hopes for this new project:
"I am monstrously excited about this project, because we're attempting to do something no one has really done before. We taught a lot of Bible stories over the years with VeggieTales, but we never really taught the Bible. I mean, the whole thing. Where did it come from? What does it mean? How does it affect our lives? And that's what we're going to do with "What's in the Bible?" - hosted by Buck Denver and friends, as well as, ahem, yours truly. (Yes, I'm going to be in it, too. It seemed like at certain points we need a real person talking about God.)"

Read Phil's full blog post here. If you don't click on any of the other "Read More" links in this article, I highly recommend this one! It will give you a better overview and details of this new project. 

Christian Retailing reports:

"The 13-part "What's in the Bible?" set is due to launch in March 2010 with the release of the first two volumes, tentatively titled In the Beginning and Let My People Go!

Characters in the new series will be from Jelly Telly, the faith-based Internet program Vischer created through his Jellyfish Labs, in partnership with Focus on the Family, though the DVD content will be exclusive.

"We're excited to team up," said Katara Patton, Tyndale's acquisitions director for children and youth. "Tyndale's foundation is built on making the Word of God applicable and understandable to children. This new DVD series is a wonderful way to bring the Bible to life and to help kids know God and His Word.""

Full article here.

Tyndale

"“Looking back, it almost feels like the simple lessons of VeggieTales were the appetizer, and we’re ready now for the main course!” declared Vischer.

Content in the “What’s in the Bible?” series will be exclusive to the DVDs, but the characters will also appear on www.JellyTelly.com, Vischer’s faith-based daily Internet program in partnership with Focus on the Family."

Read more.

You can also visit the JELLY TELLY WEBSITE.

JellyFish

When creating a solution or product you have to find a need that you can fill.

Phil Vischer the "Veggie Tales guy" has been hard at work on his next 'big idea.' He has identified 2 very key problems in our culture today:

PROBLEM 1. The distinctions between Christians and world are growing less and less.
-FACT: Children have an average of 5hrs of media input a day (TV, games, internet)
PROBLEM 2. The Christian platform for launching Christian media is dying.
-FACT: Christians filmmakers are needing projects to work on.

This is the basis for what he feels God has called him to work on next and I've got to tell you, I am very excited! I highly encourage you to take the time to read his blog about the problems in our culture (he is dead on), how we as Christian need to step up and how he is working to help us "Christian media creators" to get our work out to the public.

If you have a video camera...Phil has an invitation for you....read on to find out more.....

"Letting go of your ambition, “dying” to your own “big ideas,” doesn’t necessarily mean that God won’t ask you to do something big. It just means, perhaps, that you’re finally humble enough to hold it loosely – to let whatever God has for you next be God’s thing, not yours. Perhaps the willingness to be small, in fact, is a prerequisite to being used by God to do something, well, un-small."

"So one of my founding goals for Jellyfish Labs is that “We will not hype.” We will not “spin.” We will not exaggerate for the purpose of generating headlines. And most (if not all) of our projects will start very small. We will plant seeds, and God will grow them. They will become exactly as “big and impressive” as God wants them to be – in his timing."

"We've talked about the problems - a) that we're failing to teach our kids the Christian faith and what it really means to live the Gospel in front of a watching world, and b) that kids are consuming more media than ever before while the production of Christians kids media is actually in decline. We've talked about the need for some sort of platform for Christian kids media - a "place" that can build teaching relationships with kids on a daily basis while helping the entire Christian creative community develop and launch new content; something with a two-fold ministry - first, to families everywhere as a trusted teacher, second, to the Christian creative community as an enabler, commissioner, buyer, ally.....There really hasn't been a time like this since the first roll-out of cable television in the late seventies - a period that saw the launch of now epic brands like ESPN, CNN and Nickelodeon. We think the world could use a new home for Christian kids media - a new brand. The time to launch it is right about now."

"The point is – it’s time to pull back the curtain. It’s time to open up the lab and invite everyone inside, to poke around, ask questions, and leave Post-it notes all over the place. It’s a new day. It’s a new blog. It’s time for you all to join the movement."

Are you ready?
Read Phil's blog here. Start with reading - Pulling back the curtain Part 1

Pirates Who Don't Do Anything

Vischer, the voice of Bob the Tomato, had just finished a pitch for a new VeggieTales movie at Universal Studios, when a studio executive asked, “Are you sure it’s Christian enough?”

Veggie Tales is back with another feature film. Now I am not really a big fan of Veggie Tales ;) but I did find this article from Phil Vischer, concerning the upcoming movie, to be very interesting. Phil talks about how this film is different from the most VT movies from a "spiritual" perspective and how he went about making a faith based film without copying a Bible story.

Will this film be a success? I guess we will find out - it opens in theaters tomorrow.

Watch the trailer.

Veggies in hot water!

I just finished reading the story of how Big Idea/Veggie Tales came to an end...."What!!?, its gone!?!?" well not entirely but yes. ;)

More accurately, this is the journey of Phil Vischer the founder of Veggie Tales and his struggle to keep the company floating. How did Phil go from attracting artists from Dreamweavers and bringing in millions of $, to one day sitting in bankruptcy court waiting for the jury to either save or sink his company? You'll have to read the story.

This is a must read for filmmakers, business people, and just anyone who has ever struggled with wondering why God allows difficulties to happen..

I think we all face times in our life when everything is going wrong, and we wonder "God, I thought this was what I was supposed to do."

I have learned a lot from reading this. It will be well worth your time.

Read it here.

Phil Vischer

Some of you may say.."who is HE?" Well he started Big Idea and Veggie Tales (not that I am a big fan of that series) BUT Phil does have several VERY good articles about filmmaking in general on his blog. This one is about Christian themes in movies and this one is about whether the story is all that matters in a movie.

I highly recommend reading both of those articles.