ALBANY — This time, when it comes to Southern accents, Hollywood gets it right.

But that’s not as much due to the credit of a Hollywood studio focusing on stereotypical speech patterns as much as it is to the Deep South producers who made the critically acclaimed Facing The Giants. In fact, not only are those real Southern accents behind the voices of the actors, those are real flesh-and-blood Southerners – not professional actors – who stepped up to the plate (or onto the gridiron, in this instance) to bring the feel-good faith-based movie to the silver screen.

This weekend will see the national rollout of the football-themed movie produced by Sherwood Productions, the media arm of Sherwood Baptist Church. After its Hollywood debut on Thursday night at Arclight Theater on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, the 112-minute saga will open on 435 screens nationwide.

And, it’s that opening weekend which will have Hollywood watching closely to see how such Christian movies will fare on the open market. The box office receipts from the next few days will telegraph an important message to the continued funding of such ventures.

“If Christians want to send a message to Hollywood, a message that family values movies are what we want to see, this is the weekend to do it. Hollywood reads its mail through opening weekend receipts. Those numbers help determine how wide of a distribution a movie will eventually have,” says Jim McBride, former wrestler/carnival barker, current executive pastor of the church, and official “bad guy” playing the role of opposing coach Bobby Lee Duke.

The fact that a south Georgia church made a feature-length film, using one camera and an all-volunteer cast – for $100,000 – is a miracle in itself. For that movie to catch the attention of Hollywood and garner national distribution is even a greater miracle.

 

Talent shows through

But anyone who sees the film will recognize the quality and talent which shows throughout the project. Couple that with a strong story line dealing with complicated life issues such as respect for authority and parents, infertility, and submitting oneself to God’s direction and you have a film that plays well on multiple levels.

The heart of the film is those actors with those believable accents who put their heart and soul into six of the most grueling weeks of their lives.

Brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick spent three months in early 2004 writing the movie, then six weeks shooting it in and around Albany – the same geographic setting as their first movie, Flywheel, which was released in 2003. Then the first six months of 2005 were spent in editing the story close to its current length. The seventh version in that editing process is the product that will hit the screens on Friday.

It was those hurry-up-and-wait weeks between April and June 2004 which pushed the actors to their limits, several of them told the Index in a final interview just days before this week’s national release.

The movie is a labor of love, and that commitment shows through in every scene.

“I don’t think I’m a great actor, I think Alex is a great editor,” McBride says matter-of-factly.

“It was a grueling process for all of us. We all had our day jobs and had to put in our time on the set.”

Stephen Kendrick, who co- wrote, produced, and directed Giants with his brother, said all cast members were asked to “say no to their personal schedule during the filming – say no to watching TV, going out to dinner, whatever if it conflicted with the shooting schedule. We would need them on the set when we needed them, and we had to depend on their 100 percent commitment to being there,” he told the Index.

 

Giving two months

“We basically asked them to be on call for nearly two months of their lives, and they responded with an unbelievable commitment,” added Kendrick. “It was not uncommon for several of them to work a full day and then to show up in the evening and work until 2 or 3 a.m.”

Shannen Fields, who played the role of Coach Grant Taylor’s wife, Brooke, remembers wearing heavy fall clothing in 80 degree summer heat and humidity to shoot outdoor football scenes. She has memories of working until 2 a.m. and getting to bed by 3:30 a.m. … only to wake up three hours later to get her children ready for school and be at work by 8 a.m.

Evening shooting often could not begin until 9:30 because the movie was set in the fall when football games occur after dark.

“Perhaps one of the most important lessons I learned was to stay humble and to be available to God. He can do so much when you realize that it’s not about you, but about your availability to Him,” she said.

Eighteen-year-old Bailey Cave, who played the role of kicker David Childers, also developed spiritual muscles as well as physical stamina.

“What pushed me to keep going when there were days when I couldn’t kick the ball through the goal posts if my life depended on it was knowing that God was in control. It was not about me, it was about Him.”

That is a real-world comment from a 2006 graduate of Sherwood Christian Academy who played football for the team until he cracked his shin halfway through the season.

“Filming this movie was like hugging the Titanic,” says Tracy Goode, who plays the Brady Owens character – Coach Grant Taylor’s assistant who finds himself sitting on the fence in his allegiance to Taylor after multiple losing seasons. “It was just so big you couldn’t put your arms around it.

“I remember working nearly six hours to set up a scene that was eventually cut from the movie. It’s amazing how many factors go into getting everything right for just one scene … the lighting has to be right, no gnats can be flying in your face, no airplanes flying overhead when we were shooting two miles from an airport. You have to jump through a thousand hoops … be willing to stand around for four hours to shoot a ten-second shot,” he says.

“It was not uncommon to have 60 people waiting on the set to shoot a scene, praying that a massive storm cloud would pass us by.”

Brandon Glow, 19, who plays the character of Zach Avery and former Sherwood Christian Academy football team member, said the lessons he brought away from the filming will stay with him the rest of his life.

“It taught me what Christianity is all about. In keeping with the theme of the film, life for a believer is about praising God and going out to tell others about Him.”

Kendrick could not have stronger words of appreciation for the hundreds of volunteers who worked to bring the movie to the big screen as well as the Sunday School classes which provided the catering. Terri Catt, spouse of senior pastor Michael Catt, volunteered as the wardrobe director and was one of four individuals who worked in casting.

And he credits Catt with having the permissive vision to bring the movie to the screen. Catt provided the spiritual fiber to overcome seemingly endless obstacles that would have proved daunting for others, Kendrick says. Without Catt’s role as executive producer the movie would never have been made. But one of Catt’s favorite D.L. Moody quotes – “If God is your partner, then plan big” – provided the spiritual underpinning for the project.

“The entire movie was an exercise of constantly walking in uncharted territory. It was like Walt Disney said … sometimes making a movie is like jumping off a cliff and building your wings on the way down,” Kendrick states.

The Kendrick brothers have learned a lot, they say – enough to already have them thinking about a third movie. But the script is a closely guarded secret and only in the early stages of development.

For more information on Facing the Giants, including locating a local showing based on Zip Code, visit www.facingthegiants.com.

For information on the Kendrick brothers’ first movie, visit www.flywheelthemovie.com.

 

Click here to view all related articles for Facing the Giants