{"id":6219,"date":"2015-04-22T12:01:01","date_gmt":"2015-04-22T17:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/christophers\/?p=6219"},"modified":"2015-06-03T08:24:44","modified_gmt":"2015-06-03T13:24:44","slug":"when-calls-the-hearts-brian-bird-on-family-tv-shows-efangelism-modern-parables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christophers\/2015\/04\/when-calls-the-hearts-brian-bird-on-family-tv-shows-efangelism-modern-parables\/","title":{"rendered":"“When Calls the Heart’s” Brian Bird on Family TV Shows, eFangelism, & Modern Parables"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"BBird-2\"$ <\/a>Brian Bird<\/a> has been a writer and producer in Hollywood for 30 years, working on shows like \u201cTouched by an Angel\u201d and the sitcom \u201cStep by Step.\u201d His latest project is season two of the Hallmark Channel series \u201cWhen Calls the Heart,\u201d<\/a> which is based on the popular novel by Janette Oke. <\/p>\n

The show takes place in the year 1910 and tells the story of Elizabeth Thatcher, a young teacher accustomed to high society life who gets assigned to a frontier town called Coal Valley. She makes new friends there, but also faces surprising challenges. <\/p>\n

Brian joined me recently on \u201cChristopher Closeup\u201d to discuss the show, his upcoming movie \u201cCaptive,\u201d and his insights on the role that Christians can play in Hollywood to change our culture for the better. <\/p>\n

Here is an edited version of our interview. To listen to the whole thing, click on the podcast links at the bottom of this post:<\/p>\n

Tony Rossi:<\/strong> When I was a kid and my parents and I would watch TV as a family, they would choose shows that they weren\u2019t embarrassed to watch with me. Now that I\u2019m older it\u2019s flipped. If I watch TV with my parents, I try to find shows that I\u2019m not embarrassed to watch with them. One of those shows is \u201cWhen Calls the Heart.\u201d Is one of the appeals of creating this show the fact that families can watch it together, regardless of age?<\/p>\n

$\"BBird-3\"$ <\/a>(Photo by Mary Denman, Denman Photography<\/em>)
\nBrian Bird:<\/strong> Yes. Most of my career, Tony, I\u2019ve been involved in shows [or films] that whole families can watch together. It\u2019s the nature of what my personal mission in the world is: to create faith- and life-affirming kinds of programming. In the last decade to 15 years \u2013 really since the end of \u201cTouched by an Angel\u201d \u2013 the paradigm has shifted in terms of what\u2019s on television these days. It\u2019s not safe viewing for families or for sons and aging parents. It\u2019s zombies and vampires and dead body shows and crystal meth dealers. Some of it is really well done programming. [But] marketplace forces are driving away, sort of, family programming. <\/p>\n

We find with \u201cWhen Calls the Heart\u201d that it\u2019s a throwback to shows like \u201cLittle House on the Prairie\u201d and \u201cThe Waltons.\u201d Compared to what\u2019s on right now, it\u2019s radical programming\u2026To me the goal is to tell universal stories. I believe all human beings have these violin strings running through our souls. These strings, when you pluck them, they reverberate with certain themes like forgiveness and redemption and sacrifice and courage and banding together to help one another. <\/p>\n

TR:<\/strong> You mentioned \u201cTouched by an Angel\u201d before. \u201cWhen Calls the Heart\u201d is not as focused on God as that show, but there is a faith dimension. <\/p>\n

Brian Bird:<\/strong> North America has historically and culturally been a place of faith \u2013 many different kinds of faith, but a place of faith. We\u2019re not proselytizing or trying to evangelize people with the show. We just want to ask great questions\u2026I am a Christian myself. My partner [at Believe Pictures], Michael Landon Jr., is a Christian. This is how we believe and work and walk in the world. However, I\u2019m not here to bang people over the head with those ideas. What I want to do is ask great questions, stir up cravings, and ultimately get people talking to one another about the show. If you have a flesh-and-blood conversation with your neighbor about our show because of a question we asked, that\u2019s a better way to have people discover faith as opposed to just handing them a tract and being done with it. That\u2019s what, in my mind, evangelistic films and television are \u2013 visual tracts. I would much prefer that exchange of discovery happen between neighbors.<\/p>\n

TR:<\/strong> Your approach is biblical because Jesus taught in parables, and sometimes the parables weren\u2019t easy to understand. But He was trying to get people thinking. So you\u2019re saying that is basically the job of Christian storytellers in our culture too.<\/p>\n

Brian Bird:<\/strong> Absolutely right. We\u2019re telling parables. It\u2019s earthly situations which sometimes communicate heavenly truths. That\u2019s what C.S. Lewis said all art is. All art is an attempt by us humans to copy heaven in some way.<\/p>\n

TR: <\/strong>Because of social media like Twitter, I imagine \u201cWhen Calls the Heart\u201d is probably the first experience of its kind in your career where you really get to hear from the fans right away directly. How has that been for you, especially with the Hearties, the online community that loves the show?<\/p>\n

Brian Bird:<\/strong> It absolutely was an amazing first season for us in terms of the fan experience. We\u2019re on the Hallmark Channel \u2013 April 25th is the season two premiere, 8:00pm eastern\/7:00pm Central\u2026..We were so crazy busy trying to get the first season done last year, we didn\u2019t have any time to think about [marketing]. About a third of the way through the first 12 episodes, this group of very vocal fans began to pipe up on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. They were basically [asking], \u201cWhere has this show been? We\u2019re starving for this kind of entertainment.\u201d In thanking us, they named themselves the Hearties. Now Hallmark Channel is putting #Hearties on the screen at various points during the broadcast to continue stimulating that. This was not some sort of calculated marketing plan that we had. These Hearties are the most excited, hungry fans that I\u2019ve ever experienced in my 30 years of doing this. <\/p>\n

When we saw them beginning to make noise on social media, we wanted to encourage them and cooperate with them. They\u2019ve been the biggest blessing of this whole experience for me. If any of your listeners want to find the Heartie group page on Facebook, it\u2019s just called \u201cFans of Hallmark\u2019s When Calls the Heart.\u201d<\/a> They\u2019re 23,000 strong now. It\u2019s a whole community and they\u2019re creating friendships. They\u2019re having what they call Heartie Parties across the country. I believe they were responsible for helping us get season two. They started the most sophisticated letter-writing campaign I\u2019ve ever seen, called Operation Heartstring Across America. They collected handmade hearts from all over with messages on them. The people would sign their names and the town that they\u2019re from and they would put a message there like, \u201cThank you for this show that I can watch with my whole family. Please give us another season.\u201d Then they collected them and strung them together with ribbon and they sent them into the Hallmark Channel \u2013 2,500 of them.<\/p>\n

TR:<\/strong> That must have been a treat for Hallmark!<\/p>\n

Brian Bird:<\/strong> Hallmark got bombarded with these hearts, so they hung them up in their offices here in Studio City, California, and took photos of them. So there\u2019s this real synergistic thing happening now with the Hearties. We even had several groups of them get themselves up to Vancouver where we shoot the show. We put them into wardrobe and let them get in scenes of season two. Now those folks are going back and they\u2019re spreading \u2013 a term we coined \u2013 eFangelism. They are doing things like loading the show on their iPhones, then when they\u2019re standing in line at the grocery store, they\u2019re playing it and causing other shoppers to ask them what it is. Then they pitch about why they should be watching the show too. <\/p>\n

TR:<\/strong> In addition to \u201cWhen Calls the Heart,\u201d you\u2019ve also got a feature film in the works called \u201cCaptive,\u201d which is based on the true story of Ashley Smith. When I looked it up, I didn\u2019t remember her name but I remembered her story. So tell us about Ashley.<\/p>\n

Brian Bird:<\/strong> This is a film we\u2019ve been trying to get made since the event happened in 2005. Ashley Smith was a young widow. Her husband had been murdered three years earlier and it sent her into a big tailspin of drug abuse. She lost custody of her daughter and had to go into recovery and rehab. She was really struggling, trying to rebuild her life and get clean, but then she got taken hostage by a man named Brian Nichols who shot up the courthouse in Atlanta. He was there for a hearing on his rape trial. He shot a judge, a court reporter and a deputy, then took three guns and escaped from the courthouse and was on the run for 24 hours. That night, he took Ashley Smith hostage in her apartment. She had the presence of mind to try to engage him on a personal level even though she was still having trouble with crystal meth, the drug that she was addicted to. She read to him from Rick Warren\u2019s [book] \u201cThe Purpose Driven Life\u201d ultimately and it was the catalyst that caused him to give up\u2026[Ashley] is a huge spokesperson now for the Celebrate Recovery movement because she has been clean and sober since that night. It took a killer to save her life because she didn\u2019t believe she was ever going to be able to kick the crystal meth. She\u2019s been clean and sober since that day. <\/p>\n

And we\u2019ve got a great cast. If you saw \u201cSelma,\u201d David Oyelowo who plays Martin Luther King and was a hair\u2019s breadth from an Academy Award nomination for that \u2013 he was robbed, in my opinion \u2013 he plays our killer, Brian Nichols. And [David] is a strong, committed Christian himself, was a youth pastor at one point in his life, just a fantastic man. Then Kate Mara plays Ashley Smith. We\u2019ll see her next in August. She\u2019s the new Invisible Woman in the \u201cFantastic Four\u201d reboot. [My] movie will come out nationally September 18th, and it\u2019s called \u201cCaptive.\u201d<\/p>\n

TR:<\/strong> People always talk about how culturally influential movies are, but personally, I\u2019ve always thought TV series are more powerful because people watch TV week after week. You build this relationship with the characters. What\u2019s your take on the cultural influence of television versus movies?<\/p>\n

Brian Bird:<\/strong> I\u2019m 100% with you. Television\u2019s like that relative that comes to live with you. Sometimes it\u2019s the crazy uncle that has bad language and foul behaviors. Sometimes he\u2019s the nicest guy in the world! But it is a family member, that television or that iPad or that iPhone, they\u2019re family members now. And I do believe that media conversation is the loudest conversation going on in the world right now. Sadly, it\u2019s louder than the Church\u2019s conversation, and it\u2019s capturing the hearts and minds of everybody. TV and film, in a sad way, are the new church experience people are having. You go to a film, and you\u2019re sitting with a 150 people watching a movie, and you\u2019re laughing and crying together. That\u2019s [like] a church experience. The hearts and minds of the viewers are in the hands of the people who do the most preaching. <\/p>\n

TR:<\/strong> As Christians, we viewers \u2013 and I\u2019m including myself in this \u2013 we often talk about the message of a particular show or film. But I also feel that we can overemphasize that to the point that the message overshadows quality storytelling and character development. You worked on the weekly series \u201cStep by Step\u201d \u2013 and I enjoy sitcoms going back to \u201cI Love Lucy.\u201d These shows didn\u2019t always have a message, per se; they were just entertaining and funny. So how do you deal with that tension between creating a message and just good entertainment? <\/p>\n

Brian Bird:<\/strong> Well, I would slightly disagree with the premise that there are some things that are just entertainment. Some may be more poorly executed than others, or their goal is to get as many laughs as they can. But I know for a fact that all the writers I\u2019ve ever worked with, there\u2019s always some meta-message that we\u2019re trying to communicate in a story. I watch a lot of films and television, just because I want to know what other people are good at and what they\u2019re communicating. And there absolutely are meta-messages happening in every film. To me, every piece of entertainment is gonna communicate something. It just depends on who\u2019s the person doing the communicating and what worldview they have.<\/p>\n

TR:<\/strong> Sometimes Christians think Hollywood hates them and is out to destroy them. So tell us, does Hollywood hate people of faith?<\/p>\n

Brian Bird:<\/strong> Absolutely not. There\u2019s no conspiracy. There\u2019s a conspiracy to make money, and the last time I checked, most Christian bookstores are in business to make money, too. They couldn\u2019t exist if they were operating at a loss all the time. So it\u2019s a conspiracy to make money, and Hollywood is amoral in that way. They will do whatever it takes to make money. It just so happens that the people whose rear ends are in the chairs making the decisions, they\u2019re bringing their own worldview to the table. So if they\u2019re not coming from a place having some sort of Christian or religious worldview, that\u2019s just what they believe. But they\u2019re not saying, \u201cHow can I destroy the family?\u201d <\/p>\n

The fact that there\u2019s so much edgy material on television right now is, I believe, partially just the marketplace at work. When you have the media pie that used to be four slices, with the four major networks, now a hundred slices, all the slices are much smaller. So how do you still get marketshare from your next door neighbor? You gotta get louder and more sensational. So how are they doing it? They\u2019re pushing the boundaries because they\u2019re trying to get attention. Unfortunately, that doesn\u2019t always work correctly, right? The capitalism model doesn\u2019t always work in everybody\u2019s best interest. <\/p>\n

TR:<\/strong> Have you seen more of an influx of Christians trying to get into the industry because of programs like Act One and such? <\/p>\n

Brian Bird:<\/strong> Absolutely I have, and I think it\u2019s a function of the digital age, of the YouTube generation as well, where everybody and his brother are moviemakers now \u2013 or they think they are. I think there\u2019s a lot of great new talent that has been building. There is a new kind of gold rush happening right now with Christians wanting to be effective and have their voices heard. I love that, I support that, I want to help nurture people because I\u2019ve been doing this for 30 years. I\u2019ve learned all the hard lessons and made all the mistakes, and I want to give people the benefit of having been through the shortcuts and the mistakes. <\/p>\n

Not everybody was born a movie maker or a screenwriter or a director. A lot of it is instinctive, but then you\u2019ve got to put your 10,000 hours in, as Malcolm Gladwell says in \u201cOutliers.\u201d Expertise takes 10,000 hours to acquire, no matter how gifted you are. <\/p>\n

TR:<\/strong> Before we wrap, tell me \u2013 what are your hopes for people who watch \u201cWhen Calls the Heart,\u201d<\/a> season 2, Saturday nights at 8:00 on the Hallmark Channel? <\/p>\n

Brian Bird:<\/strong> I hope they get what it means to be a family again\u2026I want this show to be an experience like people had with \u201cLittle House on the Prairie\u201d and with \u201cThe Waltons\u201d and \u201cBonanza,\u201d and to experience it like [me] watching these shows with my parents. One of my best memories with my dad, who\u2019s now gone home to be with God \u2013 he and I loved \u201cMagnum PI\u201d when I was growing up. It was not specifically a family show but there was some thrill to it and action and humor. But what a great memory I have of that! <\/p>\n

Well, you know what? We\u2019re all off in our little rooms watching television by ourselves now \u2013 and that\u2019s not a good thing. It\u2019s at least something we need to balance with some shared family experiences, and I hope that our show is [something] families can take advantage of.<\/p>\n

(To listen to my full interview with Brian Bird, click on the podcast links<\/em>):
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