Author: Calvin R. Evans
Published: October 17, 2005
Tool: [ email ]
Manhunt: Tell us a little bit about yourself. If I am not mistaken, you were Associate Pastor at Christian Life Center Church in Houston, Texas.
Levi: Yes, I was Associate Pastor there for six years.
Manhunt: What got you interested and started in the film business?
Levi: Well, the whole thing came up when we first started out doing outreach. When the ministry started out the original name for it was Ghetto Mission Outreach.
Manhunt: OK
Levi: We were working with a rapper by the name of Nuwine.
Manhunt: OK yeah I know whom your talking about.
Levi: So after about the first couple of years, he chose a direction and we chose a direction. And that’s when we came up with the name Street Life Worldwide Outreach. So we started out doing outreaches holding basketball tournaments, car shows, we had people jumping ramps like Evil Knievel. Anything we could do to get people to come out and put a show on for them to preach to them. So how we made the transition from doing outreach to doing movies was we just realized that even though we could draw crowds of hundreds of people, sometimes we would have thousands of people coming to the car shows, we still couldn’t reach that many people at one time. And it was in my heart to reach more. So I was watching Christian television one day and I said to the Lord, “Lord, the body of Christ is not going to reach sinners like that because we’ve got the cheesiest programs on the television.” So I heard the Lord tell me to do something about it. So He gave me an idea that was about a paragraph long for a movie called, “The Player’s Manual.” So I wrote that paragraph down, I didn’t know how I was going to get the task accomplished. I just wrote it down because He gave it to me. And we had just moved into a new house and it turns out that we built a house (across the street from a guy…) right next door to a guy whose son had a master’s degree in filmmaking from (Regent University, not Lincoln) Lincoln University.
Manhunt: Wow.
Levi: So we wound up meeting with him. Then his dad saw me unloading some furniture out of my car one day and asked me if I needed help, so I met his dad. I told them what I did, they were a Christian family, and then I met this guy named Joshua. Joshua came over and ate dinner with us probably almost every night for the rest of that year. He taught us everything that he knew. And that’s how we got going.
Manhunt: That’s all right. That’s what’s up. Now you said the name of the Movie was called, The Players Manual?
Levi: It was The Player’s Manual. We wrote it and we did thirteen revisions on it. And the budget was something like $10 million, so we knew, Rob and I (Filmmaking partner Rob Phat) talked about it and we knew we didn’t have enough money. We didn’t feel anybody was going to get us $10 million to make a movie when we never made a movie before. So we sought to do something that we could shoot on videotape with a much smaller budget so we can have ourselves a resume, to show people that we could indeed do it. So Josh, Rob and myself, we started on this movie called, Pain. The Lord gave me another idea for that movie. I would just see these dramatic scenes play out in front of me, like I am watching it. In my mind it’s like He was giving me the idea for what it’s about from there. So we started writing on it, and Josh helped us come up with the first 35-minute version of Pain.
Manhunt: OK
Levi: Then Josh shortly thereafter moved on to L.A. and Rob and I finished the full- length version of the script for Pain. It took us three times to get Pain done. The first time, we got some cameras from people we knew and we shot for two days, but we felt it was much more involved than that. So we had to stop. Then we found another guy that had like, a half million dollars worth of equipment. So we made a deal with him to shoot the movie over the weekend for a percentage of whatever the movie might make. And he agreed to do it, but that didn’t work out. So we had to believe God to be able to get the money to do it right. And in the midst of that I went into a brief depression.
Manhunt: Wow man…
Levi: Yeah, I did man, because stuff was happening, I had stepped out in faith from full-time ministry and left Christian Life Center Church. And I had some opposition on certain things. Then I had the drama going on with the movie still in production and all of that. But one day I got a hold of a book called Doorways To Deception, by a guy named Mac Hammond.
Manhunt: Oh, yeah!
Levi: You know who Mac Hammond is?
Manhunt: Yeah. Mac Hammond is my pastor’s spiritual father.
Levi: OK. Well I got a hold of his book and I read it in three days. Then I was up out of the bed and two weeks later we had the money that we needed to shoot the movie.
Manhunt: Praise God.
Levi: So that’s how that situation got turned around. I remember Rob and I looking at the first scene that got edited, and our mouths dropped. We were like, “Wow, this really looks like a movie.”
(Interviewer laughs)
Levi: I’m serious man. It was all God. We were just being obedient and Rob trusted me that God told me to do this movie. So we both got together and got to writing and putting things together and discovered we did have the gift to do it. And when we saw that we were like, “OK.” It was an addition to the ministry officially. We’re on to something here.
Manhunt: That is awesome man. Now aside from the financial challenges you faced, what were some of the other challenges you faced while filming the movie?
Levi: I don’t know that there were any others man. The financial challenges were just so severe, on a personal level and from just trying to get the ministry stuff done. Everything flowed rather smoothly. People were generous to help us. They let us use their expensive vehicles. We had brand new Lexus’, Mercedes and boats. We got wardrobe hook ups from people, and the movie was more or less paid for. The little money that we did spend on it was paid for my some ladies who were having problems with their sons, and they believed in our ministry as well as some other people. To get started we had a little dinner, I think it was spaghetti and frozen lasagna, to raise some money to get started. And after we got most of the movie finished, we just needed to finish the sound; we had a showing in a movie theater to show them what we had done with what they had helped us with. And we raised the rest of the money to get it done. But most of the challenge shooting the movie was financial. There were some days when we didn’t know how we were going to feed the cast and crew the next day. There would be times when certain locations would fall through. Somebody would say we could use his or her spot, and then when it came time for us to use it, we couldn’t do it. But every time that would happen we would get a much better location.
Manhunt: God is good.
Levi: There would be days when we were on our way to a shoot and the Lord would tell us don’t go there, shoot this place. So He basically held our hands the whole way.
Manhunt: That is awesome. What kind of reaction do you get from teenagers after they have seen the movie?
Levi: It depends. From the Christian kids, they like it. They’re refreshed that somebody is doing something that’s cutting edge that can relate to their situation. On the secular side, those kids when they see it, the ministry kind of takes them by surprise because they are not used to seeing it packaged like that.
Manhunt: Sure.
Levi: So they have questions about God. To them it’s like we are cool. They treat us like real stars. So they are ready to listen to whatever we’ve got to say. Most of the time when we’re around and they watch the movie they come through, and I have a piece on the DVD called A Word From The Producer, so they know I stand unashamedly for Jesus Christ. So they come in and they’ve got questions. They want to know about God, they want to know about the industry. Their tone is just changed; they’ll come and tell me about their relationship with God. It’s not such a big task to sell people on the concept of Jesus, especially black folks. Our whole thing is to remind them to respect what they already know and serve Him like they’re supposed to.
Manhunt: Right…
Levi: And so we get people who were away from God acknowledging that they need to be serving God, and that they have gifts that God has given them. And they want to implement those gifts in some way similar to what we do.
Manhunt: Good deal man. That’s awesome. It’s a powerful movies and it’s good to see that we can use a medium like film in such a powerful way. It’s lifestyle evangelism because these kids see you and they don’t see you as a bible-thumping individual, they see you as someone they can really identify with.
Levi: The biggest response we got was we had some street cats that have seen the movie. I’m talking about weed smoking cats, the people we were going after, that have seen the movie and they come to us shaking our hands and looking at me telling me that the movie blessed them. I have had cats come to me and tell me they watched the movie and got saved.
Manhunt: Now that’s what’s up.
Levi: You see what I’m sayin’? I’m not talking about little kids, I talking about some of those dudes that we wanted to hit. Some of those dudes in their 20’s and stuff who watched it and it’s affecting their life and turning them around.
Manhunt: That’s great. You just need to be a vehicle and the gospel will take care of the rest. God is good.
Levi: He is, He’s tremendous.
Manhunt: That’s it. Now what type of training do you recommend for someone who wants to get into filmmaking?
Levi: (pauses) Man, we don’t have any training and that’s very different. First I would encourage them to pray and let God lead them in a direction. But film schools are good, you could learn a lot. I’m going to tell you like this; I’m going to shoot some real game to you.
Manhunt: Go ahead.
Levi: Some of the best learning that they can get about filmmaking is watching the behind the scenes and bonus feature stuff on the DVD’s. That’s really how they shoot movies. The game they drop on that stuff is exactly how you make movies. That’s the best education somebody can give you. They shoot you the real game on how they make movies.
Manhunt. That’s real good.
Levi: And if you can go and take some camera classes and lighting classes in your community, so you can see how they actually get the shots to jump off. Then they even have acting classes you could take. It’s not a really hard thing. This thing shook me one time and really bothers me, the body of Christ has more cameras than Hollywood and we only use them on Sundays and Wednesdays.
Manhunt: Isn’t that the truth. That’s serious stuff.
Levi: That’s serious. If cats are serious they can email us or whatever. We’ve got so much stuff going on right now, but one of the things we want to do after we have the official release of the movie is we want to do seminars to teach cats about the whole movie game. Because it’s not about us being superstars, it’s about just being a tool of the whole body of Christ to be competitive in the realm of media. The Lord showed me that we have to have some people who don’t look like idiots and don’t look like nerds sit on David Letterman’s couch. You know what I’m sayin’? To do interviews and not look like some kind of nerd or dummy, but at the same time they can be charismatic and be cool and have people respect them for what they do but rep Jesus Christ at the same time.
Manhunt: No doubt.
Levi: So that’s our biggest goal is to get some cats in the game, not just get us in the game, but to bring some folks in the game that can do this stuff. That’s what it’s all about. We try to run to people with these tambourines and these choir robes. Cats don’t respect you, they don’t relate to you, they don’t know you; they’re not trying to hear from you. They first thing you need is relationship and the movies is the way to get relationship. Then we have to do this thing right. If you look in the scriptures, He had skillful people doing things for Him. If we are doing this for God it should be the best that we can possibly do it before we present it to people. That’s why they don’t be respecting us. When we go on the corner to do outreach and they got a karaoke machine out there trying to tell somebody about God, and they’re rapping through substandard equipment. But the cat on the corner during the concert is going to cuss you out. He’s going to cuss you out clearly and you’re going to feel the bass with his cuss words.
Manhunt: You’re on it; you’re definitely on it. That’s why I feel we have to have a medium like film because it’s so dramatic; it’s so gripping that it can overtake people in a major way. So what kind of projects do you guys have in store for us in the future?
Levi: We are now completing a deal that we are hoping to turn into a television series. But if we don’t do that it will at least be a series on DVD called, Tales From the Player’s Manual. So we are super excited. Everybody’s going nuts about that. They love that. So we are getting a serious buzz by the people and they are excited about that. What it is, we took stories that happened to cats and the whole concept is based upon a concept that God gave to me. One time when I was praying I said, “Lord, how come cats think that the bible is a book for grandma.” And His answer to me was, “No son, a thousand times no. The bible is not just a book for grandmas but it’s the player’s manual.” So we came up with lists of tales from the player’s manual. So we took these stories about life that happen to cats everyday, they don’t have a clue as to why it happened, but they are breaking the rules in the player’s manual.
Manhunt: Yeah, I like that.
Levi: So they might be 35-45 minutes long, then I come in like Alfred Hitchcock in the middle of them and commentate. They people are super diggin’ it.
Manhunt: I really like that.
Levi: I think it’s going to be better than Pain. I got to hit you with a copy of that.
Manhunt: Man, please. Please hit me with a copy brother. Now my final question is what advice would you give to an aspiring filmmaker?
Levi: First thing I would say do is buckle your spiritual seatbelt. Make up your mind that if God tells you to do it, your not going to turn around. And then just prepare. Get your plan down, count the costs, come up with a budget and then go and talk to some folks about your vision. Because if God told you to do it, there is someone out there that’s going to help you put that thing together.
Manhunt: I’m a firm believer man, that’s it.
Levi: But a lot of times when problems come in we start trippin’ and thinking that, “Ah man they not going to help me.” You know, we went through some of that. But if I could look back I would be in folk’s faces with a clear plan and explain to them clearly what I’m trying to do and why I’m trying to do it. That would be the main advice that I would give them. Surround themselves with a good team and don’t turn back.
Manhunt: That’s blessed. I thank you so much for interview with us today. It’s been a pleasure.
Levi: I thank you for taking an interest in our movie.
Pain The Movie
