Brad Silverman and Martin Bennett

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast, our show.

Stories of hopelessness turned into hope. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Now, live from the Truth Booth, your host, Robbie Dilmore. Hello there.

Welcome to Kingdom Pursuits. And no, this isn't Robbie Dilmore, in case you couldn't tell. My name is Ann Alt, and I'm blessed to guest host for Robbie today.

He's on a well-deserved vacation. I'm part of Robbie's other show, The Christian Car Guy. In 2015, Robbie knew I had done over 200 episodes on Adventures in Odyssey, and we talked about doing radio theater. Robbie just went for it in 2015 and did the first Christian Car Guy theater show by himself in 2015.

I was on the second show, and since then, we gathered a most wonderful volunteer talented team of actors, and it has been so much fun. And Christian Car Guy theater don't despise the day of small beginnings than anything any of us do when we feel called by the Lord to do it. But isn't it amazing that the Lord can be with each one of us in our individual dreams and pursuits all at the same time? Last year, the Lord gave me the word ubiquitous in the middle of the night. I had to look it up.

It means everywhere at the same time. Wow. God is everywhere at the same time.

Holy goosebumps. I mean, how does he do that? What a mighty God we serve. We make our plans, but God orders our steps, and it's so good to know that he is with us 100 percent.

As I was baptized, he told me three times, I'm going to be with you always, and he has been, and he always will be, and same with you who have him in your heart. Step by step, he leads us. That's what I'm going to be talking about with my guests today.

After the first break, we're going to have Brad Silverman from Kappa Studios and Martin Bennett, the author of Wounded Tiger. But God orders our steps and our stops. That's what I want to talk about. If God has called you to it, he'll help you do it. Doesn't mean it's going to be easy. Where he guides, he provides. My old pastor Lloyd Ogilvie used to say, it pays to obey. By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. In Deuteronomy 32 12, so the Lord alone led him. Isaiah 48 17, I am the Lord your God who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way you should go. So we take the next step as God leads, and we don't lean to our own understanding at times.

Have you noticed that? We put on the armor of God. The enemy will try every way to distract and destroy. I like this quote I heard.

So sorry. We fear the sneer of our peers. And this quote, you got to find out what ain't before you find out what is. It's a process, and it's a circuitous route at times, you know.

Have you noticed that? I love pithy sayings. I love pithy sayings.

And if you're confused, think how the enemy feels. He doesn't have all the answers. But in all that we go through, we try to be obedient and hold tight to Jesus. We know that God is working it all for good. He's teaching us all the time. Hebrews 12 11.

I love this one. The chastening or the instruction of the Lord for the present isn't joyful, but sorrowful. Notice that? The instruction. But it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are what? Exercised thereby. I think God is exercising his flabby bride. And as we struggle to obey God, we simply do the next thing, as Elizabeth Elliott said.

She also had this quote that I just love. I adapt myself to the king's appointment. Sometimes we just want to give up. Have you felt that way? You know, that's why we must seriously seek God as never before.

Get his more marching orders, marching orders, especially in these crazy times. And daily remind ourselves that God specializes in the impossible. People say, what are the odds when something amazing happens?

You know what I say? I say, what are the odds? God's odds. He specializes in the impossible.

J.D. Greer said, we believe the inexplicable when we see the undeniable. He waits until it is impossible. And then he stuns us with his impossible feats and victories. I mean, just look at Joshua and Jericho and Gideon, such unlikely heroes.

That makes me feel good. As a shepherd boy named David or a slave named Joseph, God promises Abraham a son. And 25 years when Sarah, you know, 25 years later, she's 90, Abraham's 100 and Sarah gets pregnant. Wow.

Not to mention a baby born in a manger, a deity and a filthy manger who came to save the world. Whosoever would believe in him, he assaults our prideful intellect, doesn't he? I just, he amazes me more and more.

But bear with me a little longer as I share just a bit about my life, because I am seriously a walking, talking miracle. To encourage you, when I was a kid, I was an Air Force brat. I was so shy. I was so insecure. The other kids called me fatty four eyes.

Fatty four eyes. But my sixth grade teacher, God bless him, Mr. Brown, had me read out loud to the class and I discovered I had a gift. They still called me fatty four eyes, but I had dreams of being an actress. And when I was alone in our house, I would sing along with the musicals and records in those days. I imagined myself doing all those parts. My mother and I had fights about my ambitions. I don't want to hear the word actress again, she would yell and I'd yell back, but she was just trying to protect her fatty four eyed kid, of course.

But the irony is she became my biggest fan because when I played all the roles I dreamt of playing in my living in my living room. I played Anna and the King and I and Marion and the music man and Marie and the son of music. That was back in the 60s, 70s, 80s. And as I took one step at a time and after college went to Japan in 1966 with my parents, my dad was head of Kanto base commands, I sang for Prince and Princess Hitachi in Japan. I did a musical show, Tokyo Hilton, Hong Kong Hilton, radio theater, was in what became a cult classic movie, don't look at it.

But anyway, it's called the green slime, Robert Horton, Richard Paluzzi, you know, I mean, Richard Jekyll and Luciana Paluzzi. But anyway, funny that there's become this cult classic all these years later, but I love Japan. I even climbed Mount Fuji and even back then, God started giving me parables about life. Jesus constantly used parables to express his truths and climbing Mount Fuji was an adventure. But the higher I went on the mountain, the harder it got excruciating.

But we finally got to the top and shivered and sipped hot green tea in the crevasse of a rock. And we were in the middle of the glorious sunrise. It was worth it all for the sunrise. And so it is, folks, with our pilgrimage. One day, it will be worth it all. It was a parable from the Lord. The higher we go on God's mountain, the harder it gets.

But it will be worth it all at the top for the S.O.N. rise. Japan was so special to me, but little did I know that the Lord was preparing me for a little amazing book that I read in 2001 about a true Japanese American supernatural God glorifying autobiographical love story by Patsy Oda so that I would have an award-winning screenplay over these 20 years for the book and ever closer to the film. But after Japan, I went back to the States, did theater, had this amazing career.

Pretty good for fatty four eyes. Let me try to read what little time I have. Divine free fall, very fast. I look back at the times God would call me to go and to follow him over the years. He told me to go when I didn't know where and I gingerly plowed through my fears. I was Alice in Wonderland venturing out. I couldn't resist his clear call, but I fought off the doubts as I jumped off the edge and breathlessly plunged into divine free fall. I felt elation and terror conspire, relentlessly plaguing my mind. I groped for the lights and scripture or hope flailing for something concrete I could find. I finally landed to my delight. Holy Papa had kept me from harm. I remembered once more that in spite of the fall, underneath are his comforting arms. The adventure continues, gets even more challenging, trusting the promises made, but how much would we miss if we said no to him?

We are learning to simply do it afraid. Stay tuned folks for my wonderful guests, Brad Silverman, Martin Bennett. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where God takes your passion and uses it to further his Kingdom.

And I want to finally introduce my guests, Paul, I mean, sorry, Brad Silverman and Robbie actually interviewed Brad and Paul Long a few weeks ago. But when I heard them, I was so impressed even more than what they're doing by the fact that they love the Lord, that they are true blue brothers in Christ. And they have, actually, I look at it as a ministry, they're doing God approved film projects and everything out of their amazing studio. Kappa studio is a 15,000 square foot full service production facility in Burbank, my old stomping grounds.

I used to live on Cedar Avenue. But anyway, this is so amazing what they're doing. And more amazing to me was the fact that they have Kappa studios, but they're also expanding to have a Christian film finishing fund to help with Christian films in the finishing aspect of their projects.

So sorry. It was just such an amazing thing to listen to them. And I want to introduce Posthaste Brad Silverman. He's just an amazing man of God. And his credits include two films written and directed for Lionsgate, one of which, Grace Unplugged, was named best faith and family film of 2013 by Movie Guide, Focus on the Family, and the Dove Foundation. Brad is also the recipient of Movie Guide's Epiphany Award, given to those responsible for the best wholesome, uplifting, and inspiring movies and television programs. Most recently, Brad wrote and directed writing, directorial, feature film, venture, and all that, Selfie Dad, when a comic gets serious about the Bible with Michael Jr. And I love Michael Jr.

He's a native LA, still makes his home in Southern California, along with his bride and their four children. And Brad, are you there? And good to be with you. I'm so glad to have you with me. It's too bad Paul couldn't make it, but so glad you could. And we're talking about how God orders our steps and our stops.

I bet you're familiar with that. Well, we are. And in terms of Paul, what we're talking about here is important, but he has two grandkids now. And when they come a calling, he goes, so he's like, hey, I got grandkid duties today.

We're gone. He'll stop everything. He could be in the middle of his own open heart surgery, but the grandkids, the doctors have to wait. So you're not alone there. Oh, good for him. I love that. There are priorities.

I think this is so cool. Well, it's the old thing. We make our plans, but as you know, God orders our steps. And I heard that old saying, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans, right?

No, no doubt. I mean, I think Paul and I are both certainly testimonies to that. We both spent many, many, many years in secular Hollywood, just doing our thing. And at different times, in our case, he really, at different times, we weren't working together or anything at the time. But for me, it goes way back to the 90s, the late 90s, when my heart was just radically changed. And in our case, the largest catalyst, at least from our perspective, to directing our steps was to change our hearts in terms of our desires.

We both got through independent plays, right? We just can't do this anymore. And more and more of us are out there. A lot of us are really kind of getting to a place, those who know Christ and have the spirit inside of them, that we're at a place going like, I just can't do this type of work anymore.

You can't. And if it means I have to quit and do something else, so be it. But in that process, God's directing us to do stuff that's more expressly honoring to him. That's because when God becomes more real and bigger than what we're doing, that's that process, isn't it? I mean, I have never been so convicted as I am now to seek God as never before, as this world has kind of fallen apart.

And still having the courage to do projects that you know won't be easy, but you have to do it. I liked what I think Paul had said or you had said before was that, I think Paul said when he went into the studio, 15,000 square feet, and that's a lot to manage. But anyway, he wanted to just get rich. Now he wants to get rich in God. I love that. See, you guys, you don't know.

You don't know how I have been 20 years trying to do Heart's Desire, the Japanese American film, beautiful love story. But the point is, I've been to countless Christian media conferences and so on, blah, blah, blah, and people I've met and everything. But I mean, for you to obviously, what you did in your interview with Robbie, for you to obviously just have such a passion for the Lord and enough, and I would love to dissect those three years that you spent with just scriptures and inspiring each other and praying.

I said, fancy that, they prayed. But sometimes, it's hard to connect the dots. Have you noticed that when we're following the Lord, it's like we don't lean to our understanding. I mean, I know that you were trying to find your way too. You were a minister and still are.

We're all in Christ. But you were an actual minister and doing other things, and then suddenly, you became, I mean, Selfie Dad, is that your directorial debut and you wrote it too? Tell us about this.

Yeah, no, good stuff. Selfie is my fourth feature as a writer. I've always written and directed both, meaning I've always done both. I've never done one or I think I've written stuff that I didn't direct.

I can't remember. I think I've probably directed. As far as the feature films, I don't separate the writing and directing in my own world.

But yeah, it's my fourth feature. Yeah, a lot of fun. It's kind of a very, to some degree, at least in this one in particular, it was just really kind of a place in my life where just evaluating where I was as a dad and kind of wrote it from the heart. And what's a beautiful thing, Anne, is that when you're just like an average guy like me, things that I'm struggling with, things that I'm working through at this stage in my life, I figure maybe if other people are thinking through and struggling, they might relate as well. So I come from a comedy background primarily. So the character was not autobiographical.

And I assure you, I'm not that interesting. But I wrote from the heart, wrote from the heart that his dad is just kind of trying to get his act together, just trying to and he's not, he hasn't fallen off the deep end or anything, but just lazy, selfish, just, again, things that I struggle with daily. So all that gets it to a point. And then Michael Jr. comes on board to play the lead. And then it was just magic, because he's just so funny and just impossible. He's not he's more than funny. He's smart.

He's a minister in his own right. He's the funniest, serious comedian. He really is. He's so intentional in everything he does. He just brought something just really charming to the character that I'll certainly never forget.

Oh my gosh, isn't it amazing when God takes your efforts and then the fruit that emerges from that, you know? I just I can't wait to order it. Can't tell it's can you order it? I mean, DVD because I'm still in the DVDs.

Oh, yeah, you can get anywhere. Yeah, it's been out. It came out last year on the Father's Day of 20. It was going to be theatrical, but it was a little COVID thing that kind of, yes.

The Lord directing our steps. So that was that redirected that. So yeah, I think you can find it pretty much anywhere now. I'm pretty sure it's out in all anywhere you get moved up so you can find Selfie Dad. Right.

Okay, I'm definitely guarantee you and folks out there Selfie Dad. And that's the title of the whole film. But I mean, do you add the next part too?

Well, yeah. So the the when the comic when a comic gets serious about the Bible, right? Yeah, it's basically, you know, the heart of the story, not the heart, but just sort of a plot is he's a former comic. His best days are behind him.

This is this is not Michael, this is the character, of course, right? His best days are behind him. And he's just sort of having this midlife crisis of thinking I need to go back into comedy and he, you know, and this is thinking he discovers, you know, discovery realizes, hey, in this world today, you can do it in social media, right?

You don't have to score you don't have to do it the old way you did in the 80s and 90s. Just start making videos and see what happens and it works. Wow. And so in that process, he's like it's so there in lies the humor, obviously, because Michael so brilliantly funny. Yes.

As he starts doing videos, they go viral, he becomes a star. And now it's a matter of Okay, at what price and what? You know, what happened?

And maybe some of us can relate to this, what happened? When you have this, let's say a vocational desire, right? And you work really hard for it. And you get it. Yeah, and you're still not satisfied, right? Um, and then so to hear here in lies the heart of the film, which is you'll never find satisfaction in those things, because God never puts the satisfaction there. He puts satisfaction in him.

Yes. So the the heartbeat sort of veiled a little bit hopefully with a clever story at some level, but you know, the whole heart of the piece and is that, you know, where can you find this sustainable joy that every human being wants? We all want, we might think it different ways, but I don't I've yet to meet someone that you know what, I really want to be miserable. That's what I want to write. I want to be discontent and unsatisfied. That's my life school. You know, everyone wants happiness.

The problem is they look for it in relationships and money and fame and whatever. And you can get it for a second, but it's like cotton candy just kind of melts in your head that it goes away. Yeah.

Where that's kind of what the heartbeat of selfie that is, is where can you find that sustainable happiness? And obviously, in caps in a funny movie with Michael and some other great characters, Shonda Pierce, you may know. Yeah. She's in it as well. So yeah, you get funny people doing funny things.

You can't go wrong. But with the ability to make it serious too. And I love I remember Michael doing a line, you know, my son said he wanted to be a doctor. And he was going, yeah. And then he said, or a dinosaur.

Wasn't it something like that? But he is just, he's just brilliant that way. I can't wait. I cannot seriously wait to see this movie. But I'm so proud of you, if I may just be so bold as to say that just for so many reasons when I try to tell unsaved friends, oh, all this is fading. It's only Jesus. It's only Jesus.

You know, but hang in there, folks. We're coming back with Brad Silverman and ultimately Martin Bennett. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com.

Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where God takes your passion and uses it to further his kingdom. And I want to tell you about my wonderful guests, Brad Silverman of Kappa Studios, and Martin Bennett will be on in a little while. But also, we want to hear from Amy Cabo, because her show is on at 1.30. Right, Amy?

From beautiful Miami? Yes, ma'am. What is, and I heard your show today, which we can all kind of identify with, self-forgiveness and self-love? Yes, she's an expert in self-forgiveness, acceptance, and self-love. She had a challenging life, like a lot of us do, and we're going to discuss and improve the perception of self, which we know reflects how we interact with our environment. And the right attitude can be contagious and instrumental in making an impact, a positive impact that is in this world.

Yeah, it sure can. Well, have a beautiful show, Amy, at 1.30. Right? Eastern time.

Yes. Thank you. God bless you. Have a beautiful day. You too, sweetie. Bye-bye. Okay, let's go back to Brad Silverman.

He is with Kappa Studios, 15,000 square foot, full service production, post-production facility in Burbank, where I used to live, on 517 E. Cedar. But anyway, Brad, this has been so good talking with you. I just, I want to have you, since we're talking step by step the way God leads us and where he guides, he provides, that if you could encourage those out there in radio land who have desires and they feel God has called them to certain things, and yet these crazy times that we're in, these insane times, and yet you guys are, you're growing in this, your facility of, you know, people like Dinesh D'Souza and some other one, Dennis Prager, you know, a bunch of others that are taking their projects to you for post-production and so on. But, and I want you, I want you to meet before you get off.

I want you to meet with my friend Martin Bennett, who is waiting, and I want you to know about his project. But can you encourage those out there, and I'm sure you have had encouragement about this, and again, I want to have, before we get off, a few more details about the three years you prayed with Brad, and, you know, you two encouraged each other. But could you encourage those out there that have those visions and the desires of their heart to hang in there and using parables or signs? See, when I climb Mount Fuji, that was a parable that God gave me.

That's a life parable. So could you just encourage folks out there? Sure. Yeah, look, we don't, we never saw what we did as noteworthy. We still don't. You know, we're just two guys just trying to get it right after so many years of getting it wrong. Right.

So, and I would say this, you know, you asked me to talk about the encouragement and then talk about the prayer time, but that is the encouragement. Like, you know, look, we never, we never set out to do any of this. We just, we just, if there's anything of encouragement, it's, we're not trying to take over the world. We're not concerned about the crazy times out there.

We're not concerned about what people will think about us. We're not, I mean, since we're just trying to be faithful today. Yeah. So I guess if we've learned anything in the journey here for Paul and I, it's that, you know, it's always, what's your five-year plan? What's your, I mean, I guess you need that to some degree. My five-year plan is, I hope I can be faithful to God for the next 30 minutes. That's right. Can I be faithful?

Can I be loyal to Christ and the Scriptures today? Can I get it close to right today? Forget five years.

I can't get it right between noon West Coast time. So, so I mean that sincerely, like, we just, we just, we start every day. We still, we, so we pray that the chronology, it's funny, we never thought this was a big, we never like did this to be noticed. It's funny that it's like noteworthy to people. Hey, if us praying together every day.

So here, here's the, this will be my best encouragement. So for three years, I was a client of Paul. Paul's got, Paul owns Kappa Studios.

It's his facility. I was a client of his for years. And then for three years from like, let's say 2013 to 16, he started to go to, we started at the same church.

This is this non-denominational Bible teaching church in Los Angeles. And it was in that process that we became friends. And then we just started praying. We didn't pray every day at that. So we weren't working together, but we prayed for about three years. We were just praying together. We didn't know what we weren't praying for anything specific necessarily, just praying to be faithful to God. And then in 2016, he opened the door for me to come on board full time.

So that's five years ago. So yes, in the last five years that I've been at Kappa full time now, Paul and I do pray together pretty much every single day. And we're in the Word together pretty much every single day.

Now, and again, in that we're just seeking the Lord through his Word and through prayer every single day. And I want to say this, if that's totally out there crazy and noteworthy to people, then it shouldn't be. Then start there. Do that. Our attitude and I don't have any specific, here's how to make it in this business. I have no clue.

I have no clue. But I don't know how to get funding. I don't know how to make up.

I mean, I've made a lot of films, made a lot of TV shows. I have no idea what I'm doing. But I will say that our attitude, my best encouragement for Paul and I, we felt from day one, why do we pray? First of all, we need to. We need to pray. We need to be in the Word together every day. We do it obviously independent in our own personal lives. When we get to the office, our attitude is, if we can't get this part right, then nothing else will matter.

Nothing else will fall into place. And we're not two guys that grew up at the church. We're two guys that made every possible mistake growing up in the world, in Hollywood.

We've done everything wrong. It's just in the last five years we're like, what would it look like to be faithful to God day by day by day, forget the past, his mercies are new every morning, and repent of the sin, keep short accounts of our own sinfulness. My point of all this is, I don't know what I'm saying, but my point of all this is, it's about personal holiness.

Yes. Start there. My encouragement is, deal with sin in your life. Confess sin. Get in the Word of God. Make sure you're accountable to godly brothers and sisters who are serious about Christ, and you can lift each other up and encourage each other. Because, whatever, God will open up doors, or he won't as far as the career goes. I've had my ups, I've had my downs, like everybody. But in terms of the personal holiness and the daily walk with God, what does faithfulness to Christ look like today?

Yeah. Start there. End there. Make that the ambition of your life, to live a life that's pleasing to God.

And then trust him. Paul and I live lives that are radically dependent on God. When we made the switch to go from, we went public in 2016, where we went public and said, we exist to glorify God here in Burbank. Wow.

Wow. So that's what we do. Obviously, your old stomping grounds, as you said, so we're right down the street from Warner Brothers, Disney, we're right in the epicenter of film and television. We're just like, we exist to glorify God. If that meant the building, the company collapses, and everybody hits WX, whatever. We have to take that chance. We have to pay that price. But that's what we're doing. And in that daily walk of faithfulness, we're just like, okay, well, Lord, we're going to be radically dependent on you.

That's how we're going to live. And I'm sounding like heroic, as I'm telling you these stories. Yes, there were many times, we never doubted, we never like, you know, questioned our decisions or anything.

But if yeah, there were some hard times. Oops. Oh, so sorry. I think I just cut him off, didn't I?

Can you call him again real quick? Oh, my goodness. Oh, dear. Not good. Are you?

And Martin too. I'm so sorry. Oh, wow. What happened? Welcome to live.

Oh, dear. Welcome to live radio. We'll have to get them on in just a few minutes.

If I mean, not just a few minutes should be only a minute or so. I made the mistake of trying to get Martin on. Is Paul's on? I mean, is Brad on? He's not on?

Nobody's off. Is that is that it? Well, that's a good time for a station break. Oh, I'm so sorry. I messed up. I'm afraid. So hang in there. This is Kingdom Pursuits. And we will be right back hopefully with Paul and Martin. Okay.

You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where God takes your passion and uses it to further his kingdom. And I want to finally get back to my guests after I goofed up.

Don't do anything technical. That's the story of my life. Anyway, we were talking with Brad Silverman and so inspired about getting close to God, seeking him first. And I was thinking, are you there, Brad, by the way? I can't hear, apparently. Oh, dear. Oh, good. Good. I hear you. I'm so glad.

Anyway, welcome to guest hosting. Oh, dear. But anyway, I was going to just say what you're saying, too, is when we seek God, I mean, selfishly, it's that joy unspeakable and full of glory that starts to creep in. And God gave me the three ply cord, the joy, you know, draw, you know, draw near the Lord, he'll draw near to you is number one, the three ply cord in his presence is fullness of joy, number two, and then the joy of the Lord, what is our strength. And we need strength today. And we certainly needed to at least keep trying with these things that we're doing. Now, I want you to meet Martin Bennett, who has this magnificent book called Wounded Tiger, this award winning and it's a film to me be and I just felt, you know, I mean, we could have been going on and on, but I just wanted you to meet literally to meet Martin Bennett. And he's been going through it to get to it as well for these years.

But what an amazing story, you know, of one thing after the other. And you are so inspiring to me, Brad already, you know, just, I'm just so I mean, if you'll forgive me, I'm so proud of both of you, because I'm in there to doing exactly all that you said, you know, just a step at a time, hold in tight to Jesus. So Martin, are you there?

Yes, I am. Oh, I'm so excited. Happy birthday, Martin Bennett.

He took some time off from his birthday celebrations. And Martin, meet Brad Silverman. And I you and Martin has, you know, just he's just worked hard and amazingly, he inspires me. So Martin, just, you know, you know that Brad as part of Kappa Studios, the 15,000 square foot full service production facility in Burbank. And so just introduce yourselves to each other.

You know, this is kind of interesting, but just say hi. What up Martin? Martin or Mark? Martin, T-I-N. Got it.

I want to thank you for, you know, and, you know, emphasizing that relationship with the Lord is number one, Jesus does. You're fading apparently, Martin. Are you there, Martin?

Yeah, I'm here. Another call came in on my phone. Oh dear.

Unless we're really plugged into the vine, we as the branches really can't do anything. Yeah. So that's really a great... Can you hear me okay? Yeah, just faded a little bit ago.

Well, yeah, it was with the phone ringing. So I'm working on this project Wounded Tiger, which is the true story of the pilots who led the attack in Pearl Harbor, who came to faith. His life story is astounding, really.

I'm surprised no one has ever researched and, you know, brought this out to the public. But in regards to filmmaking or whatever your calling is, you really have to have a better understanding of what you're doing. You really have to have a clarity of heart, mind, and spirit of what God wants you to do. So before Noah could really start building that arc, he had to know for sure, because it was a long-term project. So for people involved in things that are significant, that are long-term deals, you really need to have that clarity of heart, mind, and spirit.

Once you have that, then you can really weather any storm. So I wrote the screenplay. I got it in front of investors.

They said they loved it. I even sat down with the president of Warner Brothers down the street from Brad at his invitation, where we talked about a possible co-production deal, and I told him I didn't want to option the project. I wanted to retain enough creative control to protect the integrity, and he said he was fine with that, but I would have to bring money to the table and reduce something like that. So I've turned down these offers on the project because they all required full creative control, and because it's a true story and there's spiritual elements, I didn't want those to end up on the cutting floor, as happened with Unbroken and some other significant films. So I then focused on novelizing the story from the script to the book, where it's done well, gotten great reviews, and the task at hand now is simply to put together the money to do an international marketing campaign of the book here in the U.S. and in Japan, because the book has been translated into Japanese. And of course I'm very much into Japanese, because that's my book, too, of Japanese-American true supernatural love story. Yeah, one of the questions people have had is, why would a Japanese want to read a story about a guy who led the attack when this was a terrible disaster, the Japanese lost the war, why would they want even talk about that? You have 30 seconds.

Okay, well the reason is because it's a redemption story, and it turns into friendship with God and friendship with man, and that's really what the story is all about. Oh gosh, what a joy, you guys. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day, Brad Silverman. You really inspire me, and Martin, you always do, and happy, happy birthday, my dear. And, you know, I just hope all of you out there with your projects and your desires and your God-given dreams and visions have had some, filled your tank up today. I sure have had mine, and bless you. I love that old saying from Galaxy Quest, never give up, never surrender. You guys remember that crazy movie? Anyway, look from Wounded Tiger, Martin Bennett, and look for Selfie Dad. I'm ordering it immediately, if not sooner. God bless every one of you out there, and Martin and Brad, thank you so much. This is the Truth Network.