Christians in Cinema

Writer/Director/Producer - The Moment After 1 & 2

Walk into a Sharper Image store in the greater Los Angeles area (Glendale, Burbank, Atwater Village), and you might see Wes Llewellyn there. However, you may not recognize him, because his best work has been from behind the camera. His list of credits includes director, producer, writer, cinematographer, editor, gaffer, and camera operator. Wes is a passionate filmmaker, who feels very strongly a commission from God for the work he does.

If you want to come to Hollywood, make sure God’s calling you there!

Wes, your wife Amanda has been a partner in the Moment After films. How did the 2 of you meet?

Wes: We met working on a feature film called “The Dangerous” in New Orleans. I was the chief lighting technician, and she was key make-up. We struck up a friendship pretty quickly.

We never really went through a “dating stage”. She was kind of dating someone and we had a great friendship. Amanda’s father had hip surgery and suffered some complications, and that time was a turning point in our relationship. Now, we see that we “fell in love” one evening on the set at Mardi Gras World (where they store floats). But throughout the rest of that movie we enjoyed our friendship.

When we finished the feature film, Amanda gave up her apartment in Orlando and moved to LA where I already lived. She gave me a call and we started doing things together and hanging out as buddies. Then we actually realized we were in love. The rest is history. We’ve been married almost 12 years now.

The two of you worked together on both of the Moment After features. How did that come about?

Wes: I had shot a couple of films (as Director of Photography) for Rich Christiano, and gone to Arkansas for the premiere of End of the Harvest. Kevin Downes, David A.R. White and Brad Heller were all in the movie, and we took the same flights home.

We had a huge layover and at one point in the airport started talking about the possibility of doing our own film. When we got on the plane I was stuck up front and kept thinking about our discussion, turning it over in my mind. What came out was the story of 2 FBI agents investigating mass disappearances.

Kevin and Amanda both wrote parts of if, and I wrote the rest. It started out as a 20-30 minute film, with 46 pages of script. Then it grew to 60 pages, 70 pages, and was still growing. We realized we were close to a feature, so we decided to go for it and make it feature-length.

Is it difficult to collaborate with 2 other people on writing a script? Wouldn’t that be hard to make it cohesive?

Wes: It actually was a really good thing to have 3 brains working on the same thing. We disagreed sometimes; we did even in the making of the film. But the key is how we handled the disagreements. The bottom line for us was what will make the film stronger?

When we started writing, we knew the three main actors would be Kevin, Dave and Brad. I know the 3 of them well, so I sort of wrote their roles for them. I specifically wrote Adam for Dave, Charles for Kevin, and Jacob for Brad.

After it was done, Dave and Kevin wanted to switch roles, but I said “No, Kevin you’re not Adam, you’re Charles,” and that’s how we went forward.

When we did Moment After 2, my thought for the opening scene wasn’t working – it wasn’t strong enough. So Kevin contributed his thoughts, then we worked with Mike Webber on the animation, and it ended up much stronger than we started. So we really developed things as a team.

Moment After 2 has more special effects than the first one. Was that a goal when you set out to do the sequel?

Wes: Not really. When you consider adding special effects it really increases the budget. The most important thing in any movie is that the people in the theater can relate to the people on screen. We didn’t have a big budget for either of the films, so we knew we needed to keep the story personal, and about what’s going on with the people. So the center of the movie is how world-changing events affect ordinary people.

It actually was a really good thing to have 3 brains working on the same thing.

Special effects can be seasoning in a film, but people don’t relate to them; they relate to other people. I think a good example of that is the movie “Signs”. It’s about an alien invasion of the world, but you never see all the big ships and a lot of aliens. It was a worldwide event, but the movie focuses on how the father of young children living on a farm deals with the event.

It’s the same with the Moment After films. The huge event is the Rapture, but the films are about how individuals are affected by the abrupt loss of life.

Besides most of the writing the script, you also directed the Moment After films. Was that your first outing as a director?

Wes: It was my first chance to direct a feature film. I directed a short film called “Fallen Angel” about a former Hell’s Angel. I started working in Los Angeles as a stage manager at a studio. I worked there for about a year, then moved into lighting.

I wanted work as a DP, but because I hadn’t done something previously in Hollywood, no one cared about my previous work. There is a bit of a stigma that if you haven’t done it in Hollywood, it doesn’t matter to people who are hiring.

I did some lighting work, which I approached more like a cinematographer. When I’d work on lighting, I’d think about the shots, the mood, and the feel of the scene. Someone liked the way I lit my first film, so they hired me. Then when I was able to move into a DP position, I tried to think more like a director would. How should this scene flow, how would it cut in editing?

Speaking of editing, you also edited The Moment After.

Wes: I did. We bought an editing system after The Moment After, which was a little bit of a gamble for us. There was a lot of lighting and shooting work going up to Canada, and I saw a lot of people here going bankrupt.

During this time, Amanda and I were at our church one Sunday, when our pastor spoke a word for us. During the middle of the service, he stopped preaching and said that someone in the service was thinking about making a decision; they should do it. So we bought the system.

It kept us afloat for the next four years. We haven’t had doors fly open for us but we have worked steadily. More opportunities may come about with the release of The Moment After 2 because the tone is changing in Hollywood. Still, I have learned to accept what the Lord puts before me.

Things dried up a bit after the filming of Moment After, so I started shooting video pieces to go with sermons for our church. I was shooting on smaller video equipment doing little things, and that was humbling after doing features with budgets close to $1 million.

It’s a challenge for filmmakers to stay true to ourselves.

But God called me on it. He reminded me that He puts things before us, and what He puts before me, I’m not to criticize or put down. It reminded me of being in film school and studying a silent era director. He did brilliant 10-minute short films that he had to develop every 2 weeks. Even though they were shorts, they had to follow classic story-telling structure: have a beginning, middle and end, and characters that develop well.

It’s a challenge for filmmakers to stay true to ourselves, because there is work that can be done to bring in quick money, and on bigger pictures. I have a good friend, a younger filmmaker, who had the same kind of editing system I did. He would call me from time to time to talk about problems with his system and we became friends. One day he came over and told me he was going to start making pornography. He said it’s fast money, and he would be involved in filmmaking.

I shared my faith with him, and told him it would eat him alive. For the next year and a half he’d come over periodically and ask about my faith. One day he came in and said “My life is meaningless and religion is dead for me. What should I do?” I kept telling him about Jesus and he started coming to church with me. About a year and a half later he accepted Christ.

That’s the edge we have as Christian filmmakers. When we work with people and they come to know our skills, they develop respect for our work. Once that has happened, it opens the door for them to hear about spiritual things.

It is definitely a ministry, and Hollywood is a mission field. It has its own language, dress and social habits; it’s a separate culture. We need to do our very best work and be a craftsman. If we’re craftsmen, people will beat a path to our doorway, and it will gain us the respect of our fellow filmmakers.

What advice do you have for others who want to follow in your footsteps and become filmmakers?

Wes: Make sure it’s what you’re supposed to do! And if you want to come to Hollywood, make sure God’s calling you there! Somebody called me recently from Regent University (my alma mater) and told me they want to move to Los Angeles. I told them that if God put it on your heart, do it! But if there is anything else He’ll let you do and you could be happy doing it, do that.

This is not an easy town or an easy business. It’s rough and tough, but if God has laid it on your heart, then there is nothing else you can do. You have to follow that call.

I know that God called me to come here. There have been good seasons and dry seasons. Christian filmmaking is not an easy business to be in, because there is a stigma attached. Even in Christian organizations in Los Angeles when I told people I made Christian films, their eyes would glaze over. There have been a lot of lousy films made in the name of Christianity.

It’s our challenge to be as excellent as secular Hollywood. We must write good stories with interesting characters and produce them well. Even when we make good films, it will still be hard in this town and hard in this business. But if God has called us, He’ll bless us when we’re obedient!

©2007 ChristianCinema.com