July 3, 2024 • 29 mins
In this episode of United States of Small Business, host John Quick sits down with filmmaker John Follis to discuss his thought-provoking documentary, "Leaving God." Follis shares the inspiration behind the film and reveals how his personal journey away from his Catholic upbringing influenced its creation. They delve into the surprising findings from his research, offering an unbiased look at America's cultural shift away from religion.
The conversation continues with Follis reflecting on the impact of winning the Hollywood International Documentary Film Award and how this recognition has affected both his personal and professional life. They discuss the film's unexpected surge in viewership after being featured on topdocumentaryfilms.com, and what this means for his future projects.
Tune in for an insightful discussion on faith, culture, and the power of storytelling in shaping our understanding of the world around us.
Watch his film here: https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/leaving-god/
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Begin your journey of inspiration with us today.
Welcome everybody to the United States of Small Business
Podcast. I'm your host, John Quick.
Today we have a returning guest,a very special guest, John
Follis, who was a New York City ad agency guru in the 90s, and
he actually made a documentary film called Leaving God.
(01:42):
And we're going to be talking about this film during today's
episode. So John, we're very excited.
You're joining us again as the only repeat guest so far on the
United States A Small Business Podcast.
So welcome to the show, John. Appreciate you coming on on
again. Wow, John, I feel honored.
Thanks for having me back. Well, we had such a great time
(02:02):
chatting the first time you cameon and I, I put two and two
together. Sometimes my brain doesn't work
as quickly as I would like it to.
And you did a film called Leaving God, which I watched a
couple years back and then rewatched again this year.
Talk to me about what it was like making a film entitled
(02:24):
Leaving God. Well.
Again, thanks for watching the film.
It's I'm always impressed when Imeet people like you who say
they've watched the film once. I think you're the first person
who's ever told me they watched it twice.
So that's, that's, that's prettyspecial for me to hear,
(02:47):
especially when people are used to TikTok videos, which, you
know, average about 7 seconds. So I am not a filmmaker, as you
know, I should say, I can't say I'm not a filmmaker having just
being introduced as being a filmmaker of an award-winning
film. My background, as you know, is
not filmmaking, It's advertising.
(03:07):
I worked, spent my career in advertising mostly in New York
City as a creative guy. And that means I was a writer
and an art director. I actually started out as a
designer art director and I mention that because a lot of
the skills that I, I was able to, to use so well in
(03:29):
advertising definitely factored into the making of this, this
documentary. This documentary is a little bit
different than most things that are called documentaries in that
I I didn't use a lot of live action stuff.
If you're familiar with the documentary, filmmaker Ken
(03:51):
Burns, who does a lot of the work on PBS, did the whole
series on the Civil War about 15years ago and has done many
other documentaries. Because he's his approach, his
documentaries are all historical.
Most of his documentaries, if not all of them, are not really
(04:11):
use a lot of film production. They use a lot of imagery, a lot
of still images. In fact, in iMovie, there's
actually an effect called the Ken Burns effect, which enables
you to like move in or pull out of a still image.
So I mentioned that because that's very similar.
He was an inspiration for me to make the film.
Again, not being a trained as a filmmaker, I wasn't sure that I
(04:35):
can make something that would qualify as a documentary film
without those skills. But knowing Penn's work, using a
lot of still imagery and really just relying on very strong
research and storytelling, that he is able to make some very
(04:56):
impressive documentary. So that's that was one of the
motivations for me to make this was just the fact that I not
being a trained filmmaker, that I could do something that would
still be good to watch. But it, it also came out of my
experience just dabbling in video content creation as a
marketing guy. I've been making video content
(05:20):
marketing, advertising oriented short videos, you know,
generally like, like commercials.
I, I come out of traditional media.
So for many years when we had our agency, we had clients and I
would come up with ideas for 32nd or 62nd commercials.
And once I realized that you hadthe ability to create that kind
(05:43):
of content digitally online via iMovie in the late 90s, I
started doing that. And those short videos then in
the 2000s, around early 2000s turned into longer, more
storytelling kind of videos. And then I got I kind of
branched out of the advertising marketing and started creating
(06:07):
videos that were just more aboutexperiences that I had in the ad
business. I created a series called True
Stories and Advertising, which Ihad a lot of fun creating.
And so is it was an evolution out of that experience creating
these videos in the longer, morestorytelling videos that I
eventually decided, hey, maybe this idea about people leaving
(06:30):
God, especially now that a lot of ministers and priests are
kind of walking away from that belief.
I thought there was a story there that I had not seen yet be
be told. So did you have any kind of
surprise findings kind of while you were doing your research or
even while you were making this film?
(06:51):
I wouldn't say surprise. I just, I, it just came out of
my own curiosity. And it wasn't until really I
stumbled on the fact that more and more priests and ministers
and pastors were coming out. And I mean, imagine, you know,
30 years ago, the challenge was if you were gay to come out,
(07:14):
right? And now that's fairly accepted.
I won't say completely accepted,but you hear a lot now about
people who are transgender, right, coming out with that.
But just imagine if you spent your career in many cases, ten,
20-30 years as a priest or minister every week standing up
(07:36):
in front of a congregation, preaching the Bible, preaching
the word of God. And then suddenly at some point
you you start re evaluating yourown beliefs and you come to the
conclusion that what you've beenpreaching, literally preaching
in many cases for decades is something that you no longer
(07:57):
believe in. So when I that wasn't really
surprising to me because I felt that if I was having these
feelings with all the priests and ministers and pastors that
exist in the United States, there has to be at least a few
dozen of them who are coming to the same conclusions that I did.
(08:19):
So it wasn't really surprising, but I was still really
fascinated. And that to me was the tipping
point that I said, I'm going to start my film focused on that,
and then somehow I'm going to weave my own personal story into
it and how it's going to end. That was that was the thing I
hadn't quite figured out when I started it, but I was just
(08:41):
hoping that if I started the process that I would get into it
and then hopefully come up with a good way to tie it together,
which was not an easy thing to do, I have to say.
How do you end it? Because the last thing I wanted
to do, the last thing I didn't want this to be about me
preaching non religion or non belief to people.
(09:04):
And I didn't want to conclude bysaying, OK, so this is this is
the conclusion I came to. And that's the conclusion that
you guys watching this film should come to as well.
Did not want to do that 'cause Idon't like you just said
earlier. I think everyone is on their own
path and I respect that. Yeah.
So part of your journey was I think at one point you had a
(09:30):
account for a church promoting God.
So talk to me a little bit aboutthat.
The, you know, you go from having an advertising job, you
know, one of your clients promote their church to then
doing a film like this. I bet that was like a, you know,
a a 360 or 180. Degree.
So, you know, I grew up like many people in the US, with a
(09:51):
religious education. I actually went to parochial
school for a number of years or so.
I was, you know, I was a, a strong believer for many years.
And when I moved to New York in my early 20s, one of the first
things I did when I got there was get involved with a church
and stayed involved with that church for over 20 years.
(10:12):
And it was, it was one of the best experiences of, of living
in New York because when I movedto New York, I didn't know a
soul. And the church for me was like a
watering hole that I could go ona weekly basis and feel nurtured
and feel connected with, with people that I would see every
week and really enjoyed the experience of the church for
(10:35):
many years. So I after being involved with
it that long, I finally got up because at the time I was, I had
a an award-winning advertising agency and one of the ministers
at the church who learn that I was the head of this
award-winning advertising agency, pulled me aside one day
(10:59):
and said, ask me if the head minister of the church knew
about my professional background.
I didn't know why he was asking me that.
But as it turned out, the churchwas considering doing an
advertising campaign. And this associate minister was
felt that it would be a good idea for the head minister at
(11:22):
this church, since he was considering doing an ad campaign
to know about me as a church member.
And that's how we initially got connected, which was kind of
weird to, you know, when you've been going to this church and
every week you see the minister up there behind the podium
giving the sermon and suddenly he's in your office talking
(11:43):
about a business deal. It's, it's a, it's a little
strange, you know, but that's how the whole thing started.
And I was really excited becauselike I said earlier, I love the
church. I thought the church had a lot
of facets to it that most peoplewould not think of when they
(12:03):
think about church. They had an entrepreneurs group,
they had a divorce recovery group.
They had a lot of programs that even if you weren't a very
religious person, you could benefit from.
And so I thought that was a message that the church could
could get out to the public in New York better than they were
doing it. So I was really excited about
(12:25):
the challenge of trying to market the church to New
Yorkers. So we're going to put the links
to the documentary in the podcast description.
Like I said, somebody's going towatch this for the first time.
What could they expect? They're going to sit down on
their couch, they're going to pull up their laptop, they're
going to turn it on. What could somebody expect to
(12:47):
kind of see go through all thosekinds of things, watching this
for the first time? Well, I'm going to answer that
question kind of in the inverse.I'm going to tell them what they
that they might expect that they're not going to get based
(13:08):
on the title of the film. And I'm going to repeat myself
what I said earlier, this is notan anti God film and you watched
it. So I hope you feel the same way
about it that I'm not, I'm not trashing God.
I'm just sharing my own experience as someone who grew
up as a believer and then through a variety of personal
(13:31):
experiences came off, decided tofollow a different path.
So it's easy for someone to justlook at the title of this film
and say, well, why would I want to watch that?
I believe in God. I don't want to watch a film
that's telling me why I shouldn't believe in God or put
put God down. So again, I was very careful
(13:54):
when I made this thing that I approached it like a
investigative journalist. That's how I approached it.
Maybe you remember the, the movie Spotlight that came out 10
or 15 years ago about the story that the Boston Globe did about
the, the minute the Catholic priests who are abusing kids.
(14:16):
I think it was an award, Academyaward-winning film called
Spotlight. And it was all about the
investigation from these, these,and it was the Boston Globe.
So it was the newspaper investigators, the journalists.
So that's how I wanted to, to, to approach this film.
So I don't, I don't want to tellthem what they should expect
(14:42):
because everyone's experience watching this film might be a
little bit different. What I think they should expect
and hopefully they will get is amovie and maybe since you
watched it twice, you you can support this is that you won't
get bored watching this film. Maybe it's because of my
(15:02):
advertising background. I'm trained to really capture
people's attention and and even though my training is usually in
the format of a 30 or 60 second commercial, I think that I
applied those skills so I could keep someone's attention for the
(15:22):
full 47 minutes of this film andhopefully I did that.
Nice. Well, what was it like?
You know, it's one thing. You made the film, you put it
out there and you know, people watched it.
Obviously they're still watchingit.
But what was it like to win a couple of these awards, major
documentary awards? That's got to be a whole another
thing. I know that you're used to, you
(15:42):
know, you had a very successful advertising firm and you won
many awards there. But winning a award for a
documentary that kind of peeks under the hood of your soul a
bit might be feel a little different than an advertising
award talk. To you, John, I was.
I was, in a word, flabbergasted.There are many award shows out
(16:04):
there. Many of them are worthless.
I am not even sure that they're all legitimate, to be honest
with you. So when you enter a Film
Festival that's called the Hollywood International
Documentary Film Festival, you say, well, what the hell, You
(16:26):
know, it's 35 bucks to enter. You don't, You don't win as it
was like buying a lottery ticket, to be honest with you.
That's how it kind of felt. But even if I got like an
honorable mention or something like that, I would have been
thrilled. So again, I was flabbergasted
when I got a response back from from that particular show that
(16:50):
it was awarded the best first Time Film Maker award for that
year. That was 2017.
Yeah, you got to be proud of that.
You put a lot of hard work into this.
Thank you. I, I, I appreciate that and to
get that kind of acknowledgementfrom a, a festival of, of that
(17:10):
pedigree is the. Big deal is.
Is it's, it's, it's, it's reallyexciting.
Especially, like I said, I'm, I don't consider myself a
filmmaker. And this is the first I, you
know, part of you asked me what motivated me.
Part of it was just to see if I could do something.
I've always been a fan of documentary films, especially,
(17:32):
as I mentioned early, Ken Burns and Michael Moore, who made, you
know, all those great films. So it was, you know, with, with
those guys as inspiration that Isaid, well, let me try.
I've got nothing to lose, right?You know, I, I, I didn't have to
invest a lot of money to, to make this.
(17:52):
I didn't have any funding that went into this.
This was all, anything I spent on it was out of pocket.
So I really felt like I had nothing to lose.
And even if I even if no one watched it, I just thought there
would be a level of satisfactionof making.
Something a little therapeutic, you know, in making it as well.
(18:14):
It was also yes, if you watch the film, because I talk about
my own journey of going through this.
I and, and I'm glad you mentioned that because that was
also a major factor. I think whenever you write if
like it's almost like writing ina diary, right?
If you're dealing with a lot of personal issues, if you can
express yourself in a diary. Some people do it in music, they
(18:38):
write songs, you know, some people write poetry, and in my
case it was this documentary film.
So there was definitely a cathartic aspect of creating it
with that perspective. Was there any backlash that was
maybe over the top or you didn'tkind of think it was going to be
out there? I mean, it's a very provocative
(18:59):
title. It's it's investigative.
You know, it's kind of like an investigative documentary of
when somebody would when somebody watches it.
But you know, the title was out there and probably got a lot of
clicks and views cause the title.
Do you have any backlash becauseof that?
Well, you know, being an advertising guy, I realize the
value of a good title, right? It's, it's kind of like a
(19:21):
headline. So I, I think as I referenced
earlier, even though the title is provocative, it's much less
provocative than the actual film.
I, I don't think the film is really that provocative at all.
Again, it's more investigative journalism.
(19:41):
It talks about things that actually have happened.
It talks about my own personal experience.
So I'm not, I'm not standing on a soapbox saying, you know,
provocative stuff in a film. I'm just kind of reporting what
I've, what I've learned and whatI've experienced.
And as far as backlash, there's really not a lot lot you can
backlash on, you know what I'm saying?
(20:03):
Because. When you're reporting facts that
that can be justified by their sources and you're also talking
about your own personal experience.
In my case, I talked about working on the ad campaign for
the church and then different factors.
Not being in New York City when 911 happened and having things
that happened in my life that got me to question things.
(20:28):
You can't really, you can't really react as a viewer and
saying, you know, I, I don't agree with that or I don't, you
know, it's just, I'm just, I'm just saying what happened.
So there's not a lot of stuff you can really backlash on other
than the provocative title, right?
(20:48):
And if you know, don't like the title, don't watch it, you know?
So if you if you could do it allover again, would you change
anything in the film? Would you do it different
knowing what you know now you know?
Everybody's journey is differentyear by year.
Or would you just keep it the same?
I have to say I, I spent a lot of time really allowing this
(21:17):
film to percolate before I, I uploaded it.
I, I, I really wanted to avoid the experience.
And I think it's almost unavoidable as a creative
person. It's hard to look at something
you've created with the benefit of hindsight and not, say, see
something that you could have changed a little bit.
(21:41):
But for the most part, John, other than a few really small
little things, I could have madethat edit quicker or change the
little things. You know, I'm, I'm, I, I, I'm
actually surprised because I'm very self critical of stuff and
I'm actually a little surprised that I'm still feeling pretty
good about the final result. The only problem is, is that
(22:03):
with time it gets a little dated, you know, because in the
film, as you know, I reference alot of statistics, especially in
the first third of the film. So the statistics that I used
from 2017 are not exactly the statistics that are, that are
now and or will be in another 5 or 10 years.
(22:26):
So that's the only problem with it.
It can, but you know, hopefully I think in a more broad sense it
will still hold up over time do.You have any future plans for
another documentary down the road?
I, I get asked that a lot and the short answer is no.
I was surprised that I was able to make this one.
(22:47):
And again, I think this was a very unique, there were a very
unique set of circumstances thatmotivated me to do this.
And it had it not been somethingthat I was so personally
involved in and interested in, I, I would not have made it.
(23:07):
And it really, it really took that level of personal
motivation for me to, to put in the time and energy and try to
do that. And I don't know that there's
anything I'm not. I, I'm not saying I never will,
but I certainly don't have any plans to at this point.
I have other things right now that I'm focusing on.
Well, what kind of advice would you give for folks that there's
(23:28):
gonna be people listening to this and be like, man, I've
always wanted to make a make a film, make a short film, make a
documentary, make a real, you know, a full length film.
You never know. What kind of advice would you
give to folks who haven't taken that first step and leap of
faith like you did and went fullon and made it and got some
awards and, and all those things?
What kind of advice would you give to those kind?
(23:49):
Of well, you know, with, with the digital technology that's
available for people now, just by sitting in front of a
computer, you can do the same thing that I did.
So if you watch the film, you'llsee that it's possible to make a
(24:09):
film with a good subject and a good storyline, good writing and
good editing and a good soundtrack, musical soundtrack
just by using what you can do with things that you can pull
off of you YouTube. I pulled off a lot of as you may
(24:30):
know, you know, I did a lot of cutaways.
I had a show to bit by George Carlin.
I, I cut away from a lot of video clips that I found on
YouTube, which is probably why this film is totally illegal.
If I actually, if I, if I try tomake money on this thing, I
probably have to spend $10,000 on legal fees just to have the
(24:52):
lawyers tell me what things are copyrighted and then pay, you
know, try to pay all the sourcesthat I ripped off.
You know, I probably should not,shouldn't be saying that.
But you know, one thing you didn't mention that I should
point out is that I didn't make this with the intention of
making money. And if I did, I think I would
(25:12):
have a lot of legal problems with this film.
Well, I think that's a, you know, I think that's some good
advice of just being able to just start.
I think there's never going to be a perfect time.
You know, one of my favorite documentary, it's ATV show, but
one of my favorite documentarieson anything political.
I'm into politics. Just political Junkie is a a
(25:37):
film called Street Fight and it follows around Cory Booker,
senator from New Jersey when he first wanted to run for City
Council and he lost. And you know, this is 20 years
ago and they had probably $100 camera with regular film.
And it's one of the most powerful political documentaries
(25:58):
that I've ever seen because it'sjust authentic.
And so for folks listening in, you know, I want to, you know, I
encourage you to go take a watchto leaving God.
I think it's thought I don't, you know, I would agree that
it's not a provocative documentary film.
It's a thought provoking film. And I think that that's a, you
know, you've done a good job at making people think about what
(26:20):
they believe or why they believe.
So kudos to you. I'm.
Glad you said that, John, because my intention was not to
be provocative. My intention was to be thought
provoking and I think there's a difference you know, provocative
is walking naked down the street.
Thought provoking is giving you information and makes you maybe
(26:42):
re evaluate some of your thoughts so you're.
Let's say you're sitting on the beach having a Mai Tai.
You're 97 years old. What do you want this film to be
remembered by? That it got people to think, to
re evaluate, to think about the things that I mentioned in the
(27:04):
film just the way I did. And maybe it will reevaluate
what's the word I'm looking for reinforce the their the beliefs
that they already have. But if it, if it motivates
someone to maybe think a little bit differently and as a result
(27:27):
have a have a better life as a, as a our result of maybe
thinking a little bit differently about their own life
and their future, then I, I would be very satisfied because
my ultimate goal is to make people to just make informed
decisions about how they how they live their life.
(27:50):
That's awesome. Well, I appreciate you coming
back on the show. John, do you have any last
minute thoughts here before we head off?
I don't, but you know, they can always contact me.
I suppose that in in the show notes, maybe you'll, you'll have
some way, some, some way that people can comment on this,
(28:12):
right. And I will, I will look at the
comments. So if anyone you know comments
as a question or something like that, I'll try to respond to
them via that. Awesome.
Well, John, I really appreciate you coming back on to the United
States of Small Business podcast.
The only returning guest you youhave sliced out a piece of the
pie and you know, you're welcomeback anytime.
(28:33):
I would encourage folks, I'm going to put all the links to
this film. There's a couple really good
links to the film Leaving God. John Fallis is the documentary
maker behind this film. And you know, it stopped
provoking folks. John and I were talking before
the interview and one of the things that one of my mentors
told me early on was if you're if you're in a room with people
that if you only talk to people that you 100% agree with, you're
(28:56):
going to find yourself in a roomby yourself pretty quickly.
So it's a great, it's a really good documentary, folks.
Go check it out. And John, we wish you nothing
but success from United States aSmall Business Podcast.
We hope everybody has a phenomenal rest.
There we go. Enjoy the summer sun.
Until next time, I'm John Quick from the United States a small
business podcast. Thanks, John.
(29:17):
Thank you, John.
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Begin your journey of inspiration with us today.
Welcome everybody to the United States of Small Business
Podcast. I'm your host, John Quick.
Today we have a returning guest,a very special guest, John
Follis, who was a New York City ad agency guru in the 90s, and
he actually made a documentary film called Leaving God.
(01:42):
And we're going to be talking about this film during today's
episode. So John, we're very excited.
You're joining us again as the only repeat guest so far on the
United States A Small Business Podcast.
So welcome to the show, John. Appreciate you coming on on
again. Wow, John, I feel honored.
Thanks for having me back. Well, we had such a great time
(02:02):
chatting the first time you cameon and I, I put two and two
together. Sometimes my brain doesn't work
as quickly as I would like it to.
And you did a film called Leaving God, which I watched a
couple years back and then rewatched again this year.
Talk to me about what it was like making a film entitled
(02:24):
Leaving God. Well.
Again, thanks for watching the film.
It's I'm always impressed when Imeet people like you who say
they've watched the film once. I think you're the first person
who's ever told me they watched it twice.
So that's, that's, that's prettyspecial for me to hear,
(02:47):
especially when people are used to TikTok videos, which, you
know, average about 7 seconds. So I am not a filmmaker, as you
know, I should say, I can't say I'm not a filmmaker having just
being introduced as being a filmmaker of an award-winning
film. My background, as you know, is
not filmmaking, It's advertising.
(03:07):
I worked, spent my career in advertising mostly in New York
City as a creative guy. And that means I was a writer
and an art director. I actually started out as a
designer art director and I mention that because a lot of
the skills that I, I was able to, to use so well in
(03:29):
advertising definitely factored into the making of this, this
documentary. This documentary is a little bit
different than most things that are called documentaries in that
I I didn't use a lot of live action stuff.
If you're familiar with the documentary, filmmaker Ken
(03:51):
Burns, who does a lot of the work on PBS, did the whole
series on the Civil War about 15years ago and has done many
other documentaries. Because he's his approach, his
documentaries are all historical.
Most of his documentaries, if not all of them, are not really
(04:11):
use a lot of film production. They use a lot of imagery, a lot
of still images. In fact, in iMovie, there's
actually an effect called the Ken Burns effect, which enables
you to like move in or pull out of a still image.
So I mentioned that because that's very similar.
He was an inspiration for me to make the film.
Again, not being a trained as a filmmaker, I wasn't sure that I
(04:35):
can make something that would qualify as a documentary film
without those skills. But knowing Penn's work, using a
lot of still imagery and really just relying on very strong
research and storytelling, that he is able to make some very
(04:56):
impressive documentary. So that's that was one of the
motivations for me to make this was just the fact that I not
being a trained filmmaker, that I could do something that would
still be good to watch. But it, it also came out of my
experience just dabbling in video content creation as a
marketing guy. I've been making video content
(05:20):
marketing, advertising oriented short videos, you know,
generally like, like commercials.
I, I come out of traditional media.
So for many years when we had our agency, we had clients and I
would come up with ideas for 32nd or 62nd commercials.
And once I realized that you hadthe ability to create that kind
(05:43):
of content digitally online via iMovie in the late 90s, I
started doing that. And those short videos then in
the 2000s, around early 2000s turned into longer, more
storytelling kind of videos. And then I got I kind of
branched out of the advertising marketing and started creating
(06:07):
videos that were just more aboutexperiences that I had in the ad
business. I created a series called True
Stories and Advertising, which Ihad a lot of fun creating.
And so is it was an evolution out of that experience creating
these videos in the longer, morestorytelling videos that I
eventually decided, hey, maybe this idea about people leaving
(06:30):
God, especially now that a lot of ministers and priests are
kind of walking away from that belief.
I thought there was a story there that I had not seen yet be
be told. So did you have any kind of
surprise findings kind of while you were doing your research or
even while you were making this film?
(06:51):
I wouldn't say surprise. I just, I, it just came out of
my own curiosity. And it wasn't until really I
stumbled on the fact that more and more priests and ministers
and pastors were coming out. And I mean, imagine, you know,
30 years ago, the challenge was if you were gay to come out,
(07:14):
right? And now that's fairly accepted.
I won't say completely accepted,but you hear a lot now about
people who are transgender, right, coming out with that.
But just imagine if you spent your career in many cases, ten,
20-30 years as a priest or minister every week standing up
(07:36):
in front of a congregation, preaching the Bible, preaching
the word of God. And then suddenly at some point
you you start re evaluating yourown beliefs and you come to the
conclusion that what you've beenpreaching, literally preaching
in many cases for decades is something that you no longer
(07:57):
believe in. So when I that wasn't really
surprising to me because I felt that if I was having these
feelings with all the priests and ministers and pastors that
exist in the United States, there has to be at least a few
dozen of them who are coming to the same conclusions that I did.
(08:19):
So it wasn't really surprising, but I was still really
fascinated. And that to me was the tipping
point that I said, I'm going to start my film focused on that,
and then somehow I'm going to weave my own personal story into
it and how it's going to end. That was that was the thing I
hadn't quite figured out when I started it, but I was just
(08:41):
hoping that if I started the process that I would get into it
and then hopefully come up with a good way to tie it together,
which was not an easy thing to do, I have to say.
How do you end it? Because the last thing I wanted
to do, the last thing I didn't want this to be about me
preaching non religion or non belief to people.
(09:04):
And I didn't want to conclude bysaying, OK, so this is this is
the conclusion I came to. And that's the conclusion that
you guys watching this film should come to as well.
Did not want to do that 'cause Idon't like you just said
earlier. I think everyone is on their own
path and I respect that. Yeah.
So part of your journey was I think at one point you had a
(09:30):
account for a church promoting God.
So talk to me a little bit aboutthat.
The, you know, you go from having an advertising job, you
know, one of your clients promote their church to then
doing a film like this. I bet that was like a, you know,
a a 360 or 180. Degree.
So, you know, I grew up like many people in the US, with a
(09:51):
religious education. I actually went to parochial
school for a number of years or so.
I was, you know, I was a, a strong believer for many years.
And when I moved to New York in my early 20s, one of the first
things I did when I got there was get involved with a church
and stayed involved with that church for over 20 years.
(10:12):
And it was, it was one of the best experiences of, of living
in New York because when I movedto New York, I didn't know a
soul. And the church for me was like a
watering hole that I could go ona weekly basis and feel nurtured
and feel connected with, with people that I would see every
week and really enjoyed the experience of the church for
(10:35):
many years. So I after being involved with
it that long, I finally got up because at the time I was, I had
a an award-winning advertising agency and one of the ministers
at the church who learn that I was the head of this
award-winning advertising agency, pulled me aside one day
(10:59):
and said, ask me if the head minister of the church knew
about my professional background.
I didn't know why he was asking me that.
But as it turned out, the churchwas considering doing an
advertising campaign. And this associate minister was
felt that it would be a good idea for the head minister at
(11:22):
this church, since he was considering doing an ad campaign
to know about me as a church member.
And that's how we initially got connected, which was kind of
weird to, you know, when you've been going to this church and
every week you see the minister up there behind the podium
giving the sermon and suddenly he's in your office talking
(11:43):
about a business deal. It's, it's a, it's a little
strange, you know, but that's how the whole thing started.
And I was really excited becauselike I said earlier, I love the
church. I thought the church had a lot
of facets to it that most peoplewould not think of when they
(12:03):
think about church. They had an entrepreneurs group,
they had a divorce recovery group.
They had a lot of programs that even if you weren't a very
religious person, you could benefit from.
And so I thought that was a message that the church could
could get out to the public in New York better than they were
doing it. So I was really excited about
(12:25):
the challenge of trying to market the church to New
Yorkers. So we're going to put the links
to the documentary in the podcast description.
Like I said, somebody's going towatch this for the first time.
What could they expect? They're going to sit down on
their couch, they're going to pull up their laptop, they're
going to turn it on. What could somebody expect to
(12:47):
kind of see go through all thosekinds of things, watching this
for the first time? Well, I'm going to answer that
question kind of in the inverse.I'm going to tell them what they
that they might expect that they're not going to get based
(13:08):
on the title of the film. And I'm going to repeat myself
what I said earlier, this is notan anti God film and you watched
it. So I hope you feel the same way
about it that I'm not, I'm not trashing God.
I'm just sharing my own experience as someone who grew
up as a believer and then through a variety of personal
(13:31):
experiences came off, decided tofollow a different path.
So it's easy for someone to justlook at the title of this film
and say, well, why would I want to watch that?
I believe in God. I don't want to watch a film
that's telling me why I shouldn't believe in God or put
put God down. So again, I was very careful
(13:54):
when I made this thing that I approached it like a
investigative journalist. That's how I approached it.
Maybe you remember the, the movie Spotlight that came out 10
or 15 years ago about the story that the Boston Globe did about
the, the minute the Catholic priests who are abusing kids.
(14:16):
I think it was an award, Academyaward-winning film called
Spotlight. And it was all about the
investigation from these, these,and it was the Boston Globe.
So it was the newspaper investigators, the journalists.
So that's how I wanted to, to, to approach this film.
So I don't, I don't want to tellthem what they should expect
(14:42):
because everyone's experience watching this film might be a
little bit different. What I think they should expect
and hopefully they will get is amovie and maybe since you
watched it twice, you you can support this is that you won't
get bored watching this film. Maybe it's because of my
(15:02):
advertising background. I'm trained to really capture
people's attention and and even though my training is usually in
the format of a 30 or 60 second commercial, I think that I
applied those skills so I could keep someone's attention for the
(15:22):
full 47 minutes of this film andhopefully I did that.
Nice. Well, what was it like?
You know, it's one thing. You made the film, you put it
out there and you know, people watched it.
Obviously they're still watchingit.
But what was it like to win a couple of these awards, major
documentary awards? That's got to be a whole another
thing. I know that you're used to, you
(15:42):
know, you had a very successful advertising firm and you won
many awards there. But winning a award for a
documentary that kind of peeks under the hood of your soul a
bit might be feel a little different than an advertising
award talk. To you, John, I was.
I was, in a word, flabbergasted.There are many award shows out
(16:04):
there. Many of them are worthless.
I am not even sure that they're all legitimate, to be honest
with you. So when you enter a Film
Festival that's called the Hollywood International
Documentary Film Festival, you say, well, what the hell, You
(16:26):
know, it's 35 bucks to enter. You don't, You don't win as it
was like buying a lottery ticket, to be honest with you.
That's how it kind of felt. But even if I got like an
honorable mention or something like that, I would have been
thrilled. So again, I was flabbergasted
when I got a response back from from that particular show that
(16:50):
it was awarded the best first Time Film Maker award for that
year. That was 2017.
Yeah, you got to be proud of that.
You put a lot of hard work into this.
Thank you. I, I, I appreciate that and to
get that kind of acknowledgementfrom a, a festival of, of that
(17:10):
pedigree is the. Big deal is.
Is it's, it's, it's, it's reallyexciting.
Especially, like I said, I'm, I don't consider myself a
filmmaker. And this is the first I, you
know, part of you asked me what motivated me.
Part of it was just to see if I could do something.
I've always been a fan of documentary films, especially,
(17:32):
as I mentioned early, Ken Burns and Michael Moore, who made, you
know, all those great films. So it was, you know, with, with
those guys as inspiration that Isaid, well, let me try.
I've got nothing to lose, right?You know, I, I, I didn't have to
invest a lot of money to, to make this.
(17:52):
I didn't have any funding that went into this.
This was all, anything I spent on it was out of pocket.
So I really felt like I had nothing to lose.
And even if I even if no one watched it, I just thought there
would be a level of satisfactionof making.
Something a little therapeutic, you know, in making it as well.
(18:14):
It was also yes, if you watch the film, because I talk about
my own journey of going through this.
I and, and I'm glad you mentioned that because that was
also a major factor. I think whenever you write if
like it's almost like writing ina diary, right?
If you're dealing with a lot of personal issues, if you can
express yourself in a diary. Some people do it in music, they
(18:38):
write songs, you know, some people write poetry, and in my
case it was this documentary film.
So there was definitely a cathartic aspect of creating it
with that perspective. Was there any backlash that was
maybe over the top or you didn'tkind of think it was going to be
out there? I mean, it's a very provocative
(18:59):
title. It's it's investigative.
You know, it's kind of like an investigative documentary of
when somebody would when somebody watches it.
But you know, the title was out there and probably got a lot of
clicks and views cause the title.
Do you have any backlash becauseof that?
Well, you know, being an advertising guy, I realize the
value of a good title, right? It's, it's kind of like a
(19:21):
headline. So I, I think as I referenced
earlier, even though the title is provocative, it's much less
provocative than the actual film.
I, I don't think the film is really that provocative at all.
Again, it's more investigative journalism.
(19:41):
It talks about things that actually have happened.
It talks about my own personal experience.
So I'm not, I'm not standing on a soapbox saying, you know,
provocative stuff in a film. I'm just kind of reporting what
I've, what I've learned and whatI've experienced.
And as far as backlash, there's really not a lot lot you can
backlash on, you know what I'm saying?
(20:03):
Because. When you're reporting facts that
that can be justified by their sources and you're also talking
about your own personal experience.
In my case, I talked about working on the ad campaign for
the church and then different factors.
Not being in New York City when 911 happened and having things
that happened in my life that got me to question things.
(20:28):
You can't really, you can't really react as a viewer and
saying, you know, I, I don't agree with that or I don't, you
know, it's just, I'm just, I'm just saying what happened.
So there's not a lot of stuff you can really backlash on other
than the provocative title, right?
(20:48):
And if you know, don't like the title, don't watch it, you know?
So if you if you could do it allover again, would you change
anything in the film? Would you do it different
knowing what you know now you know?
Everybody's journey is differentyear by year.
Or would you just keep it the same?
I have to say I, I spent a lot of time really allowing this
(21:17):
film to percolate before I, I uploaded it.
I, I, I really wanted to avoid the experience.
And I think it's almost unavoidable as a creative
person. It's hard to look at something
you've created with the benefit of hindsight and not, say, see
something that you could have changed a little bit.
(21:41):
But for the most part, John, other than a few really small
little things, I could have madethat edit quicker or change the
little things. You know, I'm, I'm, I, I, I'm
actually surprised because I'm very self critical of stuff and
I'm actually a little surprised that I'm still feeling pretty
good about the final result. The only problem is, is that
(22:03):
with time it gets a little dated, you know, because in the
film, as you know, I reference alot of statistics, especially in
the first third of the film. So the statistics that I used
from 2017 are not exactly the statistics that are, that are
now and or will be in another 5 or 10 years.
(22:26):
So that's the only problem with it.
It can, but you know, hopefully I think in a more broad sense it
will still hold up over time do.You have any future plans for
another documentary down the road?
I, I get asked that a lot and the short answer is no.
I was surprised that I was able to make this one.
(22:47):
And again, I think this was a very unique, there were a very
unique set of circumstances thatmotivated me to do this.
And it had it not been somethingthat I was so personally
involved in and interested in, I, I would not have made it.
(23:07):
And it really, it really took that level of personal
motivation for me to, to put in the time and energy and try to
do that. And I don't know that there's
anything I'm not. I, I'm not saying I never will,
but I certainly don't have any plans to at this point.
I have other things right now that I'm focusing on.
Well, what kind of advice would you give for folks that there's
(23:28):
gonna be people listening to this and be like, man, I've
always wanted to make a make a film, make a short film, make a
documentary, make a real, you know, a full length film.
You never know. What kind of advice would you
give to folks who haven't taken that first step and leap of
faith like you did and went fullon and made it and got some
awards and, and all those things?
What kind of advice would you give to those kind?
(23:49):
Of well, you know, with, with the digital technology that's
available for people now, just by sitting in front of a
computer, you can do the same thing that I did.
So if you watch the film, you'llsee that it's possible to make a
(24:09):
film with a good subject and a good storyline, good writing and
good editing and a good soundtrack, musical soundtrack
just by using what you can do with things that you can pull
off of you YouTube. I pulled off a lot of as you may
(24:30):
know, you know, I did a lot of cutaways.
I had a show to bit by George Carlin.
I, I cut away from a lot of video clips that I found on
YouTube, which is probably why this film is totally illegal.
If I actually, if I, if I try tomake money on this thing, I
probably have to spend $10,000 on legal fees just to have the
(24:52):
lawyers tell me what things are copyrighted and then pay, you
know, try to pay all the sourcesthat I ripped off.
You know, I probably should not,shouldn't be saying that.
But you know, one thing you didn't mention that I should
point out is that I didn't make this with the intention of
making money. And if I did, I think I would
(25:12):
have a lot of legal problems with this film.
Well, I think that's a, you know, I think that's some good
advice of just being able to just start.
I think there's never going to be a perfect time.
You know, one of my favorite documentary, it's ATV show, but
one of my favorite documentarieson anything political.
I'm into politics. Just political Junkie is a a
(25:37):
film called Street Fight and it follows around Cory Booker,
senator from New Jersey when he first wanted to run for City
Council and he lost. And you know, this is 20 years
ago and they had probably $100 camera with regular film.
And it's one of the most powerful political documentaries
(25:58):
that I've ever seen because it'sjust authentic.
And so for folks listening in, you know, I want to, you know, I
encourage you to go take a watchto leaving God.
I think it's thought I don't, you know, I would agree that
it's not a provocative documentary film.
It's a thought provoking film. And I think that that's a, you
know, you've done a good job at making people think about what
(26:20):
they believe or why they believe.
So kudos to you. I'm.
Glad you said that, John, because my intention was not to
be provocative. My intention was to be thought
provoking and I think there's a difference you know, provocative
is walking naked down the street.
Thought provoking is giving you information and makes you maybe
(26:42):
re evaluate some of your thoughts so you're.
Let's say you're sitting on the beach having a Mai Tai.
You're 97 years old. What do you want this film to be
remembered by? That it got people to think, to
re evaluate, to think about the things that I mentioned in the
(27:04):
film just the way I did. And maybe it will reevaluate
what's the word I'm looking for reinforce the their the beliefs
that they already have. But if it, if it motivates
someone to maybe think a little bit differently and as a result
(27:27):
have a have a better life as a, as a our result of maybe
thinking a little bit differently about their own life
and their future, then I, I would be very satisfied because
my ultimate goal is to make people to just make informed
decisions about how they how they live their life.
(27:50):
That's awesome. Well, I appreciate you coming
back on the show. John, do you have any last
minute thoughts here before we head off?
I don't, but you know, they can always contact me.
I suppose that in in the show notes, maybe you'll, you'll have
some way, some, some way that people can comment on this,
(28:12):
right. And I will, I will look at the
comments. So if anyone you know comments
as a question or something like that, I'll try to respond to
them via that. Awesome.
Well, John, I really appreciate you coming back on to the United
States of Small Business podcast.
The only returning guest you youhave sliced out a piece of the
pie and you know, you're welcomeback anytime.
(28:33):
I would encourage folks, I'm going to put all the links to
this film. There's a couple really good
links to the film Leaving God. John Fallis is the documentary
maker behind this film. And you know, it stopped
provoking folks. John and I were talking before
the interview and one of the things that one of my mentors
told me early on was if you're if you're in a room with people
that if you only talk to people that you 100% agree with, you're
(28:56):
going to find yourself in a roomby yourself pretty quickly.
So it's a great, it's a really good documentary, folks.
Go check it out. And John, we wish you nothing
but success from United States aSmall Business Podcast.
We hope everybody has a phenomenal rest.
There we go. Enjoy the summer sun.
Until next time, I'm John Quick from the United States a small
business podcast. Thanks, John.
(29:17):
Thank you, John.
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