Are you questioning the traditional education system? Curious about homeschooling, creative learning, or how to raise lifelong learners? In this powerful episode of The Homeschool How To Podcast, meet David Alford—a former public high school English teacher who left the classroom to homeschool his children and eventually became an award-winning independent filmmaker.
When David’s wife entered medical school, he made the bold decision to leave his teaching job to stay home with their daughter. That moment sparked a complete shift in his view of education. What started as a practical move quickly became a transformative journey into child-led learning, educational freedom, and the incredible impact of storytelling in education.
You’ll hear how David and his family learned history through novels, explored creativity through theater, and turned homeschooling into a lifestyle filled with meaning, flexibility, and purpose. His latest film, Searching for the Elephant, takes on addiction with empathy—rooted in the same storytelling values that shaped his homeschooling philosophy.
🔗 Explore David’s Films and Work: www.crosspurposes.productions
⏱ Episode Chapters
00:00:00 – Meet David Alford: From Teacher to Homeschooler
00:09:51 – The Path to Homeschooling
00:17:37 – Theater Background and Film Beginnings
00:27:36 – Education Freedom and Learning Through Stories
00:31:24 – Behind the Scenes: Family Filmmaking
00:33:24 – College Alternatives and Individual Paths
00:40:30 – Searching for the Elephant: Film Overview
🎯 What You’ll Learn:
- Why many parents are leaving the public school system
- How homeschooling creates space for creativity, connection, and curiosity
- How to teach history and literature through storytelling
- The role of theater and filmmaking in family bonding and learning
- Alternatives to college and traditional career paths
- How to build confidence in your homeschooling journey—even if you're just starting
💬 David’s Advice to New Homeschoolers:
“Give yourself grace. Teach them to love learning, and all the rest will come as needed.”
What is the most important thing we can teach our kids?
HOW TO HANDLE AN EMERGENCY!
This could mean life or death in some cases!
Help a child you know navigate how to handle an emergency situation with ease: Let's Talk, Emergencies!
🛒 Get 15% off the Tuttle Twins books mentioned in this episode using code Cheryl15:
🎧 Subscribe and share with a fellow parent who needs to hear this.
Instagram: TheHomeschoolHowToPodcast
Facebook: The Homeschool How To Podcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome, and with us today I have David Alford.
He is a film director, filmwriter, screenwriter you do
everything and homeschooling dad.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
David, welcome, Welcome to the show Well, thank
you for having me, Cheryl.
I really appreciate you havingme here.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
This is exciting.
Yes, I was told about yourmovie.
I checked it out, I really didlove it, and I'm so excited to
talk to you because not only didyou write the film, direct the
film and produce it, but youalso are a homeschooling dad.
So this is going to be a reallyexciting conversation.
So let's start from the verybeginning.
(00:35):
How did you end up as ahomeschooling family?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Well, it started when my wife was accepted to medical
school.
I was a public high schoolteacher.
I taught English in public highschool and when she was going
to medical school it was kind ofa shift of gears.
God kind of sent us in a weirddirection that we weren't
expecting and we thought, well,if he gets her in, then he got
her in.
So I quit my job teaching inpublic school to stay home with
(00:58):
our then one-year-old daughter.
And then when it came time todeal with the medical school
schedule, which was constantlychanging like every month a
whole different rotation werealized that she was never
going to be able to see ourdaughter if we were stuck in the
traditional school system.
So I said I'm a teacher, I'vetaught 150 high school students,
teenagers Could one child be?
(01:19):
Oh my goodness, I thought itwas going to kill me off.
I couldn't believe how muchwork it was taking care of one
toddler.
But she was great.
I was just nonstop.
I got breaks when I talk inpublic school, so I didn't at
home.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I was a government worker.
Yes, that's what I say all thetime.
I got three breaks a day before.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
But I ended up staying home with her and became
a homeschool parent and weopted for homeschooling and then
we had two more kids that camealong throughout the whole
medical school process and theresidency and the end of it, and
so we had three kids by the endof it and we just became a
homeschool family and fell inlove with the freedom that it
gave us the freedom to learn,the love of learning and the
relationship that we have withour kids and the fact that we
(02:00):
could adapt their schedule sothey could see mom more than the
average bear.
And we thought, if we wanted toleave the medical community
intact as a family, we had to bemore fluid and flexible, and
homeschooling gave us thatability to do so.
So my kids and I have beendoing arts and stuff for years
together, because part of ourschooling was going and doing
theater together and doingchildren's theater, and they
(02:21):
acted in it and they helped makeprops and costumes and they
just grew up in that kind ofartistic environment and so we
just made that part of what wedo as a family and we've had a
blast doing it for years so whatdid you teach in school?
I taught high school english.
I was a literature teacher.
Yeah, literature and humanitieswere the two subjects I taught
english, but you ended up afilmmaker, obviously the acting.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Who started that?
The kids or you Well?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
the filmmaking came from theater background because
I had I had been doing theatersince I was a kid and part of my
kind of mental sanity of beinga homeschool dad was I did
theater while my wife was inmedical school.
I would do theater, sometimesin the area of San Antonio.
I'd do a couple of shows a yearto kind of keep myself plugged
into the adult world and myartistic expression, and so
(03:07):
that's something I've done for avery long time.
When we moved here, when mywife got her position as a
physician here in Virginia, wemoved here and there was a
professional theater here that Iwas able to get involved with
and start working at as an actorand also as running a youth
theater program.
I'd been doing that some in SanAntonio, so I literally
(03:29):
designed and created a youththeater program.
I'd been doing that some in SanAntonio.
So I literally designed andcreated a youth theater program
here and of course all my kidswere in it and working with me
in it, and my oldest daughterbecame a teacher in it when she
became old enough, and so it wassomething we did together and
so through that process Idecided I was going to get a
wild hair and write a play for atheater playwriting competition
that we have here in thisregion, I thought I'll give it a
(03:49):
shot.
I've been wanting to write fora while and so I did.
I started writing this play andas I was going through it I
started realizing this isn'treally going to work on a stage.
It just isn't built that way.
It's not thriving in thatenvironment.
So I had a crazy idea of maybeit could be a screenplay and I'd
never written one before but Ithought, well, maybe this would
work.
So I talked to some friendsthat I knew had done short films
before and showed them thescript and said do you think
this would work?
And they're like yeah, let's doit.
So we got a group of peopletogether here in our little
(04:12):
rural community who knew aboutfilmmaking and we made a short
film and so my kids were allinvolved in it.
One of my daughters acted in it, the other one was the props
and manager and the other one'sthe sound person.
And we just all did it togetherwith some of our homeschool
friends, because we've grown upin a whole homeschool community
here in Virginia, and so allthese kids had different talents
and stuff and so I'm like comeon, be actors or come in it and
(04:35):
work on crew or something likethat.
Help us with this.
And so it became a full littlecommunity project for all of us.
And that little short film,which was called Cross Purposes,
was picked up by a distributioncompany and it's about a
30-minute film.
So it's kind of a mini featureslash short film.
It's kind of long for the shortfilm category but it's too
short to be considered a movie.
So we put it in some filmfestivals just to see if anybody
(04:57):
would like it.
And it got accepted into 15film festivals and we only
submitted it to 16.
So we're like well, I guesspeople like it.
And so it got into these filmfestivals.
And I don't know if you've everheard of the Kendrick brothers,
but they're real well-knownChristian filmmakers who've been
putting Christian movies intheaters for a long time.
They have a film festival andthey put it in their giant film
festival they do every year inthe South, in Atlanta.
(05:20):
They put that film in with thefeature film category.
So we were competing with fulllength movies made for hundreds
of thousands of dollars.
And here we are our little$9,000 homeschool project was
competing in the category withall these other films, so we
thought we didn't know what hadhappened.
But it was just so much fun.
Everyone was so gracious andthe competition was so good
spirited.
We had such a good time doingthat and that little short film
(05:42):
for a short film took off, andso we've been able to make three
more films since then, usinglargely the same crew.
That's kind of old.
They're all adults now.
They were kids when we started,but they've all gotten to be
adults now and so we still westill team up together and put
films together that way.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
And I can't help but think, as you're saying this,
like none of this would havehappened if you didn't quit your
job to homeschool.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, our whole lives would have been very different,
and certainly my relationshipwith my kids, because I know
them so well.
You know how it is when youhomeschool your kids.
You know their strengths andyou know what they struggle with
and you're able to help andyou're able to find things in
life that make them excited andyou're able to build your
education around that and thatmakes all the difference in the
world, because they come outloving learning as opposed to
(06:25):
thinking it's a chore that theyjust have to get through to get
to the next phase of life.
We can actually enjoy eachphase of life we're in and learn
as we go and just learn tolearn, and that will get you
further in this world thananything, I believe.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
I mean yes, that gives me chills just to hear and
to hear a former teacher saythat.
Because I mean you, I don'tknow.
I have so many questions orlike so many thoughts going
through my head right nowbecause it's like you.
You saw the classroom.
You saw like the administrationcoming down on you, probably
over the years, getting stricterand stricter on what you have
(06:59):
to teach, how you have to teachit, um, what test scores the
kids have to get in order to, Idon't know, get X, y and Z
funding.
Did you see that that wasbecoming more of a problem in
the school system?
Was it hard for you to leave?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
No, no.
Well, it was scary for me toleave.
I mean, I'll be honest, as aman it's tough to say I'm going
to stay home and take care of atwo-year-old girl.
I mean, you know, play groupwas me and a bunch of moms, you
know, and I was like it wasawkward.
I mean there was times when itwas just a little scary in that
sense.
But leaving the education fieldwas hard because it was.
There was so much need there.
(07:33):
I taught in a very low incomeschool in downtown Dallas and
those kids had so many needsthat were not being met by the
school system and I found myselfworking overtime trying to find
ways to get them applicationsto colleges and things like that
in which their families werenot capable of doing themselves,
and so there was so much needthat it was hard to leave.
It wasn't hard to leave thesystem because the system was
incredibly broken and the systemwas there to feed the system
(07:57):
and the kids were kind of groundup in the gears of that and
that was hard to leave for theirsake.
But, boy, I was thrilled to getout for my sake because that
was one of the hardest things Iever did and to this day.
I appreciate some things aboutpublic school systems, but I
don't find that homeschool kidsmiss very much.
Honestly, I feel like thethings that we get so far
(08:17):
outweigh the things that we miss.
It's not even a contest.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, and I can hear that between the lines of what
you're saying with there werethings that kids needed that I
was there for, like helping themfill out, you know,
applications to colleges orscholarships.
That parents weren't doing withtheir kids and and that's a
systematic thing too, you knowtheir parents weren't there to
do it for them and their schoolsystem wasn't there to do it for
them.
So you know you were thatteacher that went above and
(08:42):
beyond, as so many teachers are,and not every family is cut out
for homeschooling.
You know that is just the plainand simple truth of it.
Some people need the schoolsystem because what they have at
home isn't going to cut it.
But for the families that areable, you know it's.
You know, and you don't want tosound like righteous about it
either, but it's like I justdon't want my kid to be another
(09:04):
number, like I want them toshine above the rest.
So why would I put them intokind of this factory system that
you know we kind of when welook into the school system and
how it was created, you know,for for the industry, the
Rockefellers, you know theywanted worker bees and that sort
of thing.
You know it's so hard because,yeah, you're like, oh, I want
(09:25):
everybody to homeschool, butthen at the end of the day, like
we know that that's not true.
I come from, you know, upstateNew York or inner city kind of
school where it's like, yeah, no, a lot of these kids need to be
in some sort of regularitythroughout their day that
they're not getting at home.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
This was 25 years ago and I don't think I could
handle being a public schoolteacher today.
I couldn't handle fighting withcell phones, I couldn't handle
the attitudes of entitlementwhere kids feel like they're
supposed to pass because theybreathe, not because they've
actually done anything.
I mean, I have friends who arestill in the public school
system and the nightmare storiesI hear, even up to junior
colleges and colleges I'm like Idon't think I have the patience
(10:02):
.
Maybe I'm too old and cranky,but I don't have the patience
for any of that anymore and Idon't think I could go back now,
even if I wanted to.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, and I worked in government for 16 years and I
think it's the same thing.
Now that I've seen like theother side, like wait a minute,
I can wake up in the morning anddo what I want with my kids all
day and nobody's dictatingwhere I go, what I do, what I
learn Huh, it's like it's veryliberating, but also it's like
I've stepped out of a matrix orsomething.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yes, yes, definitely.
I've unplugged from the matrixand never looked back.
We actually tried privateschooling with our girls when we
first moved out here toVirginia.
There was a lovely Christianprivate school.
We thought we'd try it.
They did it for about 10 weeksand said dad, can we please go
back to homeschooling?
We'll start the year over fromthe beginning, but we're only
reading books that we alreadyread two years ago which were
(10:51):
bored out of our minds.
The kids don't seem veryinterested.
We just want to go back tolearning the way we've learned
before.
And so we we unplugged and wewent right back to homeschooling
and never looked back.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
So what were some of the?
Um?
Like hard times withhomeschooling.
You have all girls, right.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I have two girls and one boy.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
My youngest, who's 17 , is a boy.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Okay, what were the hard things?
Like you know, we think aboutthings like oh my God, they're
going to miss the prom, thefootball games, yada, yada.
And then you know it's so funny.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I think if you were to talk to them they'd sit here
and tell you we missed nothing.
I mean we had.
We moved here particularly.
I mean our oldest was 11.
Our little boy was only sixmonths old and so we moved here.
We had been a homeschoolingfamily and, being from a theater
background, we had all kinds oftheater activities we were
doing.
The kids had friendship circlesthey were part of.
They were so plugged into somany social activities that they
(11:45):
were already going to that theydidn't miss doing the
schoolwork at home during theday because you could get it
done in half the time.
You'd go to sit in a publicschool do it.
They'd get done by noon andwe'd be out doing stuff by
afternoon.
And they never missed a thing.
When we moved here we met awhole community of homeschool
families.
There's some of the fact thatmy daughters have married
siblings from out of that familyand that's now they're all
(12:06):
family family at this point intime.
But we've just had met thisbeautiful community and our kids
just grew up together, goingplaces and doing artistic
adventures.
A lot of them came and did mytheater arts program.
They did plays together in aprofessional theater.
I mean, they've had so much funthat none of them they all want
to homeschool their own kids.
They're like there's no waywe'd want to plug into a system
now.
This has been too great, thechallenge being, I guess, having
(12:28):
kids that are five years apart.
You know you're doingkindergarten and you're doing
eighth grade, you're trying tofeel all together and you know
trying to keep everyone rollingat the same time was probably
the most challenging aspect ofit.
As far as making sureeveryone's engaged and going
simultaneously when they're thatfar apart, None of them were
close enough together they couldshare any curriculum whatsoever
.
We were all at different placesand they all have very
(12:50):
different skills.
Being patient enough to say,okay, this kid, this is easy for
this kid, but this kid reallystruggles with it.
It's not because they don'tcare, it's just they have a
different skill set and mehaving to adjust as their
teacher and realize I need tochange my tactic on this and the
tactic I thought worked so wellbefore suddenly doesn't work,
with this child and me beinghumble enough to say I need to
(13:12):
change.
It's me that needs to change,not them.
That was probably the one ofthe biggest struggles, I think,
as far as being on top of thingsfor homeschool could you do
that in the school system whereyou worked?
no, no, everything was very rich, decided ahead of time, and
there was no.
You had 30 kids and youcouldn't meet half their needs
because they all had verydifferent needs.
But we were told to teacheverything the same way and our
(13:34):
tests were uniformed anddesigned by the school system.
So I didn't even know what wasgoing to be on the test.
It was that dictated from onhigh.
I couldn't even make tests thatfit their needs any better than
that, because it was.
It was automated.
So, no, there was no way Icould accommodate their
education and I had a joy doingit for my own children, that's
for sure.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Yeah, and do you think that you needed the
teaching background in order tosay, oh, this child learns a bit
differently, maybe?
My daughter likes to be morehands-on, my son likes to be
more outside and, you know,really taking the reins on his
own, figuring out problems onhis own, like, do you have to be
a teacher to do that, or couldjust you know, your child and
(14:13):
any common parent do that?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
oh no, I can't speak because I because I've had
educational training itcertainly helped.
I mean, I didn't, it didn'thurt me in any way.
I I'm like you, though my sonif he was not moving, he was not
learning, and that wassomething that it didn't hurt me
in any way.
I'm like you, though my son ifhe was not moving, he was not
learning, and that was somethingthat I didn't.
Have that issue with my girls.
They could sit at a table andtalk with me and we would learn.
But if my son wasn't bouncing upand down on a giant exercise
ball or sitting on the floorwith his legs in the chair and
(14:39):
his head on the floor spinningin circles, if he wasn't doing
that, he wasn't learning.
And at first I was like, areyou even listening to me?
And then I'd ask him a question.
He answered it.
I'm like he is listening to me.
He's actually listening betterbecause he's physically
squirreling around than if hewas forced to sit in a chair and
stare at me.
He would drift off.
And that's when I realized youknow, this public school is one
(15:00):
size fits all, and that was,that was one size fits all, and
that was.
That was always the case, nomatter what the students needs
or learning styles were, we hadto do everything the same way,
but I love the fact that Ididn't.
I could let him bounce on anexercise ball and he learned his
lessons and he had fun and wewere able to talk, because
that's what he needed.
That's the kind of person he is.
He doesn't do that as much now.
He sits still better now he's17,.
(15:21):
But you know he barely movesnow, he just lays.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yes, they do slow down after a while, you know,
and she works with highschoolers to get the career that
they want without necessarilyneeding that college degree.
And is it necessary?
And yeah, how do you?
What's your take on that andhow did you approach that with
your kids?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
My attitude with them was college is not required for
whatever thing you want to do.
I mean, I talked with you aboutJoseph, who did the movies with
me.
He was the lead actor inSearching for the Elephant and
he's done all the movies with meup to this point in time.
He chose not to go to collegebecause filmmaking is his thing
and, frankly, going to collegefor filmmaking isn't that
particularly helpful.
(16:24):
You can be a filmmaker withoutcollege.
He rather spent that four yearsmaking movies and learning how
to do it, and now he's kind ofahead of the curve when kids are
graduating from film school.
So in his case, no college.
He's not my kid, he practicallyis, but he isn't and so he's.
The college was just not in thecards and not necessary.
My daughter went to a couple ofyears of college but she got
married and she's a homeschoolmom now, so she's got what she
(16:47):
needed.
My other daughter is going, isapplying to medical school and
will probably start medicalschool next year.
She needed to go to college toget that information and so she
went to all four years becausethat's what she wanted to do.
And my son wants to be a pilot,so he wants to be a pilot for
the mission field, and solearning how to repair and pilot
airplanes is a critical thing.
Now you can do that withoutgoing to college.
(17:07):
We just happened to find acollege that actually had
missionary pilot training as adegree.
So he will leave that with apilot's license and a
certification to work on smallsingle-engine aircrafts, and so
he's going to go to college andlearn that.
So it depends on what you'regifted to do, and we're all
gifted in different areas.
Sometimes college is requiredand sometimes it's just not.
(17:27):
So I always tell my kids Inever put the pressure on them
that that's like you got to go,no matter what.
I think you got to do somethingbecause you got to continue to
grow as a person, as a humanbeing, and learn how to support
yourself.
But college isn't always theway, and to say that it is, it's
not true, and I think your kidsknow that.
So I think it's more honest tosay sometimes it's true and
sometimes it's not.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, and I love that we're bringing it back to the
individual, Like what do youwant to do with your life?
Because I was kind of that era.
I graduated in 2002.
So it was like you go tocollege or else you're kind of
just going to be, I don't know,like Joseph's character in
Searching the.
Elephant, you know you're goingto college or else you know so
(18:11):
you're not going to makeanything of yourself.
So I went and it was like Idon't know what I want to do,
because nothing in high schoolreally you know, and I bring it
back to even earlier than thatNothing in life ever allowed you
the time to discover what youlike to do because you're so
busy from you know, it was likeschool and like the before care,
(18:33):
because my mother worked andduring the school.
And then you know I had danceclass after.
You know whether we had dancecompetitions or somebody's
birthday parties.
You know a class of 30 kids, 30birthday parties throughout the
year on the weekends and it'slike your time is always
dictated that to be bored andfigure out what you like to do.
I didn't.
I remember writing songs,actually as a child, but where
(18:56):
those little notebooks are now,I'll never know.
But, um, but yeah, it's sointeresting that, like it, it
never allowed me to kind of likemove forward with that Like
cause, as you went into middleschool and high school and
college, your time only got moredictated on what you have to do
.
So there wasn't that boredom tosay, like, what do I like to do
(19:16):
?
Let me write this, let me youknow.
So not until just in the lastcouple of years where I was like
, well, kind of after COVID, forme it was like, I don't know,
it was the world backwards.
Is it crazy?
Like am I crazy?
I don't really know.
And you know my, they weremasking in New York
three-year-olds in daycare.
So that's what my husband and Iwere like we're taking them out
(19:39):
Cause we're not going to maskour three-year-old.
We're we.
I don't know what's going onwith the world, but I know
that's wrong.
So then it was like I wasworking from home with my son
here and then I got pregnant formy daughter and we were like I
don't know if I want tovaccinate at all anymore.
What?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
are we going to?
Speaker 1 (19:51):
do.
We're in New York so you can'teven go to school here unless
you have everything on the CDCschedule.
So it was kind of like, allright, we have to put some
brakes on, because I want toresearch some things and I can't
do that if my kids are in thesystem.
So yeah, I ended up quitting myjob last year, officially
starting the podcast two yearsago, and it was more just like
(20:13):
can I homeschool?
I don't know.
I was interviewinghomeschooling families to see
how weird you people are well,and that's.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I think that's the beauty.
I think you hit the head whenyou say they're so busy they
can't think straight.
I mean, the beautiful thingabout homeschooling is you're
going through a subject andsuddenly your child lights up on
something.
You're like, oh you love this,let's pursue it further.
Let's go to a place wherepeople do that.
Let's talk to people who dothat for a living.
Let's find out more about it,because clearly this is lighting
(20:42):
your fire and we can take thetime to do that and we can
change the subjects to talkabout the things they're really
interested in.
And my kids kind of grew up withthis sense of purpose, like
maybe education means something,maybe it's going to help me in
the long run and so I'm going tobuy into it too.
And so you'd be surprised howmuch easier it is to teach kids
who have bought into the processand see the value in it than
(21:04):
kids who are sitting behind adesk in public school being drug
tooth and nail through theselessons that they see no value
in, they see no purpose in it.
They just see a bunch of hoopswe're all jumping through and
they're not dumb.
They see the system happeningand they see how unfair it can
be at times and how silly it canbe at times, how redundant it
can be at times, and they knowthey're just in a holding pen
(21:26):
sometimes and so it's a wholedifferent attitude, and so my
kids have just been.
I'm sure everyone whohomeschools has a different
experience, but my kids justlove learning and they love the
world and exploring it and theygrow up with this sense of who
they are and I think we havetime for that.
And having a dad whounderstands that with them means
that he can walk along besidethem and help them get there
(21:47):
just a little bit faster.
So we're a team in that regardand I love that.
I've loved that all the waythrough.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
So your film is called Searching for the
Elephant.
Is that the elephant?
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Like the elephant.
That's actually that, that thatfilm Searching for the Elephant
, is the one that we shot, thelast one we've shot.
We've shot four films as acompany and that last one,
Searching for the Elephant, is aranch phrase.
It's a phrase when rancherswould go out and go to this
call-in where they had hiredhands for the year to come work
on their ranch and take care ofthe animals and the hay in the
fields and that kind of stuff,and they would look for people
to work for them and that wouldcommit to staying there for a
(22:23):
year.
And there were people like, oh,yeah, yeah, feed me, house me,
give me a salary, I'm there forthe year.
And there were those like, yeah, I'll take the job for now.
And you could tell that thesepeople were always looking over
their shoulder for a bettersituation.
They're always looking forsomething that they can do
that's better than the job theyhave with you.
And the other men would look ateach other and go, oh, that
(22:43):
guy's searching for the elephant, he's looking for the perfect
situation that doesn't exist andhe's never going to be content
with any place that he is rightnow.
And so that's where that Francecomes from.
And when I read that aboutranchers I was like, well,
that's kind of the theme of thefilm.
So I adapted as a title.
It's a weird title and peopleare like what does that mean?
There's no elephants in thismovie.
(23:04):
I'm like it explains it in thefilm, but that's really a ranch
term and that's for the idea ofnever being content and that's
part of what the film's aboutbut as I was watching it,
thinking of this I mean thinkingof this in the homeschool
perspective it made a lot ofsense for me because it's like
in school they kind of arealways like, okay, and you're
gonna get good grades and yougotta do well on the test and
(23:27):
you're gonna go to college andyou're gonna be successful.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
But nobody ever says like what success is.
And it took for me to get to myum, you know government job
after 16 years.
I was a supervisor.
I was making six figures.
That's what I'd always wantedto do.
I figured I'd be successful thenand it was like okay, you know,
I went to work, I sat in mycubicle, I took my 15 minute
breaks twice a day and my halfhour lunch where I put my
(23:52):
headphones on and walk arounddowntown Albany and, um, never
once did I ever know what theHudson river was about, the
history of it as I'm walkingalongside of it.
Never once did I know a birdthat flew by.
And it's just interestingbecause when I quit to
homeschool, my kids and I, Imean, we're, we're looking,
we're watching birds that areactually like making nests and
(24:13):
how they make them and layingthe eggs, and watching the baby
birds and see what are theyfeeding them and watching this
whole process.
I'm learning about the.
I'm like every time we pass theHudson, probably three times a
week, and I'm like, oh my God,colin, do you know what we're
passing now and we'll talk alittle bit about Henry Hudson?
Or you know the Indians thatlived here?
You know and then what happenedto them?
(24:34):
You know how the Puritans camein and this whole the Erie Canal
getting built right off of itand it's like this is the
elephant I was searching for.
It was here the whole time.
It was at home and I wasted 16years in a cubicle.
But I think I needed to wastethose 16 years in a cubicle to
appreciate it.
But if I can get other peoplethere quicker, I'm happy to.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Yeah, no, I've never loved learning more.
I learned so much more teachingmy three kids homeschool.
I mean I went through historythree times.
I went through algebra threetimes.
I went through Spanish threetimes.
I'm better at school now than Iever was before, but I've had
fun.
I mean we read these bookstogether and there's stories
(25:18):
that I didn't hear because I wasbusy memorizing the dates of
the Civil War or the names ofthe generals or you know, I was
like trying to memorize it justlong enough to get through a
test and then dump it outbecause none of it meant
anything to me.
But reading stories and booksand going to the side of the
Gettysburg Address with the kidsand going places and seeing
things and then just talkingabout the stories, like stories,
because I'm a storyteller.
That's the way I learn theworld.
(25:39):
I absorb it through stories andlearning these stories with the
kids and sharing theirexcitement.
I learned so much more as ahomeschool dad than I ever did
in public school and I had fun.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I mean I really did.
You had amazing, that's amazing.
Had fun.
I mean I really did, you hadamazing, that's amazing.
I mean that's so telling, likeyou were a public school teacher
and you learned more teachingyour kids, yeah, and to learn
through stories, that's how it'salways been done.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yes, and our curriculum is such that we learn
history through historicalnovels and you know stories that
are made up about that timeperiod of history.
So you're living that historythrough a character who's there
in it usually a kid their age,and so they're living in that
world and we're talking about it, we're making pictures of it
and we're doing diagrams andwe're doing stuff and we're
other subjects are kind ofoverlapping into it and it's
(26:24):
like it's just so exciting andso when they hear something
they're like oh well, that'swhat happened.
When blah blah, blah blahhappened, I'm like, yes, that's
right, like they learned itbecause they heard it through a
story and not because someoneasked them to memorize a cold
hard fact and the whole hardfacts come and go and they don't
mean anything.
But when you've walked insomeone's shoes for a mile, you
feel like you've lived with themand you feel like you've
(26:46):
experienced their life with themand those kind of things stick
with you and history sticks withyou when you live in it that
way and I had a blast doing itwith them.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
And I love what you said about how it all integrates
too, because your history, yourreading, your writing you know
all of that does intertwine.
So it's not like you're takingthe 40 minutes for history and
then switching gears and goinginto 40 minutes of reading or 40
minutes of English and 40minutes of writing.
You can intertwine them all,which is why it takes half the
(27:16):
time to homeschool.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
But, also.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
It makes sense, it's relevant to what they're
learning about, so it's such abeautiful way to do that.
So how involved were your kidsin searching for the elephant
when you were writing andcreating?
Speaker 2 (27:30):
this.
Well, my oldest daughter is theproduction designer, which
means she designed all thecostumes and she decorated all
the sets.
And so for this film we renteda ranch for a month and it had a
giant house that was like 120years old and about 800 acres,
and so we shot in this house.
So my daughter went through anddesigned the decorations of the
(27:50):
house and she set up all thecolors and the palettesettes and
she mixed the costumes with thecolors in the house and she
designed all that.
Now she's a mom of three of herown and so she did all that at
home, because she's also ahomeschool mom.
So she did all that home aheadof the film and pre-production
and then just came out to thesite just long enough to help
her helpers get everything setup and then she'd go home.
(28:12):
So that was how her limitedinvolved, because that's what
she could do on her own.
Then my younger daughter, who'sfive years younger than her
she's my assistant director andshe keeps the crews on schedule.
She designs the schedules.
If there's a problem with theschedule, she readjusts it, gets
it going.
She's on set there with us andsays you've got 10 more minutes
to get this shot.
Then we've got to move on.
(28:32):
So she's my bossy little girlbut she does okay, she kind of
thrives in that role.
So she's the one that keeps usgoing and we all listen to her
when she says something to dothat.
Now my son he was just 16 whenwe shot this film and so he is a
boom mic operator.
So he works with the sounddesigner and so he works with
(28:54):
the sound designer and the sounddesigner has the headsets in
the pack and is doing all themixing and he's collecting the
sound with the boom mic as theactors are talking and so, uh,
this is the first time he workedall the way through on a film
and it was a lot of work.
But he, he held up really welland did a great job.
The sound was fantastic.
And I don't he's not, that'snot his thing, this isn't his
thing, he does it for me.
He he kind of had fun.
It's not something he wants todo for the rest of his life, but
he had.
He had fun this time around,just being with the whole family
(29:16):
working on it together yeah,it's got to be so fun, and did
you wrote it as well?
I did.
Um, yes, I wrote it with josephstam, who's the lead actor in
it, and he and I have beenworking together on these films
since that very first littleshort film we did when I needed
an actor for that he was 16 atthe time.
I needed a boy to portraysomeone who was dying of cancer
and I had a casting call andabout 30 young men came in an
(29:39):
audition for the role and Josephwon the part as a 16 year old
kid, and so after that he kindof stuck around and wanted to
help with writing and he wantedto help with directing and he
kept acting in each movie.
Sometimes it was a big lead,it's just a small part he'd do
in the background and he'sreally just a passionate young
filmmaker, and so I've been ableto kind of mentor him through
the entire filmmaking process.
(29:59):
He's been a part of all thebusiness decisions, the writing,
the directing, the producing.
He did his own first short filmall on his own this last year
and he's ready to take off anddo his thing.
So, and he's ready to take offand do his thing.
So when I'm old and gray I cansit.
You know, I'm already gray, butif I'm older and grayer, I can
sit in the easy chair and watchJoseph Stamm films and maybe
even talk on the phone and justtell them what to do.
(30:21):
You know, as the cranky old manin the chair, give them advice
that way, because he's thefuture of filmmaking as far as
I'm concerned.
He's just extraordinarilytalented.
Far as I'm concerned, that goes.
He's just extraordinarilytalented.
So he helped ride and directelephant, but he was also the
lead actor.
He played a drug addict and itwas a very challenging thing.
He has no experience of thatall.
He talked with a lot of peoplewho were living that situation
(30:41):
or in recovery and heinterviewed them and got very
specific detail about theirstories, their lives and what
they went through.
And then he took that on as anactor and portrays it
beautifully in the film.
You'd have no idea he has noexperience whatsoever in any of
this, but, boy, to watch himportray that role is
gut-wrenching because you reallyfeel like you're watching his
character go through it.
(31:01):
So while he was on set I wasthe primary director who shot
all the photography and then heand I went back and mixed the
film together after it wasproduced and he so he's a
co-director in that project anda co-writer as well.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
It's been a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
And homeschooled as well.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
And he's 100% homeschooled all the way through
.
Yeah, and so as are all of hisnine siblings yeah, no, he
totally looked like a drugaddict.
No, yeah the tattoos were washoff, kind we had to order them
from.
And then we sadly, in themiddle, he has a tattoo on his
neck during the film.
He has no tattoos but he hadone on there and we had to apply
(31:40):
it and if it started wearingoff, the makeup artist had to go
through with a pencil or penand try to connect the missing
parts until we could order thenew tattoos and get them back to
set before we ran out.
It was a panicky thing, thesetattoos.
But no, joseph yeah, he reallyplays a troubled child and in
the story he and his grandfatherare forced to live together on
this ranch and they areestranged.
(32:01):
They don't know each other, butthey both lived lives where
they've pushed every one ofwhat's important in their lives
out of their lives if it'simportant in their lives out of
their lives.
They both isolated themselvesin many ways.
They put up a lot of thickwalls around themselves and
through a series ofcircumstances, they are forced
to live on this ranch and thisfarmhouse together and they
don't even like each other, andso the movie is about them
getting to know each other,getting to understand each other
(32:22):
and finding a sense of familybetween them.
That becomes very healing forboth of them.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Yeah, it kind of reminded me, as I was watching
it, the docu-series Dope Sickhave you?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, I've heard of that.
I've not seen it, but I'veheard about it.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Oh, it is something to watch because it's all about
how the medical industry youknow, I know, I know your wife
is in medicine, your daughter isgoing to know, hey, let's get
people on prescriptions whichkind of led into you know
Joseph's situation in the movie.
I mean, you don't get into howhe got into that, but it was
(33:00):
very common so it was.
It's relatable in that.
You know, this can be so easilyanybody.
What made you want to write afilm about this?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
easily anybody.
What made you want to write afilm about this?
In our area we live inSouthwest Virginia and there's
not a family here that hasn'tbeen touched by drug addiction
in some way, shape or form, andI mean the nicest, sweetest,
most wholesome families you canimagine would come and watch our
movie at the theater and comeback after and goes yeah, my
brother has been an addict for10 years and he's broken our
family's hearts, and so when itcomes to addiction, it's such an
(33:31):
unfortunately universal problemthat so many people deal with,
and we didn't just want tosensational, we wanted to deal
with the people who are addicted, but also the family that's
hurt around them and trying tolove them but constantly being
pushed away and trying to lovethrough that, and so that was
something that we thought was abig, big part of the story.
And so having a family that'storn apart by this and a
(33:54):
grandfather who's torn apart byPTSD from Vietnam you know he's
suffering from residual hurtsand pains, and so he's suffering
too and watching two sufferingpeople locked up in a room
together, kind of spewing thingsat each other and then learning
to love each other and seeingeach other through each other's
eyes, it's just kind of abeautiful thing and then to see
families who have kept trying tolove and kept trying to go kind
(34:18):
of get rewarded with hope atthe end.
We're real big on not putting abig red bow at the end and
having everyone clapping in achurch choir with white robes
because instantly somethinggreat happened and everything's
flipped, switches andeverything's great again.
That's just not how life is.
So we had the characters kindof turning a corner at the end.
You could see hope on thehorizon but you knew that it was
(34:39):
still some work away.
And then I think that non piein the sky approach really spoke
to the people that came to seeour film and had been through
this process.
They said that's real life.
That felt real to me and that'swhat I hope will happen to me
and my family over the course oftime and that meant a lot.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yes, I won't ruin the ending.
It's not where I thought it wasgoing to go because it wasn't
the traditional ending but yes,I think it is more realistic the
way that that you portrayed it.
And you know, I think this is agreat film for homeschooling
families because we we, our kidsare not exposed to a lot of
this in like they are in theschool system.
(35:17):
The you know how easy it can beto get hooked on a drug because
you know this is a prescriptionthat someone's doctor gave them
or you know even, just hey, trythis at a party, like when you
homeschool.
Hopefully we are pulling ourkids away from that sort of
stuff, but it doesn't meanthey're never going to encounter
it right.
They are going to graduatesomeday, they are going to get
(35:39):
friends that have been in theschool system, they are going to
get jobs or, you know, they'regoing to leave our home at some
point.
You have to equip them withstuff that is in the real world.
You cannot isolate your childfrom anything bad and expect
that nothing bad will everhappen to them.
You have to expose them to this.
I think this film is a greatway to have you know lead into
the conversations Like we're now.
(36:00):
Now this is something we cantalk about because you've been
exposed in a healthy way.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah, and, and the film is it's gritty.
I mean it's not for little kids, I mean it's for older teens
and adults to talk about.
It's gritty and it's realisticand you saw you see him go
through detox and it's a painfulthing to watch because it's an
awful situation, but there's alot of humor in it and there's a
lot of family laughter in itand there's we kept the content
really, really mild to try tokeep it as clean as possible
(36:27):
without seeming like you knowit's a Sunday school pamphlet.
You know that's not a realisticview of the world.
So we try to keep it asrealistic and as clean as
possible.
But keeping it realistic aspossible.
And I think another side benefitof that is when we isolate our
kids with homeschooling.
In certain ways we kind of we doprotect them and I love that
about homeschooling is we canlet the world in as little or as
much as we need to to help themgrow under without falling
(36:49):
under the weight of it, andthat's super important at the
same time, because we're notaround any of that.
I do also want my kids to becompassionate, and so when you
spend two hours with someone,with a character in a movie who
is at times frustratinglyangering, but also very likable,
and you care about them and youlove them because you want them
to do better than they're doing.
(37:09):
I think when you spend that kindof intimate time with movie
characters like that, it helpsyou to be more empathetic to
people in real life that you runinto or running in that
situation, so maybe you can kindof understand their experience
a little bit better and be morecompassionate toward them,
rather than just sitting backgoing well, I didn't do that, so
I'm going to be judgmentalbecause you did so.
I think that's a greatopportunity for families to see
(37:31):
families that don't look likethem or don't sound like them or
don't act like them, that whenthey do meet a family and they
say my child's gone through it,you can feel the sadness they're
going through and understandthat as much as the illegality
of what their loved one is doing.
So I hope the movie can do thatfor homeschool families.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yeah, I definitely think it will.
David, is there anything thatyou kind of wanted to let
homeschooling families or evenprospective homeschooling
families know, maybe to easetheir tensions about it, calm
them down if they want tohomeschool but are just really
afraid to?
What do you have to say to them?
You've had 25 years ofexperience.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Well, when I started off homeschooling I was coming
from a public school background,so I had my lesson plans
written and I had my checkboxesto check and I had everything I
was supposed to accomplishaccording to the curriculum and
I had to hit every one, you know, and I was a little bit rigid
that way when I first started.
As the years went by, my oldestdaughter will tell you dad was
tougher on me than he was on anyof the rest of you kids.
(38:30):
But it's because I startedrealizing that all the check
boxes don't need to be checked,that all of the things in the
curriculum don't have to be done.
If a book is not registeringwith you and your kids, it's
okay to say let's just not dothis one and let's go on to the
next one, because the next onewill, because really learning to
(38:50):
love to learn is the greatestthing you can teach your kids
and not that they have to doevery check in the box.
Because I tend to be a littlebit that way and I had to learn
not to be, and I started havingmore fun and the kids started
learning more when I allowedmyself the freedom to say no to
some things because they're justnot that important and say yes
to things that I didn't want todo, because I need to learn how
to do it too.
So I really kind of went offthe rule of thumb of am I ever
(39:11):
going to use this in life?
Yes I am, because we all knewthings that we learned in school
that we have never used asingle day in our life.
So it never came up, it wasnever useful, it was never
helpful, it didn't matter.
And so when I run across thingsin the school curriculum, I go
you know what?
This is not going to changeyour life.
Let's just move on and dosomething that is, and let's
(39:32):
teach you how to write a checkin a checkbook instead, or teach
you how to do grocery shoppinginstead.
I learned that I'm trying toequip people to be adults and
healthy, balanced, functionaladults in society who love
people and love what they do.
And if I've done that, that'sall the education they need.
The rest of it's book stuffthey can learn that If they know
how to learn, they can learnthat on their own anytime they
want to.
And that's kind of been trueall the way through.
(39:54):
You know my kids, they'resuccessful at what they do and
they love what they do, and Ididn't do it all right and I
didn't do it all.
Probably enough hours of what Iwas supposed to do have.
I didn't do poetry as much as Iwas supposed to because I don't
like poetry very much.
So I did try.
I know people love it, I justdon't.
So I just kind of him and hoton poetry.
(40:14):
But they're okay, they'refunctioning just fine in society
.
They're functional adults andthey're not in, they're not in
prison.
They did all right, so I thinkit's okay.
So give yourself some grace andteach them to learn to love
learning, and that all the restof it will come about as it's
needed.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
I love that.
That is award-winning advice.
And where can people find youand where can people find your
films?
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Our movies are on our website you can links to our
films are oncrosspurposesproductions is the
name of our company and websiteand if you go there, all of our
film catalogs there with directlinks that will take you
straight to the movies on thevarious platforms that they're
on.
They're all they're on themajor platforms that you'd want
to watch movies on already.
So if you want to look up ourfilms, you can just click there
and it'll take you to amazonprime or it'll take you to 2b or
(40:59):
it'll take you to differentplaces like that pure flicks,
places that you'd want to watchmovies.
Watch the movies for free.
If you don't mind somecommercials or if you pay for
those platforms, you can watchthem without commercials, but
all of our movies can be foundthere amazing and I'm gonna link
all of that in the show'sdescription so you don't have to
remember all that.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Just head right on down, click on it and you can
have some very fun entertainmentand a little bit of learning
too.
And it was nice for me becauseI don't really take a lot of
time to myself to just watchsomething for enjoyment or
entertainment.
You know, usually it's likeresearch stuff, so this was a
nice kind of research.
I enjoyed my two hours.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Well, our movies vary .
Now, Elephant's a pretty heavymovie but like Found and Royal,
ashes and Cross Purposes are alittle more family oriented.
They're a little bit more humorin it.
They're a little bit lighterhearted.
So there's different types ofmovies for different folks.
So our lightest one's prettyheavy, but the rest of them
aren't quite so dramatic well, Istill loved it either way.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
I can't wait to check out the rest.
David, all for it.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Thank you so much for joining us today thank you,
cheryl, I've had a great timeand thanks for having me me too,
Welcome, and with us today I have David Alford.
He is a film director, filmwriter, screenwriter you do
everything and homeschooling dad.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
David, welcome, Welcome to the show Well, thank
you for having me, Cheryl.
I really appreciate you havingme here.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
This is exciting.
Yes, I was told about yourmovie.
I checked it out, I really didlove it, and I'm so excited to
talk to you because not only didyou write the film, direct the
film and produce it, but youalso are a homeschooling dad.
So this is going to be a reallyexciting conversation.
So let's start from the verybeginning.
(00:35):
How did you end up as ahomeschooling family?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Well, it started when my wife was accepted to medical
school.
I was a public high schoolteacher.
I taught English in public highschool and when she was going
to medical school it was kind ofa shift of gears.
God kind of sent us in a weirddirection that we weren't
expecting and we thought, well,if he gets her in, then he got
her in.
So I quit my job teaching inpublic school to stay home with
(00:58):
our then one-year-old daughter.
And then when it came time todeal with the medical school
schedule, which was constantlychanging like every month a
whole different rotation werealized that she was never
going to be able to see ourdaughter if we were stuck in the
traditional school system.
So I said I'm a teacher, I'vetaught 150 high school students,
teenagers Could one child be?
(01:19):
Oh my goodness, I thought itwas going to kill me off.
I couldn't believe how muchwork it was taking care of one
toddler.
But she was great.
I was just nonstop.
I got breaks when I talk inpublic school, so I didn't at
home.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I was a government worker.
Yes, that's what I say all thetime.
I got three breaks a day before.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
But I ended up staying home with her and became
a homeschool parent and weopted for homeschooling and then
we had two more kids that camealong throughout the whole
medical school process and theresidency and the end of it, and
so we had three kids by the endof it and we just became a
homeschool family and fell inlove with the freedom that it
gave us the freedom to learn,the love of learning and the
relationship that we have withour kids and the fact that we
(02:00):
could adapt their schedule sothey could see mom more than the
average bear.
And we thought, if we wanted toleave the medical community
intact as a family, we had to bemore fluid and flexible, and
homeschooling gave us thatability to do so.
So my kids and I have beendoing arts and stuff for years
together, because part of ourschooling was going and doing
theater together and doingchildren's theater, and they
(02:21):
acted in it and they helped makeprops and costumes and they
just grew up in that kind ofartistic environment and so we
just made that part of what wedo as a family and we've had a
blast doing it for years so whatdid you teach in school?
I taught high school english.
I was a literature teacher.
Yeah, literature and humanitieswere the two subjects I taught
english, but you ended up afilmmaker, obviously the acting.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Who started that?
The kids or you Well?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
the filmmaking came from theater background because
I had I had been doing theatersince I was a kid and part of my
kind of mental sanity of beinga homeschool dad was I did
theater while my wife was inmedical school.
I would do theater, sometimesin the area of San Antonio.
I'd do a couple of shows a yearto kind of keep myself plugged
into the adult world and myartistic expression, and so
(03:07):
that's something I've done for avery long time.
When we moved here, when mywife got her position as a
physician here in Virginia, wemoved here and there was a
professional theater here that Iwas able to get involved with
and start working at as an actorand also as running a youth
theater program.
I'd been doing that some in SanAntonio, so I literally
(03:29):
designed and created a youththeater program.
I'd been doing that some in SanAntonio.
So I literally designed andcreated a youth theater program
here and of course all my kidswere in it and working with me
in it, and my oldest daughterbecame a teacher in it when she
became old enough, and so it wassomething we did together and
so through that process Idecided I was going to get a
wild hair and write a play for atheater playwriting competition
that we have here in thisregion, I thought I'll give it a
(03:49):
shot.
I've been wanting to write fora while and so I did.
I started writing this play andas I was going through it I
started realizing this isn'treally going to work on a stage.
It just isn't built that way.
It's not thriving in thatenvironment.
So I had a crazy idea of maybeit could be a screenplay and I'd
never written one before but Ithought, well, maybe this would
work.
So I talked to some friendsthat I knew had done short films
before and showed them thescript and said do you think
this would work?
And they're like yeah, let's doit.
So we got a group of peopletogether here in our little
(04:12):
rural community who knew aboutfilmmaking and we made a short
film and so my kids were allinvolved in it.
One of my daughters acted in it, the other one was the props
and manager and the other one'sthe sound person.
And we just all did it togetherwith some of our homeschool
friends, because we've grown upin a whole homeschool community
here in Virginia, and so allthese kids had different talents
and stuff and so I'm like comeon, be actors or come in it and
(04:35):
work on crew or something likethat.
Help us with this.
And so it became a full littlecommunity project for all of us.
And that little short film,which was called Cross Purposes,
was picked up by a distributioncompany and it's about a
30-minute film.
So it's kind of a mini featureslash short film.
It's kind of long for the shortfilm category but it's too
short to be considered a movie.
So we put it in some filmfestivals just to see if anybody
(04:57):
would like it.
And it got accepted into 15film festivals and we only
submitted it to 16.
So we're like well, I guesspeople like it.
And so it got into these filmfestivals.
And I don't know if you've everheard of the Kendrick brothers,
but they're real well-knownChristian filmmakers who've been
putting Christian movies intheaters for a long time.
They have a film festival andthey put it in their giant film
festival they do every year inthe South, in Atlanta.
(05:20):
They put that film in with thefeature film category.
So we were competing with fulllength movies made for hundreds
of thousands of dollars.
And here we are our little$9,000 homeschool project was
competing in the category withall these other films, so we
thought we didn't know what hadhappened.
But it was just so much fun.
Everyone was so gracious andthe competition was so good
spirited.
We had such a good time doingthat and that little short film
(05:42):
for a short film took off, andso we've been able to make three
more films since then, usinglargely the same crew.
That's kind of old.
They're all adults now.
They were kids when we started,but they've all gotten to be
adults now and so we still westill team up together and put
films together that way.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
And I can't help but think, as you're saying this,
like none of this would havehappened if you didn't quit your
job to homeschool.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, our whole lives would have been very different,
and certainly my relationshipwith my kids, because I know
them so well.
You know how it is when youhomeschool your kids.
You know their strengths andyou know what they struggle with
and you're able to help andyou're able to find things in
life that make them excited andyou're able to build your
education around that and thatmakes all the difference in the
world, because they come outloving learning as opposed to
(06:25):
thinking it's a chore that theyjust have to get through to get
to the next phase of life.
We can actually enjoy eachphase of life we're in and learn
as we go and just learn tolearn, and that will get you
further in this world thananything, I believe.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
I mean yes, that gives me chills just to hear and
to hear a former teacher saythat.
Because I mean you, I don'tknow.
I have so many questions orlike so many thoughts going
through my head right nowbecause it's like you.
You saw the classroom.
You saw like the administrationcoming down on you, probably
over the years, getting stricterand stricter on what you have
(06:59):
to teach, how you have to teachit, um, what test scores the
kids have to get in order to, Idon't know, get X, y and Z
funding.
Did you see that that wasbecoming more of a problem in
the school system?
Was it hard for you to leave?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
No, no.
Well, it was scary for me toleave.
I mean, I'll be honest, as aman it's tough to say I'm going
to stay home and take care of atwo-year-old girl.
I mean, you know, play groupwas me and a bunch of moms, you
know, and I was like it wasawkward.
I mean there was times when itwas just a little scary in that
sense.
But leaving the education fieldwas hard because it was.
There was so much need there.
(07:33):
I taught in a very low incomeschool in downtown Dallas and
those kids had so many needsthat were not being met by the
school system and I found myselfworking overtime trying to find
ways to get them applicationsto colleges and things like that
in which their families werenot capable of doing themselves,
and so there was so much needthat it was hard to leave.
It wasn't hard to leave thesystem because the system was
incredibly broken and the systemwas there to feed the system
(07:57):
and the kids were kind of groundup in the gears of that and
that was hard to leave for theirsake.
But, boy, I was thrilled to getout for my sake because that
was one of the hardest things Iever did and to this day.
I appreciate some things aboutpublic school systems, but I
don't find that homeschool kidsmiss very much.
Honestly, I feel like thethings that we get so far
(08:17):
outweigh the things that we miss.
It's not even a contest.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, and I can hear that between the lines of what
you're saying with there werethings that kids needed that I
was there for, like helping themfill out, you know,
applications to colleges orscholarships.
That parents weren't doing withtheir kids and and that's a
systematic thing too, you knowtheir parents weren't there to
do it for them and their schoolsystem wasn't there to do it for
them.
So you know you were thatteacher that went above and
(08:42):
beyond, as so many teachers are,and not every family is cut out
for homeschooling.
You know that is just the plainand simple truth of it.
Some people need the schoolsystem because what they have at
home isn't going to cut it.
But for the families that areable, you know it's.
You know, and you don't want tosound like righteous about it
either, but it's like I justdon't want my kid to be another
(09:04):
number, like I want them toshine above the rest.
So why would I put them intokind of this factory system that
you know we kind of when welook into the school system and
how it was created, you know,for for the industry, the
Rockefellers, you know theywanted worker bees and that sort
of thing.
You know it's so hard because,yeah, you're like, oh, I want
(09:25):
everybody to homeschool, butthen at the end of the day, like
we know that that's not true.
I come from, you know, upstateNew York or inner city kind of
school where it's like, yeah, no, a lot of these kids need to be
in some sort of regularitythroughout their day that
they're not getting at home.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
This was 25 years ago and I don't think I could
handle being a public schoolteacher today.
I couldn't handle fighting withcell phones, I couldn't handle
the attitudes of entitlementwhere kids feel like they're
supposed to pass because theybreathe, not because they've
actually done anything.
I mean, I have friends who arestill in the public school
system and the nightmare storiesI hear, even up to junior
colleges and colleges I'm like Idon't think I have the patience
(10:02):
.
Maybe I'm too old and cranky,but I don't have the patience
for any of that anymore and Idon't think I could go back now,
even if I wanted to.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, and I worked in government for 16 years and I
think it's the same thing.
Now that I've seen like theother side, like wait a minute,
I can wake up in the morning anddo what I want with my kids all
day and nobody's dictatingwhere I go, what I do, what I
learn Huh, it's like it's veryliberating, but also it's like
I've stepped out of a matrix orsomething.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yes, yes, definitely.
I've unplugged from the matrixand never looked back.
We actually tried privateschooling with our girls when we
first moved out here toVirginia.
There was a lovely Christianprivate school.
We thought we'd try it.
They did it for about 10 weeksand said dad, can we please go
back to homeschooling?
We'll start the year over fromthe beginning, but we're only
reading books that we alreadyread two years ago which were
(10:51):
bored out of our minds.
The kids don't seem veryinterested.
We just want to go back tolearning the way we've learned
before.
And so we we unplugged and wewent right back to homeschooling
and never looked back.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
So what were some of the?
Um?
Like hard times withhomeschooling.
You have all girls, right.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I have two girls and one boy.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
My youngest, who's 17 , is a boy.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Okay, what were the hard things?
Like you know, we think aboutthings like oh my God, they're
going to miss the prom, thefootball games, yada, yada.
And then you know it's so funny.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I think if you were to talk to them they'd sit here
and tell you we missed nothing.
I mean we had.
We moved here particularly.
I mean our oldest was 11.
Our little boy was only sixmonths old and so we moved here.
We had been a homeschoolingfamily and, being from a theater
background, we had all kinds oftheater activities we were
doing.
The kids had friendship circlesthey were part of.
They were so plugged into somany social activities that they
(11:45):
were already going to that theydidn't miss doing the
schoolwork at home during theday because you could get it
done in half the time.
You'd go to sit in a publicschool do it.
They'd get done by noon andwe'd be out doing stuff by
afternoon.
And they never missed a thing.
When we moved here we met awhole community of homeschool
families.
There's some of the fact thatmy daughters have married
siblings from out of that familyand that's now they're all
(12:06):
family family at this point intime.
But we've just had met thisbeautiful community and our kids
just grew up together, goingplaces and doing artistic
adventures.
A lot of them came and did mytheater arts program.
They did plays together in aprofessional theater.
I mean, they've had so much funthat none of them they all want
to homeschool their own kids.
They're like there's no waywe'd want to plug into a system
now.
This has been too great, thechallenge being, I guess, having
(12:28):
kids that are five years apart.
You know you're doingkindergarten and you're doing
eighth grade, you're trying tofeel all together and you know
trying to keep everyone rollingat the same time was probably
the most challenging aspect ofit.
As far as making sureeveryone's engaged and going
simultaneously when they're thatfar apart, None of them were
close enough together they couldshare any curriculum whatsoever
.
We were all at different placesand they all have very
(12:50):
different skills.
Being patient enough to say,okay, this kid, this is easy for
this kid, but this kid reallystruggles with it.
It's not because they don'tcare, it's just they have a
different skill set and mehaving to adjust as their
teacher and realize I need tochange my tactic on this and the
tactic I thought worked so wellbefore suddenly doesn't work,
with this child and me beinghumble enough to say I need to
(13:12):
change.
It's me that needs to change,not them.
That was probably the one ofthe biggest struggles, I think,
as far as being on top of thingsfor homeschool could you do
that in the school system whereyou worked?
no, no, everything was very rich, decided ahead of time, and
there was no.
You had 30 kids and youcouldn't meet half their needs
because they all had verydifferent needs.
But we were told to teacheverything the same way and our
(13:34):
tests were uniformed anddesigned by the school system.
So I didn't even know what wasgoing to be on the test.
It was that dictated from onhigh.
I couldn't even make tests thatfit their needs any better than
that, because it was.
It was automated.
So, no, there was no way Icould accommodate their
education and I had a joy doingit for my own children, that's
for sure.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Yeah, and do you think that you needed the
teaching background in order tosay, oh, this child learns a bit
differently, maybe?
My daughter likes to be morehands-on, my son likes to be
more outside and, you know,really taking the reins on his
own, figuring out problems onhis own, like, do you have to be
a teacher to do that, or couldjust you know, your child and
(14:13):
any common parent do that?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
oh no, I can't speak because I because I've had
educational training itcertainly helped.
I mean, I didn't, it didn'thurt me in any way.
I I'm like you, though my sonif he was not moving, he was not
learning, and that wassomething that it didn't hurt me
in any way.
I'm like you, though my son ifhe was not moving, he was not
learning, and that was somethingthat I didn't.
Have that issue with my girls.
They could sit at a table andtalk with me and we would learn.
But if my son wasn't bouncing upand down on a giant exercise
ball or sitting on the floorwith his legs in the chair and
(14:39):
his head on the floor spinningin circles, if he wasn't doing
that, he wasn't learning.
And at first I was like, areyou even listening to me?
And then I'd ask him a question.
He answered it.
I'm like he is listening to me.
He's actually listening betterbecause he's physically
squirreling around than if hewas forced to sit in a chair and
stare at me.
He would drift off.
And that's when I realized youknow, this public school is one
(15:00):
size fits all, and that was,that was one size fits all, and
that was.
That was always the case, nomatter what the students needs
or learning styles were, we hadto do everything the same way,
but I love the fact that Ididn't.
I could let him bounce on anexercise ball and he learned his
lessons and he had fun and wewere able to talk, because
that's what he needed.
That's the kind of person he is.
He doesn't do that as much now.
He sits still better now he's17,.
(15:21):
But you know he barely movesnow, he just lays.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yes, they do slow down after a while, you know,
and she works with highschoolers to get the career that
they want without necessarilyneeding that college degree.
And is it necessary?
And yeah, how do you?
What's your take on that andhow did you approach that with
your kids?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
My attitude with them was college is not required for
whatever thing you want to do.
I mean, I talked with you aboutJoseph, who did the movies with
me.
He was the lead actor inSearching for the Elephant and
he's done all the movies with meup to this point in time.
He chose not to go to collegebecause filmmaking is his thing
and, frankly, going to collegefor filmmaking isn't that
particularly helpful.
(16:24):
You can be a filmmaker withoutcollege.
He rather spent that four yearsmaking movies and learning how
to do it, and now he's kind ofahead of the curve when kids are
graduating from film school.
So in his case, no college.
He's not my kid, he practicallyis, but he isn't and so he's.
The college was just not in thecards and not necessary.
My daughter went to a couple ofyears of college but she got
married and she's a homeschoolmom now, so she's got what she
(16:47):
needed.
My other daughter is going, isapplying to medical school and
will probably start medicalschool next year.
She needed to go to college toget that information and so she
went to all four years becausethat's what she wanted to do.
And my son wants to be a pilot,so he wants to be a pilot for
the mission field, and solearning how to repair and pilot
airplanes is a critical thing.
Now you can do that withoutgoing to college.
(17:07):
We just happened to find acollege that actually had
missionary pilot training as adegree.
So he will leave that with apilot's license and a
certification to work on smallsingle-engine aircrafts, and so
he's going to go to college andlearn that.
So it depends on what you'regifted to do, and we're all
gifted in different areas.
Sometimes college is requiredand sometimes it's just not.
(17:27):
So I always tell my kids Inever put the pressure on them
that that's like you got to go,no matter what.
I think you got to do somethingbecause you got to continue to
grow as a person, as a humanbeing, and learn how to support
yourself.
But college isn't always theway, and to say that it is, it's
not true, and I think your kidsknow that.
So I think it's more honest tosay sometimes it's true and
sometimes it's not.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, and I love that we're bringing it back to the
individual, Like what do youwant to do with your life?
Because I was kind of that era.
I graduated in 2002.
So it was like you go tocollege or else you're kind of
just going to be, I don't know,like Joseph's character in
Searching the.
Elephant, you know you're goingto college or else you know so
(18:11):
you're not going to makeanything of yourself.
So I went and it was like Idon't know what I want to do,
because nothing in high schoolreally you know, and I bring it
back to even earlier than thatNothing in life ever allowed you
the time to discover what youlike to do because you're so
busy from you know, it was likeschool and like the before care,
(18:33):
because my mother worked andduring the school.
And then you know I had danceclass after.
You know whether we had dancecompetitions or somebody's
birthday parties.
You know a class of 30 kids, 30birthday parties throughout the
year on the weekends and it'slike your time is always
dictated that to be bored andfigure out what you like to do.
I didn't.
I remember writing songs,actually as a child, but where
(18:56):
those little notebooks are now,I'll never know.
But, um, but yeah, it's sointeresting that, like it, it
never allowed me to kind of likemove forward with that Like
cause, as you went into middleschool and high school and
college, your time only got moredictated on what you have to do
.
So there wasn't that boredom tosay, like, what do I like to do
(19:16):
?
Let me write this, let me youknow.
So not until just in the lastcouple of years where I was like
, well, kind of after COVID, forme it was like, I don't know,
it was the world backwards.
Is it crazy?
Like am I crazy?
I don't really know.
And you know my, they weremasking in New York
three-year-olds in daycare.
So that's what my husband and Iwere like we're taking them out
(19:39):
Cause we're not going to maskour three-year-old.
We're we.
I don't know what's going onwith the world, but I know
that's wrong.
So then it was like I wasworking from home with my son
here and then I got pregnant formy daughter and we were like I
don't know if I want tovaccinate at all anymore.
What?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
are we going to?
Speaker 1 (19:51):
do.
We're in New York so you can'teven go to school here unless
you have everything on the CDCschedule.
So it was kind of like, allright, we have to put some
brakes on, because I want toresearch some things and I can't
do that if my kids are in thesystem.
So yeah, I ended up quitting myjob last year, officially
starting the podcast two yearsago, and it was more just like
(20:13):
can I homeschool?
I don't know.
I was interviewinghomeschooling families to see
how weird you people are well,and that's.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I think that's the beauty.
I think you hit the head whenyou say they're so busy they
can't think straight.
I mean, the beautiful thingabout homeschooling is you're
going through a subject andsuddenly your child lights up on
something.
You're like, oh you love this,let's pursue it further.
Let's go to a place wherepeople do that.
Let's talk to people who dothat for a living.
Let's find out more about it,because clearly this is lighting
(20:42):
your fire and we can take thetime to do that and we can
change the subjects to talkabout the things they're really
interested in.
And my kids kind of grew up withthis sense of purpose, like
maybe education means something,maybe it's going to help me in
the long run and so I'm going tobuy into it too.
And so you'd be surprised howmuch easier it is to teach kids
who have bought into the processand see the value in it than
(21:04):
kids who are sitting behind adesk in public school being drug
tooth and nail through theselessons that they see no value
in, they see no purpose in it.
They just see a bunch of hoopswe're all jumping through and
they're not dumb.
They see the system happeningand they see how unfair it can
be at times and how silly it canbe at times, how redundant it
can be at times, and they knowthey're just in a holding pen
(21:26):
sometimes and so it's a wholedifferent attitude, and so my
kids have just been.
I'm sure everyone whohomeschools has a different
experience, but my kids justlove learning and they love the
world and exploring it and theygrow up with this sense of who
they are and I think we havetime for that.
And having a dad whounderstands that with them means
that he can walk along besidethem and help them get there
(21:47):
just a little bit faster.
So we're a team in that regardand I love that.
I've loved that all the waythrough.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
So your film is called Searching for the
Elephant.
Is that the elephant?
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Like the elephant.
That's actually that, that thatfilm Searching for the Elephant
, is the one that we shot, thelast one we've shot.
We've shot four films as acompany and that last one,
Searching for the Elephant, is aranch phrase.
It's a phrase when rancherswould go out and go to this
call-in where they had hiredhands for the year to come work
on their ranch and take care ofthe animals and the hay in the
fields and that kind of stuff,and they would look for people
to work for them and that wouldcommit to staying there for a
(22:23):
year.
And there were people like, oh,yeah, yeah, feed me, house me,
give me a salary, I'm there forthe year.
And there were those like, yeah, I'll take the job for now.
And you could tell that thesepeople were always looking over
their shoulder for a bettersituation.
They're always looking forsomething that they can do
that's better than the job theyhave with you.
And the other men would look ateach other and go, oh, that
(22:43):
guy's searching for the elephant, he's looking for the perfect
situation that doesn't exist andhe's never going to be content
with any place that he is rightnow.
And so that's where that Francecomes from.
And when I read that aboutranchers I was like, well,
that's kind of the theme of thefilm.
So I adapted as a title.
It's a weird title and peopleare like what does that mean?
There's no elephants in thismovie.
(23:04):
I'm like it explains it in thefilm, but that's really a ranch
term and that's for the idea ofnever being content and that's
part of what the film's aboutbut as I was watching it,
thinking of this I mean thinkingof this in the homeschool
perspective it made a lot ofsense for me because it's like
in school they kind of arealways like, okay, and you're
gonna get good grades and yougotta do well on the test and
(23:27):
you're gonna go to college andyou're gonna be successful.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
But nobody ever says like what success is.
And it took for me to get to myum, you know government job
after 16 years.
I was a supervisor.
I was making six figures.
That's what I'd always wantedto do.
I figured I'd be successful thenand it was like okay, you know,
I went to work, I sat in mycubicle, I took my 15 minute
breaks twice a day and my halfhour lunch where I put my
(23:52):
headphones on and walk arounddowntown Albany and, um, never
once did I ever know what theHudson river was about, the
history of it as I'm walkingalongside of it.
Never once did I know a birdthat flew by.
And it's just interestingbecause when I quit to
homeschool, my kids and I, Imean, we're, we're looking,
we're watching birds that areactually like making nests and
(24:13):
how they make them and layingthe eggs, and watching the baby
birds and see what are theyfeeding them and watching this
whole process.
I'm learning about the.
I'm like every time we pass theHudson, probably three times a
week, and I'm like, oh my God,colin, do you know what we're
passing now and we'll talk alittle bit about Henry Hudson?
Or you know the Indians thatlived here?
You know and then what happenedto them?
(24:34):
You know how the Puritans camein and this whole the Erie Canal
getting built right off of itand it's like this is the
elephant I was searching for.
It was here the whole time.
It was at home and I wasted 16years in a cubicle.
But I think I needed to wastethose 16 years in a cubicle to
appreciate it.
But if I can get other peoplethere quicker, I'm happy to.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Yeah, no, I've never loved learning more.
I learned so much more teachingmy three kids homeschool.
I mean I went through historythree times.
I went through algebra threetimes.
I went through Spanish threetimes.
I'm better at school now than Iever was before, but I've had
fun.
I mean we read these bookstogether and there's stories
(25:18):
that I didn't hear because I wasbusy memorizing the dates of
the Civil War or the names ofthe generals or you know, I was
like trying to memorize it justlong enough to get through a
test and then dump it outbecause none of it meant
anything to me.
But reading stories and booksand going to the side of the
Gettysburg Address with the kidsand going places and seeing
things and then just talkingabout the stories, like stories,
because I'm a storyteller.
That's the way I learn theworld.
(25:39):
I absorb it through stories andlearning these stories with the
kids and sharing theirexcitement.
I learned so much more as ahomeschool dad than I ever did
in public school and I had fun.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I mean I really did.
You had amazing, that's amazing.
Had fun.
I mean I really did, you hadamazing, that's amazing.
I mean that's so telling, likeyou were a public school teacher
and you learned more teachingyour kids, yeah, and to learn
through stories, that's how it'salways been done.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yes, and our curriculum is such that we learn
history through historicalnovels and you know stories that
are made up about that timeperiod of history.
So you're living that historythrough a character who's there
in it usually a kid their age,and so they're living in that
world and we're talking about it, we're making pictures of it
and we're doing diagrams andwe're doing stuff and we're
other subjects are kind ofoverlapping into it and it's
(26:24):
like it's just so exciting andso when they hear something
they're like oh well, that'swhat happened.
When blah blah, blah blahhappened, I'm like, yes, that's
right, like they learned itbecause they heard it through a
story and not because someoneasked them to memorize a cold
hard fact and the whole hardfacts come and go and they don't
mean anything.
But when you've walked insomeone's shoes for a mile, you
feel like you've lived with themand you feel like you've
(26:46):
experienced their life with themand those kind of things stick
with you and history sticks withyou when you live in it that
way and I had a blast doing itwith them.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
And I love what you said about how it all integrates
too, because your history, yourreading, your writing you know
all of that does intertwine.
So it's not like you're takingthe 40 minutes for history and
then switching gears and goinginto 40 minutes of reading or 40
minutes of English and 40minutes of writing.
You can intertwine them all,which is why it takes half the
(27:16):
time to homeschool.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
But, also.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
It makes sense, it's relevant to what they're
learning about, so it's such abeautiful way to do that.
So how involved were your kidsin searching for the elephant
when you were writing andcreating?
Speaker 2 (27:30):
this.
Well, my oldest daughter is theproduction designer, which
means she designed all thecostumes and she decorated all
the sets.
And so for this film we renteda ranch for a month and it had a
giant house that was like 120years old and about 800 acres,
and so we shot in this house.
So my daughter went through anddesigned the decorations of the
(27:50):
house and she set up all thecolors and the palettesettes and
she mixed the costumes with thecolors in the house and she
designed all that.
Now she's a mom of three of herown and so she did all that at
home, because she's also ahomeschool mom.
So she did all that home aheadof the film and pre-production
and then just came out to thesite just long enough to help
her helpers get everything setup and then she'd go home.
(28:12):
So that was how her limitedinvolved, because that's what
she could do on her own.
Then my younger daughter, who'sfive years younger than her
she's my assistant director andshe keeps the crews on schedule.
She designs the schedules.
If there's a problem with theschedule, she readjusts it, gets
it going.
She's on set there with us andsays you've got 10 more minutes
to get this shot.
Then we've got to move on.
(28:32):
So she's my bossy little girlbut she does okay, she kind of
thrives in that role.
So she's the one that keeps usgoing and we all listen to her
when she says something to dothat.
Now my son he was just 16 whenwe shot this film and so he is a
boom mic operator.
So he works with the sounddesigner and so he works with
(28:54):
the sound designer and the sounddesigner has the headsets in
the pack and is doing all themixing and he's collecting the
sound with the boom mic as theactors are talking and so, uh,
this is the first time he workedall the way through on a film
and it was a lot of work.
But he, he held up really welland did a great job.
The sound was fantastic.
And I don't he's not, that'snot his thing, this isn't his
thing, he does it for me.
He he kind of had fun.
It's not something he wants todo for the rest of his life, but
he had.
He had fun this time around,just being with the whole family
(29:16):
working on it together yeah,it's got to be so fun, and did
you wrote it as well?
I did.
Um, yes, I wrote it with josephstam, who's the lead actor in
it, and he and I have beenworking together on these films
since that very first littleshort film we did when I needed
an actor for that he was 16 atthe time.
I needed a boy to portraysomeone who was dying of cancer
and I had a casting call andabout 30 young men came in an
(29:39):
audition for the role and Josephwon the part as a 16 year old
kid, and so after that he kindof stuck around and wanted to
help with writing and he wantedto help with directing and he
kept acting in each movie.
Sometimes it was a big lead,it's just a small part he'd do
in the background and he'sreally just a passionate young
filmmaker, and so I've been ableto kind of mentor him through
the entire filmmaking process.
(29:59):
He's been a part of all thebusiness decisions, the writing,
the directing, the producing.
He did his own first short filmall on his own this last year
and he's ready to take off anddo his thing.
So, and he's ready to take offand do his thing.
So when I'm old and gray I cansit.
You know, I'm already gray, butif I'm older and grayer, I can
sit in the easy chair and watchJoseph Stamm films and maybe
even talk on the phone and justtell them what to do.
(30:21):
You know, as the cranky old manin the chair, give them advice
that way, because he's thefuture of filmmaking as far as
I'm concerned.
He's just extraordinarilytalented.
Far as I'm concerned, that goes.
He's just extraordinarilytalented.
So he helped ride and directelephant, but he was also the
lead actor.
He played a drug addict and itwas a very challenging thing.
He has no experience of thatall.
He talked with a lot of peoplewho were living that situation
(30:41):
or in recovery and heinterviewed them and got very
specific detail about theirstories, their lives and what
they went through.
And then he took that on as anactor and portrays it
beautifully in the film.
You'd have no idea he has noexperience whatsoever in any of
this, but, boy, to watch himportray that role is
gut-wrenching because you reallyfeel like you're watching his
character go through it.
(31:01):
So while he was on set I wasthe primary director who shot
all the photography and then heand I went back and mixed the
film together after it wasproduced and he so he's a
co-director in that project anda co-writer as well.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
It's been a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
And homeschooled as well.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
And he's 100% homeschooled all the way through
.
Yeah, and so as are all of hisnine siblings yeah, no, he
totally looked like a drugaddict.
No, yeah the tattoos were washoff, kind we had to order them
from.
And then we sadly, in themiddle, he has a tattoo on his
neck during the film.
He has no tattoos but he hadone on there and we had to apply
(31:40):
it and if it started wearingoff, the makeup artist had to go
through with a pencil or penand try to connect the missing
parts until we could order thenew tattoos and get them back to
set before we ran out.
It was a panicky thing, thesetattoos.
But no, joseph yeah, he reallyplays a troubled child and in
the story he and his grandfatherare forced to live together on
this ranch and they areestranged.
(32:01):
They don't know each other, butthey both lived lives where
they've pushed every one ofwhat's important in their lives
out of their lives if it'simportant in their lives out of
their lives.
They both isolated themselvesin many ways.
They put up a lot of thickwalls around themselves and
through a series ofcircumstances, they are forced
to live on this ranch and thisfarmhouse together and they
don't even like each other, andso the movie is about them
getting to know each other,getting to understand each other
(32:22):
and finding a sense of familybetween them.
That becomes very healing forboth of them.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Yeah, it kind of reminded me, as I was watching
it, the docu-series Dope Sickhave you?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, I've heard of that.
I've not seen it, but I'veheard about it.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Oh, it is something to watch because it's all about
how the medical industry youknow, I know, I know your wife
is in medicine, your daughter isgoing to know, hey, let's get
people on prescriptions whichkind of led into you know
Joseph's situation in the movie.
I mean, you don't get into howhe got into that, but it was
(33:00):
very common so it was.
It's relatable in that.
You know, this can be so easilyanybody.
What made you want to write afilm about this?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
easily anybody.
What made you want to write afilm about this?
In our area we live inSouthwest Virginia and there's
not a family here that hasn'tbeen touched by drug addiction
in some way, shape or form, andI mean the nicest, sweetest,
most wholesome families you canimagine would come and watch our
movie at the theater and comeback after and goes yeah, my
brother has been an addict for10 years and he's broken our
family's hearts, and so when itcomes to addiction, it's such an
(33:31):
unfortunately universal problemthat so many people deal with,
and we didn't just want tosensational, we wanted to deal
with the people who are addicted, but also the family that's
hurt around them and trying tolove them but constantly being
pushed away and trying to lovethrough that, and so that was
something that we thought was abig, big part of the story.
And so having a family that'storn apart by this and a
(33:54):
grandfather who's torn apart byPTSD from Vietnam you know he's
suffering from residual hurtsand pains, and so he's suffering
too and watching two sufferingpeople locked up in a room
together, kind of spewing thingsat each other and then learning
to love each other and seeingeach other through each other's
eyes, it's just kind of abeautiful thing and then to see
families who have kept trying tolove and kept trying to go kind
(34:18):
of get rewarded with hope atthe end.
We're real big on not putting abig red bow at the end and
having everyone clapping in achurch choir with white robes
because instantly somethinggreat happened and everything's
flipped, switches andeverything's great again.
That's just not how life is.
So we had the characters kindof turning a corner at the end.
You could see hope on thehorizon but you knew that it was
(34:39):
still some work away.
And then I think that non piein the sky approach really spoke
to the people that came to seeour film and had been through
this process.
They said that's real life.
That felt real to me and that'swhat I hope will happen to me
and my family over the course oftime and that meant a lot.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yes, I won't ruin the ending.
It's not where I thought it wasgoing to go because it wasn't
the traditional ending but yes,I think it is more realistic the
way that that you portrayed it.
And you know, I think this is agreat film for homeschooling
families because we we, our kidsare not exposed to a lot of
this in like they are in theschool system.
(35:17):
The you know how easy it can beto get hooked on a drug because
you know this is a prescriptionthat someone's doctor gave them
or you know even, just hey, trythis at a party, like when you
homeschool.
Hopefully we are pulling ourkids away from that sort of
stuff, but it doesn't meanthey're never going to encounter
it right.
They are going to graduatesomeday, they are going to get
(35:39):
friends that have been in theschool system, they are going to
get jobs or, you know, they'regoing to leave our home at some
point.
You have to equip them withstuff that is in the real world.
You cannot isolate your childfrom anything bad and expect
that nothing bad will everhappen to them.
You have to expose them to this.
I think this film is a greatway to have you know lead into
the conversations Like we're now.
(36:00):
Now this is something we cantalk about because you've been
exposed in a healthy way.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah, and, and the film is it's gritty.
I mean it's not for little kids, I mean it's for older teens
and adults to talk about.
It's gritty and it's realisticand you saw you see him go
through detox and it's a painfulthing to watch because it's an
awful situation, but there's alot of humor in it and there's a
lot of family laughter in itand there's we kept the content
really, really mild to try tokeep it as clean as possible
(36:27):
without seeming like you knowit's a Sunday school pamphlet.
You know that's not a realisticview of the world.
So we try to keep it asrealistic and as clean as
possible.
But keeping it realistic aspossible.
And I think another side benefitof that is when we isolate our
kids with homeschooling.
In certain ways we kind of we doprotect them and I love that
about homeschooling is we canlet the world in as little or as
much as we need to to help themgrow under without falling
(36:49):
under the weight of it, andthat's super important at the
same time, because we're notaround any of that.
I do also want my kids to becompassionate, and so when you
spend two hours with someone,with a character in a movie who
is at times frustratinglyangering, but also very likable,
and you care about them and youlove them because you want them
to do better than they're doing.
(37:09):
I think when you spend that kindof intimate time with movie
characters like that, it helpsyou to be more empathetic to
people in real life that you runinto or running in that
situation, so maybe you can kindof understand their experience
a little bit better and be morecompassionate toward them,
rather than just sitting backgoing well, I didn't do that, so
I'm going to be judgmentalbecause you did so.
I think that's a greatopportunity for families to see
(37:31):
families that don't look likethem or don't sound like them or
don't act like them, that whenthey do meet a family and they
say my child's gone through it,you can feel the sadness they're
going through and understandthat as much as the illegality
of what their loved one is doing.
So I hope the movie can do thatfor homeschool families.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yeah, I definitely think it will.
David, is there anything thatyou kind of wanted to let
homeschooling families or evenprospective homeschooling
families know, maybe to easetheir tensions about it, calm
them down if they want tohomeschool but are just really
afraid to?
What do you have to say to them?
You've had 25 years ofexperience.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Well, when I started off homeschooling I was coming
from a public school background,so I had my lesson plans
written and I had my checkboxesto check and I had everything I
was supposed to accomplishaccording to the curriculum and
I had to hit every one, you know, and I was a little bit rigid
that way when I first started.
As the years went by, my oldestdaughter will tell you dad was
tougher on me than he was on anyof the rest of you kids.
(38:30):
But it's because I startedrealizing that all the check
boxes don't need to be checked,that all of the things in the
curriculum don't have to be done.
If a book is not registeringwith you and your kids, it's
okay to say let's just not dothis one and let's go on to the
next one, because the next onewill, because really learning to
(38:50):
love to learn is the greatestthing you can teach your kids
and not that they have to doevery check in the box.
Because I tend to be a littlebit that way and I had to learn
not to be, and I started havingmore fun and the kids started
learning more when I allowedmyself the freedom to say no to
some things because they're justnot that important and say yes
to things that I didn't want todo, because I need to learn how
to do it too.
So I really kind of went offthe rule of thumb of am I ever
(39:11):
going to use this in life?
Yes I am, because we all knewthings that we learned in school
that we have never used asingle day in our life.
So it never came up, it wasnever useful, it was never
helpful, it didn't matter.
And so when I run across thingsin the school curriculum, I go
you know what?
This is not going to changeyour life.
Let's just move on and dosomething that is, and let's
(39:32):
teach you how to write a checkin a checkbook instead, or teach
you how to do grocery shoppinginstead.
I learned that I'm trying toequip people to be adults and
healthy, balanced, functionaladults in society who love
people and love what they do.
And if I've done that, that'sall the education they need.
The rest of it's book stuffthey can learn that If they know
how to learn, they can learnthat on their own anytime they
want to.
And that's kind of been trueall the way through.
(39:54):
You know my kids, they'resuccessful at what they do and
they love what they do, and Ididn't do it all right and I
didn't do it all.
Probably enough hours of what Iwas supposed to do have.
I didn't do poetry as much as Iwas supposed to because I don't
like poetry very much.
So I did try.
I know people love it, I justdon't.
So I just kind of him and hoton poetry.
(40:14):
But they're okay, they'refunctioning just fine in society
.
They're functional adults andthey're not in, they're not in
prison.
They did all right, so I thinkit's okay.
So give yourself some grace andteach them to learn to love
learning, and that all the restof it will come about as it's
needed.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
I love that.
That is award-winning advice.
And where can people find youand where can people find your
films?
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Our movies are on our website you can links to our
films are oncrosspurposesproductions is the
name of our company and websiteand if you go there, all of our
film catalogs there with directlinks that will take you
straight to the movies on thevarious platforms that they're
on.
They're all they're on themajor platforms that you'd want
to watch movies on already.
So if you want to look up ourfilms, you can just click there
and it'll take you to amazonprime or it'll take you to 2b or
(40:59):
it'll take you to differentplaces like that pure flicks,
places that you'd want to watchmovies.
Watch the movies for free.
If you don't mind somecommercials or if you pay for
those platforms, you can watchthem without commercials, but
all of our movies can be foundthere amazing and I'm gonna link
all of that in the show'sdescription so you don't have to
remember all that.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Just head right on down, click on it and you can
have some very fun entertainmentand a little bit of learning
too.
And it was nice for me becauseI don't really take a lot of
time to myself to just watchsomething for enjoyment or
entertainment.
You know, usually it's likeresearch stuff, so this was a
nice kind of research.
I enjoyed my two hours.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Well, our movies vary .
Now, Elephant's a pretty heavymovie but like Found and Royal,
ashes and Cross Purposes are alittle more family oriented.
They're a little bit more humorin it.
They're a little bit lighterhearted.
So there's different types ofmovies for different folks.
So our lightest one's prettyheavy, but the rest of them
aren't quite so dramatic well, Istill loved it either way.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
I can't wait to check out the rest.
David, all for it.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Thank you so much for joining us today thank you,
cheryl, I've had a great timeand thanks for having me me too,
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