Melanie Wilson (00:00) Wilson, thank you so much for joining me here on the Home School Sanity Show. Can you take a moment to tell us more about you before we launch into our topic? Wilson Hickman (00:10) Absolutely. Thank you for having me on. a pleasure to be here. ⁓ So I'm Wilson Hickman. am a first and foremost, I'm a follower of Jesus. I say that before anything else because that's ultimately where my identity and my well-being comes from. I have a follower of Jesus who loves storytelling, specifically filmmaking. And I got my start in filmmaking and really creativity at a young age by actually writing books at first. And I would literally hand write stories before I learned how to type on a computer. That graduated pretty quickly to writing novels once I learned how to type. And then from there I moved to writing screenplays. And I went to film school recently, graduated, and made a few short films there. And I've been making ⁓ short films after graduation as well. And that brought me to the point where I've now made a proof of concept episode for a Christian-themed fantasy series called The Lost Healer. And it's a live-action episode. And I've just been so blessed to be able to work with such amazing actors, an amazing crew that God brought together. And The Lost Healer is a fantasy adventure that weaves biblical themes allegorically into its story while remaining ⁓ engaging fiction that will, Lord willing, appeal to a broad audience. Melanie Wilson (01:23) that is, I mean, it's just so cool. It's just so cool. I do. I think that the homeschooling moms who are listening to us right now are going to agree with me that, you know, this is what we want for our kids to have them use their gifts and their interests in a way that allows them Wilson Hickman (01:27) I'm glad you think so. Melanie Wilson (01:53) to serve God, to serve others, and also just fills them up. I can tell that you are so excited about what you're doing that it's just, it's fulfilling. And I just love hearing that. Wilson Hickman (02:11) Thank you, thank you. Yeah, I myself was homeschooled, so I know exactly where you're coming from on that. Melanie Wilson (02:15) Yes, I figured you did. I figured you did. Okay, so let's talk about the fantasy genre. ⁓ What draws you to that genre as a way to teach spiritual truths? And why do you think that it resonates so deeply with homeschool students in particular? Wilson Hickman (02:37) Yeah, so first of all, draws me to the fantasy genre, I think is perhaps seeing such powerful examples of it growing up used to teach biblical themes. So for instance, when I was being homeschooled, we read the Pilgrim's Progress. And I thought that was just so compelling because it takes this character who's literally named Christian and it takes him on all these encounters about the struggles and the growth of the Christian faith. Now, obviously, allegorically, the allegory of the story is very, you know, obvious and clear, that was the author's intention. But then you have ⁓ subtler examples like C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia or even Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. There's biblical theology and themes woven throughout Lord of the Rings as well. And being exposed to those and reading the Narnia books as a kid, I realized that you could have these larger-than-life fantasy stories that are actually helpful for conveying Christian themes. And they're not always on the nose. They're not preachy. They are woven through a compelling fictional narrative. And I think a few years ago, I actually was reading the Bible and I realized most of the Bible is also straightforward narrative as opposed to preachy, you know, theological statements. And so for instance, you have most of the Old Testament is narrative with the book of Genesis, for example. And you have the account of Joseph being betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, and these are all real events that happen to a real person. But you can also see types and shadows pointing to Jesus all throughout the narrative. So Joseph is accused of a crime he didn't commit, ends up in prison, just as Jesus is wrongly accused and put on trial. ⁓ Joseph is in prison with two criminals, one of them is spared, one of them is killed, just as Jesus is on the cross with two criminals, one of them is saved, the other one is not. And then... Joseph resurrects by being delivered from prison, put in a high authority over Egypt, and he saves the land from a famine just as Jesus literally resurrects and then commissions his people to share the good news. It's... You can see all those foreshadowings of Jesus, but not in a way that detracts from the life of Joseph as a compelling narrative in its own right. And so, I saw that and realized you can do that with fantasy storytelling, in particular the genre of fantasy. Because fantasy is kind of a paradoxical genre. On the one hand, it takes us out of the real world and has this escapist element to it. But on the other hand, it amplifies, when done well, that is, it amplifies the conflict between good and evil. It puts a magnifying glass over things like honesty and courage and integrity. Things that, if we just focus on their real-world applications, through the eyes of our flesh, can seem kind of mundane, because we don't see these larger-than-life stakes played out in our own lives, necessarily. But fantasy is kind of good at amplifying that and showing how... the decisions we make, the small things we do on a day-to-day basis, those have potentially eternal implications, and fantasy sort of expands our imaginations to have categories to put those things in and to properly appreciate their weight in light of God's eternal plan for us. So I think that's one of the main reasons why it's so compelling. And as to why it resonates with homeschool students in particular, homeschooling when done right, especially when done from a Christian worldview, is parents who want the best for their kids, who want their kids to know the Lord and want their kids to pursue God's plan for their lives at an early age and some of the best fantasy stories are also about a young protagonist who has a wise mentor who's bringing them up to do a difficult, a difficult task. Where they're going to face opposition, they're going to face obstacles, and they're going to face challenges, and they're going to have to grapple with, they strong enough to get through this, and they have to rely on someone or something greater than themselves. I think homeschooling students can very easily see themselves in most fantasy heroes, like the sibling, the Pevensy kids in Narnia, or Frodo in Lord of the Rings. It really lends itself to homeschooling students in particular, I think, especially when you factor in the Christian themes. Melanie Wilson (06:27) Wow. I mean, that is so good. Okay, I'm going to admit something here. I never thought about or heard about the parallel between the two people in prison with Joseph being a foreshadowing of the two thieves on the cross with Jesus. I have never heard that before. So that was great. Wilson Hickman (06:28) Hahaha! Well, that's the amazing about scriptures. The more you read it, mean, ⁓ the New Testament tells us that the Old Testament was written for our instruction and would ultimately point to Jesus. When you start really studying the Old Testament and you have the New Testament in your head now, we have the advantage of hindsight. We can see everything in it is pointing to Jesus. Joseph is a type of Jesus, but Jesus is the greater Joseph. He doesn't just save us from famine, he saves us from eternal condemnation and et cetera. And those parallels continue to stack up. But Jesus is always the greater thing that the Old Testament shadow is pointing to. Melanie Wilson (07:09) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. And I just love what you said too about a homeschooler being a young protagonist with a mentor, a wise mentor. I mean, I just love it. I just feel more important, I guess, in the world, you know, that I have been a mentor to all these young protagonists because I have six kids. Yeah, I have six that I have finished homeschooling. Okay, so... Wilson Hickman (07:29) Yeah. that's awesome. Melanie Wilson (07:51) As you can tell, very, ⁓ just very interested and supportive of the work that you are doing. So let's shift gears just a little bit and talk about the fact that you are creating Christian fantasy. ⁓ And that is in a world that is filled with secular fantasy stories. What do you think? Wilson Hickman (07:59) Thank you. Melanie Wilson (08:21) truly distinguishes Christian fantasy and how can parents help their kids discern the difference? Wilson Hickman (08:30) Excellent, excellent question. There's a lot of different ways I could take that. ⁓ The surface level answer is, sadly needs to be said these days, is in the content. know, Christian fantasy is not going to have excessive gore, graphic sexual content, anything like that. ⁓ So, because we want to honor God with the content we portray, and we want to, like Paul says, meditate on what is good and noble and true, not meditate on the darkness and the evil things that the world has to offer. But all that said, I think there's something much deeper that makes fantasy Christian besides just what it refrains from showing. And I think that is the narrative soul, or if you will, the moral theme behind it. And when I say moral theme, I'm not referring to like a character sits down and lectures us on what we're supposed to get out of the story. No, it goes much deeper than that. The theme has to be shown and felt rather than told. So, for example, in the Lord of the Rings, there are... incredible themes about friendship and loyalty and giving yourself to a cause greater than yourself, even if it means sacrificing your own life. And then when the ring is destroyed, it's also a message on the self-destructive nature of evil. Evil is a parasite. It will ultimately destroy itself because it can only destroy, it can never create things. And those themes, no one ever sits down and lectures us about, is why this happened. It's just woven throughout the story and you can see the narrative almost makes you feel more than actually consciously think those things. Same with C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. So many great examples like that. in short, makes fantasy Christian is the worldview that it points us towards through its story. Obviously, fantasy is not setting out to convince us that there's a talking lion or that there's really a wizard. That's not the purpose of what fantasy is. What it's doing, from a Christian perspective, is it's, as I mentioned before, it's expanding our imaginations and our appreciations for the significance of good versus evil. So it will have absolute good versus absolute evil. It will draw that contrast. It will not say, actually there's really no such thing as good and evil. There's all these gray areas and we can root for the villain just as easily as the hero because neither of them are right. know, a fantasy that lives in that worldview is decidedly not Christian because it goes against God's word. And then also, I think fantasy that's from a Christian perspective will in some ways acknowledge the weakness, the frailty of human nature, how we ultimately have to depend on someone outside of ourselves, something larger than ourselves. And Aslan in Narnia is the most obvious example of that, but I think that fantasy that... preaches some, you know, sadly the common Disney theme of, just be yourself, trust in yourself, the answers are inside of you. That theme is decidedly antithetical to the gospel. And so a fantasy that is hinged on that is gonna be, is gonna lead us ultimately to emptiness because our real world experiences shockingly confirms the Bible, which is that our own strength isn't enough. We don't have the answers inside ourselves. We become hopelessly confused and depressed if we always focus inside because our flesh is fallen. And so fantasy that acknowledges the frailty of human nature, but also points us to something greater through its larger than life narrative and kind of gives us ways to imagine the glory of God. I think that is some of the core elements of what makes fantasy Christian. Melanie Wilson (11:46) Hmm, just an excellent, excellent answer. I find that many times, and this is just a commentary on what you're saying, I find that many times parents get so focused on the details of the movie, you know, the funny parts or ⁓ the cool ⁓ maybe graphics, ⁓ you know, and just... Wilson Hickman (12:14) Mm-hmm. Melanie Wilson (12:16) like the obvious storyline that they sometimes can miss a theme that is truly antithetical to the Christian faith. We can just kind of take it in without really thinking about what it's trying to say to us. Do you agree with that? Wilson Hickman (12:37) Absolutely, absolutely. And that's why filmmaking and cinema is so powerful for shaping the culture. Because when done correctly, it doesn't come right out and tell you what it wants you to think. It just makes you feel it subconsciously. And so you watch movies that are made from a Christian perspective, that are baked in a Christian worldview, then you're going to come away subconsciously thinking more in alignment with Christian principles. The opposite is also true. You watch a very well-done movie that doesn't preach at you. that just weaves secular notions that appeals to our flesh, then subconsciously we're gonna come away with that closer to the devil's way of thinking. And I actually am kind of, in a strange way, I'm grateful for what's recently happened in Hollywood in terms of its creative decline with just constant remakes, reboots, sequels, and I think audiences are getting tired of it too, is... This creative bankruptcy that we see more and more in Hollywood is kind of detracting from a movie's ability to subconsciously draw us away from God. It's getting more and more on the nose with it. And at the same point in time, I think this is where we as Christians need to rise up and... Melanie Wilson (13:29) you Wilson Hickman (13:41) reclaim the art, so to speak, of storytelling because we serve the ultimate storyteller, the ultimate artist, and we should be the pioneers of excellence in storytelling. And so I think our stories need to be, we need to push ourselves to tell more compelling stories that don't lecture, don't preach, that are just organically and subconsciously weaving biblical themes into them so that the audiences are made to feel rather than think I'm being lectured to because a good story Melanie Wilson (13:46) Hmm. ⁓ Wilson Hickman (14:07) as even Jesus demonstrated with his parables, a good story is meant to make you feel and take in themes in a way that is not just being directly told what to think. Melanie Wilson (14:17) Mm-hmm, absolutely. So in addition to that, do you have any advice for homeschooling parents who want to incorporate fantasy stories of whatever genre, whether that's books or movies, into their children's education without compromising their faith? Do you have any thoughts about how we can be mindful ⁓ in our choices? Wilson Hickman (14:45) Yes, yes. So in addition to like the obvious ⁓ content concerns that I mentioned earlier, ⁓ I think the first step is to first and foremost know the Christian faith very well. Study the Bible, study biblical worldview, study Christian apologetics. There's great resources out there. ⁓ like ministries like Living Waters, Answers in Genesis, creation.com, great resources. ⁓ But that will help you to start to think. Melanie Wilson (14:56) Hmm. Wilson Hickman (15:12) critically in terms of what message is actually being conveyed in these things and Then you can knowing the biblical worldview very well you can ask yourself Okay with this fantasy story if this character at the end is being like applauded for taking this course of action Is that, are they being applauded for like, I'll give you a great example. Recently I went to see the Neutron movie and in the Neutron movie, yeah, based on your reaction just now was my reaction. I don't go to see modern movies very often anymore because they're not written well. And nevermind the lessons they teach, they're just not written well from a basic character and plot progression standpoint. But. Melanie Wilson (15:39) you ⁓ Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Wilson Hickman (15:52) At the end of this film, the new program who's brought out of the grid, ⁓ the whole movie is about him rebelling against the programmer who created him. And then at the very end of the film, he tells another program that, you know, I don't need to serve the creator because that's not my purpose. My purpose. And I'm like, wow. That is so on the nose of like, I don't need to serve my creator, I serve, I can determine my own purpose, was basically the theme. Now, in the movie, the creator, of course, is a human who's portrayed as evil, but I just couldn't help thinking that that's exactly how Satan wants us to view God. know, I don't owe God my allegiance, God doesn't define my purpose, I can define my own purpose. Well, we live in a society where people are trying to define their own purpose and it's not working so well. And... ⁓ The one who makes us knows what's best for us because he knows what he made us for. And, ⁓ yeah, but anyway, things like that. Just look for things that either point you to God or point you away from him. And, yeah. Melanie Wilson (16:53) That is so good. I love that the simplicity of that. Are there things in this film that are pointing us toward God or away from God? Just excellent. Wilson Hickman (16:55) Mm-hmm. And what God says about us, because that's not even necessarily... I think a film could theoretically not have anything directly to say about who God is, but what does the film say about who humanity is? Is it saying that we are our own saviors? That if we just get good enough, we can make the world a paradise ourselves? That's equally dangerous, because that's not true. We need a savior. We're not our own saviors. Melanie Wilson (17:10) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm. Right, right, so good. Just preach it. Excellent. Wilson Hickman (17:32) Yeah, I do my preaching on these podcasts, but when I tell my stories, I don't want to be preaching. No. Melanie Wilson (17:39) I know, I know you don't, I know you don't. Okay, so with your storytelling, how do you hope that your, so what, the Lost Healer is a, how would you describe it? What is the particular genre of it, besides fantasy? Wilson Hickman (17:58) So yeah, it's a character-driven fantasy drama. Melanie Wilson (18:03) Drama, okay. Wilson Hickman (18:04) Basically, what happened- it's a story about a young princess whose kingdom is invaded when she's only a child. That having grown up without her parents and growing up under enemy occupation, she embarks on a dangerous quest to find a forbidden relic that can free her- that's prophesied to free her people. But, most of her people have lost faith in this prophecy, including her brother, who's now being manipulated and controlled by the- the high king who took their kingdom over, and now he wants to her brother up as like this puppet king. And, ⁓ her brother is, you know, Melanie Wilson (18:31) Hmm. Wilson Hickman (18:33) with good intentions going along with it because he wants to maintain the fragile peace and not lose what's left of his family. But Princess Kiva, our main character, she still believes that their kingdom can be set free according to this prophecy and so she embarks on this quest to find the healer, the lost relic, which is where the title comes from. And along the way, she ends up inspiring hope in others, including one of the enemy knights, and slowly brings him over to the light side. And basically, the story is largely inspired by how Christians are to ⁓ live in this world as we wait for the return of Christ. Melanie Wilson (19:07) Hmm. Wilson Hickman (19:07) ⁓ There may be people that we have difficulty reaching with the truth, like our friends, our family, our relatives, ⁓ people close to us who it's harder to witness to them because we're afraid of saying the wrong thing and driving them away from Jesus. But as we live out our faith consistently, Lord willing, then we start to influence even strangers around us who we may not know are watching us. so Kiva and this young knight kind of represent that as he is starting to realize the cruelty of his masters and the hope that she has because of her faith and the truth of her faith as he actually sees her finding clues to where the healer is hidden and he's been taught his whole life these things don't exist and so that opens his eyes and ⁓ all along the way he was trying to reach her brother but is actually reaching those around her as well without even realizing it and there's so much more I could tell you about the story because I've written more episodes but I don't want to spoil anything ⁓ needless to say there's more characters there's more ⁓ Melanie Wilson (19:59) Right. Wilson Hickman (20:04) plot twists that come down the line, but that's basically the essence of this first proof of concept episode that we're now sending through its Film Festival circuit. Yeah. Melanie Wilson (20:11) Okay, okay. what's the hope for it? So just kind of explain it to me because I'm just, I'm not in that world. Wilson Hickman (20:25) Sure, sure. So the proof of concept episode right now, we're in the marketing phase. So we're basically trying to build an audience for the series as well as ⁓ find an executive producer who can help us raise funds for season one. So that's the stage we're currently in. So we're doing social media campaigns. It's going to film festivals and by God's grace, it's actually been doing very well in the film festivals. It won best TV series at ICFF this year, which is International Christian Film Festival. It's gotten several other award nominations and we're just grateful. for how far God has taken it and now we're just praying for the right production partner to bring season one completely to life. Melanie Wilson (21:02) Okay, so one part I do understand is that if you can show people that you have an audience of people who want to see this, they want to see it brought to the screen, ⁓ I know that what we can do to help you is to watch your proof of concept. ⁓ Wilson Hickman (21:05) Yes. Exactly. Melanie Wilson (21:28) episode I guess, okay, of the Lost Healer. So where can we go to see it and ⁓ tell us what else we can do to help you? Wilson Hickman (21:29) Exactly. Yes. Yes, so you can go to thelosthealer.com. That's our series website, the proof of concept episode is right there on the homepage. I also encourage you to sign up for our newsletter, Become an Insider, because you'll be the first to hear about series updates. We release exclusive behind the scenes content. And then you'll also be ⁓ given like... world-building details of what's coming in the future seasons and all that sort of thing. And very exciting content actually coming down the line. We're about to release an extended cut of one of the scenes in the episodes that has additional dialogue and world-building details. So you want to go to thelostealer.com and then you can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram at The Lost Healer series. Melanie Wilson (22:18) Okay, the Lost Healer series, perfect. Well, I will definitely have ⁓ that website and ⁓ the social media that you just mentioned in the show notes. ⁓ I am just thrilled to have met you and I am going to be praying for you and for this series because I absolutely believe along with you that God can use this to change hearts and minds and to draw people to him or at least ⁓ form a closer relationship, a more trusting relationship with people who do believe in him ⁓ through this creative ⁓ endeavor that you have started. And I'm just, I'm so impressed, Wilson. I really, really am. And I know that God has given you the vision and that he is giving you the enthusiasm. to carry it forward and I'm just so excited to see where it goes for you. Wilson Hickman (23:21) Thank you so much. Thank you for having me on. This has been awesome.