Episode 11 - Putting Faith on Film with Phil Cunningham
Phil Cunningham’s journey from farmer to filmmaker has taken all sorts of turns. He produced Africa’s first ever feature-length animated movie, lost everything he had, created a successful Youtube series, and released a film on Netflix. Today, the Sunrise Productions founder is working on an animated version of the biblical story of David. He joins the show to talk about the power of excellent storytelling and why he thinks the African film industry can leave an impression on the big Hollywood studios.
Episode Transcript
Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.
Jacktone: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur Africa podcast. We are committed to spotlighting the voices of entrepreneurs and innovators shaping the marketplace across the continent. This week we are featuring Phil Cunningham. Phil is a leader in Africa's entertainment industry, but he didn't start out that way. He grew up in a rural area of Zimbabwe and started a small agricultural business to make money as a young man. He didn't see his first film until he was 14, but when he did, it changed his life. He immediately recognized its power and looked for ways to tell great stories. In the late nineties, he wrote and produced Africa's first full length animation film. Today, he runs Sunrise Productions, the studio behind the massively successful YouTube series and Netflix film Jungle Beat. He has bigger aspirations with his next project, though a beautifully animated rendition of the story of David. He joins the show to talk about storytelling and why he thinks Christians shouldn't be intimidated by the giants of their industries.
Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to Faith Driven Entrepreneur, Africa. I'm here as always with Ndidi. Ndidi good morning.
Ndidi Nwuneli: Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Great to be here, Henry.
Jacktone: So I'm all kinds of fired up. I'm a parent. You're a parent. We've got kids. We know the impact of culture on them. We know the impact of storytelling, of animation, of being able to just communicate real truths from the Bible. And we have a great African story today from somebody who has done that with excellence and its scale. And Phil Cunningham is with us on the program in the virtual studio, if you will. Phil, welcome.
Phil Cunningham: HENRY Thank you so much. Thanks for the invites. It's so special to be part of this podcast. Thank you.
Henry Kaestner: So there's so much that we want to talk to you about today. And we're starting off on kind of a like a trivial note and it's maybe even a little bit of a distraction from the larger story, which we're going to get into, of course. But I was intrigued by just one detail of your story that fascinating, and that is that a guy that has put so much excellence and contributions to the world of film didn't watch a movie until he's 14. And it echoes a story that we told on this program for the FDE Global Podcast with a guy named Dallas Jenkins who did the Chosen Series, and he wasn't allowed to watch movies until he was 13. So you were 14? He was 13, and he surprised us all when he told us the name of the movie that he finally got to see when he's 13 because his dad was a filmmaker, having done the Left Behind series. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but his dad says can't watch any movies until you're 13. I thought, Wow, what's that first movie going to be? I thought it would be Christian. I thought it'd be, you know, Charlton Heston, Ten Commandments or something like that. And interestingly, the first movie that Dallas Jenkins watched when he was 13 years old was The Godfather.
Phil Cunningham: Wow.
Henry Kaestner: That's interesting. It was really interesting, especially knowing his father in the stories there. And I think it was something along the lines of wanting his son to see story construction and be brought into the story the way that his father thought that Francis Ford Coppola did. He didn't want his son to be influenced by any other thing other than what he thought was movie perfection. And I don't think that as orthodox or evangelical Christians, we might necessarily put that up there is the must see for your kids Sunday school group. And yet that was the answer. So we're going to ask the same question of you and then we going to get off of this tangent and I'm going to get right back into your story. But what was the first movie that you saw when you were 14 that helped inspire you towards this career you're on now?
Phil Cunningham: No thank you. Firstly, I think there's an amazing story about Dallas us just to go from zero to The Godfather.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah, that's quite a shock.
Phil Cunningham: Mine was not quite so drastic and the reason I didn't see movies, we grew up very far from electricity, water on a beautiful farm. And so we just grew up outdoors and we had no TV in the house or anything like that. But anyway.
Henry Kaestner: By the way, that sounds really nice.
Phil Cunningham: It was amazing. But to answer your question, the first movie I watched was the animated feature film The Jungle Book, the original 2D, which was just the most amazing, obviously, the most beautiful, amazing story, full of life and energy. So not quite The Godfather.
Henry Kaestner: But it inspired you. So that's very interest.ng So that inspired you and, you know, a couple of decades on and then you produced The Jungle Beat. And so is it fair to say that watching The Jungle Book early had some level of inspiration for your career?
Phil Cunningham: Yeah, I'd never actually drawn a line back until you mentioned it to the title Jungle Jungle. But I think animation caught my imagination watching The Jungle Book because it was just so beautiful, so vibrant, so accessible. I think that's what caught my imagination was the animation aspect. Yeah. Yeah.
Henry Kaestner: Gotcha. Okay, so you grew up on a farm, and I'm imagining this idyllic childhood growing up. Talk to us a little bit more about that. Taught us about what it was like growing up on a farm in Zimbabwe. Tell us about your family and who you are and how you developed the faith and just bring us up until when you really started leaning into your vocation. Please.
Phil Cunningham: No, I think just looking back, you don't realize it at the time, Henry. But I had the most incredible upbringing. My parents were incredible people. We grew up in the wild and in the outdoors. And I could remember particularly my mom saying, when we're getting into our teenage years, she was saying "Phil,". And to my brothers and sisters, well, you know, when David, as your age, he was killing giants. And when Joseph was your age just doing this and say, you guys, come on, you've got to get out there as teenagers, she was really trying to inspire us as teenagers to dream big, to live big. But obviously, Jesus was at the center. And then for me, just growing up in the wild, I really personally connected with God. It was like, particularly one time canoeing down the Zambezi River, which is a beautiful river in Zimbabwe. And I used to spend weeks there, loved it. And just on that river with you saw a thunderstorm or beautiful little yellow flower or a lion charging or elephants in the distance. I just saw the fingerprints of the artists of God and I just fell in love with God. I was like, Wow, if I just look at the artistry around me, I just want to know that person is like, he's just incredible. So for me, that's when my journey with Jesus started and I just fell in love with God. And then I think I always love storytelling. Henry Like when I was a little kid, although I grew up in the wild, every weekend I was drawing cartoons, like graphic novels, Avengers style, all these cartoons. So I just always loved storytelling. And as I looked at it around me, I just realized that so many of my friends, their view of God was so dismal. It was like either he was this austere, angry character, who ought to judge them. And I was like, That's not the God I've encountered in nature. Yeah. So that's where it started out in nature. I just fell in love with God. And particularly that verse that Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth and the life. And I was like, Oh wow. If I could connect people through story, which was my passion, it would just be an amazing thing to do. And I don't know. For me to carry on a little bit further into that story is how I got into film. Was that coming up? And another question.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah, no, no bridges there, please.
Phil Cunningham: Okay So I went to university and our whole family studied agriculture. That's what we did. So I went to university and study agriculture. But while I was at university, I couldn't get away from this feeling. And I started watching movies a lot. And I was just struck by the incredible power of movies to move society to shape thinking. And I realized that stories and particularly told through movies like Trojan Horses, they get under people's defense mechanisms. And for good or bad, they plant a seed, you know, they can in germinate and grow. And I was just struck by the film industry and I was like, it's incredible, the power of the film industry. And so many of my friends I was watching from these few square kilometers in Hollywood this incredible impact on their view of marriage, of life. And it wasn't all bad like. There's a lot of good in it. There was like inspirational movies as well and movies that inspired you to be courageous or be persevering. But in a lot of it, there was also a lot of bad that eroded marriage or eroded world view on God. And I was like, Wow, if I could get into the film industry, it would be an incredible way to connect with people and share my passion for Jesus, basically, and God. And that's where it all kind of started to take shape. And I love being an entrepreneur. I love being a businessman. So there was no one in my family, Henry, vaguely connected to the film world, so I started my own agricultural business. I'll give you a quick, brief summary, and that was going super well. And my wife is a very brave person. She said, Phil, you've got to follow your passion. Your passion is to tell movies and to tell stories. So I read a saying that says An eagle chases two rabbits, both will get away. So in my wisdom, I shut down my agricultural business and decided to focus 100%. On the movie business. At first I regretted it because I just realized it's an incredibly different industry and so much about business as we know about relationship. And so shifting lanes was incredibly hard. But that's a quick overview. And so then we started the film business and I'll stop there because I'm sure it'll come up in other questions. But that's the headline of how we got into the film business. I'll just tell you one thing my one friend said to me, Phil, you're saying you going to start a film business in Zimbabwe is like saying you going to start a Ferrari factory in your backyard? And he said, but they make one cent out of that I'll eat my hat. So I was like, Well, thanks for the. Thanks for the encouragement. But yeah, we go.
Henry Kaestner: We could do an entire podcast on the eagle chasing two rabbits, just as an entrepreneur tries to understand what to go with. So thank you for bringing that up. You are 100%. Right. And so you decided to chase the rabbit and you caught him really cool. I love the fact you've got this agricultural background, you know, that's so near and dear to Ndidi's heart. Isn't that awesome.
Ndidi Nwuneli: That's so exciting, and obviously, I'm glad the rest of your family is still involved in agriculture because we just need all the dynamic energy being channeled into that. But I'm equally excited that you embarked on this journey in the film landscape and that comment you made about starting a film company in Zimbabwe in the most difficult times I can't imagine. So just walk us through a few of the milestones through your enterpreneurial journey in film, which is a very difficult industry. On how God played a part in those milestones.
Phil Cunningham: Now wonderful. Thank you. So the first movie we did was in Zimbabwe and we were inspired by the street art in Zimbabwe. So they take bits of wire, copper, rubbish, if I can say, and they make up these beautiful characters along the street. So we decided to create a feature film. It's model animation, but we call it junk-mation And we took all these beautiful characters and we made a film called The Legend of the Sky Kingdom. Truthfully, I knew nothing about film business, so it was my school fees. If I can say this, we won lots of awards at art festivals, but we didn't make any money commercially, which was interesting, and part of that was the storytelling process. So we literally just wrote our first script, no storyboards straight in production, and actually financed it through our agricultural profits at that stage. But I learned so much about the film industry Nididi, through that process, and this is where the ego chasing two rabbits story came in, because we were still in Zimbabwe and we thought, Oh my goodness, if we really want to get into the film industry properly, we need to be willing to move. And I love Zimbabwe, so this was not an easy decision, although I must say it was chaos in Zimbabwe. That's super hyperinflation, political chaos. So it wasn't an easy business environment, but particularly from a film industry point of view, it was going to be impossible. So we moved to Cape Town with three little kids and we decided to set up in Cape Town. I'll just tell you one quick thing. When we left Zimbabwe, there were a few families that moved with us and we put all our personal possessions into these containers on the train, all our computer equipment, furniture. We arrived at Cape Town, opened the containers, and they had been robbed. It was completely empty. There wasn't one computer left any furniture. And I had like eight families all looking at me, saying, Phil what have we done? What have you done? You know, moving us to Cape Town. So the idea wasn't without its challenges, but it was an incredible time actually just moving to Cape Town and resetting up in Cape Town. Yeah, I do not know if that answers your question.
Ndidi Nwuneli: That was definitely does and the tenacity, the vision, the patience to build what you've been able to achieve over the last 30 years is truly inspirational. And I think film has the power to change narratives, to build bridges, obviously, to draw people to Christ. So can you just talk us through how you have used this medium in your Christian witness as well?
Phil Cunningham: Yeah, definitely. And just quickly to touching on one thing you said Ndidi and I'll get to that question in terms of God's timing in our lives and how it works, those three people's lives from the Bible, it's really spoke to me. So that's David, Moses and Joseph. So Joseph had a dream. God gave him a clear dream of what he's going to do with him. And then things just went south, you know, he went became a slave and he ended up in jail. And that was an interesting journey to fulfill his dream. But that dream was true. And in the end, God did fulfill it. But his journey to get there was interesting. You know, Moses was given a very clear calling and he ends up in the desert for 40 years and then eventually he gets to fulfill his destiny. David is anointed king and then he runs to the wilderness for seven years. So the one thing I learned in our journey is that I think what happens in the time God gives you this dream, this vision, and then often there's this if I can call it desert time, it's time in the wilderness which we definitely experienced. God kindly takes you through it, although it feels tough at the time. But what I think we learned through that time is God is circumcising our hearts. That's what He was doing to Joseph, to David, to Moses. Like, Yes, you've got a calling. But through that desert time. And through those hard times of getting somewhere, God really takes out the pride of life and works on your heart and does something in your heart that you can't do yourself, which is bring in a real humility. Just take you on that journey.
Ndidi Nwuneli: Sorry, just to take this further, because I think it's really great. What sustains you through that wilderness experience, especially when you're not making money and you're not achieving the targets in the industry that you've set out to achieve?
Phil Cunningham: Yeah. So the one thing I'll say that honestly sustains you is not your self and not your own. There's a verse in the Bible says does not depend on man's desire effort, but on God's mercy. So I can honestly say it's God's mercy that sustains you because we doubts, we give up, we go backwards. But the one thing I learned from that is that the Lord is my shepherd. He is the good shepherd. So honestly, you can't take credit and say, well, I had perseverance, so I have courage, because the one thing I learned was despite me, God took us through that wilderness time. And actually that's incredibly exciting because I was like, Oh, wow, I can rely on the shepherd, not of myself, to get me through this wilderness. The one encouragement I'd give to anyone is going to the wilderness is Don't panic, you will fail, you will doubt, but you've got a good shepherd and he will sustain you and he will get you through it because we're all human and we definitely need that good shepherd. We need our good shepherd to get us through it. If that's answered. So I learned, through wilderness, even more and more how fallible I was and how amazing he was. Yeah. Which was part of the wilderness experience.
Ndidi Nwuneli: I love that encouragement, because many of us called by God to enter new industries like you were going through this world and extras, but the mercy of God sustained you. And that trust that you built through that refinery's fire was probably critical as you moved into the success realm now. And you're doing amazing. So just tell us quickly about the new work that you've been doing and how that is is changing narratives, but also tackling some of these critical issues in the ecosystem.
Phil Cunningham: Yeah, so I think I gonna answer your questions. So tell me if I go off track. The biggest movie you working on right now is a movie on The Life of David, which I lean towards that became a dream 20 years ago, and I think there's a number of kinds of movies and they all carry important. Some are allegorical, and some are like C.S. Lewis movies or Lord of the Rings or the Narnia movies and books. Those are allegorical and they're incredibly powerful. And in some, in the right context can be more overt or more direct, which is like, for example, the life and the story of David. But just how we got to David quickly. So one of my passions, we were talking about it early is quality. And so we started a brand. One of the properties we worked on is a brand called Jungle Beat, for example, and the main goal behind that property. It hasn't got an overtly Christian message, but the beauty of it is it's about love and friendship at its core. And that just so you know Ndidi, that brand just took off. We've now got 8 million subscribers on YouTube. We get 150 million views a month on YouTube, which is crazy. We did our first animated feature film was released on Netflix last year and we are in production of the second film. But I'll say a lot of jungle beats at its core. It's got love, but it was a stepping stone towards a movie like David's, and it was towards David that we were building. So I think if I'm answering your question, there's so many different kinds of film and they all play different roles and have a different place in the ecosystem. So Jungle Beat for me was very much more in the allegorical space, and quite likely it was more entertainment and fun, but it was building skill building. You know, when David went to fight Goliath, he said, I fought the lion and the bear I can take on the Giants. So I think for me, Jungle Beat, that experience of Jungle Beat was like fighting a lion or bear building skill, building team, building pipeline to prepare us to take on a massive project like David, which is right in the middle of now. But just to say, I think there's a variety of kinds of movies we can all make. Yeah.
Henry Kaestner: Well, I'm fascinated by this. And I do think about allegory and I think about the different images and illustrations that you've provided so far about the life of a Faith Driven Entrepreneur. And it's as the eagle chasing the rabbits. But then it's the good shepherd is going through the valley of shadow and death and just this really needing to rely on God. And I can see this now in the setting of this animated feature. And yet I think that's kind of the story of the life of David. Right. And it's just, you know, when I think about the life of an entrepreneur or a business owner, and I think about this man or woman who has a heart after God, and then I see it kind of in your life. I mean, you may or may not be comfortable with this comparison, but your story of coming out of Zimbabwe, going down to Cape Town, having things stolen and kind of taking on, if you will, I mean, it's not like you decided to compete against the big studios in L.A., etc., but it feels like a David and Goliath story as you think as you have been producing and working on this film of David, do you see echoes of that in your own? An entrepreneurial walk? Or is there another movie that is yet to be told about the Entrepreneurial story? But so much of it strikes me as being, you know, when you look back on his life as seen elements of that in my life crying out to God and all that, just riff on that a little bit. Do you see yourself in the life of David as you're telling the life of David.
Phil Cunningham: In so many ways, really? Henry It's amazing the number of parallels we see in the movie making and the journey we're on. And I'll give you a few examples. There's a beautiful verse which says, God choose the weak and foolish things of the world, to shame the wise. And it starts with David. When the anointing happened, he wasn't even called. And so there's these seven brothers who are bigger and stronger and more intelligent. And, you know, the prophet has to say, well, have you got any more sons? Because it's none of these. And oh y there is David. He's in the fields, you know. So the first thing I'll say about a David story, it doesn't start with somebody who's obviously gifted or talented. It's like God has got a plan. And going back to that, it's God is the hero of the story, not David. And in our story, not us. God must be the hero of the story, you know. So that's one thing is like I feel I want to talk a bit about Africa later and why Africa, but just to grip into that a little bit, I think the reason God decided to make a movie on David with a studio in Africa was because it was seen as the least of the least we in terms of the film industry, we are seen as the least, you know. But I think that's why God chose this very reason to work here. And then on the journey, I see so many parallels as we go. I'll give you one example in we halfway through the movie, Henry, and Ndidi, when we were one stage through it when David entered the Valley of Elah. I read a Beautiful Thing of Eugene Petersen's. He said, David, into the Valley of Elah. He had a God dominated imagination and everyone else had a Goliath dominated imagination. But what happened as David went to fight it with the best will in the world, the pros around him, try to put on Saul's armor like he has a breastplate, he has a sword. And as we set out on the journey, we had a lot of professionals who came in and said, Phil we think you need this and you need that. And it was all well intention, but I could feel, in fact, I really felt God speaking through Saul's armor and saying, Phil, you need to be authentic. I've given you a calling. You need to go with what's authentic to you and with what I've given you. So take off all this armor, which is hard to do when people who are pros are putting it on you and take it all off and go and fight with what I gave you, with what I showed you in the Zambezi River and in the bush in Africa. Take that beauty and that wildness and put it on screen. You know, don't be tanks. So again, I saw an allegory there with David's story and our story, and we had to put aside a lot of advice and actually go back to what we knew well from telling The Jungle Beat Story and the way we did it, because the danger was Hollywood. And there's a lot of brilliance that comes out of Hollywood, but the potential dangers are can be very derivative and very yeah, just it's very derivative and lacks spirit and heart often. And so I feel like that's where our story parallels next to David's. It's like gunfighters with a slingshot. I chose you because you got a slingshot because you are the least and take that and fight the Giants, you know. So that's answering your question.
Henry Kaestner: Well, it does. I mean, you're talking about indeed, the life of David does mirror your own and without calling yourself David. But you see this element of it. And I think that's really interesting. I want to get into the times where you have found yourself crying out to God a bit, and it may be artificial to weave it into the financing story, but I still come back to the, you know, your original creative start into animation was funded off of profits from your agricultural background, how have you funded this and are there times when you're like, Oh my goodness, I've got this God shaped vision about what to do, but how can I pull it off? Where am I going to find the funding from it? And do you cry out to God in that situation? Tell us about how do you finance the you know, the type of product that's seen by so many people? What does that look like?
Phil Cunningham: Oh that's such a great question. I mean, the first thing I'd say on that, Henry, is for me, the first thing you need to start with is vision. So the one thing I was super clear on is I wanted to make a movie and I took back to how that talks to finance, but I wanted to make a movie. I competed with Tangled and Frozen and genuinely the Disney movies of the world. So that was clear in my mind even 20 years ago. That actually was clear in my mind. That's where we want to go. So with that in mind, there's a few things which are so much more valuable. I don't say this glibly than finance, and I'll get to finance, but is the first thing I realized is people. So I was reading Michael Dell's biography saying he always try to employ people smarter than himself because it just pull this curve like this. So from 20 years ago, I decided, right, I always want to employ people better than myself, which is not always that hard. But anyway. But try and find people who are smarter in this field and more talents than you and just keep that philosophy with the money you have got invested in people and keep pulling that curve up. So that's one thing. The other thing about vision, I felt it's a bit like there are so many times where you feel lost and you feel like you're on a ship and there's. Deep mist and somewhere out there, you know, there's the shore, but you're not entirely sure where the shore is. But I'll tell you what struck me was the feeding of the 5000. And I love what Jesus said to them. He's like, you know, you feed them. And they were like, But how that's going to take a year's wages and I felt God saying Phil you make this movie. And I was like, But I'm staying in the tip of Africa. I don't have this budget. How am I going to finance this? You know? And I felt him saying, well, what have you got? So I was like, oh, okay, well, what have I got? And that is an incredibly powerful thing, which I'm sure many people know and you certainly know you guys and Henry and Ndidi. But just start with what you have got a few loaves and fishes. And then what I started to see was how Jesus multiplied that in different ways. And I won't go into detail now unless you want to get into it. But what I noticed was as we bought what we've got, not what we didn't have, we just started to see it multiply. And that's where we've seen miracles and we still need to see more miracles. But that's part of the joy of the journey. But we've seen incredible miracles along the way by just simply bringing the loaves and fishes that we had. Yeah. And then seeing what God could do after that.
Ndidi Nwuneli: I love it. It's so inspirational Phil. And I would actually like to dig into that's a bit deeper the miracles and the multiplications with what you have in your hands. Many people don't think you can do that in Africa. They think you have some Hollywood, some break into the global movie industry, but you've done it. So just tell us a bit more about how God multiplied what you had in your hand.
Phil Cunningham: Thank you. So, first of all, we started off with Jungle Beat as one example, just started being faithful that there were small stories, by the way. So just start of trying to tell those as excellently as we could. And the other thing I really felt was hold back, keep the gunpowder dry, don't try to take a shortcut. I always wanted to make a movie on David, but I'll quickly speak to that because I think what Esau did with a pot of stew. He sold his birthright for a pot of stew because he had a short term appetite. So we had quite a few people Ndidi, came along and offered to invest, but it was at a certain cost. So it was quite hard to be honest, to hold the line and really not sell your birthright for pot of stew. I think that's one journey of an entrepreneur and we know Abraham and he was given a promise that will about Isaac and he created Ishmael because he became impatient and he decided to create his own momentum. And I did make that mistake, I want to say a few times and I learned the hard way. It's like, Oh, why I wait for God's timing? But going back to some of the miracles. So Jungle Beat just started out as a very simple thing, but grew beyond our expectation, and that started to finance and take us on our journey as well. And then people bought into our life. The one thing I want to say is I'm speaking to one of my relatives who raised a lot of money for NGOs, and I am saying to him, how do you go about it? And he's saying Phil, there's three rules. It's a relationship, relationship, relationship. So I was like, okay. So as we went on our journey and built relationships, people joined in the adventure. So finance came from remarkable ways through properties we were working on, through people who got inspired by the journey and joined the journey. And one particular part of David, which is very rare, I don't think this often happens, but someone who financed our demo, we've done a David demo in 2017 that speaks to the movie. Actually, she was driving on the road and heard an audible voice that God said to her, I want you to finance this demo. And she's like, What? And she thought maybe I'd put a speaker on the back of her car. But that was quite a radical and unusual thing that actually happened. But mostly it wasn't that radical or unusual. It was just little by little it grew and grew and grew. Yeah, but I'd say one of the key things was relationship through relationship in particular, it multiplied. And I'm a huge believer in building relationships for the right reasons with people. And out of that comes multiplication.
Ndidi Nwuneli: I love that story of the lady who thought it was a speaker in her car, because when you're working in purpose and you're obedient to God, he sends resources and angels and that's reflected in your life. Phil, I love it and I want to touch on something you mentioned, which is really around excellence because in your industry, you know, you can rush and produce something just to get at the door or from your consistent commitment to excellence, it means taking a little more time, spending a little more money. How do you keep pace with that and what is your guiding principle?
Phil Cunningham: Yeah, so thank you. And I'm just so passionate about excellence. There's that one verse in the Bible says, Whatever you do, do it with all your heart and as Christians. And if I look at God's character, he said it be hot or cold, but don't be lukewarm. And I really think it applies to the way we do things in life. It's like he is excellent as a creator and I feel so inspired to be excellent just because I can see his excellence in what he does, you know? And so not to be lukewarm. My one brother's got a saying. Don't be 'naff' about it, just be wholehearted. It's like whatever you got to do. But along the journey of excellence, the one thing I really want to share and the best way I can share is actually from a book I recently read called Atomic Habits, and he's talking about the aggregation of marginal gains. And very quickly, this is a worthwhile storytelling. I think he talks about the British cycling team in 400 years and then he won one Olympic medal. Then someone took over and between 2007 and 2017, they won 66. Olympic medals. They won the Tour de France three times and they broke, I think, a hundred records. And what the person who took it over put it down to was aggregation of marginal gain. So he spoke to the cyclist and got a surgeon to show them how to wash their hands. They didn't pick up germs, the pillows they slept with at home, they took on tour or similar ones that they slept well, on the inside of the truck, they painted it white ao they could see dust, so dust didn't get into the cogs. And I think one of the thing about excellence is it's not often a sort of one massive thing you do. It's the aggregation of marginal gains. And if we as Christians are really passionate about paying attention to that, I think and it takes time to get excellence. That's the other thing. Excellence, like you are talking about perseverance, the aggregation of marginal gains. You don't see it overnight, you see it over time, but it's paying attention to incremental things that just do things better and then you get to excellence. One of the thing I'll say about the movie industry, but it applies to anything really, is that I would really say good is the enemy of great. And you've got to really believe that because it's too easy to stop at good. But actually, if you see good as the enemy of great, you actually push pass good. And I remember reading an article with Jerry Bruckheimer, one of the- he's an amazing film maker. They asked him, what makes you such a good filmmaking? He is saying was two things. One, the ability to say no. And another thing I remember him saying, you walk into a movie, imagine himself moving into a movie theater, seeing up the posters of all of other film, imagining his poster and saying, Would I go watch my own movie? Truthfully, would I go watch the latest James Bond or the latest Bourne Identity? As you could truthfully say, I watched my movie. Then he would like, okay, I'm going to make that movie. And I think you also that pursuit of excellence is hard, but it's that aggregation of marginal gains, I think, is where you can eventually get excellence.
Ndidi Nwuneli: I love it. I love it. So many great nuggets. And I want to push on this issue of excellence in Africa because you are creating excellence from Africa. What keeps you motivated about working in Cape Town, working in South Africa and telling these amazing stories from the continent?
Phil Cunningham: I love it. So the one thing about, okay I gonna talk specifically about the film industry, but the one thing I love, I was speaking to a friend of mine. He said, look, where ever you are in the world, you're going to be fighting a snake of some kind. So in the first world you're fighting a python, and in Africa you're fighting a cobra. So in Africa you're fighting a clear and present danger. In the first world, you wake up one day and you just feel like the life has been sucked out of you slowly and squeezed out of you. So, you know, pick your heart, choose your heart. So wherever you go, you're going have different challenges. And I find it quite an interesting thing, though, because the thing about fighting a cobra is it keeps you awake. It keeps you on your feet, keeps you alert. And so one thing I love about Africa, it's a continent of just deep beauty and richness, but it's also of stark contrasts. And that for me, my senses are highly alerted in Africa because there's such stark contrast when it gets to the film business. I think it's so easy if you're in Hollywood or in the first world to become very derivative. When you live in Africa. I think it's easier to be original and to actually flow with originality and let that create a flow, be original. And then I think Africa has got such a beautiful beats and vibe and energy to it. When I'm a creative, there's so much to tap into and I'm like, You can tap into the beauty and the heart of Africa. But what's happened actually in our industry with COVID is your ability to work with brilliant other people around the world to complement that and actually help bring out that heart more beautifully has actually just grown. I mean, it was always there. But like now we are also working with artists in Spain, in Los Angeles, in the UK. But at the heart of it it's an African studio, but we still able to tap into some of the world brilliance as well. So the big word I would argue why I love Africa is because I feel it's easy to be original. When you come out of Africa, it's easier not to be derivative, and I think that it can apply to whatever you do to just think differently, to think out of the box. And that's what I love about Africa. By necessity, we've often got to think out of the box because we've got to solve problems in a different way to the first world. And I think that creates such an entrepreneurial spirit often. And I'm a huge believer that we can do things brilliantly out of Africa and yet capture the electricity that Africa gives. So yeah, I'm passionate about Africa and what it can give to the world.
Henry Kaestner: I love that. I also maybe because we're talking about film, I'm drawn into Indiana Jones and him coming down into the shaft of the pyramid and he's got snakes all around him. Maybe you're suggesting that if we as entrepreneurs can kind of get into this clear and present danger, our senses are alert to opportunities and it's life or death and we're just fully alive. And maybe that's where that illustration starts. Maybe I'm not going to be surrounded by myself. I can tell you that my one snake story in South Africa is I went on a bike ride and went by a black snake. And in Maryland, where I grew up, a black snake is very tame and there's nothing wrong with it. In South Africa, it's a black mamba. And when my guide came up right next to me and his complexion had turned to white. He said, next time you see a black snake, don't go anywhere near it. I made quite an impression. And there's a sharpness and you've tapped into that from Africa without losing that kind of African centrality. And yet I want to bring it back to another nugget, if you will, because you've got some great ones here on the call to create and excellence, and these are the marks of a Faith Driven Entrepreneur. But another thing that we look at, we talk a lot about is the concept of team. You have team all around the world. When you see the credits at the end of one of your movies, it goes on for a long time. How do you, as a creative leader, harnessing the talents from people across the world, but primarily in Africa? How do you cast vision and how do you invite people into something that is more than just a 9 to 5 job, which allows them also to be excellent and lean into their call to create?
Phil Cunningham: It's such an amazing question and the film industry in particular is interesting because you're dealing in the book Creativity Inc, which is about Pixar. He talks about how creativity challenges technology and technology challenges creativity. So you've got quite different kinds of people working within the animation industry in particular. You've got a lot of creatives which are creatives always interesting to work with, and I mean that in a beautiful way. And you've got a lot of tech people also interesting in another way, and then you've got marketing. And so it's quite a broad spectrum of people. And I want to go back to David for a second because we learned and I think David's life has got such incredible leadership lessons for us. And the one I want to talk about is when he was in the wilderness and everyone was in debts, distress or running from the law, gather to David. So I was like, Oh my goodness, what a bunch of people to get. And that's what you've got to work with. Which was interesting. But out of that, he created these mighty men. And this was the start of his nucleus of an amazing group of people. So that was amazing. I just was struck by the power of leadership in that sense with David, and I'll come back to that. The other thing I was saying, going back to vision and I'll cue back to the David thing is I remember my mum talking to me about Hudson Taylor and his Missionary Society to China and all the other missionary societies were promising look, if you come, we'll take care of your kids school fees, your medical aid, and we'll do this for you and Hudson Taylor's course if you come with me, I promise you death, I promise you malaria. But I promise you a chance to preach the gospel. And I think that was so inspiring. And his missionary society just grew the strongest because it attracted the right kind of people and there's a beautiful saying as you come up the stairs in our studio, which I pulled off of Lord of the Rings, the little dwarf Gimli, he says, "certainty of death's more chance of success. What are we waiting for? And so I think when you're casting vision and not true for every area of life in every industry, but for this kind of thing, I think that's important, like the sieving out of Gideon's men to make sure that the call is very clear, that you don't apologize for the risk or for the challenges or the hardships because you are going to go on a journey together. It's going to get hard. So I think the first thing for me when you're building team is make sure that unapologetically you give the vision and the call and you outline the danger. And I love that's what Jesus does with us as well. He doesn't say guys this is going to be easy and I'm going to answer all your answers is like, you know, take up your cross and follow me. And I feel that the call is a critical thing. And then once you get the call, the other thing I'd say is like really trying to build people who, like I saying earlier, always employing people better than yourself, to have the humility and don't be insecure about that luck. Just employ the best people you can find and aim at that because they're just going to lift your game, lift your products. And I think that's something to pay attention to, is really trying to employ people smarter than yourself and be quite intentional about that. And yeah, the other thing I wanted to say for us as leaders as we go and like this is something for all of us to strive for one story of David's life that I love. It talks about when he was in the wilderness and he was thirsty and three of his mighty men heard him saying, Oh, I wish I could get water from the well of Bethlehem. And it was a Philistine garrison around Bethlehem at that time. And I just love the story. I did a bit more research into it that they fought their way through an entire Philistine garrison drew him water and brought him back water. And I was like, Oh my goodness, how much? They must have loved David to do that for him because he didn't command that. He didn't ask it. What had he done for them? He must have loved them and given to them in such an incredible way. And I was like, Wow, that's like God with us, like when God captures your heart, you'll go and fight your way through a Philistine Army to draw him water. Not because it's a religion, but because he's got your heart. But anyway, what I want to try and emulate and we don't always get it right, obviously, but is to give to the team around me. And I love that verse. The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve. So I think if we as leaders genuinely serve our team, you will win their hearts and then they'll do things for you that are beyond imagination. And I don't know if that's making sense, Henry, but I feel if we can cue into that the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve. It results in that kind of winning of hearts and people doing things that go beyond the norm that can take us to greatness. Yeah.
Ndidi Nwuneli: Phil, listening to you, I'm just so inspired and challenged and encouraged. I don't think there are many people like you in your industry. How have you built a community to support you to stay on the straight and narrow? And is there a community of believers in your industry that you've also been a part of or helped to create?
Phil Cunningham: Yeah, it's amazing. It's always God pulling together because the interesting thing, again, I want to quote David, Ndidi, because what you're saying is so right. It's about community, it's about God's body. And I love that thing. This is when he was in the wilderness. God also drew mighty people to him. So there's magnetism of God himself. There's people who've joined us Ndidi who are, it's literally miraculous that they would come. I'm like, Why are you coming? Because you're the best of the best. Like some of the guys. One guy joined us. He worked for 20 years at Pixar, for example, and he came to work on the David Project and it's like amazing that magnetism, but it's a God magnetism. The one thing that you speak to your community of believers, though, the first thing is make sure you marry an incredible person. So start there. So the one thing I'll say, my wife's got an amazing proverbs that says, if you want to go fast, go alone. This is an African proverb, by the way. If you want to go far, go together. And I think you can go fast on your own. But if you really want to go far, what you're talking about Ndidi, is build that community. That's one of the beautiful things about Africa, is that their understanding? I think in the West it's often lost like islands, but in Africa community still a powerful philosophy and it's genuinely a thing. And as we build the David things be surrounded by people from different walks of life who can speak into that projects and encourage and build and challenge. And so yeah, it's all about community and going far revolves around going together, not on your own. In other words, it's also not about Phil Cunningham or what I think, it's actually about what God is doing. I'm serving what God is doing, and so are they. And we're working together to flow with God. And would I say that's the other thing is like when you get into something that God's doing, it's amazing because I love that analogy of like God makes the waves, but we get the joy of surfing the waves. If you're a surfer, you'll understand that. So we are not generating the waves, we just surfing the waves. But linked to that is this community that's critical. Yeah. And I think on that it's like we've got it where we learn it. We don't have to. We learn it, God teaches us the hard way to listen to people around us. You know, that one probably which is basically often war fails for lack of counsel, build people you trust around you. We've got something Ndidi called the roundtable, which I really trust the leaders. We call it a roundtable on purpose. It's not a pyramid. I sit at the roundtable with my wife, the roundtable, and there is other people who sit at the roundtable, and that's our leadership. And we purposely call it a roundtable because we all there to talk on equal footing around the table. Yeah.
Henry Kaestner: There's so much there from building a team to getting community around you. I'm very, very grateful for this. As we come to close shortly, I want to bring it back to a question that came up originally from an interview with Dallas Jenkins and I always. And I ask this question because we have a ministry called Faith Driven Investor. This is sister ministry. And it was birthed out of the realization that some number of entrepreneurs were coming in and they're engaging with us in our blogs, in our podcasts, in our groups, in our conferences, and we'd offer these resources to them. And then at the end of the day, they'd say, Well, we appreciate the link to the podcast, but we're still hoping to find financing for the project we're on, the company we have, and so we started Faith Driven Investor with the goal of being able to link together Faith driven entrepreneurs and then faith driven investors. And we do it very imperfectly. Many faith driven entrepreneurs that come to us and hope for funding aren't able to get it, but it's allowed us to kind of really get into understanding different financing models. And there have been a lot of great matches that have been made. And in the podcast we did with Dallas Jenkins talking about The Chosen, we were really taken, by the way, that he's been able to use crowdfunding to be able to fund so much of his projects. Can you speak to a second about the opportunity for Faith Driven Investor is to be involved in projects like David and maybe you're set up a different way. But generally with all of us listening to this, we understand the impact of movies in our lives for you. You talked about The Jungle Book in a way that made an impression on you. For others, it's The Godfather. For me, the movie Wall Street and Chariots of Fire coming together at the end of the eighties informed so much about where I went. And I think we're starting to get that. But maybe you can just give some context around that about what you see is the future of financing both at Faith Driven and not. But have you looked at crowdsourcing, maybe riff on that a little bit?
Phil Cunningham: Yeah, that's wonderful. And maybe I'll use the David project because it's quite a good case study because it's a bit of a blend of private funding and crowdfunding, which is a bit different to the chosen so very quickly. So I use as a case study. Typically animated feature films cost 150 to $200 million to make just to give you a context. Okay. So our budget is $55 million to date we've raised 25 million and we're aiming to raise another 30. So we've still got a long way to go. The. Beginning of that financing came through a series of miracles which I shared with Ndidi about like the first miracle. And so the first part came to that. As we progress, what interests me about the chosen and crowdfunding was crowdfunding is not just about financing a project, but it's about building a community around that project, which is even more powerful than the finance, although the finance is obviously critical to do something. But what started interest me about crowdfunding was how incredibly powerful it is beyond just bringing in money into a project. You've now got these super fans of like, you've got this crowd who are really going to help you for most. Even if it's not on a movie but for something else, they're going to be on the journey with you. And it goes back to that thing. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And so crowdfunding sort of really interests me. We met the guys from Angel Studios who helped the Chosen get funded, and we did our first crowdfunding at the end of last year, which was really we raised $5 million in 30 days, which was incredibly successful. Now we're going to try and do another $30 million, but we're doing that in maybe August, September this year. But in the meantime, because there is such a big amount, we reaching out to private investors at the same time and there's room for private investors to invest in before we start our next round of crowdfunding. So we kind of going private investing, crowd investing. Now we've got a period where we can speak to private investors and then we go back to crowd investing again. And why I think the blend is quite nice because our budget is so big. I think if we just try to do crowd, we might not get to the budget, but if we just add privates, we wouldn't have the privilege of having a massive community around the project and what's happened with the Chosen, Henry, it's just incredible to see how powerful that community is in terms of making that product successful later on as well. So I really want to build up crowd with the Christian community and the Jewish community. And I think one thing I'd say about crowdfunding everything is unique. The Angel Studio guys in our industry are very good at what they do in terms of crowdfunding in the film industry, obviously each industry perhaps has got its own experts. It's a new Henry, but I'm becoming a huge fan of crowdfunding. I think it's such a powerful way to move forward and to keep the other thing, which is really important. If I went to Netflix or I got the money from a studio, we'd very quickly become the tail, not the head creatively. And I think the power of a crowd is that and this can apply to other industries besides the film. But for me it's particularly important because if you look at a movie like Noah, that was made by the Hollywood system, I feel it just drifted so far from the Bible because it was funded by studios. So if I wanted to keep creative integrity on the David movie, and often financing means you give up creative control. And I think crowdfunding means you can continue with creative control. You're still responsible. But yeah, I'm waffling a little bit, but I think you get what I'm trying to say.
Ndidi Nwuneli: I love it. Yeah. I mean, Phil, you just been so inspiring, and I know that the David movie's going to be so successful. It's going to touch the hearts and minds of people all over the world. And we're just so excited and proud of what you're doing, and we're coming along with you. I know Henry and I have been convinced we're coming along with you, and we always like to close out each episode by asking our guests what they're hearing from God and what God is teaching them right now. So what have you found in God's Word that has stuck out to you recently that you'd like to share with us?
Phil Cunningham: Thanks, Ndidi. That's the best question. So there's two verses of life to talk about. The one is from John 6, which is the work of God. Is thus to believe in the one he sent And one thing I've learned, Ndidi, is like, don't put trust in my self. My own efforts and my own desire are quite fickle. So I'm putting my hope in Jesus and in his ability to watch over me, just to say that again. And I love that verse Jesus is the way that truth and the life, whatever we facing, whatever problem, whatever challenge, the answers the same go back to Jesus and on my journey. Thanks for talking about the inspiration, but what I really want to say to you then is like, honestly, it's Jesus the whole way. And you know, as you learn that that's the biggest thing for me at the moment is it's becoming clearer and clearer every day that I can rely on my good shepherd. He's got the blueprint, he's got a map and he's good and he's kind, he is strong and he's kind and my faith is in him. So the work of God is this. It's quite simple. It's to believe in the one he sent. And that's actually our work, which is great.
Henry Kaestner: It is fantastic. You've blessed us. Phil, thank you very much. I hope that you'll stay in touch as the crowdfunding opportunity comes back. I think that ours is an audience that will want to know about that and will absolutely want to be watching the movie and then sharing it with others. Completely get the power of a decentralized movement. And I love the double benefit of, number one, diversifying your funding base, giving you the opportunity to being able to be more creative and having that integrity of the story. And then just the distribution that comes from that, because this is a story that needs to be told and it's a story that's going to resonate with so many different audiences, is going to resonate with people of different phase on one hand. Right. And yet the story of David, as you really look into it, as he cries out to his lord, talks about the love of God. That's a guy that can be found and. We find him most, especially through his son. And so I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'm grateful that you brought it back to Scripture there at the end. And Heavenly Father, we lift up Phil right now on the David Project, and we ask that you blessed him that you give him great favor. You bring people in to be able to resource all that he is set out to do that he will be a great recipient of your protection and Lord. May this film be a major hit. And Dear Lord, in podcasts that are recorded 30 years from now, may people go back and say, You know, when I watched the David movie, it changed the trajectory of my life. And may that be the case and we pray for all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
