we want Christians to be the pioneers of excellence in storytelling

and kind

of filled this void that Hollywood is starting to create

and say, we can

be

quality storytellers who tell compelling fiction that stands on its own.

What if the stories we need most come wrapped in Dragons, quest

and kingdoms that never were?

Wilson Hickman is a screenwriter and creator of The Lost Dealer,

an award-winning Christian fantasy series that invites

viewers to see God Through story.

We'll explore the craft of screenwriting, why fantasy holds

unique power to reveal truth, and how story becomes a mirror for faith.

Without shortcuts or formulas.

Thanks for joining us Wilson.

Welcome to Seek Go Create.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Thank you for having me.

Glad you're here too.

So, Wilson, you are, if I read it correctly, you are a storyteller.

Correct?

Is that what you tell people you do?

And and do they follow it up?

Like, come on man, what do, what do you mean by storyteller?

What does that mean?

a storyteller I think really points back to the reality that we as

humans are made in God's image.

He's the ultimate artist, the ultimate storyteller, if you will,

because he ultimately is working out

a, good story that's well told is gonna have echoes of the gospel

in it because that's ultimately the narrative around which

existence.

centers.

your, typical story beats of, the protagonist starts out in a quote unquote

normal world where everything is fine.

Then something called the inciting incident happens.

It takes them out of that normal world, and now they have to solve

some kind of problem or go on some kind of journey to grow and change and

the death of the hero moment, even if they don't literally die, There's some sort

of hopeless moment that gets introduced.

And then they find a way to come back and

is has grown and changed.

And the way I just described that, it's very obvious that

echoes the narrative of scripture.

We start in the garden of Eden everything's good.

The inciting incident is the fall of man.

Man is now separated from God and sin.

And the grand narrative of scripture is God rescued man from his fallen condition.

There's the death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus.

And so every good story is gonna ultimately point back to

the story that God is telling through all of human history.

And the cool thing about it, I don't think I want to go down this path

right now 'cause I wanna ask a little background to get prepped so that we

could get into kind of how this project you've got going now came to be.

But the fascinating thing to me from the biblical narrative is there is this

big, huge story and then there's micro stories all throughout it that are just

absolutely full of character and rich.

And I think at times, this is me just sort of, observating

something I think at times that.

Is awesome to people, but then I think at times it confuses people because there's

certain stories embedded within, but I wanna hold that, let's put a pin in that.

We may come back to that in just a little while because I think it leads to some

inspiration that might come down the path.

But I wanna back up.

I know you're not, an incredibly old and mature young man, but I

want to ask, first of all, have you always been a storyteller?

I mean, were you like, you know, 4, 5, 6, and, telling stories

either verbally or in writing?

Oh, definitely.

my love of

as soon as I knew how to write, I would literally write stories with

a pencil in my hand because I hadn't learned how to, type on a computer yet,

chapter books, which soon grew into, what you would consider

novels, like 200 plus pages.

a natural transition I think was to writing scripts because

I've always loved film as well.

And some of my favorite books have been made into films.

so for instance, I grew up on the Chronicles of Narnia Books by CS

Lewis, and I also was a kid when those came out in theaters is movies.

felt that as I was loving writing all throughout my teen years,

I would naturally transition to, writing films as well.

And that's exactly what happened.

Yeah.

the neat thing about that, and I do wanna say, I've looked at your proof

of concept of the lost Healer, and I watched that and you do have a what

I'll call a visual eye, and we'll talk more about some of this later.

And the reason it's kind of cool to me is that, my son, he's probably

a couple years older than you.

He's, I think he's like 31.

How old are you?

So.

Okay.

So, I remember when he was younger we could tell that he had more of

a visual artist storyteller to him.

And I am not that way, or at least I didn't think I was, anyway,

I've actually started writing some fiction and all recently, but,

nice.

he could tell a story and then he also could visualize it.

And Wilson, it seems as if you've got those things going

to, and not everyone can do that.

When did you realize you had that ability or talent or skill that,

Okay.

not just in words on paper, but visual?

I, it would probably be in my.

Mid-teens, like maybe 14 or 15.

my sister and I, I'm best friends with my sister by the way, so it's

no coincidence the lost healer is about a brother and a sister

because, that unique bond of siblings often find its way into my stories.

but around age 15 or 16, my sister and I started making like home movies

on our phones and that we would write the scripts and then film them

with ourselves as the characters.

And that was really, I think, a turning point for me in terms of recognizing that

I love not only storytelling on the page, but also storytelling on the screen.

you grow and learn with those experiences.

You know, our early movies I look back on now and I'm like, oh, we

could have shot them so much better

your gifts when you start to use them are gonna be, untried

and, unrefined, if you will.

you keep using the gift to get stronger.

And, by the time I was getting ready for college, I realized that, I really

wanted to serve God in the capacity of pursuing visual storytelling.

And so I, went to film school and that's where I got a lot of hands-on

experience making short films.

And that really triggered my, visual storytelling instinct.

And I came out and continued writing films.

continued making short films whenever I could.

And that's led to this proof of concept for the Lost Healer I can't really point

to one specific instance where I was like, this is where I meant to, make films.

it was definitely a gradual process, but looking back feels inevitable.

I can definitely see how God was sowing the seeds for it, if you

will, all through my childhood and even when I was just writing books,

I love too, this is a fascinating thing that, you said you grabbed

your phones or something.

I think it's really cool how some of the tools to do these things are so.

Readily available.

Oh, absolutely.

and this is what I'm thinking.

I don't know if you're much of a historian as far as movies go, but I remember seeing

the movie, gosh, I wanna say Spielberg.

No, JJ Adams did it.

It was the super eight and it was kinda like this homage to the seventies and.

These guys that would get like these old video super eight type cameras, which took

some effort and also you didn't get the instant ability to see what you recorded.

I remember my son really loving that movie because it fed the thing that we're

sitting here talking about something that he really had a desire to do.

I think a beautiful thing, probably a divine thing that you were able

to kind of see real quickly and probably get some good feedback.

It's like, Hey, that looks pretty good and I've just got this thing in my

pocket, Have you put any thought into that as to how accessible it was for

you to practice that craft early on?

It's, an amazing blessing and it is a bit of a double-edged sword though,

because on the one hand, it makes it very easy to practice your craft.

On the

other hand, sometimes it's too.

grow and

try as

hard as you possibly could to nail something.

Because the tools, the ability to get quote unquote good enough is right there.

So

trying to push yourself to be excellent is something that takes discipline

and it also takes a love of your craft because

there's also a double-edged sword to loving a craft.

And I absolutely love the craft of storytelling, but the

double-edged sword to that is you're always your own biggest critic.

I definitely will, look back on past things I've made and be like, oh, there's

so much I would do differently now.

But to

your point about accessibility, it's definitely been a huge blessing to

have that tool so readily available.

you

were also mentioning, physical film, You didn't see it when you recorded it.

You had to splice it together in this process called linear editing.

in my teen years, I used a program called iMovie, which is nonlinear editor, and

it's a resource that is readily available.

And you're

able to just cut things together and do things in a few minutes,

that would've, been a lot more work, back in the days of physical film.

you just,

stop and marvel and like,

this

is the era that God chose to, have me be created in,

it's an immense privilege.

It really is.

And it just makes me think of,

you know, I don't want to take this for granted, and I don't want to

take the

gift of storytelling for granted either.

I want to use these tools that I've been blessed with to the best

of my ability, and then, do the best stories that I can with them.

So sometimes people that have those skills, I don't wanna say

they have a perfectionist bent to them, but I've noticed some people.

Is that you?

Create, but they hesitate to share it with others.

And I think sometimes the, it's not totally perfectionism,

but that feeds into it.

I'm gonna throw a little bit more gas on that fire, then I'm

gonna let you respond to it.

And then I think that's even magnified when people have this thought that

they're doing it for the Lord that it is some divine calling or how,

whatever you want to word in there.

So having said all of that, respond, because you now are putting

something out into the world.

talk through any of those items that you had to deal with.

we love the journey here.

That's what we love talking about here at Seek Go Create.

So talk a little bit about that journey of creating.

How good does it need to be?

When do I share it?

If I do.

Yeah, absolutely.

life.

absurd degrees.

Like, when I was, when I was really little, I, I would, you know,

think the world ended if I couldn't finish a story or something.

And you know, it's just, it's just writer's block, you'll

get over in a few weeks.

But because I was so wrapped up in that, it, it felt, you

know, a lot bigger than it was.

that's something that I've, that God has, has challenged me to, to learn

and grow in, is to not find my identity

the craft that I'm gifted in.

I can enjoy that craft and I can take pleasure in serving God through it,

the value of who I am and my purpose in life can't be wrapped up in the art of

filmmaking or storytelling because there will be fluctuations in productivity.

There will be days where I am not in the zone.

And on

those days, you know, if my identity is tied to the filmmaking,

then my identity's going to

you need to find your identity in God.

He's unchanging.

And so that's the first way I've found to kind of escape the trap of perfectionism.

perfectionism can also make you afraid to share your work because you're

but if you recognize that it's a continuous learning process and you

want to make it yes, the best you can, but within reasonable limits,

it

helps to set deadlines.

Deadlines are a perfectionist best friend slash worst enemy.

They're the worst enemy.

'cause they put a lot of pressure on you or you put it on yourself rather.

But

then they're also your friend.

Because if you didn't have a deadline, you would never finish anything

I was really grateful for a lot of these, film festivals that we've been

entering the proof of concept in, because

I'm very happy with how the proof of concept came out.

But the, you know, the.

require you to, okay, have it, have it finished, have the color and

sound done, and then submit it, and then it's off to the races.

And no matter how many minuscule details you might look back on and go like,

well, if I'd had more time, I might have tweaked that one little thing.

It's, it's the, and that's, that's another reason why test

screenings are very important.

We did test screenings for this to get, feedback on the clarity of the story.

and it helps to have an outsider's eye on it because,

especially as a filmmaker, you can be so wrapped up in the script that, you

know, it forwards and backwards and it's like, wait, is it clear to someone

who knows nothing about the project?

And so that's, that's very helpful.

when you let go of the project to the extent that it's not your

identity, I think you feel more comfortable sharing it with people

and getting their honest feedback.

Because then it's like, oh, they can criticize the project, but they're

not criticizing me as a person.

they're criticizing the work and we have the same end goal, which is to

make the project the best it can be.

Right.

do you recall the first time you shared some of your work with someone maybe that

didn't have the same last name as you?

You know, outside the fam someone's like, you know, I don't know about you,

but Sometimes family can be extremely critical, but, do you remember that?

Do you remember a feeling or anything that you had when someone said, man, this is

actually either really good or not good?

the feedback that you got?

the first time I shared a film with someone who was not in, my, part

of my family was in film school.

I had made a film in my first semester, a short film.

we all had an assignment to make a short film for this, editing class, I

think it was, or a production class.

we screened them all as the class finale

and

seeing it up on the big screen next to everybody else's work.

The first thing I thought was.

What did the projector do to my color correction?

I later found out this was notorious at the school, and a lot of students,

complained about the projector ruining the color of their projects.

But, you

know, as a novice color grader at the time, I really didn't know what I was

doing when it came to color correction.

And so I got it so it looked good on my monitor, not realizing that,

oh, the projector's different.

if you

push too

much color into the shadows or into the highlights or anything like

that, it's gonna show up as this monochromatic tint over the whole

footage if it's in a different projector.

that's exactly what happened to my, untrained eye.

Everyone else's project looked good because I hadn't been staring at

it for weeks on end like they had.

But then the minute I saw my project, which I had been staring at for

weeks on end, and I knew what it was supposed to look like on my monitor

and it had this big green tint.

I was just like.

is the terrible color.

but fortunately I found out afterwards that that was, that was a common

issue with, with that projector.

And I wasn't the only one who thought it had, messed with their project.

But mine stood out to me because of how much I've been looking at it beforehand.

there was a future class where I had that projector again

and I

had gotten my film looking what I thought was really good, and then

it, the projector ruined it again.

there's a student showcase at the end of the semester where you submit

your favorite project and they screen it for the whole school at the

like,

that.

but

despite all

Like, the,

like

the professor I just mentioned, I had a lot of people give me positive feedback.

And so there's also some, in a kind of odd way, there's kind of a benefit

to being your own biggest critic

because

on the one hand, you're constantly

pushing yourself to get better, sometimes to an unhealthy degree.

But on the other hand,

most

people are not as invested in your project as you are, which means they're not gonna

criticize it as thoroughly as you are.

So there's that aspect as well.

Yeah.

Did you go to film school?

Was it a Christian film school or was it, secular, I was about to

say Gentile or something like that.

Was it just a, was it a, what, what type film, film school did you go to?

I'll say it was a Christian influenced film school.

I don't know that there's truly such a thing as a Christian film school.

in that Like they only study Christian films and they only teach

from a Christian worldview because

a

sad reality of history is that

most

memorable films, most films that have stood the test of time and become

cultural icons were not made by Christians

and

don't, and therefore by extension don't have a Christian worldview

at least as it's overarching theme.

make.

not, preachy, but that, honor God's word through weaving

biblical themes organically into a character driven narrative.

but the, the school that I went to was,

It

Christian films or, or even necessarily teach from a Christian worldview and that

was another good experience because a lot of my fellow students were not believers,

and I actually was able to make films that wove the gospel in a non preachy manner.

In fact, I actually had a good friend who, became a Christian towards the end

of, our run through college together,

and he told me that, one of my films was actually

a part of what got him thinking about the gospel, and he ended up getting saved.

So that was an amazing blessing.

Wow.

so you almost brought this up, but I'm gonna go ahead and go there.

many people will also say in general that Christian entertainment

is not quite the quality.

Of let's say, we'll call it secular obviously you are in what we would call

the faith or Christian talk a little bit about when you started moving

into this arena, your observations and perceptions about the quality of work.

We're not gonna throw people under the bus.

That's not what we're doing here.

But in general, at times, I can be a little bit cynical about this topic.

that's totally fair.

And You're certainly not alone

because, there are noteworthy exceptions, certainly, but, by and

large the stereotypical view of Christian films has been that they're

basically sermons disguised as art.

They don't really have substance and story.

They're just, an excuse to preach at the audience.

when we sit down to watch a movie, we don't want to be lectured.

We don't want to be told what to think.

And that goes for any message.

It's not just the gospel.

when I was younger, I used to actually think like, is there

something just intrinsically non cinematic about the gospel?

Like, you know, Christian themes, the moment you put them into film,

suddenly the film becomes bad.

But any other message can be preached and it's fine.

No,

as the stereotypical Christian film.

They're just preaching a different message.

It's

just as bad because it's a sermon, not a story.

it doesn't invest us in a world, make us care about characters and make us feel,

rather than

think it just wags its finger and says, here's what you're

supposed to believe and here's what you're not supposed to believe.

And that's, that's not a movie,

yeah,

but getting into the faith-based, film space,

I

definitely was pleasantly surprised to find that I'm in good company with

a lot of up and coming artists who I think we're seeing a shift in that

paradigm of we want Christians to be the pioneers of excellence in storytelling

and kind

of filled this void that Hollywood is starting to create

and say, we can

be

quality storytellers who tell compelling fiction that stands on its own.

It doesn't have to be wrapped in sermon illustrations in

order to appeal to its audience.

And

like you've seen, you've seen The Lost Steeler much like, the, the Chronicles

of Narnie or, or the Lord of the.

is meant to be a broadly, enjoyable story

just

with the broad appeal of fantasy.

But

fantasy has this unique ability to explore themes of good and evil to a depth and

magnification that most genres don't.

because it's fantasy and removed from the real world, you can weave

a lot of typological allegory into it without seeming preach or forced.

And if the story's told, well, it makes the audience feel rather than think,

then hopefully, at least at a subconscious level, they're thinking

of things like the beauty of goodness and the place of humanity.

And why is humanity drawn to the struggle of good versus evil?

What does that ultimately point to?

And that just, that nudges them gently through art rather than lecturing

them and making them immediately shut the message down with their

intellectual side of their brain.

Yeah, I-L-I-L-I.

the way I word it is that people let their guards down and, they're

not trying to block things.

And, I think it's Kiva, your main character has a very,

I'll use this word attractive.

a attracting, and I don't mean attractiveness, not just the looks,

but there's an attraction that she has that pulls people in that I

think will pull people in to want to know more without really knowing it.

I think that's the power of, not having someone stand up behind a

pulpit and preach or, you know, scripture and things like that.

Not that there's anything wrong with scripture, that, you know, people please

keep your rocks in your pocketbooks.

Don't throw things at me now.

But, see that's

have.

yet

foreshadows Jesus in this way.

And

that's the kind of stories I want to tell stories that you can see types and

shadows of Christ woven throughout them, but they're not explicitly preaching.

Right.

Yeah.

And so one of the things just on it general, I guess, filmmaking and, and

art is some will say that one of the reasons for the quality difference is

the budgets, the financial resources.

And things like that.

I'm not sure that I buy into that, but I'm sure you've heard people say

that and you may have even, it may have crossed your mind at times too.

So speak to that.

The people that will say, the reason that some Christian entertainment

is not the same quality is because of the difference in money.

There, there is some truth to that.

Production value definitely helps, especially if you don't

have the budget for good sound.

Like

if you don't have good sounds, you can't make a good movie.

I'm sorry.

Your acting can be great.

Your Script can be great.

your cinematography can even be great.

But if the movie does not have good sound, it's not a good movie

I have a phobia for bad sound.

It's one of the things I fought the hardest in film school,

of money.

is.

there's,

no point in the rest of it.

the, strength of the script.

And then

once you have that, you of course need to attach good actors.

You need to be conscious of director's techniques.

I think it really helps to take acting classes yourself if you want to direct,

which I've done because you wanna understand the actor's mindset, how you

can speak to them through their process.

And

that really helps with bringing the characters to life and kind of merging

your vision with the vision of the actor.

And if you're blessed with really talented actors, like, I was

blessed to work with on this.

you mentioned Kiva.

Allison who plays Kiva,

she did

so many.

Things

on the set that were not necessarily in the script that

just enhanced the character.

There's a line she ad-libbed in the middle of a take, and I was, I liked it

so much, I actually put it in the episode.

And just these little, little emotional

subtextual

things that she would do that I hadn't written that were just naturally came out.

it was all so incredible.

So good acting is definitely important.

But in terms of scale, because we're specifically talking fantasy,

we

got very creative to bring a fantasy world to life on a small budget.

I don't know if you've seen the behind the scenes video on

our YouTube, but we actually

transformed a modern basement into a castle library.

And we

did it just by taking,

foam boards you can buy at Home Depot, painting them gray and taking a drill

and carving them to look like stone and then putting them up against

the walls and including and carving the fake window into one of them.

And we just pumped a film light through it to be the sun.

And then you fill the room with haze and light candles and

it's quite convincing on film.

so yeah, we did that very inexpensively and no one would ever guess that

if you pan the camera just a little bit to the right, there's

a modern couch over in the corner.

one of the cinematographers that I followed for a while has

a saying that I really like.

And it's, you don't have to have a high budget set.

You just have to make whatever is inside your camera frame

look,

high value.

It

doesn't matter what's off to the side, The camera's never gonna see that.

I actually think that it forces a higher level of creativity when

you don't have just a pot of money.

I mean, some of the most creative things I've done in business and

at other times, I mean, one of the toughest financial periods in my life.

I actually wrote a novel.

During that timeframe.

And I'm not sure exactly why I think it was divine, but it was kinda like, huh.

'cause I'm not, I would never call myself, actually, I am a storyteller.

but for years I wouldn't call myself that.

And so that's kinda one of the reasons I was drawn to have

this conversation with you.

You've mentioned Narnia, you mentioned Lord of the Rings, and when we start

talking about this genre that comes up quite a bit as far as inspiration.

were you, a Tolkien or Lewis just kind of geek, nerding out, growing up, read

everything, did everything they, and it's okay now, you know, it used to not

be good to call somebody a geek or nerd.

Now it's like a popular thing to do.

But was that you, were there other influences that you had other than

those, tell me a little bit about your influences that led up to the

story we're about to talk about.

\ I only recently saw the Lord of the Rings films like a few years ago.

then I'm reading the books currently, I'm actually reading The Hobbit right now.

token has Christian influences.

Lewis was straight up writing a Christian allegory.

the, but nonetheless, there are universally appreciated stories that have

a wide audience outside of the church.

And I just find that so inspiring because and it just goes to show

the potency of the fantasy genre for exploring good versus evil and even

rich theological themes in a non preachy

manner

that can make a wide audience appreciate it just through the

quality of the storytelling.

so, yeah, those, those were definitely big influences.

will say that some of my biggest influences from a film standpoint

have actually been, Pixar films from the two thousands.

Wally in particular, one thing you may have noticed if you go

watch the proof of concept episode on the lost dealer.com is a

lot of scenes with no dialogue.

They just, the stories happening visually, but there's no talking.

And I

drew a lot of inspiration from the film, Wally.

It's my favorite Pixar film.

when the audience has to work to figure certain things out,

pulls them into the story more.

don't

on me.

Sam Remy's Spider-Man Trilogy from the two thousands.

That was, one of my childhood favorites growing up.

And I even appreciate the films more as an adult now than I did as a kid.

I see deeper even Christian themes in them

the, quality of the storytelling where they really focus and

just, there is quite a bit of,

crazy elaborate, fantasy world.

The fantasy world is certainly there.

It's largely revealed through the subtext and the dialogue, but the emphasis is

on the characters and their journeys.

Hmm.

And so that was that good.

That leads into the beginnings of, of this story that, that you're

telling with the lost healer.

I, I've noticed with myself, and I think other storytellers do this too,

they somewhat start with a setting.

I don't watch 'em.

In fact, it's oddly enough I don't watch TVs and I barely watch movies.

your proof of concept is probably the, the most I've watched in so much.

I, I'm a reader and things like that.

I don't have a TV or screen or anything and I would, I think I

would love to watch it on a bigger screen 'cause I watch, 'cause I

watch it on a smaller screen, but.

I've, I'm actually working on some fiction right now, and I began with

the setting, it's a biblical setting of the time between the crucifixion

and the, destruction of Jerusalem in 80, 70, so 30 to 70, Well, with

some biblical nuance, and then I'm building characters from there.

I think I've heard you say though, that you begin with character.

is that correct?

Talk to me more about that.

I hope there's not a right or wrong 'cause, you know, whatever, but

tell me how you got the beginnings of this concept and then obviously

you're nodding the character.

Yeah.

No, there is, there is no right way to do it.

In fact, I would think that in your case, historical fiction, the right

way is to start with the setting.

Because if you're trying to base it off of history, then you wanna know the

setting and the limitations therein that's certainly the right approach in that case.

a lot of fiction writers who are writing just pure fiction without any historical,

relevance or attachment to that,

and even in fantasy, I would think you'd probably start with setting a lot, you

know, world building, fleshing things out.

for me though, I always start with a character usually

because now that doesn't mean I don't have some vague idea of the setting.

Like I knew it was gonna be fantasy.

So immediately I'm thinking, you know, forest Castle,

those

types of things.

But

rather than trying to flesh out the setting too much,

I

actually focus on the character because

the character is who's gonna come alive in my head and tell the story for me.

If you get a character that is so compelling in your mind that

they take on a life of their own,

they're

gonna write the story for you, you can have some general idea of where

you want it to go, certain plot, beats you want to hit certain, lessons you

want to be learned along the way,

but.

very often if the character has truly taken on a life of their own, you can

have a plot point set up in your mind.

And then when you get there, you realize, wait a thing.

that's the mentality I take on because when I get excited about a character,

I'm like, oh, I have a character who has this flaw and has this desire

now, what's the most interesting obstacle I can throw with them?

the, plot and the setting gets developed a lot of times for me.

do you develop backstory?

Do you develop the complexity?

Are you already thinking of the conflict?

it's so difficult for me to watch things with my wife.

we've been married for 37 years.

She doesn't like conflict.

It's really hard to weave a story without conflict.

the novel I wrote, she really dislikes it because I didn't wrap

things up just nice and tidy like she wanted it to be at the very end.

But, you know, at what point.

in developing, I believe I heard you say you started with Kiva and

you've been, layering from there.

At what point did you begin in your concept, introducing other

characters, bringing them in?

When did you put it in?

I guess the setting, because that's fascinating to me to learn that.

I mean, obviously if you had fantasy in mind, that gives you a lot of

leeway because it could be, it could be future, it could be past, it could

be space, it could be the woods, the green woods that you chose.

where did that weave in for you?

I was always kind of imagining the woods because I grew up, I grew up

in Arizona, and in a, in southern Arizona where there are no woods.

moving to Kentucky a few years ago, I said, okay, I'm gonna,

I'm gonna stop writing films that take place in the desert.

What's a, what's something that can take place in the forest

And I immediately think fantasy

where I, how I settled, in the genre of fantasies.

I just, and then actually coming here and seeing all the greenery and seeing

that we actually have four seasons.

I was just awed by the beauty of God's creation I've been

missing out on all these years.

I

Ian

the, fear

of, you know, growing up and the responsibilities that come

with that, and charting an uncertain course for the future.

struggles that I've experienced as a Christian,

such

as how do you share the gospel with a friend or a family member?

I thought to myself, well, my sister and I are both believers,

but what if one of us wasn't?

How

difficult would that be?

Or maybe one of us is a believer, They're

struggling in their faith and they're living inconsistently

with what they profess

like, how would the other one address that?

Us being best friends.

But also there's that awkwardness of how do you reach your family member with

something that they may not want to hear?

I don't think, you can tell a story without conflict.

Um,

is the situation where, Kiva wants to fulfill their father's legacy.

finish his work of finding this lost relic called the Healer that

will bring peace to their kingdom.

But her brother has been manipulated by this high king who invaded their

kingdom and is now imposing his ideology.

And in order to maintain the peace, her brother Ian wants to,

go along with thy king.

Even though the high king is essentially making him a puppet king.

He doesn't really have power.

But

Ian, with good intentions, I'll mind you.

bow and go along with that than, start this uprising that would actually

lead to, his people being freed a,

have

him

it's never the right time.

He's, never he's not, he's never gonna understand.

And so she ends up feeling like, she's on the search alone.

sometimes in life, the person we want to reach the most, the

person who's closest to us,

it's

very hard to reach them.

But that doesn't mean that we stop living for Christ and being

a good witness to, for him.

Because while we are really trying to reach the family member or the friend,

you never know who else you're influencing That you

don't even know that they're even watching you.

And that's where I got the idea for the character of the Enemy

Knight, Aaron, his name is.

So there's in the proof of concept without spoiling too much,

in.

define the empire and, and bravely living out her faith.

And it intrigues him.

by the, as the story progresses, he begins to slowly question

if he's on the right side.

And meanwhile, Kiva has no idea that she's even having this impact on him.

a message of, hey, live for Christ, because even if you don't reach the person

that you are struggling to reach, you don't know who else you're impacting.

I've been blessed to see that in life people.

I didn't even know I was trying, people I didn't even know that I

was impacting have, have come to me afterwards and said like, Hey, you

know, your film really inspired me, or just the way you live, you live out.

Your faith inspired me.

And now I'm a.

Christian

of that.

the, where those three core characters came from.

I've always, loved a story where the,

the

heroes have, you know, incredible odds stacked against them and where

they're all

coming into roles that they don't feel prepared for, but

nonetheless, are demanded of them.

So Kiva feels like she's alone on this quest and has to finish her father's work.

'cause no one, not even her brother will help her.

submit to the High King and undertake this role that he doesn't even want to do.

But it's the only way to keep peace.

It's the only way to save his sister, the only family he has left.

And so he feels like

he's a figurehead.

he's a reminder of what his people have lost.

He's a conquered king

he'll,

take that burden if it means keeping, keeping.

peace

now what do you do with that information?

Do you turn against your oppressive masters?

Who will kill you, if you turn against them?

the, overarching struggle of good versus evil, and how even in

our situations in real life that are not as, you know, larger than life

and expansive as they're in fantasy.

Nonetheless, our

actions have eternal implications, and as we watch these characters

struggle through their challenges, my hope is that people will even

subconsciously begin to think about

the

real world struggle between good and evil and how they,

in that.

Yeah, the cool thing, let me see.

There's a couple things I wanna bring up here.

How much do you have written currently?

Or maybe another way of asking it, how much of a story do you have?

Because when you start stepping into this genre, there's

this massive world building.

And I'm gonna pause there and let you answer that because it leads

to my next question I want to ask.

But how much is there currently, either in your head or on paper?

I've, written an entire series bible.

I've got a ton of outlines and notes on my computer.

the difficulty, especially with fantasy, is you can write tons of world building

that never even makes it into the story.

I

know that over here in this corner of the world, this

political situation is happening.

And I know that like a thousand years ago this thing happened.

Will that

ever get mentioned in the dialogue?

Maybe, maybe not.

I've tried to focus primarily on the character arcs.

what's the most interesting challenge I can throw at Aaron What's the most

interesting challenge I can throw at Kiva?

I let the characters and their journeys

take the lead in that regard.

I've known a lot of writers who,

they'll,

they'll, they'll go on for a long time writing lore and backstories and, you

know, political details of the world,

but then they never actually get around to writing the story.

so I again, prefer to, let the characters lead with that.

And a lot of times my world building decisions will come as I'm fleshing out

the character arc. So I might be outlining a season and saying, okay, in this season

I want this character to get from A to B,

and

along the way, here's their struggle.

And like, okay, well what's the best way to,

materialize that struggle?

Well, maybe it's an interference from another kingdom.

Okay, what is this other kingdom

makes sense.

So with that, I'm gonna ask you to maybe give a glimpse of what one might

see after they check out the proof of concept where there was some character

development, which I think is important, and we saw a little bit of the conflict

and probably got some glimpses of future conflict and where things are going.

But in Christian fantasy, we often have things introduced such as.

talking animals, dragons, things, flying, supernatural, whatever.

Not necessarily space travel.

Maybe time.

Travel to me.

What, by the way, I gotta say time travel.

I hope you're not gonna do time travel.

To me, it's one of the cheapest storytelling mechanisms that's out there.

'cause it's like, hey, everything, you know, the marvel,

everything is gone off the rails.

Let's just introduce time, travel.

what might we see in the future with additional stories as

they're brought into this?

you're definitely not gonna see talking animals.

I can tell you that.

and not just for budgetary reasons, but also because, the target demographic

of the series, I don't feel lends itself as well to talking animals.

but you, it's funny.

in the villain makes his appearance, general Graham shows up.

a I've actually written a series of fantasy books that I haven't

yet published, and I wrote those before The Lost Dealer.

and they're not the same story, but I sprinkle in Easter Eggs in the dialogue

of the Lost Dealer that reference that other fantasy series that I've

written And It's like they're supposed to take place in the same world,

but they're not the same characters.

dragons, at least a dragon may be involved in a future season, but that's why,

and

that's, that goes back to what I said about, writing and getting creative with,

with financial resources is this, this first season as, as we've written it.

crazy CG sets or large armies in the first season.

It's, it's strictly designed to, to get you invested in the main

characters and then Lord willing.

we

get first, we get the first season made and we can grow from there and

expand with scale season by season.

And then, you know, you,

the dragon

Yeah.

because I, again, when you say Christian fantasy, it kinda opens up

the doors for just a ton of stuff.

Yeah.

fascinating.

there's so many ways to get this type of visual storytelling out to the

world now there's obviously feature link films, there's streaming, there's

smaller screens, there's, there's series.

What is it?

What would be your ideal, I don't know if that's the direction you're headed,

but, 'cause obviously things can obviously adjust and change over time,

but how would you really love to see this released to the world Over time.

that's definitely the format I dreamed of it in.

as I've been talking to other filmmakers and getting advice from other producers,

I'm considering the possibility of a feature film, depending on which

one is easier to raise funds for.

that's just, a, theoretical possibility at the moment.

I'm currently re-looking over some of the scripts for season

one and scene if it could adapted

into a, into a feature film that became a necessity.

But

the, the overall story is, is ideally, conceived as a series,

but it's flexible to go either way.

And that's one of the benefits

of

being in any filmmaker

is you

spend so much time with the story, so much time developing the characters

that you know it inside and if someone were to come to me and say, Hey, we like

it, but can we make it a film instead?

I'd be like,

yeah,

we can take the characters and just, you know, reshuffle a few plot points.

But I know their arcs, I know their journeys.

I'm not gonna have to start from scratch, so to speak.

So, there's that advantage.

How much does the financial aspect of projects like this

weigh on you and weigh on?

We know we're not supposed to be anxious for anything, but we talked earlier

about the resources to get things done and then depending on how things are

funded, and I know a little bit about this as a business guy and investment

guy, there is the need for return on investment and for things like that.

Is that something that you think about a little bit, a lot more than you should?

Where would you categorize your thought process of the financial

component of this storytelling project that's in front of you?

much as me and every filmmaker, I think wishes that we could just think about

the creative aspect of you also have to think about the business side of

prove that you're worth investing in.

there's, certainly that, that element to it.

there are certain things that can be shuffled around that,

lessen the budget here and there without sacrificing the quality

of the character's journeys.

And, and that's the most important thing, is

are

the characters doing the most interesting things I can make them do,

and are they still, are they bringing us along on a compelling journey?

Even if the twists in terms of that journey aren't the thing I

first visualized when I sat down to write the script three years ago,

if it's

still, if it's still compelling, I feel that it's still takes the

characters on a memorable journey that, that audiences can be invested

in and that I myself am invested in.

the philosophy I have.

So yes, business considerations are very important and you

do wanna be business savvy.

You wanna network with producers you want to know, tax incentives,

all that type of thing.

that.

a cardboard cut out of films that have already been made.

Because then even if you do get it made, know,

it's, not truly the art that you poured your heart and soul into at the beginning.

And when a project truly has art and truly has soul behind it, it shows those

are the films that resonate and that stay with people beyond their initial release.

And those are the films that become,

you know, the re watchable icons of cinema.

And that's what I think, people should be aspiring to make.

Not just does it tick all the business boxes, that's important, but it needs

to be a story from the soul that is uniquely a story that you tell

because your

unique voice and your unique passion is gonna come through

if you do that correctly.

Yeah, Wilson, I know that the, what I've been able to see

obviously is your proof of concept.

I've actually got it pulled up right here on my computer screen, and that's

something that people can go see.

And before we finish up here, we'll make sure they've got all the links and all

of that and put it down in the notes.

But what can you tell us about the stage that you're at?

I believe you've won awards and some things like that.

So share what you've done.

I think you've done some of the film, festival circuit and things.

So where are you at the stage of the project that you can share with us?

And, then I've got a few more questions before we wrap up on that.

Sure.

So, yeah, our proof of concept episode was independently produced with the

goal of just raising awareness for the series, building an audience for it.

it's received seven award nominations and it did win best TV series at

International Christian Film Festival a few months ago, which was such a blessing.

I mean, I'm so grateful to God for that

filled.

I was surprised that we even got in much less, that we got three award

nominations and that we won one of them.

that's been an incredible blessing.

Yeah.

And the sage that we're in currently is, as I'm, preparing, as I'm preparing

and continuing to network with filmmakers and talk with potential

executive producers, we're about to enter the realm where we either find

a producer or we start, um other.

that's where we're making decisions like, is it gonna be a feature?

Is it gonna be.

both.

And, just so that's where we're in right now in terms of just building our

audience and raising awareness so that, Lord willing, if it does come to, um, a

a crowd of people who are already interested

and we've been growing that and just, anxious to see where, you

know, where the Lord takes it.

And I'm very, very grateful for the continued film festival run that's

actually still got a few to go.

So I'm looking forward to hearing from that.

Our next notification date's gonna be,

it

may even be,

it

may have already happened by the time this episode gets released, but, we've

got another notification date coming up.

And so that's been a continued blessing as well, because every time you have a

chance to go to one of these festivals, there's networking opportunities and

you

meet more people and your audience grows.

And so that's been the stage that we're in currently.

Right.

How would you.

Define your audience?

what is the, I don't wanna say ideal audience or anything like that,

but who's the audience that this is really, really going to appeal to?

You probably have started to see some of that materialize.

Yes.

So the target demographic for the series is like ages 15 to 25,

you know, teens and young adults.

And

it's,

it's

a

fantasy.

Certainly has a broad appeal.

So we've certainly seen it attract viewers that are outside that demographic.

But I would say that's been, the majority of our viewers have been

between ages 15, 25 and even up to 34.

I've seen, based on our social media data has been the most

consistent, impact that this has had.

And, I will say that it has appealed to, Christians and non-Christians alike.

We've seen that as well.

so I've been very grateful for that.

'cause that's, that was the intention.

Yeah, I actually enjoy things that have a Christian component,

but they appeal outside of that.

And, I agree.

I mean, you know, the proof of concept, nothing that I think like I mentioned

earlier, I think it would attract, I think it would draw people in, which is probably

the desire is what you're looking for.

Tell people what to do now.

I mean, I've got the lost healer.com pulled up here.

We'll include links, but just go ahead.

This is kinda like pitch time for you tell 'em what to do and then I've got one or

two more things before we wrap up here.

a big thing that helps us is if you signed up for the email newsletter,

because that's

where you're gonna be, that you're gonna get exclusive access to behind the

scenes content series updates, and, a lot more content that we've got coming out.

the email newsletter on the lost healer.com and you can also follow

our socials, encourage you to follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and

it's at the Lost Dealer series.

Excellent.

We are a seek, go create here.

Those three words.

And I think projects like this really, epitomize all three

of those for a lot of reasons.

But if I were to ask you to choose one of those words over the other two

and why, which one would you choose?

Seek, go, or create?

Yeah, that's challenging because it really is all three.

I'd zero in on create if I had to

we're, creating stories and characters that hopefully will resonate

with people for years to come.

a large part of doing that, you really can't create without seeking and going

because you're seeking God's guidance.

You're seeking to glorify him,

and then you actually have to go and do it.

I think it really encompasses all three.

but it starts with create for sure.

Because if you don't have a story that you've created and that you're proud of,

then there's really nothing to go with.

that's good.

And at some point you went out in the woods and filmed and

worked on this project anyway.

excellent work.

Wilson Hickman, thank you for joining us here at Seat Co Create.

I am applauding you, I'm pulling for you.

I'm going to encourage those that are listening in to go to the lost healer.com,

and you could watch the, I think it's 15 minutes and there's some other things I

could watch too, but it will draw you in.

It'll probably leave you wanting more, which is probably the

goal, and that's a good thing.

So, go check that out and we'll be pulling for you.

we'll be watching with expectation to see good things going on from

Wilson Hickman and The Lost Healer.

Thanks for joining us here at Seek.

Go create everyone.

We've got new episodes on YouTube, on all the platforms every Monday, so we

will see you next time here at Seek.

Go create.