Ken Wales...Lessons Learned

Saturday morning I had the opportunity to hear Ken Wales (see May 31st post) speak.  Mr. Wales has been a "Roaring Lamb" in Hollywood since before that term was coined.  He is a believer, and a filmmaker par excellence.  He regaled us with fascinating stories of his experience in the industry, but he also left us with some great advice and a number of challenges.  Here are the four thoughts that most resonated with me:

1.  Mentors are ESSENTIAL!  This is not a new concept to me, as I have a friend who has made one of his personal crusades the promotion of the value of mentoring.  And, I have had a couple of important mentors in my own life.  Mr. Wales was fortunate enough to have two men-Sid Collins (Indianapolis Motor Speedway) and Glen Ford (actor) who mentored him from an early age and never stopped.  He spoke about the inestimable value of having those two men in his life--personally and professionally.

2. Jeopardy and Danger.  When Mr. Wales was a senior in high school he was hand picked to spend a week with Walt Disney.  Mr. Disney wanted a teenage point of view an a number of projects, ideas, even Disney Land.  In exchange, Mr. Wales got a first hand look at the entire Disney operation, at how Walt Disney interacted with his employees, and how the mind of this brilliant, creative genius worked.  At the end of the week, Mr. Disney wrote a personal check to completely pay for Ken Wales' education at USC film school and gave him some valuable advice.  He said he understood that Ken wanted to make family films, and that most people who set out to make family films forget two critical things: jeopardy and danger.  A story with no tension, a family with no strife, a hero with no challenge is not real.  People can't connect with it.  It is meaningless.  Jeopardy and danger are essential elements of any good story...hence, of any good film.

3. Relinquishment. Ken Wales had wanted to make a feature film based on Catherine Marshall's novel, Christy.  He had been rejected a number of times, but CBS expressed interest in making it into a television series.  He would not even consider it at first.  He eventually prayed Catherine Marshall's prayer of relinquishment "giving up my way of doing it, not my dream, but my way of doing it".  Soon he was approached again by CBS, this time he said yes and on the night of it's premier, it reached an audience of 48 million viewers.  His dream had been achieved...millions of people had experienced this story that he loved.

4.  Tell your stories.  Don't let them evaporate.  Write them down.  Make a film.  Tell them to others.  You have stories in you that no one else can tell.  Tell them.

Mr. Wales is currently developing a number of projects, including a sequel to Chariots of Fire and a film adaptation of C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce.

Comments

[Nina]

This is great.

[Shelia]

Wish you could have heard him, Nina. You would have really gotten him. He is the Roaring Lamb of the past; you are the Roaring Lamb of the future. Never doubt it.