Randy on Good Morning America Radio.
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5388103

An audio interview.
http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/1...

http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/1...

Randy Travis 2007 CMA Interview.
http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/1...

650 WSM podcast Interview. Randy sings Don't Think Twice and Faith In You in this interview.
http://www.randytravis.com/comment/reply/9517/1871

New Mexico's Country.
http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/1...

Randy Travis Interview PT. 1
Randy Travis Talks with Cash & Liberty about his new CD & more!
http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/1...

Randy Travis Interview PT. 2
Randy Travis Talks with Cash & Liberty about his new CD & more!
http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/1...

Nancy Stafford
Mike & Mindy talk to actress Nancy Stafford about her latest role in the film adaptation of the Bill Meyers novel "The Wager". Hear what she has to say about working with singer/actor Randy Travis and about her past role on Matlock.

Lademars, didn't find any link to listen to this. I have listened to the others and want to thank you for sharing them. Dee

Sorry Dee hear it is.
http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/1...

Thanks Linda, for the link. Some nice comments from her about Randy. Who doesn't like Randy once they have a chance to meet him? I've never seen an artist who has achieved so much in a career and stay so unaffected by it all as he has. He is incredible. Dee

thanks for the audio interviews - much appreciated. I always love hearing Randy's wonderful voice.

always and forever...An RT Fan
Linda and Guide, Greg

Glad you are enjoying the interviews. Here's another.
97.5 Hodag Country. Bill Mitchell interviews Randy.
http://www.whdg.com/pages/randy-travis-interview.php

Maria Sanstone interviews Randy.
http://www.glam.com/videos/detail/randy_travis_is_back/#

You have to register with this site to hear this but this is a concert at Music Village USA (Henderson, TN - July 16, 1986) Just over 22 years ago. I am writing this as I listen and it appears to be a complete concert.
http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/dt/randy-travis-concert/20051244-5724...

Thanks for the link to the concert, it's great. There's a lot of older songs that Randy covers that I've never heard him do before! Some great material :)

I know James I never heard him do some of those songs either and The American Trilogy brought tears to my eyes. Wish they had more concert online like that.

Several of those songs on that concert is from his Nashville Palace record.
I always loved him doing the American Trilogy .I have that on a tape (actually I have the whole concert on an audio cassette tape that Linda W sent me). But I have the performance of The American Trilogy on a video tape that was called "Inside Country Music".

Lademar's I know what your saying. I was fortunate enough to see him perform that live on a few occasions. It brought the house down every time ! What a moving performance! In the live concerts a huge American flag would slowly unfurl in back ( the same one he uses now when he closes with his own "America Will Always Stand") as he sang. It would give you chill bumps, seeing that and hearing him sing that piece as movingly as he does.
Dee

It has been awhile since i pulled out my copy of the show as i had copied most of the songs not on CDs to another CD. But it was good listening again.

I also attended the many shows wherein he did the American Trilogy and a couple even wherein they did Tumbling Tumbleweed. Dee, they are no longer ending with America Will always Stand either and seemed to have retired the flag.

I'd have to check for sure but I actually thought when he said they weren't going to do any George Strait, that they actually did do "the Chair" but that could be on the Gilley's radio show I have which was very similar to this.

Good listening again.

always and Forever...an RT Fan
Linda and Guide, Greg

Linda I thought the same thing when I listened to the concert about "The Chair". But again, maybe it was on the Gilley's tape . I do know he did sing it. I also like his version of the John Schnieder's hit "I've Been Around Long Enough To Know". One of my favorite John S songs. The story of the people on the air plane from Wi. still has me chuckling. Dee

Actually Dee I think the only songs that he sings at the Henderson TN concert that are on the Live at Nashville Palace album are Reasons I Cheat, I Told You So, Send My Body Home On A Freight Train and Ain't No Use with the Ain't No Use being the only one (I believe) not to be recorded on any other album.

What I wanted to post here didn't work so I have to replace it with something else. I think this will do. Sorry if it has already been posted.

Pass the Popcorn

A Talk With David A. R. White
Bringing Movies to Churches
Greg Wright | 28.12.07
Posted in Interviews, Feature2
Randy Travis is putting his money where his heart is. Along with several partners, Travis and his wife have backed a venture, Outreach Cinema, whose goal is to produce movies directly for the Christian market—and exhibit the first run of the film in churches, rather than theaters.

On New Year’s Eve, the first of these releases, The Wager (which stars Travis as an Oscar nominee in a crisis of faith) may be showing at a church near you.

Courtesy of a national publicist, Past the Popcorn Managing Editor Greg Wright had a chance to talk via telephone with actor and filmmaker David A. R. White, one of Travis’ partners in Outreach Cinema.

What you’re trying to do with Outreach Cinema is pretty ground-breaking—and it seems pretty clear that you guys are all pretty aware of that. So it’s pretty likely that PtP’s readers are not very aware of what’s going on with Outreach. As I understand it, your objective is to place movies directly into churches, as opposed to theaters. One of your partners, Byron Jones, notes that America has more church seats than theater seats. So are you really just trying to bypass the usual distribution channels to connect your films directly with the target audience?

David A. R. White: I think it’s kind of both ways. Definitely, that’s an avenue that we want to take, and for that reason. But the other avenue is: as Christian filmmakers, we make movies primarily to encourage the church—to be entertaining, of course, but also to encourage the church, so that the church can then use these movies as outreach tools into the community. And Outreach Cinema is just directly that. Churches are our market, so by bringing the films directly to them, it’s the marketplace. Does that make sense?

Yes, that does. Now, I’ve worn a lot of different hats in the church over the years, and one of those hats was as an elder in a small local church. As an elder, if someone had come along and pitched this idea to me, my question would have been: Well, how do these movies function as outreach? Because, you know, we can have a Superbowl party, and that will bring people in from the community. What is it about these movies that will function specifically as an outreach tool?

DARW: Well, it’s the subject matter in the movies. For example, The Wager is our first one coming out on New Year’s Eve, and it’s a modern-day parable of Job. God and Satan make a wager, and ask the question: Can someone in today’s society live out Jesus’ most famous teaching, The Sermon on the Mount? So we travel with this character played by Randy Travis as adversity comes in all different ways, threatening his marriage, his career, his health, and all these ways. And the question is: Will he stand, or will he fall in his faith? And that is what links directly to us. That’s the question that, hopefully, as people watch this movie, they will be drawn to. And they’re encouraged in their faith, to go live, to be stronger in their faith, to walk away from this movie learning something—and have an awakening in their spirit, being encouraged. And I think, you know, a Superbowl party isn’t really that.

Certainly not the halftime show, I suppose!

DARW: So I think that’s the difference. It comes back to the fact that when we’re making these films, we’re making them to encourage the church—first and foremost—so that the church can then use them to bring in people who normally wouldn’t come into a church. Randy Travis has a lot of fans out there, and most of them probably don’t attend church regularly. However, they may come in to see a film starring him.

Right. But now, these films are not constructed—and I’ll say this as someone who has seen both Hidden Secrets and The Wager, and has reviewed both of them—as evangelistic pieces.

DARW: Not so much. These aren’t. We definitely have movies that are designed as evangelistic pieces. Now, I think you can use them as evangelistic pieces, but also in other ways: to encourage people in their marriages, to stick through it. Hidden Secrets, for instance, grapples with a lot of different issues.

Yes, it does. That covers a lot of subjects. Now I hope this will be an amusing question for you… I’ve noticed on your website, in your discussion of Outreach Cinema’s values, that catering to the critics really doesn’t enter into your mission statement. But obviously, one of the means by which audiences learn about films and their availability is by paying attention to the critics that they read. Given that you’re bypassing the normal promotional channels and venues that cater to critics, what’s your strategy for getting your films in front of these critics—who tend to be very harsh on films that have no pretensions to high art?

DARW: I think if a critic likes a movie, then cool. We’ll probably use their review [to promote the film]—probably. If they don’t, it’s fine as well. We’re not aiming to please the critics, that’s for sure. Obviously, a lot of Hollywood movies—you know, the blockbusters, the ones that make the most money—the critics don’t love. They love some of them, but they don’t love all them. And they’re not really our target audience.

Well, as a critic, one of the things I mention a lot to my colleagues is that it doesn’t seem that critics have much power to dissuade people from seeing a film. But what they do have the power to do is bring attention to a film that might otherwise get ignored.

DARW: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, our goal, with our limited budgets, is to make the best movies we can. It’s certainly not to be heavy-handed on the message or hit people over the head; it’s to make, as much as we can, an organic story that takes real people in real situations, struggling with spiritual themes. And how do you do that? I did my first Christian film in 1992. So it’s been a long go for me in this marketplace. And I’m still trying to figure it out. When stories come to me, like Hidden Secrets, for example—I’ve always been a fan of The Big Chill, but I always wanted that story to have more redemption and hope at the end of that movie. And that’s where the concept for Hidden Secrets came from: to take all of these friends from different walks of life, who had gone separate ways, but then to have the real answer at the end.

The Big Chill with more of a Places in the Heart ending—just more explicitly metaphysical.

DARW: Yeah. And obviously, The Wager was based on Bill Myers’ book, so you can’t really go too far off the book. Nor did we want to. We just wanted to make it cinematic.

Now, Hidden Secrets and The Wager were directed by different people. But they both seem to have the same characteristic rhythm to them, which I find very different from mainstream movies. Is that deliberate, or is that just an accidental byproduct of trying to construct a film for the given audience?

DARW: Well, as producers, we’re pretty involved with the editing process. So maybe it’s just our style.

That’s kind of what I was wondering, if that doesn’t just reflect you personal taste.

DARW: Yeah, I would imagine so.

Because what it strikes me as is a rhythm that almost mimics the rhythm of a worship service rather than the classic rhythm of a three-act narrative. In a worship service, there are periods of teaching and exhortation that are punctuated by the use of music—and that seems to be what happens in the flow and rhythm of these movies, rather than just straightforward what-happens-next exposition.

DARW: I’ve never really thought about it. That’s an interesting observation.

So the question there for me there, then, would be: Do you think of these films as worship experiences?

DARW: We try. Yeah, absolutely. But they’re still movies. You know, there are so many things playing into making a Christian faith-based film—because you have an audience, a marketplace, that expects certain things. So you do have to deliver those things. I have so many friends who have taken a stab at Christian, faith-based movies, and they make the movie that they want to, but they’re not making the movie for the audience. But there are extreme limitations on us about what can fit into a church while trying to reach the broadest audience we can. And we try to do that. And so we try to make a movie that tells a story, organically, but at the same time also directs people to a higher understanding of who God is and the purposes He may have for their lives. And then, by the same token, trying to adhere to the three-act structure.

Well, from my perspective, I think you’ve been pretty successful. While, if you read my review of Hidden Secrets and my review of The Wager I think you can see that I don’t think they stack up against the works of Francis Ford Coppola, I found them entertaining and enjoyable for what they were. Now, of course, the critics aren’t finding that Coppola’s latest film isn’t stacking up against the Coppola standard, either. But that’s because it’s a personal film, and not trying to connect with a broad audience.

Now, to get things straight for our readers, The Wager is making its debut in churches on New Year’s Eve, right?

DARW: Yep.

And the latest I’ve heard on Hidden Secrets is that you’re heading for a…

DARW: Well, The Wager is playing really well with church audiences, so the DVD is scheduled to come out on May 13th. We just got that date; so we’re going to do another church screening April 25th. It’s been really successful, but there’s still a lot of churches we haven’t hit.

So you’re doing two waves on that.

DARW: Exactly. So we’re doing two waves there, and then Hidden Secrets will probably be released to churches in August, and then come out on DVD in September. And the dates for Hidden Secrets are not locked in yet. That could slide around a bit in August yet.

Well, what happened with that? Wasn’t Hidden Secrets originally intended as the flagship piece for what you were doing?

DARW: Yes. We came out with that theatrically last year, for two nights only. And it did really well; but we’ve been working on a studio deal for DVD distribution, and that’s been the holdup for us. In the meantime, we’ve been building Outreach Cinema as well. So we’ve kind of held everything until we’ve had this structure in place.

If you missed the links in the article above, please also see Greg’s review of Hidden Secrets and his review of The Wager.

http://past-the-popcorn.gospelcom.net/index.php/2007/david-white/