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A FEATURE FILM ADAPTATION THE CREATION AND MAKING OF THE CELESTINE PROPHECY by Kate McCallum

from the interview conducted by Michael Steven Gregory

SPIRITUAL CINEMA, CONSCIOUS MEDIA, TRANSFORMATIVE CONTENT, PRO-SOCIAL, GREEN, LOHAS, METROSPIRITUALS, CULTURAL CREATIVES, CONSCIOUS CREATIVES

hat exactly do these terms specific demographic categories inter- categories such as “,” “Human mean? They are descrip- ested in consuming that genre. Potential,” “Self-Help” or “Visionary W tive catchphrases from a Many great films and substantial tele- Fiction” found in the publishing world growing list of terminology finding its vision content in existence could easily to further codify this emerging genre. way into the lexicon of contemporary fall into these subgenres. The highly Many films or TV projects in develop- culture, media marketing, advertising successful film What The Bleep Do We ment, or readying for production or and business. Terms which define not Know!?, featured in our September/ release, are being culled from successful only a new genre of content emerging October 2004 issue (Vol. 10, No. 5), books which fall into these categories. that’s being aggregated, identified and/ is certainly a great example of such or created and marketed, but also label content. One can also look to book Continues w

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This column features one of those very books and was transcribed from a video shoot of an interview co-hosted by scr(i)pt magazine produced during a recent writers THE conference called “New Story Paradigm and the Future of Content.” Michael Steven Gregory, director of the conference, took the interview seat and had a candid and infor- mative conversation with James Redfield, best-selling author of The Celestine Prophecy, a book which chronicles nine insights into a CELESTINE greater . Redfield has been keenly interested in human spirituality all of his life. He grew up in a rural area near Birmingham, Alabama. From an early age, he was motivated by PROPHECY a need for clarity about spiritual matters. Brought up in a Methodist church that was loving and community-oriented, he was nevertheless frustrated by a lack of answers PAGE 28: John Woodson (Matthew Settle) and Wil (Thomas Kretschmann) arrive at the crest of the to his questions about the true nature of Celestine Ruins, the location where the first eight scrolls were discovered. Based on James Redfield’s world- spiritual experience. As a young man, he wide best-seller, this spiritual adventure film chronicles the discovery of a set of ancient scrolls in the rain studied Eastern philosophies, including forests of Peru. The scrolls, containing nine key insights, predict a new awakening that redefines human and , while majoring in sociol- life and provides a glimpse into a completely spiritual culture on Earth. ABOVE: James Redfield (screen- ogy at Auburn University. He later received writer/producer) with Matthew Settle on the set of The Celestine Prophecy, written by James Redfield (screenplay and novel) & Barnet Bain (screenplay) and Dan Gordon (screenplay). a master’s degree in counseling and spent more than 15 years as a therapist to abused adolescents. During this time, he was drawn In March 2004, Redfield was honored people were feeling and sensing and arriving into the human potential movement and by the Wisdom Media Group with the at themselves. The Celestine Prophecy became turned to it for theories about and WorldView Award for engaging discussion a pass-along book that people adopted and psychic phenomena that would help his on the nature of human existence and for passed around the world. troubled clients. his ongoing efforts and contributions to the Since 1994, when Warner Books pub- bettering of humanity. scr(i)pt: What was the personal reason that lished The Celestine Prophecy in hardcover, Redfield partnered with Barnet Bain in you felt obliged to write that story? this adventure parable about a spiritual jour- writing the screenplay for The Celestine JR: I was a therapist, and it was the days of ney to Peru became one of modern publish- Prophecy, which is being released into the- the human potential movement. Self-actu- ing’s greatest success stories. According to aters this spring. alization. There was a sense that we were Publishing Trends, The Celestine Prophecy was being liberated into a deeper creativity and the number one international best-seller of scr(i)pt: The Celestine Prophecy, 1993. a deeper life. It dawned on me as a kind 1996 and ranked as number two in 1995. Your first book. Why that book, why at that of intuition that what was really happening Also in 1995 and 1996, it was the number time? was a new consensus about the spiritual life. one American book in the world. The phe- JAMES REDFIELD: The whole book The book was an attempt to really create a nomenal novel spent over three years on The is about an experiential journey, and it’s psychology of that. New York Times best-sellers list and appeared designed, or maybe intuitively downloaded, on other top-sellers lists around the world. to be a parable. It focuses on experience, and scr(i)pt: How many drafts did it take you Redfield also authored two more adventure I believe the experience so many of us were to get to what you felt was the draft that was tales in the Celestine series: The Tenth Insight having. It’s below religion. It’s below creeds ready to go? How much time? and The Secret of Shambhala. In 2002, he also and ideology. It’s about the actual experi- JR: A long time. Some of my friends say co-authored God and The Evolving Universe ences of this time we’re associating with a that I was working on that book since col- with founder Michael deeper awareness that’s a spiritual aware- lege. Once I had a completed manuscript, Murphy and filmmaker Sylvia Timbers. ness. I think it put into words what a lot of I would hand it around to people—not

(2006) MARCH/APRIL s c r ( i ) p t 29 ( the great idea ) just friends but acquaintances, friends of us, called and said, “Hey, let us take over you’re gonna make it into a movie.” And friends who had nothing to prove to me—so this publishing. This is going to be a phe- they would say, “Boy, you’re a great nego- I got a lot of good feedback through that nomenon. Why don’t you let us do it?” Salle tiator. Here’s some more money.” So, we process. I spent a whole year doing that, found that another large publisher had also finally just stopped that process entirely. and they would say, “I love this part, this left a message on our answering machine, part and this part, but here I was lost or so we called them. We had the president of scr(i)pt: Cut to 10 years later. Now the confused.” I would make revisions based on Warner Books and the president of the other movie is going to be released. What prompted that feedback—almost like movie testing, company both on the phone, and we had that decision? you know? this sort of informal, off-the-cuff auction. JR: I was involved in writing a sequel to Right there, looking out on the ocean, and The Celestine Prophecy. A couple of study scr(i)pt: When you finished it, what was the it was really fun. guides. It was a pretty busy time until about next step? Did you go and try to market it to a 1998, 1999. I actually hired a screenwriter publisher, find an agent? scr(i)pt: No agents involved, no middle men, who didn’t work out. So I felt, ultimately, JR: For about six months, we sent it out to just you and the two heads of two major pub- I would need to write the screenplay. I’ve several publishers. We had some offers from lishing houses. never written a screenplay, so I then had to small publishers and regional publishers, but JR: Yes. I told Larry Kirshbaum, the presi- do all the due diligence and try to figure out my wife Salle and I decided if it’s going to dent of Warner Books, that we had the other what that craft was all about. It was around be published by a small publisher, the small guy on the phone. He said, “Why’d you call 2001 before I had written a draft. publisher might as well be us. So, we put him?” We said, “He called us.” So, we went together our own company, got a distributor, back and forth until Larry finally convinced scr(i)pt: What did you do after you learned and went on the road with it. us that he knew the book and that they had the craft of screenwriting? How was the transi- the mechanism that would honor what was tion? What was the biggest challenge of writing scr(i)pt: Okay. So you pack up the car, and happening with the book. He would give us straight narrative, novels, nonfiction books to you go on a field trip. those guarantees. So, we chose Warner. the haiku of screenplays? JR: That’s right. We would go into these JR: It was the obvious challenge: brev- small, more esoteric bookshops. Our thought scr(i)pt: How soon after being widely pub- ity. The long form is so much easier. was that we’d approach the manager, owner, lished did Hollywood take an interest? Screenplay writing, in my opinion, is the whoever was there, hand the book to him JR: When it hit The New York Times best- poetics of this general art field because it’s and say, “It’s something that people seem to seller list, which was in about two months. so dense, and words are so valuable, and like, and I’ll leave it with you. Here’s how Suddenly, it became a property. So, we start- you’re taking a viewer through that kind of to order if your clientele want to order it.” ed hearing from every producer in town. We drama in an hour and a half or two hours. Then we would give away a copy to whoever had a list of hundreds. They wanted to pick It’s the hardest form in my view. I started happened to be in the bookshop at that time. up the book then parlay it into something by just looking at the screenplays of the Of course, the book is about synchronicity, with a studio. We got an agent and went movies that I really liked. and a sense of destiny, so we figured every- to the heads of all the studios to talk about one who was there was destined to receive what kind of deal might be made. scr(i)pt: Now, assessing what material is a copy ... so that’s what we did. We spent going to remain in the screenplay, one of the three months doing this through Florida, scr(i)pt: What was your primary concern biggest challenges for an adaptation of a novel is the Carolinas, Virginia, D.C., then through when negotiating any possible movie deal? that most of it has to go. How did you go about Austin to San Francisco. By the time we JR: Well, it’s a spiritual book. It has a picking what to pitch and what to keep? got home it was being passed around every- devoted fan base because it seems true to JR: The book is very verbal—very philo- where. We really didn’t do anything else authentic spirituality. So, we obviously sophical and very didactic between charac- besides that. thought we had to protect the movie ... ters. Almost all that had to go. The heart that the movie had to carry the heart of the of the book and the heart of the movie we scr(i)pt: And before Warner Books got book. That was our stipulation going in. hope is this journey of one person’s coming involved, how many copies did you sell? We needed to be involved in the writing of from a point where his life feels as though it’s JR: About 160,000. the screenplay, the selection of the director stopped and he’s at a crossroads. He begins and those kinds of things. to awaken to a different view on reality, and scr(i)pt: What brought the book to Warner’s the spiritual dimension starts to creep in. attention? scr(i)pt: How receptive were the people, the That was primary; that it was a journey of JR: They had their spies out there in all movie moguls, to that concern? awakening from the beginning of the movie the bookstores; and when they start seeing JR: Well, you’ve heard all the stories. to the end. a book—especially a self-published book— Essentially, they just tried to buy it. We take off, they try to make a deal as quickly as would say, “Here are the controls that we scr(i)pt: As you moved from the novel to the they can. We were on the road, so it was sort need,” and they’d say something like, “Well, screenplay, do you feel that you elevated the of hard to find us. We were in Malibu when we understand. Here’s some more money.” material or merely mirrored the material? the calls started to come in. It was late 1993; I would say, “You’ve gotta hear this. This is JR: I do think we elevated it. The book has we were staying with a friend. Warner found what’s important for me with this book if a parable effect. Which means you read it

30 s c r ( i ) p t scriptmag.com ( the great idea ) and you can see an adventure tale. Or, you group of people who already were living has matured from a self-published book to a can read it and you see something below the them, was reflected in how brightly and best-selling novel published by the mainstream. adventure tale. You can wait another year luminously he saw the world on film as And now, a full-blown, feature-length motion and read it again, and there’s even more you depicted to the audience. The idea was really picture. Is this the story that you set out to tell? can pick up. I believe the insights are arche- an attempt to connect consciousness to how JR: Well, it’s never quite right. I mean, you typal steps that we’re hard-wired for. You can much beauty you can see when you become never quite think you’ve got it all. If the read all nine insights, and the information more conscious. For other insights that were movie can also just add to the conversation gets downloaded at a certain level. You could more cerebrally insightful, we just showed and be adopted by people the way the book read them again and it’ll change, depending the main character struggling over what it was, then I think we’ve done something that on the circumstances of one’s life. meant until it was illustrated enough in the makes us sleep really well at night. Now, I don’t take credit for doing that. I movie for the audience to keep up with what consider it a kind of higher self for spiritual the character was going through. download or some angel whispering in my KATE McCALLUM is an independent producer/ ear, whatever you want to call it. It was scr(i)pt: What would you consider the writer/consultant based in Los Angeles. She something that I received and sort of got genre? into writing. I don’t take credit for that. JR: That’s a hard one because I think maybe specializes in transmedia property development That’s the effect people talk about when they it’s yet to be named. There’s a transference through Bridge Arts Media (Bridgeartsmedia. have a long-term experience with the book. of, call it awareness, call it worldview, that The idea was to try to have the movie happens in a film that I don’t believe fully com) and she is currently consulting for The have that kind of an effect. I think—because happens in other mediums. Harmony Channel, a new television chan- we stayed true intuitively to the process, I believe all the way through—it has that scr(i)pt: Is the movie better than the book? nel scheduled to launch on Comcast in May. dimension. In our testing we’ve found that JR: Oh, I don’t know. I wouldn’t say that, Additionally, she co-founded c3, The Center people immediately want to see it again and but they’re two different forms, you know? report after seeing it again that they see links Two different art forms around this same for Conscious Creativity (Consciouscreativity.org), and connections they didn’t see the first central theme. whose mission is to explore the power of art and time. People who’ve seen it four or five times report that there’s something new to discover scr(i)pt: Thirteen years later, your great idea media’s effect on society and culture. in it every time. scr(i)pt: Were you working alone? JR: No, I worked with Barnet Bain, a pro- ducer of What Dreams May Come. We took my first draft which was 150 pages long and just worked until we got it distilled into the right length. scr(i)pt: What made you—a man who start- ed self-publishing, a self-made man—decide that you were going to produce a movie? JR: Some moment of insanity, I think as I look back on it. It just seemed to me that we could really stay true to the whole process. The whole process of making the movie was to have our own schedule, our own ability to bring in the right people from top to bot- tom. All 200 of us were people who really had some sort of connection with the book and with our own spiritual journey. scr(i)pt: The book is dealing with a lot of non-visual material. , auras and so forth. How did you tackle the challenge of visually interpreting things that are pretty difficult to see? JR: We connected visual to inner growth, so the main character’s growth, where he’s learning these insights from a

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