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Getting Our Children Off The Grid – Episode 179

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mastermindsOn this week’s show host Bill Heid talks to a group of experts in radio theater, who bemoan the fact that as more and more Americans get off the grid, their children are hopelessly plugged into the grid.

The youngest of American children spend an average of 14 hours a week watching television, while older ones are in front of it double that amount – a whopping 28 hours. And that’s not even including video games. (Source: Kaiser Family Foundation.)

What happened to a child using his or her imagination, to creativity and exploration? As we plant heirloom seeds, what kind of seeds are we planting in our kids?

The experts say audio productions such as Adventures in Odyssey allow children to use their minds in ways that TV does not and cannot. The three men are part of the crew behind a new two-hour audio theater CD, G.A. Henty’s Under Drake’s Flag, and they give a mini-seminar on audio theater production. The crew are a who’s who of audio theater, with ties to not only Adventures in Odyssey but also to Chronicles of Narnia and Lamplighter Theatre.

Off The Grid Radio
Ep179
Released: October 18, 2013

Brian:               Hi. I’m Brian Brawdy. As a parent, I’m always looking for opportunities to interact in a deep and meaningful way with my children. Sometimes the competition for their attention can be pretty fierce. I’m here to tell you that I’ve discovered a fantastic way through audio drama to captivate their minds. In today’s exciting podcast, I had the opportunity, and the pleasure, to sit with and interview four of the leaders in audio theater. On today’s show, you’ll learn how executive producer Bill Heid took his lifelong love of history and a story that positively impacted his children and grandchildren in a most remarkable way, and share it with families everywhere. In his quest to help the next generation live historical adventures, Bill set out to find the best in the audio theater industry, in order to bring the G.A. Henty classic, Under Drake’s Flag, to life. You’ll hear from John Fornoff, one of audio drama’s most prolific writers. John has worked on eight major audio theater projects and you’ll probably recognize his work on the Focus on the Family’s adventures in Odyssey. You’ll learn from Mark Drury, an award winning sound engineer, whose talents help bring the audio blockbuster Narnia to life. You’ll listen to Emmy award winning composer John Campbell describe how he creates musical scores for major audio dramas. John’s impressive resume includes Chronicles of Narnia, Adventures in Odyssey and Lamplighter Theater. So, if you’ve wanted to know how real audio dramas and how audio theater are produced, you’re not going to want to miss today’s show. Remember, the audio dramas being discussed today aren’t just books being read. They’re truly audio movies for your mind, and the passion that goes into their production is extraordinary and unmistakable. We’re certain you’ll enjoy today’s show.

Announcer:      Welcome to Off the Grid Radio. Better ideas to bust you and your family out of today’s global control grid. Now, here’s today’s show.

Brian:               Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Off the Grid News, the radio version of offthegridnews.com, with a very special group of guests today. But first, I’m Brian Brawdy. As always, here with Mr. Bill Heid. Bill, how are you sir?

Bill:                  Brian, I’ve never been better. It’s great to be with you today. Always a pleasure. It’s a beautiful sunny – it’s sunny for some other reasons.

Brian:               Sunny for some other reasons.

Bill:                  Let me tell you, Brian. I’m probably more excited about today’s show than maybe any other show that we’ve done because we’re kind of at a culmination point of a project that we started a year ago. You and I have been talking a lot about the project, but what’s the project been born out of? In other words, you’ve been hinting about this thing that we’ve been doing.

Brian:               Sure, big fan.

Bill:                  But what’s created the situation where by we said, “Hey, that’s a worthy product to go ahead and start thinking about doing.” And I have to say to you, we’ve been in the self-reliance business for five years and I’ve known you for five years now. But you and I – in our private conversations – have something that we talk about, and the fact is that a lot of folks are sort of not prepared in a spiritual way. They’re not prepared for things in a mental way. So we began to think about, what is it that we can do to sort of help inculcate that idea of people getting prepared mentally. So one of the things we thought we’d do is create an audio theater, audio drama, of a real life character. One of my heroes, and so today we’re here with three guys that have been working on this project for a year. And we’ve been in London together. One of the guys is from California, from all over the place, and we’re here today in the studio, talking about hentyalive.com. Which is our new website with this new project, so it’s a year’s worth of work and we’re going to try and bring the whole thing into focus and I couldn’t be more excited than to have the guys here with us today.

Brian:               Fantastic. And what I was so excited about, Bill, when I learned they were going to be here is just the passion that everyone had to bring to this project to make it work. You know, a lot of things you and I do – if we’re doing a commercial, we’re doing a radio show, someone will call in or we’ll think of it in the morning or Sara will book a guest a week before, runs it by Jeremy and Jeremy produces the spot – but this morning’s segment is really about a group of people coming together for over a year. And not just working together. The guys that worked together on the project, this was them bringing their personal passions, as we’re going to learn from each of our distinguished guests. Not only their passions in the day, but a long resume of things that they have done. I mean, these guys have won awards. They’re the best at what they do!

Bill:                  One of the things that I appreciate about all three of you is that when I say the word excellence, it means something. There’s a resonation of something that’s very right to the bone. In other words, what is excellence to some people is not excellence to other people, but our guests today I think exude excellence in their work. And so why don’t you begin the introductions, Brian, and we’ll start to talk with our guests.

Brian:               Fantastic. I think what we’ll do, because this setup is a little different, Mark, why don’t you jump in? Give us your name, give us a little bit about who you are and then we’ll circle back around and talk about why we’re so fired up to have you here.

Mark Drury:      Sure. I’m Mark Drury. I’m a sound designer, and my position on this project was I was the one that went and recorded the voices for this audio drama that we did, and then came back and edited all that and did the sound effects and pretty much did the full production on that. So my background is in audio, music, sound design, and I used to work for Focus on the Family for many years, doing some of their audio drama projects. Radio theater, the Narnia’s, things like that.

Brian:               Oh, cool. Narnia. I’ve heard a little bit about that, just off, off, off Broadway thing, right? And I hear there’s a little something that sits on a bookshelf behind you and taunts you when you’re at your desk. Tell us a little bit about that.

Mark Drury:      Oh, well, okay. Let’s blow our own horns here, shall we? Okay. We won the Peabody award back in 1997.

Brian:               Congratulations, that’s great.

Mark Drury:      Thank you. It was for a project about (inaudible 6:42), and he was another hero of the faith that stood up against Nazi Germany during World War II and we did that project. It was well received. We won the Peabody award for that, so that was actually quite an honor to get that. Because at the time I didn’t even know what a Peabody was.

Brian:               You know what, we’re very glad to have you here. And obviously to be a part of Bill’s tape. Why don’t you introduce the gentleman to your left, please?

Mark Drury:      This would be Mr. John Fornoff, who’s our esteemed – what is he? Let’s go down the list. Writer, producer, director and all around good guy.

Brian:               All right, John, is any of that true? No, okay! I know the good guy part is true, John.

John Fornof:    Yeah, what’s so cool – and Bill alluded to it – I think we’ve got … I want to brag on my team. We’ve got an amazing team, talented people. Starting with we’ve got a team of writers. We’ve got actors. We go to London to get some of the best actors. We’ve got sound design. If you listen to the show, I mean – are we going to give a little snatch of the show, a little sample?

Brian:               We will.

John Fornof:    When you hear it, you’ll say, “Wow!” Like a movie. I mean, Mark and work with (inaudible 7:48) as well, doing foley on it and doing sound design … when you hear it, it’s like –

Brian:               What’s foley? Tell people what foley is John.

John Fornof:    Foley is like, you’ll see on the behind the scenes DVDs, but actually when you walk the footsteps out with your feet kind of thing. And Mark can tell more about it, but you’re doing the human sounds, what happens behind the scenes. And it makes it real. This is not like an audio book where a guy reads a book. This is fully dramatized sound effects, and then you’ve got music. The music – John Campbell – it’s just a fantastic job with the music. For me, I’ve worked on seven different audio projects. Worked with Adventures in Odyssey, another one called Lamplighter Theater, just about seven different ones. But this one, oh wow. This is very exciting.

Brian:               Cool. Looking forward to talking to you about it. And the gentleman to your left, John?

John Fornof:    This is John Campbell. This guy does fantastic music. When you listen to a show, everyone says it has a distinct personality. He is an amazing, amazing musician. But here’s John.

John Campbell:            I’m from California as we’re talking. I love to surf and grew up there, but I’ve had both feet in both the Christian and the secular market for years. Dating back to 25 or 30 years. We’re talking about the Peabody; I’ve spent years writing a lot of Saturday morning kids’ cartoons for the networks. For Disney and Fox and I have an Emmy on my wall.

Brian:               Very nice!

John Campbell:            I don’t know if … but again, it was a show that won an Emmy and it was a thing called Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego. I wrote three seasons of that, which was a very popular show. But grew up, my first gig was – now, for young listeners, they’re not going to remember who Debby Boone was – but I played for Debby Boone for years. Then got involved as a session player, keyboard player, worked with a lot of rock bands. Well known bands, but then got involved in the … I do write, talking about Focus on the Family, they’ve got a kid’s show called Adventures in Odyssey. I’ve been with that from the beginning. But then it has spurred on to so many other projects and so many other ministries and other jobs, so it’s been really fabulous. But, being here with John and Mark, guys I have worked with for years and years. We live in different parts of the country and we love to laugh and we’re having a good time.

Brian:               Yeah. Well Bill, it looks like you’ve got a great team assembled to help you in the quest, as we’ve talked about before, in the Henty project. What do you think, now that you get to see them again?

Bill:                  It’s great, as I said, it’s great to have everybody here. It’s great to see y’all, as they say in the south, and just to be able … we met originally – you, John, and Mark came out – and then we obviously met again in London, which was a blast. Hanging out in London with all the actors and I think some of the people when they listen to this are really going to appreciate. We’ve got a lot of behind the scenes kind of stuff, just fun with Brian (inaudible 10:50) but do you remember in the studio, just our narrator in this Under Drake’s Flag, the name of this Henty book that we’ve taken and made an audio drama and audio theater out of. Brian Blessed, the man, friend of the Queen, friend of the royal family, you know. Very, very famous in England. Do you remember having him – talk about a character. Do you remember having him in the booth and dealing with him?

Interviewee:      What’s funny about Brian – he’s big, bombastic – and he plays the role … it’s called The Extraordinary adventures of G.A. Henty, and he is Henty. He’s over six feet tall, 240 pounds, a man’s man, you know. And Brian kind of looks like him. In fact, Henty palled around with the Prince of Whales. He was there at the opening of the Suez Canal. He was a war correspondent, almost shot as a spy. He lived adventure. Brian’s like that too. He was one of the oldest guys – I think he was the oldest guy – to attempt to ascend Mount Everest. He’s like an embodied Henty. With the beard and everything. He’s got the beard and the big guy and talks big like that. It’s amazing.

Bill:                  It was an amazing time there, and he fell in love with the script. If you remember him saying that, and I think we’ve got some clips of him actually saying just how powerful he thought the script was and how he thought that you – we – have brought history to life. And I think that’s one of the things, guys, that I get most excited about. Because one of the problems, we were talking about culture a little bit earlier and talking about what’s going on, and I think one of the issues that I think most about that is most extraordinary is, our generation, our culture seems to have lost something, to have misplaced something, and I kind of want to get your comments on this a little bit. Because why do we need heroes? Why do we need to talk about some of these things? We seem to have lost something that Attila the Hun couldn’t take, that Hitler couldn’t get, that all of the arch villains in history, who have been threats to humanity, couldn’t steal from us. We’ve just set aside and misplaced it, and I’m talking about these ideas of courage. I’m talking about what a legacy actually is and what it looks like. What do we pass down to our children? What is it? If you look and say, “What are we passing down to our children right now,” and look at us as a culture, I think Henty would be aghast. Certainly Sir Francis Drake would be aghast at the legacy we’re leaving our culture. There’s two ways to find out what any given culture holds highest. So this is, if an anthropologist, walk into a primitive culture, they look for two things. What is the source of law, in that culture what is the source of law, and what is it you think is the most important thing that you want to tell the next generation? So how do you educate your kids? Those are two real strong measuring sticks for cultural transmission. So I think the project comes at a great time because we’re at a place where we’ve lost this idea.

Interviewee:      Completely.

Bill:                  Completely. You guys want to jump in a little bit?

Interviewee:      Can I throw something in that might be fun to listen to? If we play a little bit of the open, that open, it’s like 45 seconds, and in that, that’s kind of a summation of what you’re talking about. It kind of zeroes in on those …can we do that? Can we play the open?

Bill:                  Sure.

Join us now as we explore history’s most daring expeditions and greatest adventures. From the shimmering sands of ancient Egypt to the misty wildwoods of Patagonia.

“I see the captain. Fire away!”

Discover stories of valor and virtue. Daring and determination. Character and courage. From history’s master of storytelling, these are The Extraordinary Adventures of G.A. Henty.

Interviewee:      Okay, so as you’re listening to it, I love this. There’s this party saying these are stories of the greatest expeditions, the greatest adventures, that kind of stuff. But it gets down to the nitty-gritty. These are stories of daring and determination, valor and virtue, character and courage. Those are the things we’re missing today. We’re talking about it today.

Bill:                  Those are the things we’re missing today! And we need to teach our kids that the most valuable things in life are something worth paying a price for. That things don’t come in some kind of existential moment. That there is value in delaying gratification and so forth. And waiting for things, and working hard towards things. And I think that was very much a part of Drake’s world, obviously, and it was very much a part of Victorian England as well.

Interviewee:      And if I can jump in, I do believe that our culture as a whole has started to lose over the last 50-60 years that hero mentality, but not the hero that comes in and saves the day on everything, but the hero that is just a regular person and changes from that person out. And we’re bombarded with …

Interviewee:      Superheroes.

Interviewee:      It’s a “me” mentality. I deserve everything that I want, now. I don’t need to work for it, I can just get it. And it’s a sad state of affairs when we’re even talking to our children, who, where we’ve worked – because from all of us – we went through a period in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, where we actually had to work for what we wanted. But even to see our kids, who we are trying to teach, have that outside view from mentality, saying, “I want what you have, now. I want it now.” And is it a thing where we just immediately give it to them? Or do we actually ask them, “You’ve got to work for it. You can have it, but you’ve got to work for it.”

Interviewee:      Could you share the story about what happened when you played the open? Would you share that?

Bill:                  Oh, without a doubt. The first time I got the open I happened to have a house full of grandkids. I have 11 grandkids and I think that the 11 grandkids plus some of their cousins and second cousins – we have a very big family – were all there. They were in a different room. I got this and I heard it come in and so I go to my computer and I read your note, John, and so I pressed play, and I turned up the volume a little bit and I was looking at the kids in the other room, because I was working myself in my den area, my library. I turned the volume up, guys, and as soon as the kids heard this, they didn’t walk to see what was going on. They ran to me, to see what was going on. They ran. And so, if that tells you anything, John, I think that’s a pretty powerful thing to have. There were kids of pretty much all ages inside that group. I think my oldest is 13, so it was a nice cross section there.

Interviewee:      I think it’s kind of a metaphor too. I think something is, we want stories like that. We want the heroes. There’s something in us. Culture is telling us, but inside, there’s something that resonates with us. We want true heroes with true courage, true integrity and valor.

Interviewee:      And I think the opening offers an immediate snap on hope.

Interviewee:      Yes, hope! That’s what we’re missing.

Interviewee:      Before our (inaudible 18:41) guy comes in musically. When I thought about writing the opening theme of Henty, how do I embody Henty into this man that is going to give hope to a world, but how do we interpret that? And how did we interpret that, because our goal is to not change what Henty was about, but we want to continue to give that hope and I actually only heard the opening them, for the first time – finally produced – the first thing I had in my head was John’s original (inaudible 19:24) lines, so I essentially stuck by myself musically, thinking, “Where do I begin?” And as I started to do that, and I finally heard the final with all the effects and everything, and it gave me chills. It gave me chills. And I write a lot of music, and not everything I write gives me chills. Hardly anything I do, because I do it everyday, but it gave me … the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. It was pretty amazing.

Brian:               Gentlemen, we’re going to have to run to a break here in just a minute, but what I’d like to do is when we come back, Bill, if it’s cool with you, in addition to the content I want to talk to John about the audios. You said to us earlier that audio is so important, but also Mark, as a sound designer, I think Bill, would you agree that’s probably why your grandkids came running, because it wasn’t an audiobook. There’s music to it. There’s a human voice. There’s the sound effects. There’s all the rest of that. Would you think that was a part – not just your grandkids – but …?

Bill:                  No doubt about it, they had just a twinkle in their eye. That was another thing I was looking for when they came in. It’s fun to watch people sparkle, and so they really genuinely had that. So let’s talk about that stuff when we come back.

Brian:               Yeah, we’re going to run to a quick break and then John and Mark – of course John, you can jump in as well – ladies and gentlemen, you’re listening to a very special broadcast of Off the Grid News, the radio version of offthegridnews.com. Come back right after this short break.

Announcer:      You’re listening to Off the Grid News Radio. Here at offthegridnews.com.

Brian:               Hi I’m Brian Brawdy. Thank you so very much for listening to today’s audio podcast, where we’re talking about the single most important problem we all face today, and that’s the decline of our nation’s moral values. I’m happy to report to you that the purpose behind this exciting new Henty audio theater presentation of Under Drake’s Flag was to give kids rock solid role models that help build character and conviction, so that they can always make great decisions as they grow up. In the next section, you’re going to learn how to cultivate your child’s imagination in a truly profound and enriching way. You’re going to learn the absolute best way for your child to learn. And you’ll learn how to leave an unshakeable legacy to your children. All coming up in the next segment. Also, please check out our new website, hentyalive.com. hentyalive.com, where you can learn more about the newest audio theater blockbuster that critics are calling the greatest swashbuckling adventure ever made.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to this very special edition of Off the Grid News. We’re talking about a great project, one that personally I’m very excited in. Although Bill is my friend and my boss, something that I’m looking forward to, Bill, to Parker and Paige listening to. I think this is going to be great.

Before we went to the break, John, you had said this earlier about why audio is so important. How it affects the human mind. That this isn’t just an audiobook, and if it’s cool with you, Mark, can you tell us as a sound designer, why you think when Bill’s grandkids heard it, they sprinted across the room to see what was going on? Talk to us about it, all that kind of thing.

 

John:   I think we live in a very visual culture, obviously. So much input visually – TV, everything we see in movies. Everything is very visual. And what’s interesting about audio is, at least from my standpoint, is that by just doing audio, I think it engages our imagination. So when you hear something, especially a story where you can place someone in a scene or a situation, I think it engages that theater of the mind, which we all have, that frankly when you see it on the screen, it’s kind of like it’s being spoon-fed to you. You’re seeing it all. You’re not as engaged in that moment as you can be when you’re listening to something, especially if it’s done well. Something has all the key elements, like we’ve discussed, of obviously a good story, the music, the sound design. All those elements coming together. I think there is this magical moment that happens where you’re pulled into this and you’re engaged in a way that I don’t know that you can be if it’s purely a visual thing.

Interviewee:      And John, that kind of speaks to what you were saying this morning about your passion for audio. And why. Why does it affect us? Why did Bill’s grandkids come darting across the room? Why were they mesmerized by this?

Interviewee:      Because the first thing that we normally hear, anywhere – whether it’s visual – our ears are very attuned to a new sensation coming into their mind. We’re just standing around the room. If we hear a train, our minds, we’re hearing train, but in our minds we’re visualizing the train going by. We have to visualize it because we don’t see it; we’re sitting in a room. And again, as a composer, my job has been – on writing anything – if I have a set of visuals, that’s one thing. But if I have just audio, I have to think differently on how I can get the point of emotion across over speakers or over headphones, but not overtake the story. I think the important thing that what we’ve all learned, and especially with Mark Drury and I, once we have all the pieces, music is usually one of the last areas of production, or post-production, after the whole thing. And a lot of times I’m asked to “fix” things. A scene might not have gone as good. It might have sounded flat. How does music play into that?

Interviewee:      Well, it becomes another character. Truly, the music in an audio drama really takes on and becomes a character, a very vital character in the drama.

Interviewee:      However, the one thing I’ve learned over the years in underscoring dialogue and even visuals is, I cannot become the main character all the time. I think young composers will end up wanting to shine and it becomes a big audio mess.

Interviewee:      Draws attention to itself.

Interviewee:      Draws attention to itself. I like to call music, in many cases, as an emotional wallpaper. I’m just in the background. Not even being noticed sometimes, but it makes the scene happen.

Interviewee:      And you do some great wallpaper.

Brian:               And John, when you and Bill get together to write this, then, do you write it thinking that John and Mark are going to get together?

John C.:           You’re talking to John Fornoff, right?

Brian:               Yes, when you write this, John, and you’re with Bill, do you guys picture how they’re going to be able to hang the wallpaper? Or do you go, “Hey, we’re just writing it. Let the audio guys earn their pay.”

John F.:           Feels like it sometimes!

Brian:               How does that work?

Interviewee:      I think as I’m writing, I’m hearing the voices. I’m hearing the actors. I’m listening and hearing the emotion of it. And John picks up on the emotion really well. Mark is also giving him music cues. He’ll say, “Hey John, I think we need this,” and they’ll talk back and forth and kind of work it together.

Interviewee:      Very collaborative.

Interviewee:      But also, a cool thing is, as you’re writing, sometimes – Mark loves me for this – but I’ll put in a scene, thinking, “This is going to be really complicated to do, but you know what? I think …”

Interviewee:      I don’t care, Mark will pull it off!

Interviewee:      I’ll give you an example. I’ve never heard this in radio, but there was a shark attack, where our hero jumps off the ship, into the water, to save a girl from a shark. Okay? That is a very complicated … he takes a dagger, goes under the water, stabs the shark and … I’ve never heard that in radio. And I know Mark could pull it off. Mark said, “Let’s not do that.” It took him how long to do that?

Interviewee:      Let’s see, you wrote that page of dialogue in, what, maybe half an hour? And it took me about three days. Because I was having to come up with very specific sounds that I hadn’t done before. You don’t just look on a database and go, “Sound of boy jumping and going underwater and stabbing shark.”

Brian:               You don’t head over to Sea World and just jump into a shark tank?

Interviewee:      The mike doesn’t do well under the water! So yes, we have this back and forth, sometimes very interesting exchanges where I say, “Thanks, John. Your little thing here, that you just want to hear, has caused me three days of work.” Now, the flipside of that is it does challenge and push me in a different way and I can now say I’ve done a shark attack underwater.

Interviewee:      And I wanted to say, because of course, being just the music guy in the background, but I wanted to say, talking about with John Fornoff, because John is the visionary. You’re the beginning visionary. You work with Bill. You guys discussed ideas, and so I don’t see a script until after the fact. In fact, I don’t go to any of the acting sessions. I don’t go to any of that. I just basically get an audio file with a script. And usually, Mark, once we’re done, Mark will have poured his soul into ideas, musically. It depends with different clients for me. Sometimes clients will say, “John, we love what you do. We’ll just give you the script and you put in what you want.” But in this case, with the synonymous synergy that had, because John is that visionary. On the script he is going to say shark attack, and he’s going to explain that but it’s not going to be readily available for anybody to look at. It’s not going to be, “This is the shark attack.” It’s going to be a thing where we have to portray that. We have to put in people’s minds, “Oh my gosh, this is a shark attack and what is going on?” So Mark and I, after the visionaries – Bill and John have discussed all that. Written the script and they’ve gone and recorded all this – then we have to figure out how do we convey the attack? Because of course with sound effects, sound effects is another aspect of it. Foley is another aspect, music is another aspect. And voice. All these different … who is going to be the focus, and when? How’s it going to be – pull up voice, pull it down, an effect? A piece of music, something that I would do to go, “da-da-da-da-dum.” To give and bring all these elements together, it’s a team effort. But again, the initial thing – and I’m speaking to John – you are that visionary. You’re that creative guy that’s always I’m amazed at how you’re able to come up with these, because you think it in your head and then we have to figure out what you thought.

Brian:               Do you think in sound, or do you think in pictures?

Interviewee:      Both. That’s the cool thing. We’re talking about, “Why audio?” As you’re listening – can we play a little part of that?

Brian:               Absolutely.

Interviewee:      As you’re listening, anybody listening, why audio is because you are participating in the process. Instead of, like Mark talked about, television and movies, it’s spoon-fed to you. You get everything. With audio, you are picturing. When you hear this, you’re going to see that shark. You’re going see that guy jump into the water. You’re going to see this.

Interviewee:      But you’re going to use different senses instead of your eyes, to put that in your head. Because everybody’s going to have a different picture in their mind, but that’s okay. Because …

Interviewee:      It awakens your imagination. It becomes part of you.

Brian:               Okay, let’s go ahead. Is that cool with you, Bill?

Bill:                  Let’s listen.

Brian:               Let’s listen to that now.

“Gerald, was that my imagination, or did I just?”

“That was definitely a girl. There she is!”

“She cannot swim.”

“She’s just a Spaniard.”

“I will not watch her die.”

“Ned! Stop! Stop I see a shark!”

“What? Where?”

“He just circled around. He’s going back for her!”

“I …

“No, Ned. You must not.”

“Not to worry. I have my father’s dagger.”

“Ned, no!”

“Off I go!”

“Stop!”

Ned plunged into the water headfirst. He struck the creature with such force that it was driven sideways from its course toward the girl. Ned was stunned. The shark was not so soft as he had imagined. Quickly he shook of his stupor, grabbed the fin of the creature and plunged his dagger into the shark’s belly. The shark struck back with his tail. A force of furious. It knocked Ned from his hold. Meanwhile, sailors on deck launched every missile they could at the creature, trying to dodge Ned. The shark now doubled back and rushed Ned with all its might. Just before the shark reached …

Brian:               John Fornoff, the whole time I’m listening to that, what blows me away about John and what I dig about him already, is he’s got his eyes closed.

John F.:           He’s talking about John Campbell.

Brian:               John Campbell, I’m sorry. When he’s got his eyes closed, so when he talks about audio, Bill, you see it. Even when he says, “Okay, I’m doing audio,” he’s looking away from the microphone, so he really is into it. Talk to me, though, about working with Bill. When Bill comes in and you guys decide you’re going to write the script this way, what did you think about? Because this is kind of a new experience for Bill, what was it like saying, “Okay, Bill. Here’s how I think this has to play out.” Was he an easy student? Talk to us about that a little bit.

Interviewee:      A visionary. This thing wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for Bill. Bill had the vision – let’s do this. That’s exciting. And working with Bill has been a joy. It’s really fun. Because he gets excited about it. He draws you … “Okay, John, this is what we want to do with this series,” and hit all those high points. But stories that wake up people. Stories of courage and valor. What are we doing here, and that kind of stuff. Let’s get stories that give people hope and that kind of stuff. So he sets the overall vision of it. I get fired up by that and I’m writing the story. So working with him has been a joy. It really has. It’s a lot of fun.

Brian:               And Bill, could you tell our listeners about your son, Nick? I mean, this isn’t just something you happened to stumble across … sitting at the airport, you see a magazine and think, “Oh, I should do this.” Can you tell us quickly about your son, Nick, because that moved me? When he was a little boy how did you come up with something like this?

Bill:                  It was very easy for me because Nick had read the Hentys. As a concerned parent, years ago, I had given him the Henty books. So for him to sort of jump on this project and I remember telling him, “Hey, we’re going to do the Henty thing.” And he was like, “Oh, really?” There was a lot of lines of convergence on this, but always keep in mind, the backdrop on this is, what’s the antidote for the current malaise? What’s the problem in culture? What’s the problem that you and I, Brian, have listened to over and over and over when we talk about preparedness. We don’t really have the mentality of preparedness so much, let alone actually sending that out to your kids into our young people. And I think that kids are … I wouldn’t say that all of them have a sense of entitlement, guys, but I would say there is kind of a lack of calluses on our kids’ hands in the spiritual sense. There’s not a lot of that. We’ve been discussing that. So, what I was thinking about, when you were talking about this idea of visual with an audio, I was thinking I heard John McCain one time talk about when he was being held a prisoner. And this happened to me the other day and I was thinking, “Wow that’s amazing.” Because you know what he said saved his life? His imagination. So I guess, because he was kept … the story is pretty terrible in many ways, but he survived. And you’ll find this with many prisoners – they survive because there’s a place they can go. Because those memory muscles, those imagination muscles have been strengthened at some time in their life. In other words, John McCain’s not a product of the culture of today. He was a product of a different culture, of the spoken word. And reading. And so that allowed him – literally in his case – life or death. Some people don’t make it in these situations. Some people die.

Interviewee:      It depends on what they’ve learned over their lives.

Bill:                  What’s the muscle look like?

Interviewee:      What’s that muscle look like? Exactly.

Bill:                  It reminds me of Viktor Frankl when he talks about everyone in all the death camps. Where the ones that survived created these great pictures of … they were getting a little bit of rice, but it’s an 11-course meal and this is – I’m sure he didn’t say tiramisu – but you know what I mean? Viktor Frankl talks at length about what it was like to create those pictures and some lived and some didn’t. But doesn’t it speak – John Fornoff – doesn’t it speak to a young mind being a sponge? And before I throw it to you, I always think of that car commercial, you can pay me now or you can pay me later. Remember the old mechanics commercial? But if you have a young child and he or she has a sponge, they’re going to soak up something, so why wouldn’t a parent want to put them in a position to soak up this?

Interviewee:      A child growing and that sponge you’re talking about, there’s something as you participate, you’re listening to stories – Jesus told stories. Okay? He never went anywhere without telling a story. Why is that? Because stories awaken your imagination. You place yourself in the story, you can see it, and it becomes part of you. Can you quote the Beatitudes? Like from start to finish? I can’t. But you ask anybody – do you know the Prodigal son story? Yeah, sure. You know the story. There’s something about that, as a child growing up with those stories, it becomes part of you. Part of your spiritual DNA.

Bill:                  Stories are sticky.

Interviewee:      Stories are sticky.

Bill:                  And if somebody lectures you and it’s a frontal attack, there’s mechanisms that we all have in our body that kind of act as – sorry Mark, I don’t want to go Star Trek on you – but like their shields. Some kind of deflector shields.

Interviewee:      It’s a natural defense.

Bill:                  Natural defense. Thanks John.

Brian:               But Bill, would you say, then, that a part of what John was saying about Jesus telling stories, does a parable act to hang wallpaper? Does a parable – because it doesn’t say it exactly – it makes your mind, as Bill said, a frontal assault.

Interviewee:      It connects.

Interviewee:      Is a parable sound construction and, John Campbell, hanging wallpaper.

Interviewee:      In a way, if you think Jesus spoke parables because there was a problem. It’s the germ which is the problem. As Bill was saying, we have a problem here, about our kids. We have a problem about the philosophy and the culture that we’re in. How are we able to utilize a parable, and essentially that’s what we’re doing, with G.A. Henty, because we’re going beyond the Henty story because we want to convey the idea of, “Hey, we can all be heroes. We need heroes. We need strength. We need to start from ourselves and we need to blow out.” And so, of course I’m thinking about Bill. He had a problem, and his initial idea – the germ – and God has given us all talents. Sometimes I don’t have the vision that maybe Bill or John would have, but he’s given me another talent to be able to come alongside and promote that parable in my way, to add to the overall project.

Brian:               Well, Bill, wouldn’t you say the parable of the mustard seed really didn’t have a lot to do with the mustard seed? Totally different story, and what you’ve been able to do with these guys is make sure the wallpaper, the sound design and everything else says, “Wait a minute! I better get my mind to slow down.” I don’t think they’re really talking about a mustard seed.

Interviewee:      I think there’s more to it.

Bill:                  Without a doubt, and go back to Mark’s connecting the dots. That’s such an important thing. Listen, as an employer, guys, I have people come in here to try to get work a lot. So I’m dealing with today’s generation, and there area few good men, as the Marines, would say, and women, but a lot of the people that come in here, not only could they not identify the Pacific Ocean on a map, they really have a hard time with any kind of thing that doesn’t require this blocky, one, two, three. In other words, if decisions have to be made, look, life isn’t made out of two-by-fours. There are contingencies that are thrown at you everyday. So we have to be able to think. And so much of our thinking is predicated on just how we’ve been brought up. What tools we have. How strong is our memory muscle. Our brain. Our imagination. And I’m telling you, in a very practical sense, we’re losing our kids because we’re losing our kids, their ability to imagine something. Now, I can only speak to my small microcosm here – can you imagine what we’re competing with worldwide as a nation, where other places, if you go to China, for example. They don’t have the visual culture, necessarily that we do, so our engineers have to even think of terms of imagination. What’s possible, and so forth. And I think we’re falling behind. You can see this showing up in statistical data. So that’s the scary part for me. I see that and I think, “What are we doing? What are we going to leave our kids? What is the legacy?”

Brian:               Ladies and gentlemen, come on back. I know you will. Short break and right back to Off the Grid News.

Announcer:      Just a reminder – you’re listening to Off the Grid News Radio, here at offthegridnews.com.

Bill:                  Parents and grandparents, I’m Bill Heid and I hope you’re enjoying this little behind the scenes look at the making of our brand new audio theater adaptation of G.A. Henty’s Under Drake’s Flag. You know, most parents understand a child’s physical body needs to be fed properly. To do it, you feed your kids wholesome, nutritional foods. You want them to have all the vitamins and minerals they need to grow up strong. But, what many parents forget is that their children need to take in sufficient quantities of moral and spiritual food as well. How do you do it? Well, the same way. You feed them wholesome and nutritious spiritual foods. You give them the mental and spiritual vitamins they need to grow up strong. Now, here’s the exciting news. Like your child’s physical body, thankfully your child’s mind will accept and absorb mental and spiritual vitamins without much effort. But unlike your child’s physical body, your child’s mind will digest and retain unlimited quantities of wholesome and nutritious spiritual food. Under Drake’s Flag really is an all-natural, mentally healthy, pure dose of spiritual super food. Check out the website at hentyalive.com. That’s hentyalive.com.

Brian:               Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to a very special edition of Off the Grid News, the radio version of offthegridnews.com. Of course here with Mr. Bill Heid, and three very special guests. Bill, I would daresay that these three, along with your team and a huge group of people, are terribly important to literally making Henty come alive.

Bill:                  Well, we’ve done our best, John, haven’t we, John Fornoff, to make this in the script, and then in the music and in the sound design and everything, to make Henty come alive. And that’s, as I said, that’s one of the things Brian Blessed has said when we were over there. He said, “The script, you guys actually made this history, Henty, come alive.” Of course, the history is the story of Sir Francis Drake. It’s the audio theater story of that, and we tell you that story through the medium audio, so that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about why did we decide to do this? We’ve talked about the quality side, and I think this is raising the bar and everything, but I’d like to pursue that just a little bit, Brian, before we move onto some other things. Because I think that the level of quality here for our listeners, we are trying to use that expression. We are trying to raise the bar. It is a (inaudible 43:23) thing, because basically Henty was a Christian and Sir Francis Drake was an extraordinary Christian, but I think the appeal to this, guys, is going to transcend just that market. I think it’s going to go a lot larger than that, because there are lessons here for everybody. So…

Brian:               Bill, I love your words. It’s sticky because of the story, because of their history, but it’s also sticky because of all the work that Mark Drury and John Campbell put into it – I love that term, hanging the wallpaper. You know what I mean? To complete that sense of an audio parable, so that your mind’s drawn into it, and you have to make those pictures yourself. John Fornoff, talk to us a little bit about that.

Interviewee:      It’s interesting. We’ve done a lot of projects together – John Campbell and Mark Drury and I – we’ve done a lot, lot of audio dramas. And we love doing it. But there’s something special about this show. I mean, really, it stood out. At first when we were doing foley, Rob Jorgensen did foley with Mark Drury and he said – Rob has done a lot of stuff as well – and he said, “That is some of the best sound effects I have ever heard.” What would you say, as far as comparing he stuff you’ve also done, Mark, what would you say?

Interviewee:      A lot of the foley is doing, the key word would be subtleties that we’re able to do. Because when you think of sound effects, for example, in a background, the sound of being outside and you hear the birds, or you have a fight scene and you hear guns and stuff. The foley stuff is all about the subtleties and all those wonderful little nuances that we add that just add those moments. When we have, there’s a scene in the show with the Grand Inquisitor talking about these different –

Interviewee:      Spanish Inquisition.

Interviewee:      These different torture devices that he’s going to potentially subject our hero to. And just being able to go and have them lift up each one and have a particular sound – very subtle – but picking up these little devices and things. They’re just the little things that, again, help kind of paint that picture for the audience of being there and actually seeing him do this and then being actually moved into the scene.

Interviewee:      You get scared when you listen to this. Picture it you in your imagination, and then on the music side, John, if you don’t mind me saying – jump right in here – John says, “I just did the music for this,” and he doesn’t say this. John is not one to go on and on about stuff, hyperbole stuff, and he says, “That’s some of the best.” In fact, I think he said, “That is the best music I’ve ever done.” Did you say something like that?

Interviewee:      It’s true because, for me, I think the one thing I have to be careful with is, I never want to be painted as the one-trick pony. This is my sound, this is what I do. Of course as a composer, I have a signature sound, but the challenge for me is doing things that don’t sound John Campbell-esc. So there is a certain challenge among any project that I have to switch it in such a way so that people don’t associate that with, “Oh, you did that on that show.” Sometimes it will happen, but for me, painting that picture and that underscore, because its just an exciting new way, and it’s almost like I have to … the way I write, on many of these shows, and this is one of the things with the Henty show, is I usually don’t read the script all the way through. I’m reading as I’m going, and anticipating what’s going to happen, and I write the cue as I go.

Brian:               Kind of like how the listener’s going to listen to it!

Interviewee:      Exactly. Bring in the emotion of what’s going to happen? And I let that shine in the music, because it gives me a sense of a place to go and it’s really a great way for me. Of course I understand the overall arc, but I don’t want to know the details because I want that to come out in the music.

Interviewee:      And it does. The music is amazing.

Interviewee:      But as I was saying, with Henty, it just came at a time when I was fiddling around with some new sounds and some new ideas, and then of course, with the Henty idea, I was having so much fun with it, I was getting lost in just the fun of the script and the story. Going back – and like I said, I’ve done this for a long time – and sometimes I work on commercial projects and all sorts of things. Sometimes I walk in and go, “I don’t want to write today.” But man, with this particular project, I was so excited about writing and now, even listening back which I rarely do, I thought, “Wow. I did this? This is amazing.”

Brian:               Very cool. Bill, let me ask you, why Under Drake’s Flag? With your library and you’ve read a lot – I learn stuff from you every time we hang out, whether it’s on the air, off the air, just doing our normal stuff here – why did you pick Under Drake’s Flag? He’s got dozens of books, Henty books. Why did that one grab you?

Bill:                  As you said, Brian, I think Henty is a bigger than life character and a writer of over 120 books. So we had a lot to chose from, and in looking at that, I know my son had read some of the books and I think really what came to the surface was really some of what’s doable. What really captures all of the things we’ve been talking about? Of course Mark read that one and said, “This is it.” And as you look at Under Drake’s Flag and Sir Francis Drake, what you find is a most remarkable hero. And someone who is a human being. Someone who is a sinner in that sense, but someone that has all the qualities that a parent would want their kids to have. And here’s a guy … I don’t know if you know this, John, but I was reading a biography the other day. He was chased out. The time he was born – he was the youngest of 12 kids – and he was chased out of the area that they lived by the Catholics at that time, because the Protestants – this was with Henry the Eighth – they wanted to start using this protestant prayer book, and so the Catholics said, “No way, baby.” And his father was a (inaudible 49:17) preacher. So they got chased out of their home, literally chased them all the way across the country, and he literally was born in a ship. He was born in a ship. He grew up in the water and that explains himself, doesn’t it John? In terms of his navigational ability, that was instinctive of him because he’d been in boats since he was a little boy. And his dad was busy with his work and so forth, so was able to start to navigate and do some of these things. And here’s the key guys. He took on responsibility very young. He was sailing and working for somebody very young and so we have school kids today – 17 and 18 years old – and they come out and go to college and they still don’t have any practical experiences. Drake, on the other hand, when he was very young, he was on ships and navigating some of that area down by Plymouth and so it’s just a fascinating story.

Let’s just talk about this for a little bit, because the early part – and this is the power of the Gospel, as far as I’m concerned – is a couple of his first voyages, he went on with his cousin, John Hawkins, and they were slaving trips. And all of Drake’s father’s teaching – Edmond Drake, his father – was big on the book of Romans, and just drilled Romans into those boys, over and over and over. And so he went on this trip with John Hawkins as a slaver and he got to the point where he said, “You know what? I can’t do this anymore.” And so the Gospel, in terms of not just “are you saved?” it wasn’t that. It was, what are the implications of this belief system for my life? And so in Drake we see, in a remarkable man that lived by his faith, and we can talk more about him, John, but you couldn’t find a better story, if you want a child to listen to how someone lived and who lived by example.

Interviewee:      Amazing.

Interviewee:      You know, it’s interesting. We were in London, and Mark and I went on board the Golden Hind. It was a perfect replica of the Golden Hind that Captain Drake piloted. And you’re on this ship and it’s a small thing. It’s little! And you think, this was used, he used this little ship to take on 90-something Spanish galleons? I mean, he pulled up this little ship next to the big ones and the Spanish went, “Okay, we surrender!” Why was that? I think – we kind of hinted at it in the show – is that I think there’s a favor of God on this man. Something remarkable and miraculous was happening.

Bill:                  So much so, John, that when he would go to the West Indies – a couple more interesting things about him – he was not a normal human being. Something about this guy. When word got out that he was going to set sail for the West Indies, everyone in Lisbon – because they would sail down through there on their way – they would evacuate the town. Can you imagine Spain, evacuating their coastlines just because he was going to sail by? And he did something that John is alluding to, that was most amazing. I think (inaudible 52:19) ship would be one of the things, if you looked that up in the dictionary, he was fearless. But he, almost singlehandedly, destroyed the Spanish Armada, as you say. The equivalent today of some Russian kid taking six boats and destroying America’s Navy. What’s the likelihood of that?

Interviewee:      You were talking about also, I think, Drake was a product of his upbringing. Of his own father. And that’s a lesson that I think we should all learn, especially for families today, that our children are a product of who we are. I mean, for me, I think the story is I didn’t just become a musician or composer because I kind of went one day, “Oh, I want to do this.” My father was a musician and he spent his time, from the age of four or five, teaching me his craft. As I grew up and saw all my friends kind of playing around and figuring things out, they come back later – so many of them said, “I wish I’d continued to play piano,” or, “I wish I’d kept doing this.” But they got sidetracked with something else. But I’m a perfect example of the product that my father and my parents instilled in me. And that is a thing. We talk about Drake, but it’s also just a great lesson.

Bill:                  And John, he learned those things and applied them in his life and I think one of the more remarkable things about him, too, do you remember during that period of time, when the ships sailed, they had to find sailors and so let’s say we were coming out of a tavern some night, Mark and I. And somebody hits you over the head and you wake up in a galley ship or something. That was, the phrase was “pressed into service.” Right? This guy is so remarkable that it was said by the folks that lived during his time that he had 300 people in line, waiting to sail for him at any given time. This was the character of this man. He had prayer twice a day on the ship. That was standard. He wouldn’t let you go to brothels. He wouldn’t let you even use foul language, a little bit like George Washington. But one of the most remarkable things about Drake, as we kind of get into his character – and it comes up in our production, John – but one of the most remarkable things is, 400 years ahead of his time in treating blacks, in treating Indians, in treating women, in terms of this guy really treating Spanish prisoners, he treated everyone with dignity and respect.

Interviewee:      Absolutely.

Bill:                  And it was just he was a game changer, because of that. And I think John, maybe that’s why you are saying God honored that on some level in his life, and he really had the wind in his sails. The thing you were remarking about.

Brian:               You know, I thought the very first time Bill shared this with me, as I listened to the audio program and Bill had shared with me the Sir Francis Drake prayer from 1577, the Disturb us Lord, and what grabbed me was the last two sentences. I’ll do the whole paragraph quickly, but it says: “Disturb us Lord, when we are too pleased with ourselves. When our dreams have come true, because we dreamed too little. When we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore.” And when you said just now, Bill, that he grew up, as a little kid he was on a boat, I didn’t realize this was an autobiography. He’s talking about, because he had dreamed too little, and the whole time brought up – one of 12, you said they had to keep moving – so his call to action is to make sure that we don’t sail too close to the shore. And maybe that’s what the Devine recognized in him. Going, “Hey, look. This guy’s not about the shallows. He’s about the deep.” And the people that are about the deep are the ones to make things happen. Bill?

Bill:                  You’ve just hit on it Brian, and I think with Drake, what you find is a guy who believed in God’s providence so much. He said, “If this God that I worship, and I’m safe, he’s the same God out in a deep storm. He’s the same God in a perfect storm as he is if I’m sailing down the shore of someplace I can actually see the shore.” So he knew that very well, and that trust that he had – almost an unshakeable faith and confidence – that was unparalleled for his time. When you think about the favor he had in the court, unlike Walter Raleigh, he had nobody sort of guarding his spot for him in the Queen’s court. He kept his head during a time when Queen Elizabeth was making quick use of the hatchet among people who fell out of favor. So, the Queen respected him. Everyone respected this man, and it said he really treated his inferiors with unbelievable dignity and respect. If you were equal to him in social status, he was a pretty good guy to you, but if you were above him, he gave you a hard time. Now, I read that in a biography just the other day.

Brian:               Well, who does that remind you of?

Bill:                  Well, Jesus, Brian. Because we’re talking about wisdom and stature. How did he grow? He grew …

Brian:               Wisdom, and in stature, and in favor with God and man.

Bill:                  Both God and man. There’s Sir Francis Drake. Not without imperfections. Like the rest of us, he had his.

Brian:               But as you say, Drake wasn’t always that fired up with the bigwigs above him. Jesus wasn’t all that fired up when he went in the temple, the way I read it. But when he came out, he’s hanging out with people who had nothing. He’s hanging out with people of his day that everyone else considered to be impure. And he gets in some pretty hot water himself. So that’s, when you first said that to me, that’s kind of how I looked at Drake and go, “I get it! I get it now.”

Bill:                  So Brian, for people that are sailing their ships a little too close to shore, I think that’s just … I mean, Tony Robbins can step aside, right? All the motivators? Read Drake’s prayer every now and then, if you want to get motivated for life. Want to do something and step out and make a difference in life? Read that prayer and then just do something.

Brian:               Well, Bill, in the second paragraph, he says, “We have lost our thirst for the waters of life.” And guys, just so you know, Mark and John and John and Bill, when I first heard this, it resonated in me to such a degree that parents are going to be able to use what you’ve done to trigger that thirst for the waters of life, if their kids reach a certain point and they don’t possess that passion, that grit to explore. We talked earlier, John Fornoff, about a young mind being a sponge. When Bill shared this prayer with me – we have lost our thirst for the waters of life – I think what you guys do in Under Drake’s Flag and Henty Alive is to reunite a taste for those waters of life, and you do it with a great story. A great production, great audio. But as an outsider looking in – I truly am – that’s what you did for me with this. It spoke to me of Drake’s prayer, and that’s …

Bill:                  Remember (inaudible 59:04) when he delivered Drake’s prayer in the studio?

Interviewee:      Oh yeah.

Bill:                  It was really an unusual … and even the actors, some of the people who had never heard that before were taken aback by the depth of who this man was.

Interviewee:      Oh yeah, and I remember a moment in the studio and Mark was reminding me about this, is when Ian (inaudible 59:25) as Sir Francis Drake, when he read that prayer at the end, there was a moment in the studio when we went, “Wow.” That was it. That was the take.

Bill:                  And people listening will hear that, because it’s – Ian’s a total pro – and it’s a most remarkable reading.

Interviewee:      And then Mark put some sound behind it and we’ve got some music behind it. It’s just a moment. It is a moment.

Brian:               Bill, unfortunately we’re already out of the hour. We’ve got a couple of minutes left, so any final thoughts, obviously, about Henty Alive or Under Drake’s Flag or our guests today – Mark Drury, John Fornoff, John Campbell – anything else you want to say before we let them go?

Bill:                  No, just go to the website, hentyalive.com. Check it out, read the stuff, watch the video that we have up there. I think you’ll catch a little bit of this fever and I hope everybody enjoys it, Brian.

Brian:               All right, Mark. How about you, sir, before we let you go?

Mark:    The one thing we haven’t mentioned at all is the brilliance of the actors and what they brought to this. We’ve, for years, used kind of a troop of actors in England, because we have a brilliant man over there called Phillip (inaudible 1:00:24), who is our casting director and he’s had literally 30 years of experience working with the BBC and doing all kinds of different what they call radio plays over there. We’d really be remised to not mention the level the actors brought to this. The way they raised it with their performances and obviously we can’t go through all the list of names, but a lot of the principles we had – we mentioned Ian Cullen – and the main characters, they just brought so much to this. All these actors just did so much in the studio to take this to that extra level. Then we come back and John Campbell and I then work on the production side of it. It just makes it that much more exciting to work on, knowing you’ve got this brilliant material and performances to work with.

Brian:               John Campbell, how about you, sir, before we go?

John C.:           I’m just so thrilled to be a part of it, because there was magic in what I was given. And it just continued to produce magic. This was one of those shows where the writing became really easy, because I just knew there it was going and I could see it. So, Bill, thanks for all your help in this and in creating this idea and for John Fornoff and you guys to continue to work together and I’m thrilled. I want to do it again!

Brian:               They do a great job, Bill, of setting each other up, because they’ve even helped me produce the end of the show. So now that he’s tossed it to Mr. John Fornoff. John, any closing thoughts before we let you go?

John F.:           Just our prayer is that this will excite the imagination of children.

Interviewee:      Not just children.

Interviewee:      And families. And just call them to something greater. And just put some hope in them, and there’s something special with it. We’ve done a lot of these shows and we love doing it, but this is something really special about this show. And with the help of people listening right now, we could make this a whole series. There are 122 books! I mean, this is just one of them, and we’d love to do more. So with the support, just go to hentyalive.com and listen. Pick up a sample of this and listen. Buy them! This is going to change you.

Bill:                  Just remind people, you can listen to the first section for free.

Brian:               Very cool.

Bill:                  So at a minimum, someone should just go and hang out and do that, take in some of this.

Interviewee:      Oh yeah, get a flavor of it.

Brian:               Very cool. Ladies and gentlemen, we want to thank you as always, Mr. Bill Heid, Mark Drury, John Fornoff, John Campbell for being in on today’s show. I’m going to leave you this – not mine, it’s from Drake’s prayer. Disturb us Lord, to dare more boldly. To venture on wilder seas. Go ahead, as Mr. Fornoff said, check out hentyalive.com. You will have the opportunity to venture on those very wilder seas yourself. And as always, thank you so very much for joining us here at Off the Grid News, the radio version of www.offthegridnews.com. We know an hour is a huge chunk of your day and it truly is an honor to get to spend it with you. Thank you so very much once again from everyone here at Off the Grid News.

Announcer:      This has been Off the Grid News Radio. For more information, go to www.offthegridnews.com.

Brian:               Brian Brawdy back with you and I’d like to thank you for listening to today’s podcast presentation of the making of G.A. Henty’s Under Drake’s Flag. We hope you enjoyed today’s show and I’d like to ask you, right now, to stay tuned for a very special message from executive producer Bill Heid. Bill’s going to tell you how you can get more involved with the Henty Alive project. Here’s Bill.

Bill:                  Thanks for listening to today’s podcast. If you love history, if you love adventure, if you’re like me and you love your kids and grandkids and want them to have heroes worth emulating, you’re going to absolutely love Under Drake’s Flag. Here’s what you should do right now. Go to hentyalive.com. Watch the video. Read the exciting story about how all of this came about, and I’d like to ask you for something more. I’d like to ask for your help. You see, it’s my belief that we’re in a life or death battle for the hearts and minds of the next generation. And that means there’s never been a time in our country’s history when we’ve seen and felt the direct effects of turning our backs on God. Folks, we need culture warriors. We need sons and daughters of (inaudible 1:04:46) who see what’s happening to us right before our very eyes. So, here’s what I’m asking you to do. Go to the website where it says, “best deal” and buy 10, 20, maybe even 50 or 100 copies of Under Drake’s Flag. You’re probably already thinking of a child that this new audio presentation will impact profoundly. Let’s do this together. Let’s give our children a strong legacy, a powerful future, one they can pass onto their children. Our journey beings at hentyalive.com, where you can begin to live the adventure. Thanks for listening. I’m Bill Heid.

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