Performances and workshops in almost 40 nations, about 30 films... Invite the Swingles to inspire your audience! Mobile users, our index is on the line below...
I played the adult male lead role of Mitchell Little in the feature-length music video, Providence, which had a limited nationwide theatrical release through AMC Independent, which opened Valentine's Weekend, 2016. It's now won or been nominated for over 80 awards.
On February 12th and 13th, I was joined for a Q and A by actors Stacey Bradshaw (Touched by Grace) and Emily Knapp (The Good Book) who play Teen and Young Rachel, Apolonia Davalos (The Perfect Wedding) who plays Beautiful Woman at Church, as well as Jenn Gotzon (Frost/Nixon).
Providence is a charming modern silent film from the makers of The Good Book, their first silent film, which has been nominated for 21 awards and has won over half of those. Providence has already won three awards at the Faith Film Fest: "Best Story," "Best Directing," and "Best Lyrical Music!"
The story is only told through movement and brand new songs written for this film. I like to call it a feature-length montage.
I play the adult version of a character who has known a girl most of his life. Circumstances and shyness have kept them apart, but the Lord brings them together in His timing. I loved being a part of this charming film because it’s such a beautiful picture of how the Lord is at work in bringing couples together. I’m so pleased with the final result, and I love that its theatrical release means more people will see God’s love on film!
For about twenty years I've wanted to be a part of a project that tells the power of purity in building a fantastic marriage. Fall of 2013 that prayer was answered when I was cast in Princess Cut.
Joyce and I got to see three rough cuts of the film at various stages, and and then I saw it at the 2015 Christian Worldview Film Festival, where it took Runner Up for Best Feature and Runner Up for Audience Choice. Then it was screened at the Salvation Army's TAM Conservatory where I was teaching and directing.
After a theatrical-on-demand release it is now available on DVD and Video on Demand:
I performed the role of Nigel Livengood, a suave realtor.It was filmed in the Winston-Salem, NC, area. Principle photography was originally slated for earlier in the year, but the Lord's timing brought gorgeous fall foliage to enhance the already beautiful backdrop.
It's a fabulous, moving and important film!
In the article "Princess Cut Heads Into Post-Production" in Christian Film, Jenn Gotzon calls this team “The most excellent production crew I have ever worked with on a faith-based film. In the production, in the coordination, in the communication, in all the pre-development, to on set through all the departments, they ran as excellently as Ron Howard’s Oscar nominated crew [Gotzon appeared in Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon in 2008]."
I'm excited to have played the Hollywood director Forrest "Woodsy" Woods in this fun 1940's film about a couple of writers who are locked in a room and can't come out until the script is done... at 8am the next morning. It debuted to a packed room with about 50 people standing at the Christian Worldview Film Festival in San Antonio, March 2015. It received the Audience Choice Award Runner Up. You can watch it now: TheScreenwritersMovie.com and on Amazon Prime.
Jason Burkey plays one of the writers. He played the lead role in For the Glory in which I played his soccer coach.
Jenn Gotzon plays the ingenue, and Jim McKeny is my character's producer. Jenn and Jim both performed in Alone Yet Not Alone with me, and several of the behind-the-scenes folks, including executive producer George Escobar and casting director Rebekah Cook, who played my daughter in Indescribable, also worked on Alone.
As we walked into the theater I stopped Joyce and said, "We've been praying for this moment for a very long time!" So we stopped and praised the Lord for my first nationwide theatrical release!
We noticed improvements since we saw it screened at the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival last year, and we recommend it for everyone mature enough for PG-13 war violence.
And here are things folks said after the show, as interviewed by co-director George Escobar:
I performed the role of a land speculator in this amazing true story of two young girls who were abducted by separate tribes during the French and Indian War.
They made a number of cuts, including my scene, but they've retained one of my lines in a flashback. Hurrah! Hopefully they'll put the whole scene in the extended scenes of the DVD.
The title song from Alone Yet Not Alone was nominated for an Academy Award! Then the nomination was taken away because the composer, Bruce Broughton, emailed his friends asking them to listen to the song. It's common practice, and Bruce received many such emails over the thirty years he was serving the Academy. Our prayer is that the heightened publicity will make more people aware of the film, so that it's message of hope will bless even more.
Joni sang the song at the Movieguide® Awards on the Reelz Channel:
Here's what I wrote before the nomination was rescinded:
It's sung by one of my childhood heroes, Joni Eareckson Tada, and written by Dennis Spiegel and Bruce Broughton. Executive director of the film and MasterWorks frequent MasterClass instructor Ken Wales talked his friend Bruce into writing the song that got him his second Oscar nod, the first being in 1985 for the Best Music, Best Original Score for Silverado. The nomination put the song over a number of A-listers such as Taylor Swift's "Sweeter than Fiction" ("One Chance"), Coldplay's "Atlas" ("The Hunger Games: Catching Fire"), Lana Del Rey's "Young and Beautiful" ("The Great Gatsby"), Beyonce's "Rise Up" ("Epic"), Ed Sheeran's "I See Fire" ("The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug"), Jay Z's "100$ Bill" ("The Great Gatsby") and Fantasia Barrino's "In The Middle of the Night" ("Lee Daniels' The Butler").
Studio System News includes an interview with Bruce in which he mentions Ken Wales:
I released “Pentecost: Beyond the Imagination,” a scene from my one-man play, The Acts, at www.RichDrama.com/Pentecost.
For about twenty years I've wanted to be a part of a project that tells the power of purity in building a fantastic marriage. Fall of 2013 that prayer was answered when I was cast in Princess Cut.
As we walked into the theater I stopped Joyce and said, "We've been praying for this moment for a very long time!" So we stopped and praised the Lord for my first nationwide theatrical release!
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