Welcome back to A.L.I.S. podcast. I'm Adam Armbruster. Today with me is Jerry and Nia
Chambliss. Jerry is a producer. Nia is a director, producer, actress, writer, caterer, editor,
on it and on and on and on. And they have an amazing film we're going to talk about
today. It's called My Guardian Angel. Some people would call it an anti-billing film.
I don't think I call it that. It's a lot more than that. We're going to talk all about this.
Welcome you guys. Thank you. Hi. So happy to be here. Pleasure. Can't wait to talk about this film.
Nia, when you were really young, before this film even was conceived, you wrote a poem.
You wrote a poem when you were really, how old were you? I believe I was about eight.
Would you read the poem for us? Yes, of course. I have it here. People walk every day, talk every day.
Without a thought to those who can't. We take life for granted, but life is never a grant.
I know people who can, I can't. So I sit here all alone knowing I shan't. Why are people so cruel?
Why are people so mean? They tease and ridicule, thinking their remarks are so lean.
But a light, small but yet, catches my eyes. A twinkle of light in the dark night, which shows me
hope. It gives me light. It helps me rid myself of all my strife. Now they walk every day.
I see them still, but no longer will I give my heart a sad fill.
Nia, does that still feel like you after all these years since you've written that? Yeah, it does.
I was a very, I really liked you right when I was younger and I love poetry.
So I think this still fits me and I think the message is also extremely fitting to the film.
I think it goes along with it pretty well. I mean, I even drew symbols all over it, that kind of reminiscent of the film as well.
Does it hit different to you since you've had some life experience since then? I feel like it does.
I think it still definitely applies, but I feel like now that I've seen more, I probably could rewrite it a little different.
But I think it's definitely a good poem and I hadn't seen it in years or revisited it in my head and then my dad pulls it out one day and goes,
hey, look what I found during production of the film. And I went, oh my gosh, wow, what's that?
And it was interesting seeing it again.
Yeah, I believe it was because we were talking about the message, talking about what led us here to all of the steps that you took to get there.
And I had come across it and said, wow, this is still very apropos for what your message was for the film in a whole.
You know, in America, the statistics are one in four people said they were bullied and you often see this in high school, junior high school, but Naya saw this even younger.
And the story you're going to hear today is about Naya's experience with a friend of hers who was very special and was unfairly treated.
And they turned Naya's experience into a film. And we're going to get to see a little bit of a sizzle reel.
Naya, as you talk, we might just run some of the clips of that behind you.
But what made you guys sit down and say this has to be told?
Well, it was, I'd done two short films before, one when I was six and another one when I was nine, 10 years old.
And when I sat down to write another one and I was thinking of conceptual ideas, I went with my past films.
There's always been a message, something in there that I hope people can learn from it or something that I believe still holds true and should be addressed.
Like my first film was about love and how it can span distances. My second film was about self-acceptance. So I was trying to think, what is a story that I can still give and bring a message to the people that I would want to see this?
And I was thinking, and I don't remember exactly how the idea came up.
Yes, please. So we were sitting down at the kitchen table and she was talking about, you know, I want to do another film.
I want to do a film that, you know, matters to me and stuff. And I said, well, what's the one thing I always talk to you about with filmmaking?
Always pull from your own experiences, always pull from your own heartstrings and your own life experiences and stuff.
And she said, well, I've always wanted to tell a story about my best friend and I, and I said, I agree. I said, I think that's the one you should do.
And I said, my only question is, how much do you remember of it? Because you were in preschool, you were five years old.
I was five, yep.
And so we literally, I don't know, maybe within a half an hour pulled out the laptop. I got the screenwriting software up and I said, I'll teach you how to write.
I'll teach you how to format a screenplay as well. And she said, okay, great. And so we started to go through that. But then she just started talking.
And I said, you know what, I'm just going to start typing. And so as she was talking and going through the process and stuff, it almost flowed like water.
And I was just typing as fast as I can. And I'm not, I'm not a typist, but I was, you know, and he was clicked away like a little secretary.
So as you were talking to your father about this, was it just all coming back to you? Did it all come out of your subconscious and your memory bank?
I don't think I registered how much of it I really remembered. Because you know, I always remembered her and who she was and kind of how she made me feel.
But I didn't actually really think back to all of the sequence of events. And it was actually extremely surprising how well it just flowed out of my mouth.
And I was like, is this right? Is this one? Is this what actually happened? I'm not sure. Am I making this up? It's been so long.
And he was like, no, that's exactly what I remember.
And there was only a couple of times that I had to say, well, this event led to this event. And she went, oh, yes, that's right.
Most of it was already there. It was just a couple of little points.
Timelines.
Timelines that I gave to her. And it just, just came out.
Now, can you tell us the shorter version of that story of basically the plot of the film and what happens in this film? What's captured?
Yes, of course. So when I was five years old, I switched pre-case and I was super excited. And I met this girl.
She was so amazing and smart and funny and cool. And I was like, oh my gosh, we have to be best friends.
And we got along really well. It was almost as if we'd known each other for a really, really long time.
We liked a lot of the same things. And we got really close. And then I started to notice that the other kids at school didn't treat her the same way.
Whether it was they just didn't talk to her or they just, you know, kind of kept their distance, set a few mean remarks behind your back.
Or as I found, there was actual physical pushing and just really mean stuff that me, I had never seen before.
My old school was like, we're all besties and sing butterflies and rainbows. And this was completely different from what I was used to.
And I mean, we stuck together. We got through it. And then five months after I knew her on New Year's Day, she ended up passing away from cancer.
And that's why everyone was so acted so different to her. It wasn't like she didn't look the same as everyone else.
She didn't have any hair and she was pale. And I mean, I never really looked at that type of stuff.
And I didn't realize that everyone else was and how much later. And it just, it hurt losing a friend that young.
But I mean, I don't think it registered that that's not normal for me.
I was like, yeah, this is a normal occurrence. Most people have this happen to them when they're five, which, you know, most of the time isn't true.
But it was just having her friendship was such a great experience for me. And I wanted to tell her story because I know there are a lot of people like that whose stories never get told.
And I think it brings so many important issues to light that a lot of people don't like to look at.
What do you think bullying happens?
I think bullying happens for a lot of different reasons. There are personal reasons, there are societal reasons.
I think in this case, I mean, we were five. It's not like they had malicious intent. I think they just didn't know their parents didn't really tell them what it was.
It was more of like, okay, just kind of avoid her, you know, because they didn't want to talk about death, which I understand they didn't want to talk about slickness.
So they were just like, just stay away. Just don't talk to her. And I think that's more of why they did the bullying. It wasn't that they were mean.
They just, they didn't know what was happening. And so they lashed out and they didn't want her near them.
I think that's not the case for all bullying, of course, but in this case, I think that's definitely what happened.
I think your friend, can you remember anything she said to you during this whole thing?
I mean, I can remember a few small things, nothing exactly specific, but I remember talking for hours, like hours on end, we would sit and just chatter.
Almost most of the time we would be actually speaking over each other, and yet we were still getting the context of everything the other person was saying.
But you can probably tell, I like to talk a lot and she also liked to talk a lot. So a lot of our conversations were just talking day in and day out about things we love.
Like, we both really love theater and dance and acting. And a lot of our conversations really centered around that.
We never really talked about the sad stuff. We kind of just made it clear that we were going to stick with each other, stood up for each other in those cases,
but we never really had discussions about it. Most of the time it was very happy, friendship, what you do with your friends when you're little conversations.
Terry, what's your take on this whole story when you obviously were there with Nia when she went through this, and then you see her as a producer capturing the story
and trying to tell people about these human experiences and maybe how to be a better person and maybe a better parent through this?
Right. Yes, I couldn't be more proud of the person that my daughter has become.
She has always been super empathetic and has always cared about the other person over herself.
I don't know if that's from our upbringing, but we've always believed that we don't hold anything back from her. We tell her honest things.
We share with her honest things, and we talk about those experiences, whether they be positive or negative.
I believe that was what helped her understand the world around her a little bit more.
Whenever she would come home and ask us questions about things that were a hard discussion, we would sit down and have those hard discussions and explain it to her.
And for her to see outside of the immediate conflict that this was, she didn't see it really in a negative way.
I mean, it definitely modified her outlook on life as a whole, but she saw an acceptance.
She saw an understanding. She saw a way to integrate differences into her life and to take her life and put them into other people's lives that hopefully would make a better outcome.
And so seeing how she has translated this on the written word and how we were envisioning what it was going to look like visually,
showing that the bullion is just one small aspect of it, but it's about inclusion and acceptance and love and friendship,
and giving everybody the equal standing that they deserve, the honor system of looking at people with a clear set of eyes without any immocity or ill will.
That you just pure, pure spirit was something that as a father, I adored.
And then, you know, as a partner, as a producer of this and seeing it come to life and seeing her passion come through this and seeing it turn into something much more beautiful was a producer's dream, you know, a professional's dream.
And she's, you know, even as an educator, probably one of my proudest achievements in terms of an education process.
What's what was the production like? Naya, do you want to talk about that? I mean, you're you're not some student film or you're this is like a professional production.
Yeah, I love production. It's one of my favorite parts of the process.
Being as I've gone through the whole thing, you know, I wrote it myself. I directed it. I did a bunch of stuff as well.
Casting, I did the casting, which also really made production a lot.
I think it went a lot smoother because I knew exactly who I signed up, who I worked with. I found them myself and I was like, I believe completely and fully in these actors, as well as the crew.
I resourced crew from college level, from professional like paid level, and also from a high school level. I'm in the film program at my school, and I'm a freshman.
So we took some of the seniors from the film program, and they also helped out on the set. So production was great.
There were there's always small things, small issues. We had a weather issue. So that made us have to really be like, okay, guys, it's go time.
We're going to get 5C in stunt today. I don't think a lot of people understand the type of family that a cast and crew grows into over a process.
I mean, this was a week long thing because we had child actors. So the hours were more spread out, but it was a lot of spending time together and a lot of working together.
And I think overall was a great experience. I loved working with the actors. I, the adult actors that I had worked with before, like Miss Catherine Michelle Tanner.
She was fantastic. I met new people like all of the child actors I got to cast.
And Tori.
And Tori, of course, our mother. It was just a really great experience. And it kind of solidifies why it's my favorite part of the experience.
Share with what you said to me on day one when you were, what do I do?
Yeah, I was a bit worried, you know, because being 15, of course, is a little bit of something that doesn't happen much.
So I had kids around nine, 10 years old. I had the adult actors. I had the adult crew. I had the 20 year old crew.
And then I had the senior crew. And so it was a bunch of different ages. And I was like, oh my gosh, are they going to feel comfortable taking instruction from a 15 year old girl?
You know, and they're full on professional adults. But it actually ended up working pretty well.
I was really nervous about that. And, you know, because I wanted everyone to feel, you know, heard. And like their opinion, like when they voice their opinions, I'm listening.
And I also wanted to feel like they could come to me with their issues. And they didn't have to hold back because, you know, she's a little girl, you know, I kind of wanted to not have that boundary of age there.
What did the actors say about the script and the production? Did they pull you side and have any feedback for you about this project?
Yes, actually, we have a whole, we filmed, got someone to film a whole backstage production. Everyone got interviews. But I personally talked with some of the kid actors myself.
And our lead Miss Daria, she told me that she really loved the script and the way it was written, because she said she just the tears came naturally to her when she had to go into those really deep spaces.
Which was something I was so happy to hear. Because of the way it was written.
I knew it was a very dark topic to put on these young kids, you know, have to get into those mind spaces, have to go those places with their characters.
And so hearing that it was like, it was easy to connect with them and easy to like channel them was really great, as well as our actress Katie.
That was another thing. She actually almost didn't audition for it, because apparently I talked with her parents and her as well.
She was like, I don't know if I can give justice to this character. I don't know if I can do this with the, you know, material. I don't know if I can portray it correctly.
Because she played my friend. And so she had to really get into that mode and space.
Right. It took her about a day and a half to really mull it over and talk to her parents about it.
And then she came back and said, I've read it three or four times and I want to do this. I can't see myself not doing this now.
So her parents said, okay, well then let's go ahead and audition for it.
And I'm so glad she did because she did such an amazing job. She was where she didn't have enough acting experience.
I was like, no, you did amazing. I mean, I think once she watches the film, she'll see truly how great she did.
Because I think she, all of them did great.
In our country, I mean, if you do the math, that 75 million people have been bullied at some point in their lives.
That's not a small audience for this. What is your dream for this film to communicate a story to them, a message to 75 million people?
What do you want them to take away from this after they watch this film?
Yeah, well, I mean, 75 is a big number. I know I'm personally a part of that number as well as people I know have been.
And it's really tough. Bullying is not fun whatsoever.
But I don't want them to just take away the bullying aspect of this film.
What I really want them to see is perseverance, acceptance, equality, friendship that transcends all the things that happen, the bad things.
And how just that love and that trust can really see you through.
As one of our actresses actually said, all it takes is having one true friend, one person who's truly there for you to help you through that time.
Right. It's really getting to know before making a judgment, before making a visual judgment or a hearsay judgment, to really get to know somebody and learn about them.
And if you can learn about them, we feel that that percentage could probably be cut in half, if not more, if you just get to know somebody and learn about them and truly hear their story.
Instead of just judging them. Exactly.
The scientists will say we're a DNA as humans is 99.9% identical. So we're like one-tenth of one percent different, but we judge on vision and visibility wrongly.
Or even hearing what other people have to say, making judgments based on...
Going along with the crowd. Exactly.
That's another really big issue that I tried to address in a small way through this.
Our two bully characters, of course, we have a character that's kind of dragged along through it, who does her best, but she can't really stand up because she's like, oh, this person is my friend.
You know, I kind of have to listen to what they're saying, what they're doing.
And in the end, she kind of finds her own stance in it and realizes that, yeah, I like these people and I think what you've done is wrong.
But I still accept you and I still love you, but these people, I'm going to be friends with them too.
And even in the end, the bully comes over. Small victories.
Yeah, the small victories to build up to something.
Jerry, as a parent, I mean, you and your wife, do you feel like this guidance would come from you as parents more than the child trying to figure out, I shouldn't judge, I shouldn't?
That's kind of high-brow thinking for a very young child. How about what happens in the home in regard to this?
You know, I hate to say this, but I think that parents do not give their children as much acknowledgement and recognition of high-brow thinking than they are.
I mean, statistically and scientifically, it has been shown that a child's brain is a much, much larger conduit for learning and knowledge than we are as adults, right?
They view everything, they hear everything, they watch everything and they take all that in.
And that slowly starts to, I believe, build their infrastructure for how they are going to be when they finally start being into society and start being their own people and start finding their own identities.
But I do believe that they feed off of the people around them and the two people that are around them the most are their parents right out of the gate.
So, I have always believed in kind of the handshake mentality, right?
A handshake is worth everything. If I've made a promise to somebody, I'm going to see that promise through and I'm going to trust that person does the same thing.
Now, granted, it doesn't always happen in business and it doesn't always happen in personal and stuff and you have to learn that you have to work around that a little bit.
But Michelle and I have always tried to keep that same mentality with Naya.
Like I said, anything that she asked us, we were open about.
Anything that we were engaged in, we engaged her with us at all.
And for me, you know, being an older parent, we were in our 40s when we had her, taking her to the park.
I was always there on the playground, playing with her and engaging with her and stuff.
Well, I saw a lot of, unfortunately, I saw a lot of younger parents sitting over on the benches, on their phones or their tablets or something, totally disregarding and disengaging from the children and stuff.
So then the children are left to their own devices to learn and figure out things and stuff like that.
I feel that if you are engaged and you are connected all the way through, it's a recipe for success, I feel.
And I hope, I hope that it was part of our experiences and our tutelage and our relationships with Naya that helped her become who she is.
But by far, I mean, just out of the gate when she was very, very tiny, she was always a very happy, go lucky person and always very accommodating and friendly with everybody and wanting to hear their story.
She really was, so I hope we had some small measure in that.
So the film really, I mean, you could call it an anti-bullying film, but I always feel like when you're anti-something, I don't even know what that means, but you're actually pro a lot of good things.
It just happened to be a negative situation, but you're very pro a lot of wonderful things about acceptance and love and inclusion and caring and can go on forever, right?
I think bullying is just the first conflict, something that pushes back.
It's not that it's the main idea of the film.
We really try to make sure that yes, bullying is there and yes, it is a conflict and something that is amazing to address.
And I find the film addresses pretty well.
But also something that shows the true measure of this friendship, the film is about these two people who love and trust each other completely and they do that without looks, you know, just truly on who they are as people, as their own individuals.
And I think that it also speaks a message of childhood diseases with how those people are treated and how every single person has a story.
And if you sit long enough to listen, you'll find a lot of them are really similar to you.
Like you were saying, our DNA is very similar, but we judge, snap judgments on looks, things we hear about people.
But I think if we really just got to know them, we'd see that a lot of us are very similar.
And I think that accepting each other's differences, but also seeing how we are all equal is a very important thing that I really wanted this film to show.
Have the courage to ask the questions. Have the courage to step out of yourself and learn.
Learn about another person, learn about a topic, learn about an issue.
I think it applies to so many different things, not just, you know, one topic.
Now, in every film, there's like a goosebumps moment, goosebumps moment in every film, like the Disney formula.
You know, you know when that moment hits, it's the big crescendo of the music.
Is there a point in your film that you look at and go, that's that moment?
I think that there's definitely a lot of little moments that are really cool.
But I think there's one big moment that we try to make feel like the goosebumps moment because it's the climax, it's the, it's the resolution, it's the big, it's the big speech.
It's like the character showing everything, showing their growth, showing the true story of the friendship.
And I think that's personally the goosebumps moment to me, even though the rest of the film hopefully holds the same part of greatness.
Is it the same moment for you in the film or is it something else?
I believe, yes, I believe it's that moment.
There's also another smaller little goosebumps moment for me that each time I watch it, I go, you know.
But yes, I would agree.
She wrote it in a way that the moment she's talking about, I feel is that moment as well.
Here, let me give you, let me give you a for example, I just got a call.
I shared the base colored version with one of our executive producer, our nonprofit sponsor.
And I got a call from her.
She's she's on her way to New York, and I got a call from her and she's crying.
And now she's been she's been with us for the last year and a half on this. So she's been very, very tight on this.
Very steadfast, very amazing lady.
But she the moment that Naya is talking about, she said to me, oh my gosh, the moment and she restated this moment.
I just can't get enough and she repeated that about three times.
So the moment that Naya is talking about is the one that really moved Elizabeth as well.
I think that smaller goosebump moment that you're talking about, it's the end, the little end cut scene, I think.
We don't want to be a spoiler.
Yeah, we don't.
Everybody here watch the film.
Yes, you need to watch it.
It's very hard for me not to spoil it.
Yeah, nice holding back. We can see.
Yeah.
So, Chair, you're an educator. Should this film be shown in schools? Should it be online? Should people have access to it everywhere?
What's the dream for this?
The dream for this, and I had a very long discussion with Naya about this.
The dream for this is to absolutely have it available for schools.
And we've already had some schools that have shown a lot of interest just in the pre-production in the pitch deck aspect of this.
And they're waiting for the film to come out and they are ready to make a screening event for their entire school,
both on the high school and the middle school and the elementary school level.
And we also really, really want to address the juvenile cancer aspect of this with a lot of the organizations and foundations that do the research and help these children that are debilitated with this disease
and hopefully show them that there are people like Naya and her friend that can have relationships like this.
Naya, you had mentioned that you intentionally shot this from a young person's visual perspective.
So, as an educator, Jerry, I was just thinking out loud like, wouldn't that really help in students absorbing this is that it's shot Naya from the height level of the camera?
Weren't you telling me about this?
Yes.
The entire, almost the entirety of MGA is shot at a lower height perspective so that you hopefully really feel like you're in this place with us.
I mean, of course, there are other aspects that I wanted this.
I really wanted to make it feel like you are a child experiencing this with the other children, even the color grading.
Once that's done, every single thing is intentional, the lighting, the color grading.
Did you know that when children are younger, everyone's like, oh my gosh, the world seems so much brighter when I was a child?
It's actually because you can see more colors as a child because your eyes are still growing the colors.
So, I wanted the film to be much brighter, more colorful like how a child sees it.
And softer and angelic, which really lends into, of course, the feel of the guardian angel,
but also how a child sees the world is soft and pure and very new, you know?
So, there's so many aspects that we hoped.
The music?
Yeah, the music.
The childlike whimsical feel, hopefully, of the soundtrack, I really think brings up cross as well.
I just did a lot to make you feel like you're there with them.
So, the children, whether it's in the film or in the experience, at their level, experiencing the story truly through the eyes of someone that would have been there.
Yeah, I don't think in this facet any stone was unturned in terms of keeping a consistency of design, a consistency of story from the perspective that it was originally written.
So, from the visuals, from the music, from the writing, from the dialogue, from the locations, the tone, the temperature of the colors.
We really left no stone unturned.
Every single thing in that film has some sort of thoroughly thought out symbolic purpose that I spent like a few minutes being like,
oh my gosh, yes, we have to put this in here because it has a meaning. You know, it's not too filled up, hopefully, but I think everything in that film has a purpose and a reason to be there.
And I hope that brings the message across even more.
And a release date, I know you're in post-production.
Well, we are hoping that we're going to make our hometown festival, which is in April.
We obviously, you know, we have to be approved by the programmers and stuff like that, but we are hoping to have the film in completion by April.
It's coming in April.
Excellent. So exciting. We wish you all the best of luck with this.
Thank you.
I've never heard of a project like this, ever. I think you're on a unique path. I truly do. I think it's from a child's perspective all the way through this.
You really thought it through.
So we spent a couple of years on it together researching and looking at films and videos and taking my experience and other people's experience so everyone can hopefully relate to this in some way.
Lots of conversations, lots of questions, asking technical stuff.
And I think it does help when you're at home because then you can be brushing your teeth like, oh my gosh, wait, I just had an idea.
Dad, dad, please come in here. I need to write this down.
I think everybody's ever made a film set. I wish I would have done that differently. I wish I would have written that line differently.
You're never really done, are you?
No, I mean, even the script itself, funny something drafts just to be like, okay, yeah, that's the script we can settle on for now.
But of course, little things change. And I think there's always something you can improve upon, but I think this film is pretty strong.
I mean, obviously there's little things, but I think it's all together a very well put together and pretty strong.
Oh, it's so great today to hear your story of the film. We can't wait to see the film.
Thank you.
Can't wait for other people to see it. I'm 75 million people to see the film.
Can't wait for them either.
So important, so important. Naya, Chambliss, you're a prodigy. You're amazingly talented. It was so great to have you here today.
15 everybody, 15 years old, imagine. And Jerry, you're quite a dad.
Thank you.
And your spirit together is remarkable. So thank you for sharing all this everybody. That was Naya and Jerry Chambliss.
You're going to be hearing their names more and more.
So take a look at my guardian angel film. You'll be getting a link in this distribution of where you can see it.
And I want to thank my producer, Melissa Ratliff, producer extraordinaire for helping us out today too.
Thanks for being with us, everybody.