Discover the Mind-Blowing Truth About Life After Death in Film

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Jason Paymer, producer of this incredible film, After Death.

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It is great to have you here on Charisma News to talk about this film, which I had the chance

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to see the screener of it.

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And I got to say, the visuals are amazing, better than anything that I've seen when it

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comes to anybody trying to recreate an afterlife experience.

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But I got to tell you the storytelling, the music, and most importantly, the fact that

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it drives people to have amazing conversations about real life and death situations.

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Jason, it's great to be able to have you here on Charisma News to talk about this film.

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Thanks for having me, John.

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It's a gift to be here.

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It's one thing to make a film.

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It's an entirely more difficult thing to release and find an audience.

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So without platforms like yours and voices like yours, it wouldn't be worth making anything.

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So grateful that you had me.

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Well, this film is absolutely worth making and I love talking about near-death experiences.

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What happens after we say goodbye to this skin suit and our spirit goes on.

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And I got to say, the people that you've chosen in this film to interview and to highlight

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and kind of recreate their stories and their experience, that had to be quite a process

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to figure out how do you tell this story.

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Let's back up and say, why tell this story?

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It was born out of loss and grief for our director, Stephen Gray.

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He experienced a sudden and catastrophic loss of his brother-in-law.

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He grew up having a faith, but when we get confronted with these moments of extreme grief

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and death, that faith is tested and it was for Stephen.

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So he went on a search, read 30 plus books of people that had done extensive research

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into NDEs, people that have had them to understand, is there something more verifiable even than

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just the scriptures that was given?

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Is there some other corroboration that exists out there in the medical space specifically?

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So he vetted a lot of the stories and ended up shooting a short film on Dale Black's story.

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Dale Black is the commercial pilot who hit a tower at 135 miles an hour at 70 feet up.

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Two of his co-pilots died on impact where he died and then came back.

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His story is featured in the film, but Steve sent through the short and to any young filmmaker

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out there listening, if you want to get the attention of a producer's show, don't tell.

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And that's what Steve and Chris did.

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They sent a short and it was like, oh, we immediately saw a unique point of view, a

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distinct vision for the thing.

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And we're like, these are filmmakers that we want to get behind.

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One thing that I found as a common thread throughout all the people that you've interviewed

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and it was done masterfully well.

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It was the way the lighting and everything looks just amazing.

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It's going to be phenomenal on the big screen.

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So everybody needs to go see it on the big screen.

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That's really important.

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But I kept noticing this theme that everybody said that I didn't feel like I had died.

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I felt like I was more awake.

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I was alive and then I was more alive.

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Everybody said that they stopped.

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They were alive and then they were more alive.

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How do you depict that on the screen?

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Such a good question.

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The way that they described the afterlife was both enticing and terrifying in terms

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of the challenge presented as filmmakers.

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We pretty quickly determined we didn't want to go with some classic images of heaven.

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Felt like that would fall short.

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So we went a little bit more ethereal and cosmic in terms of kind of the textures and

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the way that we wanted to represent.

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We wanted to elicit feelings of wonder and mystery and awe.

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And so that was sort of the direction to the VFX team.

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And we hired drone ops from around the world.

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One was in Norway and got some of the prettiest places on earth.

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And then with VFX, we combined these realities.

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And in our estimation, this is what heaven will be like.

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It's a renewing of the thing that we're experiencing here.

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It's not a complete going away of the physical.

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It's a maturing.

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It's an enlightening of that space.

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So we wanted to combine those elements.

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And the VFX team did an amazing job.

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Most of it's custom VFX throughout the whole film.

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Very little is actually licensed at all.

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So hats off to that team.

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Hundreds and hundreds of VFX shots throughout the film.

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So for a documentary, you know, I mean, it's very much genre bending.

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And that's in large part due to the amount of VFX and then the cinematic recreations

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that are a through line as well.

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Yeah.

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And these, the way that the stories are told, I love how they're kind of weaved in and out

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of each other's stories.

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And there's commonalities that you're seeing.

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But you don't talk to just people that have had heaven experiences.

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You also talk to people that have had hellish experiences and how their life has been changed

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as well.

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How did you, it's horrific and scary and spooky, but it's not like Halloween scary, if that's

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what I'm trying to explain there.

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Yeah.

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Talk about trying to depict some of these darker themes.

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Yeah.

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So the 23% or so of reported NDEs are hellish experiences.

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They think the number is higher, but it's unreported and that's probably for obvious

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reasons, a lot of shame attached to why when I died, did I see that version of the afterlife

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and not, you know, either nothing or a better version.

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And Howard Storm in the film and Paulo Heda and Steve King all share from their hellish

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experiences.

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Howard in many ways, the emotional climax of the film as well.

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Oh my gosh, yeah.

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I mean, it was such a powerful interview that they shared so bravely and courageously.

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And you know, the contrast between what they experienced and then this relentless cosmic

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pursuit of love to rescue them out of this moment.

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That tension and living in that contrast to me is where some of the most beautiful moments

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in the film sit is in those places.

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And you know, it was a challenge to depict that because it's so easy to go cheesy and

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cliche and on the nose.

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And we worked really, really hard at not doing that, make it more terrifying by just sort

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of a less is more approach.

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Music really supported it.

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And you know, I mean, he didn't even in the interview, he probably stopped 30 percent

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of the way in terms of being able to get the detail because it was so traumatic what he

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actually experienced.

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Howard, that is.

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Yeah.

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Now, your role as the producer, you're you're dealing with a lot of the pulling everything

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together to make this happen and to help the help the director.

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But you're you're involved with every aspect of it, which is which is, I'm sure, very hands

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on.

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But you know, how much got left on the cutting room floor that you're like, oh, man, I wish

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we could just incorporate this because is there an after after death coming after this

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film?

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Because I feel like there's so much more that I want to see other stories that I've heard

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that I want to see how your team would visualize this, which on the big screen is going to

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be overwhelming.

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Yeah, that's a great question.

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Thanks for teeing it up to the at one point early on in the filmmaking process, we had

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a vision for a series.

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Each one of these stories are going to break off into their own episode.

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That's still very much possible.

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And depending on how successful opening weekend is and the run in theaters, it could set us

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up to go forward and make a series on new stories, because it's just it's endless.

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And the appetite for it is there.

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I mean, it's a global question.

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Where am I going to go when I die?

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And so we have desire to to produce a series.

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And there is a lot that got left on the cutting room floor.

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I mean, we ended up shooting for a couple of weeks out of Mexico.

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20th Century Fox built a lot for the making of the Titanic.

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Master Commander was shot there.

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And so that's where we shot all of the narrative recreations.

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And we used most of that.

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That was like we were going to pull everything we could together and then use as much of

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that as possible.

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A number of interviews didn't make the final cuts.

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And you know, I can't even tell you how many terabytes we shot.

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I mean, probably close to over 100 terabytes worth of footage.

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So quite a bit is there untold in terms of the ongoing medical and scientific discoveries.

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I mean, even since we locked the cut, there's more and more.

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So we would like to lean into that through a series.

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That's something where it's like the evidence continues to pile up.

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Yeah.

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So if you're interested in watching more of this and, you know, number one, go to the

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big screen, go to the theaters, watch this film.

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If you go to angel.com slash charisma, you'll be able to actually get your tickets there.

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And that actually helps charisma as well.

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Kids, you know, we're teaming up with them to help get this out, which is exciting.

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And also, if this becomes a success as other things like Sound of Freedom and the Son of

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God, Son of His only son.

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Yeah.

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So those things became tremendous successes.

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If this becomes a tremendous success, which we believe that it will because it is so powerful,

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there can be more and more of this type of production, which is going to be just incredible.

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So I just want to encourage everybody go to angel.com slash charisma to get your tickets

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and we can we can make this thing happen and spread it to family and friends because I

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got to say, Jason, the conversations that are going to happen after this film is over,

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that is going to be what is what is people what they take away from this film, because

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you can't leave this film without wondering and questioning yourself.

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Yeah, I think if I was to be most proud of one thing, it's that that incites a bigger

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conversation and introspection of how do we live here in light of the hope that eternity

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is on the other side.

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This is one thing that came out so clearly through Mary Neal.

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She's a spinal surgeon and died going off of a waterfall and being stuck under it for

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it.

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She was underwater for somewhere between 25 and 30 minutes.

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And in her life review, she thought she saw how her life impacted 30 degrees out, not

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30 total people, but 30 degrees out.

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So John has a brother who has a daughter who has a friend who has a mom.

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And she only knew degrees one and two, but she saw how her life had rippled out that

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far.

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And it was just this beautiful grace given to her in this moment to have perspective

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that every choice we make here matters.

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And I think for those that walk out of the film that maybe don't attach to a faith that

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that take away our prayer is that it deeply resonates with every audience member.

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It's like, hey, the way you interact with the person at the counter, the person to drive

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through, your kid, your kid's teacher, all of these relationships and opportunities are

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ground for exposing people to the eternal love that's chasing them.

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And this is what the God had essentially told Howard in his life review was like, go back

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and love.

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And Howard's like, that's it?

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And they're like, trust us.

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That's the most difficult thing to do, but it'll be it'll be the thing that changes everything.

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And so that's our hope for people coming out of the theater.

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You know, Jason, I got to ask you some personal questions about love, because that is the

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message that is all throughout this film.

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How has Jason how has Jason actually started loving more because of this film?

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And who was Jason before the production of this?

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And who is Jason now compared to that?

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Great question.

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I think you have to ask my wife, my kids and my my partners to see if there's been a change.

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I hope there has been.

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I mean, I you know, Mary's I keep citing Mary's story, but it's just one that knowing that

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there's a perspective that I don't have, but someday will come where I can actually get

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a 360 degree view of reality.

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So to get to your question, I was one more example of Mary's story.

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She was abused as a young girl and in her life review, she saw how the abuser had been

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abused.

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And it didn't excuse the abuse, didn't excuse that moment of pain, but it gave her perspective

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that hurt people tend to hurt people.

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And so I can't I haven't had near death experience, but as much as I can live by characteristic

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to those that have and just understand that there's one day going to be given to me a

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perspective where I can see all these small moments today that feel small, but actually

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ripple into eternity.

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So for me, I'm trying to be more present in what I perceive to be the mundane, be more

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active in the moments that I feel are just rote and traditional and understand that they

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actually ripple into eternity.

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And so, you know, if that's spending an extra three minutes on the ground playing dolls

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with my daughter, or if it's, you know, some somebody, this is a classic example, somebody

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cuts me off, I have a traditional response.

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And maybe I don't lean into that traditional response.

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Maybe I'm kind of because maybe they're rushing to get to the thing because they just got

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the call that, you know, I mean, that's again, one of those moments where in the life review,

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you get perspective of all this, where we don't have here in the three dimensions.

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So I think I just got to keep looking forward and going up one day, I'm going to have access

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to these moments.

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And I think I'm going to I just want to be a look back and smile that I've treated these

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moments well, and I was faithful with Stuart and them the well.

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Yeah, I, I'm sorry, I forget the guys, the gentleman's name that died in France.

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Howard, Howard, he went through his, his life review.

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And he says that he, he just was disappointed in himself.

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And then more so that he was, he knew that he had disappointed Jesus and the angels.

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And he, you see this emotion in his face that can only come from a pure, pure place.

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But my goodness, his life was changed.

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And the things that happened afterwards, it was not all sunshine and roses.

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You know, it was not easy for him.

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And it's still not different, not easy for him.

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But he was able to restore some things that had been stolen from him and relationship

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wise.

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And it's remarkable to see how when you get that perspective of somebody's of your own

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life that you can, you have the opportunity to make some changes.

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Well, that's one of the things that convinced me along the way is these people didn't have

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a lot of incentive to come back and lie about what they experienced.

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I mean, Howard's marriage disintegrated his relationship with his kid soured.

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And that's the case with many people.

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I mean, you have like Mary Neal, who is a high regard, highly regarded physician.

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And to come back and say that she experienced all this stuff would easily categorize her

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as a quack in many circles.

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And so a lot of people did not have the incentive to come back.

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People kind of try to attribute, well, they want to make a lot of money.

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Well, Don Piper, who wrote 90 minutes and haven't waited 15 years to write the book.

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So I think that there's a great-

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He went through severe depression during the-

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Severe depression.

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Oh my goodness.

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Yeah, severe depression.

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Yeah, that deeply impacted his wife and kids.

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So it's not to say that there aren't people that have hopped into this camp and claimed

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things that are not true.

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I think that would be foolish to say that doesn't exist.

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And even these authors would say that they've known people to do that.

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But the ones we chose in the film were incredibly highly vetted to only focus on the cases that

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were corroborative and are able to be corroborated and had documentation.

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Like Dale Black's story of hitting that tower is in the front of the LA Times when it happened

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the next day.

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Medical records.

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We tried to get stories that were as- had as much detail surrounding it in perspective,

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multiple perspectives.

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Like in Don Piper's story, he was killed on that bridge being run over by an 18-wheeler.

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We found the officer that was first on site.

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I don't think he'd ever been interviewed before.

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But we found him and he came out to the bridge and recounted how he showed up and it was

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treated as a death.

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And anyway, it's just stuff like that I think helps.

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You know?

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Yeah.

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Wow.

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You guys did a very thorough job depicting all of these things.

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So you kind of feel like it almost blends or blurs the lines between documentary and

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film, which I, you know, I hope that's what you're going for because that's what you did.

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And my goodness.

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Yeah, thanks for calling that out.

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We you know, that's actually the thing that attracted Stephen Gray, our director, to Seifer

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Studios was he saw our film, The Heart of Man, which came out in theaters in 2017.

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And that was a genre genre bending film in its own way.

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And for us, you know, the last five years, cinematic doc is or cinematic and doc can

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become synonymous.

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You know, Netflix has created an entire category.

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Sure.

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Excellent.

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You know, unscripted stuff.

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So we wanted to lean into that and kind of play with the genre a little bit.

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So the narrative reenactments give us a place to cut to, to sort of help the audience sit

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in these moments versus just coming from talking head to interesting B roll to talking head.

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Yeah.

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So yeah, hopefully it's entertaining.

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I was just in a theater earlier this week in Utah with a couple hundred people.

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And it's definitely I mean, it's why we made it.

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We made it for the theater, you know, finished in Dolby Atmos and Dolby Color.

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And our DP, Austin Straub did a fantastic job.

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I mean, everybody just really leaned in a couple hundred people spent, you know, a couple

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hundred people over the last five years touched this film to make it what it is.

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So, wow.

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So this has been this has been five years in the making.

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So this is really a labor of love.

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And we're recording this in October of 2023.

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This film is going to be released to the public in just a few days.

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But during that last five year span, you had to make this during the covid lockdowns and

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everything that was going on.

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What were some of the challenges that you guys had to overcome during that?

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Yeah, I would not recommend making a film during a pandemic.

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I mean, we had Stephen reached out.

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Stephen Chris reached out to us in 2018 for the first time.

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And then we tried to take it out to the town as a as a series.

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And we didn't get a lot of bites on that.

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So we kind of repackaged it into a feature.

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That took some time.

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And then we closed the investment early 2020, January of 2020 and started and started mapping

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out production.

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And then the world shut down.

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Nobody was traveling.

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We actually kept a lean crew flying all around the US through 2020 and 2021.

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But we had to go to everybody.

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A lot of these folks in the film are on the older end and our physicians work at hospitals

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or colleges, universities, and they didn't want to travel.

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Or it was very difficult to to to get anybody to move.

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So we took a crew everywhere.

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And then it was a matter of where do we do these reenactments?

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And there was quite a few barriers and restrictions to shoot here in the US.

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And we found a team through a relationship in Mexico that was like, this is world class

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crew.

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It's an incredible location.

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We can do everything there.

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And so we're able to pull that off.

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And, you know, by God's grace, no one got sick.

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But we did a ton of travel for that took us to 2022.

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And then post on this, we had many versions of the film.

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Many, many versions, because that thing you called out earlier, the blending or the moving

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between interview subject and reenactment, it's not clear cut.

334
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It's in many ways more art than science.

335
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As you know, where emotionally do you do you want to go with this and how do you tell the

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whole story without tipping your hat or forcing it to clearly in one direction?

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So we edited it for a year and a half, almost two years of editing it.

338
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So our editor, Sam Ben Monte from Bruton, just incredible.

339
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And, you know, he we don't share the same faith either.

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And that was OK.

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And in fact, that's the case with many of the people in the project was we just want

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to make the best film.

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And it was like, what is the most compelling way to tell the story?

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And at the end of the day, I think all of our fingerprints help help push it that way.

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Yeah.

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And you mentioned people having different faiths.

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I remember the one the one gentleman grew up Buddhist and then he has this experience.

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He kills himself in a horrific way.

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And then God sends him back and he ends up becoming a chaplain, which is I mean, that's

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a remarkable thing.

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But he's he's able to take his experience and help other people that are going through

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horrific things.

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And in a way like he got a totally renewed purpose in life.

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And I know any time that you're dealing with with life and death situations, it does give

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you a new perspective.

356
00:21:38,400 --> 00:21:43,320
You talked about how your perspective has changed a little bit during this film.

357
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What are some other ways that you're now going to do other productions and other other projects?

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And you're going to look at those.

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How are you going to look forward?

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And how is this going to change some of the things that you're planning on doing in the

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future?

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00:21:56,840 --> 00:22:02,720
Well, I'll say this from been an independent filmmaking for about 15 years and I've never

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been more excited about the opportunity that exists in a large part due to the disruption

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of what Angel Studios has been doing in the marketplace.

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You know, they they have a voting body called the Guild and the Guild is made up of around

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100000 people and a subset of that Guild votes on the material.

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So the exact team at Angel doesn't make decisions on content.

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The Guild makes the decision.

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So and they're fundamentally Angels, a tech company.

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So everything is extremely iterative.

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A, B tested everything, including content.

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I mean, we had, I think, seven screenings with real live audiences all around the US

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and theaters just to determine what is the most impactful way to do the end credits.

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So everything is tested, tested, tested, which as a filmmaker, previously, I would raise

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money, go underground for two or three years, come back out hoping that we'd find an audience

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and there would be an opportunity to reach an audience.

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Angel has said, like, let's let's start vetting and determining if there's an audience and

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if there is an audience, we're going to lean in hard and we're going to double click into

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that.

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So it's very exciting to be part of with Angel.

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I mean, we're you know, Sound of Freedom was a top 10 all time independent film release

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and we're the next one up in theaters.

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And I'll just say this way, they have similar goals for the doc.

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You know, you don't take a doc to theaters generally.

385
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You sure don't take it out wide.

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You know, we're pushing 2300 screens at the point of this taping, which is a top five

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all time doc release.

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So it it feels very much like and I don't mean to be hyperbolic, but history in some

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respect is being made as it relates to the mechanism of release and getting content out

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to audiences that are there that are hungry for it.

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I mean, we took this film around early to some streamers in studios who remain unnamed

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and they were like, it's a beautiful film, but not large enough of an audience.

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And to their credit, it's a doc.

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00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:04,480
So I could, you know, but Angel was like, well, let the guild, let the people tell you

395
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if there's a large enough audience for it.

396
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:08,000
And there seems to be.

397
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:09,000
Yeah.

398
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:11,000
Well, this film is exciting.

399
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:13,960
My wife and I absolutely loved it.

400
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:18,600
And it brought up some really good conversation for people that already love Jesus.

401
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:23,520
That it brought up conversations of loved ones that have passed on and what they're

402
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:29,420
experiencing and how this will actually give you hope as you're watching this for people

403
00:24:29,420 --> 00:24:33,520
that have gone on to be with the Lord and to know that they're in a much, much better

404
00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:34,520
place.

405
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:41,160
And as you see these visuals and the descriptions, it's really going to help you kind of imagine

406
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:45,840
heaven in a in a new way, in a deeper way than you might have have thought about it

407
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:47,160
before.

408
00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:54,600
And the the the high definition, four K amazing, amazing footage is going to really suck you

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00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:55,600
in.

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00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:59,920
And so I just really want to encourage everybody go to angel.com slash charisma to get your

411
00:24:59,920 --> 00:25:07,360
tickets book early and even the pay it forward, help other people be able to see this film

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00:25:07,360 --> 00:25:12,920
because it's going to open up conversations that you then can talk about Jesus so that

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they can know that they can get through those pearly gates whenever they experience their

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00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:19,520
after death.

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00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:24,360
Jason Paul, Jason is great to have you here on charisma news to talk about this amazing

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00:25:24,360 --> 00:25:25,360
film.

417
00:25:25,360 --> 00:25:28,280
Thank you for making it and bringing attention to this.

418
00:25:28,280 --> 00:25:30,280
Thanks for having me and getting helping us get the word out.

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00:25:30,280 --> 00:25:32,280
John, appreciate you and charisma.

420
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:33,280
Absolutely.

421
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:34,280
God bless you.

422
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:35,280
You too.

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00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:36,280
Be mystified by that question.

424
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:41,280
What happens after you die?

425
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:43,960
This really does show that there is life after death.