We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Melissa Goad. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Melissa below.
Melissa, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear the story of how you went from this being just an idea to making it into something real.
I’ve wanted to be a professional storyteller (actor) since the age of five. I’ve been acting professionally since the age of 12. I am a formally trained actor and graduated from the prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Hollywood in 2005. I’ve starred in over 20 feature and short films as well as web-series. I also created a production company in 2007 and produced my first feature which I also co-starred in.
My business partner, Bob Leone and I met at church. One Sunday around March of 2020 before the world shut down, he brought me his book, “They Don’t Cast Shadows” and asked if I would read it and leave a review on Amazon. After reading it, I told him it reminded me of the Christian version of the Twilight Series, that he should turn it into a movie. About six months later, he came up to me and told me he would like to do that. We promptly started working on getting our production company up and running and in October of 2020 we hired a crew and auditioned actors for our concept trailer to gain funding for our feature film. Out of necessity, I took on the directing role since I had the most experience working on a film set. With my vision, we shot our concept trailer the three days leading up to Thanksgiving and had a finished product by the end of December 2020.
God moves fast at times. In early January 2021, we found out that we had an interested funder with a guaranteed one quarter of our budget. By February we were location scouting, shot listing and prepping to start filming in July 2021. Even though we did not have the full amount of funding needed to film, we moved forward as if we had it all. In March we cast our film, in April we did our cast read through and we were tying up loose ends in May and June. We found out two weeks before filming that we had the full production budget (minus post), all we could do is praise God. At the end of June, Bob and I left for Cool, CA where we made that our home for the next 30 days. Once we got there, we checked in with all of our locations, got our rental vehicles, checked in with our cast and crew houses and made sure everything was ready for production.
We started filming June 30, 2021 and filmed for 22 days – 6 days a week, 12 hour days. We filmed all over northern California including Cool, Auburn, Georgetown, Greenwood, Placerville, Garden Valley, Shingle Springs and Colfax. We had three overnight shoots and our last day of filming was July 25, 2021. During our time together as a crew and cast, God moved. The enemy tried to block our paths so many times, but God is so much bigger than that.
We went into post production at the end of August 2021 and after our editor, colorist, vfx artist, composer and sound designer, we had a finished feature film by mid January 2022. We started to submit to film festivals and to date, we’ve won over 24 awards (and counting), and have been nominated for over 44, including Best Feature Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Sound Design, etc. and we won the Audience Choice Award at the biggest Christian film festival in the world in May 2022. We are currently getting ready to sign with a distributor – so be on the lookout for our film, “They Don’t Cast Shadows” coming soon!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
At the young age of five, I knew that I wanted to tell stories on film. My mother did everything in her power to get me into acting classes and eventually an agent at the age of 12. My first main stream gig was a small role in the Lifetime episode, “Real Witches: An Intimate Portrait” about the Salem, MA witch trials where I played Abigail, the girl who started the name calling. All throughout school I took acting classes as well as performed in community theater.
In 2003 I auditioned and was accepted into the prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Hollywood, CA where I studied theater, dance, voice and film acting. I graduated in 2005 with my Associates Degree in Theater. In 2006, I moved back home to Washington where I starred in several independent feature and short films as well as web-series. In 2007, with two other fellow AADA Alum, we created the production company Inspireworks. We wrote and produced our first feature film that I also co-starred in, entitled Shaniko. Shaniko won “Best Local Filmmaker” and “Best Director” at the Washougal International Film Festival in 2008. In 2009, another film I co-starred in, The Bicyclists, won “Best of the Festival” at the Columbia Gorge International Film Festival.
In 2011 I auditioned for the nationwide talent search ‘Breakthrough Star’. Out of several hundred to thousand that had auditioned, I made it through each round and was chosen for top 5 where I auditioned for Diverse Talent Group in Los Angeles. The winner was given a yearlong contract with the agency.
In 2013, I created, produced and starred in the SAG web-series, My Sister. In 2018, I moved to the San Francisco bay area where, thanks to the Lord, my focus started to shift to directing. Most recently in 2020, I re-created Inspireworks Productions as a Christian based production company with my friend and business partner, Bob Leone. We produced a concept trailer for Bob’s book, ‘They Don’t Cast Shadows’ that I turned into a screenplay and directed. The concept trailer was made to raise funds for the feature film that I directed in July 2021 in Georgetown, CA. ‘They Don’t Cast Shadows’ wrapped post production in January 2022 and is currently hitting the festival circuit, having already won over 24 awards within the first 5 months including Best Feature, Best Director and Audience Choice Award.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Even though our idea took off fast going from a book to a feature length film, we had hiccups along the way.
I had never directed a film before, I’ve always been in front of the camera. I was working with crew that knew what they were doing and assumed I did as well. I remember talking with the assistant director that we hired and he had asked how long I had been directing for. I mentioned this was my first film and he was a little taken back. Up until that point (even having directed the concept trailer without anyone knowing it was my first time directing), I all of a sudden was worried I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Would I cause our whole film to fail? I remember the night before we were supposed to leave to Cool, CA, I was laying in bed and I started to google, “What does a director do?” To my surprise, I was doing exactly what every other director does, without even skipping a beat. Instinctually I just knew. I was a leader, I had confidence, a vision, great gut instincts and drive. All of those things led me to be the award-winning-director I am today. Film is still very much a “man’s world”, but I stepped out in faith, the Lord guided me 100% of the way and because of that, we’ve made a multi-award winning film that millions will see.
Another “set back” from set. Mid-filming, we were starting our day at 3pm and going until 3am. We get to our set location and find out that the power had just gone out and was not supposed to come back on for another 4-6 hours. We didn’t have 4-6 hours to just sit there and do nothing. Our team started to look for generators and they were hustling to get us back on track. Bob and I looked at each other and we decided we needed to pray. We stepped off to the side, we started to pray for the power to come back on so we could continue filming and sure enough, by the end of our prayer, the power miraculously came back on. One of our crew thought it was a coincidence, but Bob and I assured him that it was the power of the Lord from prayer, just like in our film.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
Our main goal for our production company is to produce faith based films that will bring people to Jesus. During covid, when all of this started for us, people were looking for something higher than themselves, people needed something. We wanted to bring them to the Lord, we wanted to show them that God is all around us, working for us. No matter what bad was happening in the world at that time, or even now, if you keep your focus on the Lord, He will not disappoint. If our films bring someone to the Lord or give just one person some hope, we’ve done our job.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.inspireworksproductions.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/that_melissa_girl/ and https://www.instagram.com/inspireworks_productions/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Inspireworksproductions
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/inspireworksproductions
Image Credits
Sandy Wood Photography
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