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Transcript

What Happens After We Die? The Story Behind The Film After Death · Prioritize Your Life

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  Speaker 1: She would say the love that all mothers have had
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  Speaker 1: for their kids since the beginning of time, all human history,
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  Speaker 1: if you could take that love, all of it, and
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  Speaker 1: distill it down into a bottle, essentially, and then drink that,
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  Speaker 1: she says it would pale in comparison to the love
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  Speaker 1: that she experienced in this place. That's wild.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to Prioritize Your Life and PrioritizeYourLife.com. Very excited today
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  Speaker 2: to have Stephen Gray with us, who is a director
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  Speaker 2: of a feature film that is in the theaters right
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  Speaker 2: now called After Death.
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  Speaker 1: You can't be mystified by that question. What happens after
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  Speaker 1: you die? This really does show that there is life
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  Speaker 1: after death.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being here with us today.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I'd be curious to find out maybe kind of
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  Speaker 2: where the inception of After Death came from, if it
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  Speaker 2: was your own fascination with these kind of stories. For
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  Speaker 2: me personally, I was thrown into like near-death experiences. I'm
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  Speaker 2: one of those people that I'll just look at the
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  Speaker 2: stars and I'm just like, there has to be something there. Like,
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  Speaker 2: holy cow, this is beautiful. But I wouldn't say that
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  Speaker 2: I had like any really firm foundational, like really something
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  Speaker 2: inside that I like. I know that there is life
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  Speaker 2: to come And then this whole channel happened and I
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  Speaker 2: was really led to interview my neighbor. And then it
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  Speaker 2: becomes one of the most viewed near death experiences of
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  Speaker 2: all time. And that has really thrown me into this
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  Speaker 2: world where my perception and my feelings are very different.
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  Speaker 2: Now I'm on the far other side of like, you
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  Speaker 2: want to talk about life after death? Uh, yeah, it's
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  Speaker 2: a thing, man. I loved your film. I teared up
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  Speaker 2: at least two or three times. Um, So I think
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  Speaker 2: if you can reach people in that way, you're doing
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  Speaker 2: something important and meaningful. So thank you for that.
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  Speaker 1: It's really cool hearing how you got into it with,
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  Speaker 1: you know, interviewing your neighbor. Yeah. Um, so for, for me, uh,
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  Speaker 1: the whole kind of thing was born out of law.
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  Speaker 1: So kind of similar to you, I would say in
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  Speaker 1: terms of like, um, in the, in the beginning, like
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  Speaker 1: when I was, when I was younger and all that.
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  Speaker 1: So I grew up actually going to church. Uh, and
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  Speaker 1: so I was raised you know, in a Christian home and, and,
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  Speaker 1: and was raised, you know, to believe that there's something
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  Speaker 1: after that we do believe that there's heaven. Um, but
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  Speaker 1: in 2012, my, uh, my brother-in-law who was 36 at
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  Speaker 1: the time, uh, he was killed in a car wreck.
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  Speaker 1: And so, uh, for me, um, I guess that, that
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  Speaker 1: question of, you know, is there something after it was just,
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  Speaker 1: you know, immediate and, and I, I needed to know,
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  Speaker 1: you know, is like, where is he? So it's like,
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  Speaker 1: I know I was raised to believe this thing, But
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  Speaker 1: I guess I realized how shallow my faith was because
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  Speaker 1: it was, I just, honestly, it was like the quickest
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  Speaker 1: thing to just like let go at that time because
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  Speaker 1: it didn't make any sense in my life to have,
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  Speaker 1: to have such kind of chaos. And, and there to
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  Speaker 1: be like a loving creator just didn't, it just didn't
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  Speaker 1: make any sense to me. So, but then eventually there
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  Speaker 1: were some people around us that were, that were, you know,
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  Speaker 1: telling us that you got to, you got to listen
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  Speaker 1: to these people's stories. You got to read these books.
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  Speaker 1: I think it'll be helpful for you. My mother-in-law was
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  Speaker 1: the first to kind of get into it and read them.
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  Speaker 1: And it was helpful for her. I just, I still
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  Speaker 1: just wasn't sure. So I didn't initially read the books
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  Speaker 1: that were suggested for me to read, but it was actually,
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  Speaker 1: someone got a CD for me, which kind of talks
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  Speaker 1: about how old I am. It was an old, how
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  Speaker 1: long ago this was, but it's like, it was a CD, uh,
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  Speaker 1: an audio interviews of, of people who've had these near
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  Speaker 1: to the experiences. And I can't remember if it was
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  Speaker 1: called near to the experiences, but it was just, it
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  Speaker 1: was like people who died. And I'm like, people who died, don't,
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  Speaker 1: don't come back. Like, what are you talking about? And
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  Speaker 1: so I threw it on and I, and I was just,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, it caught my interest. And, um, and it
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  Speaker 1: was the first person who came on was like, it
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  Speaker 1: was this like 40 minute conversation or something with this guy.
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  Speaker 1: It was this doctor who fell out of two-story building
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  Speaker 1: and he landed on a sidewalk and like, basically like
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  Speaker 1: split open his head and, And then he had this
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  Speaker 1: profound experience, you know, of seeing his body and then
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  Speaker 1: seeing angels. And he was brought up to heaven and
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  Speaker 1: have this conversation with Jesus. And then he's talking about
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  Speaker 1: like this physical form that he had that was made
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  Speaker 1: of light. And I was just like, what on earth
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  Speaker 1: is this doctor doing talking about this? But there was
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  Speaker 1: something so sincere in his voice, so real. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: as a filmmaker and doing lots of interviews with people,
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  Speaker 1: you know, more in the commercial space, you kind of
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  Speaker 1: can pick up on if someone has some lines and
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  Speaker 1: if they're just saying something or if it's just a
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  Speaker 1: soundbite for sure. And you can kind of, you can
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  Speaker 1: kind of understand, you know, through lots of getting to
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  Speaker 1: know people over the years, um, if something is real or,
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  Speaker 1: or if they actually mean this. And I was, I
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  Speaker 1: was picking up on that in this voice and that
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  Speaker 1: just didn't make, it just didn't make a lot of
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  Speaker 1: sense to me that like, how could this be? And so,
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  Speaker 1: but it piqued my interest. And, um, and so then
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  Speaker 1: I started to read these books and after something like
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  Speaker 1: 30 books, um, of people who've had these near-death experiences,
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  Speaker 1: I was just like, I mean, how is it that
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  Speaker 1: I was unaware of this? And so because I'm more
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  Speaker 1: visual oriented, I wanted to know, are there films out
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  Speaker 1: there on this? And I wasn't really, there were a
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  Speaker 1: few and I was kind of getting copies of some
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  Speaker 1: really old, like 70s and 80s documentaries and films. even
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  Speaker 1: that came out on this topic, but there wasn't a
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  Speaker 1: lot to me that was like really speaking to me
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  Speaker 1: in the same way that this audio interview had. I mean, I,
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  Speaker 1: I'm so compelled by these stories. It's, it's like transforming
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  Speaker 1: my life. It brought me back to a faith that
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  Speaker 1: I was just like, or it got me close. I
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  Speaker 1: was like, I, I feel like I can believe in this.
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  Speaker 1: It was the audio interviews that, that, that did the
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  Speaker 1: most to be honest. And I think again, it was
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  Speaker 1: just the sincerity of the voice. yeah um the books
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  Speaker 1: i just i know i guess as a as again
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  Speaker 1: as a filmmaker editing um like there's things that could
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  Speaker 1: be moved and removed and all that kind of stuff
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  Speaker 1: to make you feel something and i and i just
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  Speaker 1: kind of had this skepticism with books that it's just
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  Speaker 1: so beautifully told and it was emotional but i was
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  Speaker 1: just like but how much is kind of um i
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  Speaker 1: don't know like made up to be bigger than it
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  Speaker 1: is or whatever i just wasn't sure you know, from
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  Speaker 1: that perspective, like how much, but it was the audio
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  Speaker 1: interview that was just like this. I mean, this guy
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  Speaker 1: is just telling it as it happened and it's just
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  Speaker 1: the most, you know, interesting thing. Um, so then, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: when I actually started to, uh, reach out to some
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  Speaker 1: of these people, one of the first people was, uh,
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  Speaker 1: it was actually John Burke who wrote the book, imagine heaven.
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  Speaker 1: I was, I was going to reach out to a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of these people who wrote these books. And then,
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  Speaker 1: and then I'd heard of imagine heaven and it was like, okay, like,
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  Speaker 1: you know, this plan that I had for potentially like
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  Speaker 1: reaching out and like putting together some of these stories,
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  Speaker 1: this guy did this in this book, Imagine Heaven, John Burke.
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  Speaker 1: And he did such a beautiful job of like, you know,
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  Speaker 1: he was looking at a thousand years of experiences and
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  Speaker 1: focusing narrowly on a hundred and comparing it and the
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  Speaker 1: overlapping nature of some of these experiences, as well as like,
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  Speaker 1: how does that and does it correlate to the Bible
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  Speaker 1: at all? And I wasn't finding anyone else at that time.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't really find anyone else that was really kind
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  Speaker 1: of doing that. And there was something that I was
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  Speaker 1: interested to do in, in this film initially. So I
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  Speaker 1: reached out to him and he kind of graciously was, uh,
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  Speaker 1: gave me his time. And it was like, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I'm if, yeah, if, if you, I was telling him like,
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  Speaker 1: this is a story I want to tell, and here's,
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  Speaker 1: here's how I'm imagining it kind of going together, but
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  Speaker 1: I've never done a feature before. This was, this was, would,
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  Speaker 1: was going to be my first feature. Um, but coming
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  Speaker 1: from the commercial space, it was like, I mean, I've
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  Speaker 1: told stories before. I've just never done it in a
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  Speaker 1: long or the bunch of different stories. all together. And, um, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: he was gracious to kind of like, be like, I'm,
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  Speaker 1: I'll make myself available as needed. Um, if you want
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  Speaker 1: me involved, but he connected me with a few people who,
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  Speaker 1: you know, when I hopped on, hopped on a call
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  Speaker 1: with them, hearing their stories, you know, even just on
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  Speaker 1: like a remote call initially was just like, okay, I'm, I'm,
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  Speaker 1: I'm getting the same thing that I did with that
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  Speaker 1: audio interview. I mean, these people, there's just something so
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  Speaker 1: different about them. Um, and yeah, I wasn't getting that,
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  Speaker 1: like that. I don't know. It was like, I don't,
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  Speaker 1: I don't think I'm being conned here. This seems to
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  Speaker 1: be real, but we entered this film, like from a
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  Speaker 1: feature standpoint with a heavy amount of skepticism. And we
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  Speaker 1: kind of kept that throughout the course of making the
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  Speaker 1: film intentionally, because we want to make a film that's
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  Speaker 1: like accessible for someone who's skeptic, who's a skeptic, as
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  Speaker 1: well as someone who, you know, believes. And although years
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  Speaker 1: into the making of this film, I became convinced this
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  Speaker 1: is real. You know, these people aren't making this up.
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  Speaker 1: There's like actually no reason to to make this up.
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  Speaker 1: Like it's kind of almost in some cases they have
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  Speaker 1: something to lose in telling their story. But we went
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  Speaker 1: into it skeptical on purpose because basically I was kind
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  Speaker 1: of like, even though I became convinced, I tried to
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  Speaker 1: make the film coming at it from a place where
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  Speaker 1: I was in the beginning. And I wanted people to
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  Speaker 1: experience what I experienced in the beginning of when I
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  Speaker 1: came across these stories. And so that was kind of
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  Speaker 1: the intention with the film.
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  Speaker 2: I love that.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's amazing these people have had this experience
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  Speaker 1: that they share that experience. Not everyone, I think, is
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  Speaker 1: maybe bold enough to kind of share that with others. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: But because they're talking about things that we can't send
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  Speaker 1: the cameras to and go and explore. What I experienced
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  Speaker 1: with the audio tape, uh, was what I was experiencing
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  Speaker 1: in the interview chair across sitting from these people. And, uh,
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  Speaker 1: I was so moved by, you know, what they're describing.
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  Speaker 1: And the interesting thing for me, I'm sure, which you've experienced,
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  Speaker 1: you know, having interviewed so many different people who've had
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  Speaker 1: these experiences, um, is that there's, there are these commonalities
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  Speaker 1: and these people don't know each other at all. You know,
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  Speaker 1: they come from such different backgrounds. Um, which I think
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  Speaker 1: was the most interesting thing for me. In the film,
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  Speaker 1: I think we have something around 14 people that we
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  Speaker 1: interviewed that had clinically died between seconds to an hour
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  Speaker 1: and 45 minutes is the longest that we have in
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  Speaker 1: the film for like how long they had no heartbeat
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  Speaker 1: and no brain activity. But, you know, these people are all,
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  Speaker 1: and some of them are coming from non-Western countries, you know,
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  Speaker 1: Steve Kang in the film, he was born and raised
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  Speaker 1: in South Korea and, Um, and when, at the time
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  Speaker 1: that he was, uh, raised there, they didn't have television
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  Speaker 1: screens in homes. They didn't have, there's no movie theaters
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  Speaker 1: available or accessible. There's no movies playing. Um, there's no
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  Speaker 1: street preachers. If there was like a, in terms of
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  Speaker 1: like Christian influence, um, that would be like, uh, thought
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  Speaker 1: as an invasion. Um, uh, there was no Western, uh,
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  Speaker 1: philosophy or, or ideology or anything that was going to
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  Speaker 1: be permeating into the culture there. So, um, there's no
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  Speaker 1: access to Bibles or anything like that. So Steve had no, um,
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  Speaker 1: access to that. And he was raised in a culture
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  Speaker 1: and kind of by default Buddhist religion, um, so different than,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the, the maybe American traditional kind of like
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  Speaker 1: maybe culture in his near to near to the experience,
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  Speaker 1: he would say that he stepped into what he would
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  Speaker 1: call eternity, which is outside of time. It's not that
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  Speaker 1: time stops. It's just a totally different dimension of time. Um, anyways,
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  Speaker 1: so I found that interesting because it's like, what he
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  Speaker 1: was describing and the stuff that he was describing and
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  Speaker 1: the way he experienced it, it was very much the
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  Speaker 1: same as anyone in a North American experience. Um, again,
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  Speaker 1: coming from either an atheist background or Christian background or
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  Speaker 1: whatever it ends up being, it doesn't seem to, um,
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  Speaker 1: necessarily affect like this world they're stepping into in terms
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  Speaker 1: of that. It's not a, it's not a different experience.
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  Speaker 1: It's not, um, it's not so different. There are different aspects,
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  Speaker 1: but it's not so different. It's like, there's these different common, um,
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  Speaker 1: commonly reported things that overlap. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And I think probably the biggest one that I've seen, um,
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  Speaker 2: is just love, right? It's like all of them, it
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  Speaker 2: always comes down to love. And it's almost like if
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  Speaker 2: you could create love as, as a, as a substance,
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  Speaker 2: it's like, you're literally walking into it is kind of
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  Speaker 2: the way that they seem to describe that. And I
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  Speaker 2: don't know, it's interesting. I just had this thought I've, um, one,
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  Speaker 2: I can't, I am so grateful to be where I
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  Speaker 2: am with my knowledge of the afterlife because of this
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  Speaker 2: channel and now films like yours. Because when you actually,
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  Speaker 2: in your film, you know, there was a lady, I
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  Speaker 2: won't give too much away there either, that had a
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  Speaker 2: pretty solid foundation because of her experience. But then regardless,
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  Speaker 2: we all experience loss, right? And how you deal with that,
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  Speaker 2: it definitely helps if you feel like someday you're going
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  Speaker 2: to be with your loved one again.
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  Speaker 1: And I.
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  Speaker 2: I lost my mom earlier this year, and I was
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  Speaker 2: an only child. It was just the two of us
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  Speaker 2: growing up, and she's just so important to me. And
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: just knowing more than ever, because of all of this
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  Speaker 2: information and where I am, that I get to be
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  Speaker 2: with my mom again. It's beautiful. But what popped into
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: my head when we were talking about that and just
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: the love side of it, what's interesting is I would
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  Speaker 2: say probably the most spiritual experience I've ever had in
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  Speaker 2: my life. Nothing compares. Not going to church, not even
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  Speaker 2: when I feel like I've literally felt my mom's presence
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  Speaker 2: since she's passed. The day that I brought my firstborn
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  Speaker 2: son home to our house, we sat down and I
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  Speaker 2: held him and I can't, I just, I think it's
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  Speaker 2: the closest I've felt to the way that they talk
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  Speaker 2: about this kind of love. It was just like... what
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: is this? You know, I hear about, you know, people
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  Speaker 2: going and going to the top of a mountain and
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  Speaker 2: communing with a guru and getting into this deeper side.
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  Speaker 2: For me, I don't know what happened, but that becoming
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  Speaker 2: a father and seeing this brand new soul and soul
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  Speaker 2: in a physical body and starting his journey on earth,
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  Speaker 2: it just did something. And I'll never forget that.
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  Speaker 1: That's so cool. Yeah. I had the same, same experience
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  Speaker 1: with both, both my boys. I have an 11-year-old and
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: now a 6-year-old who just turned 6. But I remember
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: when my firstborn son was born. It was actually the
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: moment when I first saw him.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I had that same sensation. But it was, and it's
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: like the way I would describe it is like my
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: heart just doubled. And I didn't know that I had
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: more capacity for love. It just doesn't because I love
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  Speaker 1: my wife. And I, you know, it's like I'm good.
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  Speaker 1: but my heart just immediately doubled. It just doubled. And
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  Speaker 1: I just all of a sudden had more capacity for love.
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  Speaker 1: And it was just this overwhelming experience. You know, what's
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: crazy though, is that we talked to this lady out
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: in Israel who had this experience. She's in kind of
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: a small part in the montage in the film. She
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  Speaker 1: talks about this love that she felt as being, she
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: says if she was trying to describe it and you know,
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  Speaker 1: I would, we would say that, you know, like seeing,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the, the birth of your child. Um, and,
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  Speaker 1: and there's that love that you feel as a parent,
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  Speaker 1: she would say the love that all mothers have had
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  Speaker 1: for their kids since the beginning of time, all human history,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: if you could take that love, all of it and
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: put and distill it down into, uh, into a bottle essentially,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: and then drink that she says it would be, it
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  Speaker 1: would pale in comparison to the love that she experienced
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: in this place. And I'm just like, that's wild.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: That's profound.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's profound. Yeah. Like, so it's like, you know,
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  Speaker 1: we're experienced and, and we're experiencing like these amazing moments
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  Speaker 1: here on earth. So I can't even imagine, we just
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  Speaker 1: can't comprehend the, the, the love that's experienced there. And
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  Speaker 1: it's unconditional. It's a, that's what they, that's what they'll,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: they'll say. It's this unconditional love. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: It's beautiful. And, And that element of it too, just
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  Speaker 2: like knowing when you do end up losing someone or
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: you're close there yourself, just knowing literally that that's what
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: is ahead of you. If you can go and experience
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: some of these stories and just kind of bring some
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: of that inside of you and question. And I love
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: that too. There was a gentleman in your film that
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: kept saying like, be skeptical, like think about it, decide
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: for yourself. And yeah, we all have to do that.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: But I truly feel like there's a reason why this
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: day and age, everything is increasing at a rapid rate.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: And I think that includes evil. And I don't think
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: that it's any coincidence that at the same time, evil
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: and confusion is increasing, that you have these stories coming
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: out more and the technology to share them. And you've
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: been able to do that in a major way with
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: this feature film.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: I'm totally with you there. I always wondered about the
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: timing of it, you know, and even... I mean, I've
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: been working at this for about just a little bit
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: over six years now and it's a long journey. Yeah.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: But I, and, and during that journey, you know, so
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: many ups and downs, a lot of downs, a lot
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: of times I would say like in where I'm in
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: this Valley that I feel like, you know, it's like,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: is it, is this even worth it? But always questioning,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: it's like, what, why this timing? Like why I feel
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: compelled to tell this film. I felt it's like this
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: transformed my life and I want to share that with others.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: But I was always curious about the timing. And it's
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: like even when it got finished and it goes out
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: through Angel Studios was just the most interesting thing. I
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: was like, I mean, I don't know. And we couldn't
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: none of us could plan for even just like the
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: amount of theaters that it goes out to. We don't
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: all have control over that. Angel Studios is an amazing
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: team and they've done amazing work at getting it to theaters.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: But not all of us have control over the amount
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: of theaters that it goes out to. unusual for a
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: documentary to go to theaters in general, but then it
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: actually goes out to over 2,700 theaters. Like why now?
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Why that many? And it was just so specific, the timing,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: you know, Taylor Swift had announced her film coming to
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: theaters the same month. A lot of other films left
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: the space worrying that they don't want to compete with,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: with Taylor Swift. And so because of that, our little
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: independent documentary is, you know, there's space for it. And
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: so then we go to that many screens. And so
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: that many more people are hearing these stories and are
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: affected by it. And I think that's just God's timing.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Totally. Yeah, I could totally see that. All right. Well,
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: thanks again, Stephen. I got to say for your first feature,
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: goodness gracious, man. Well done.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: It's very cool.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for watching it. Thanks for having me on
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: the program. Thank you.