Join us at the start of something... Tiny
Roughly 15 years ago I’d wake up every morning, spend an hour in Los Angeles traffic to drive 5 miles to work at Warner Bros. where I had to spiritually navigate being a devout Catholic while tasked with growing viewership for Warner Bros. Television properties. This included shows like Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries, Ellen, Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, and The Voice among others.
I was given a rather jolting deep-dive into the entertainment industry, the world of celebrity, and the powers at work - both temporal and spiritual - to capture the hearts and minds of people. It was a tough environment.
(IMAGE: Here I am at the Emmy Awards in 2010)
I prayed whether God was calling me to be a light in a dark industry or whether he was calling me to learn in preparation for something else. I came to see a recurring theme at the heart of every story being told on TV - the loss of innocence. And I saw that very same fall from innocence in my coworkers, the talent on our shows and most unfortunately I saw it celebrated in the news as the PR machine of the industry figured out how to always stay in front of its viewers. I quit my job knowing that working in a studio wasn’t what I was called to do.
I went to work for the Church - first for Archbishop Gomez and then at the Augustine Institute. In that time I started a family with four beautiful children whose innocence I vigilantly guard as I prepare them for the world and most importantly for Heaven. This became my mission.
But God kept calling me to more, I struck out on my own to start Catholic Ventures and surrounded myself with faithful partners while building a wonderful team of people whose hearts are in the right place - their families and their faith. Together, we’ve made it our mission to bring the beauty of the faith to families.
I figured my days in entertainment were over.
That is until two and a half years ago, when out of nowhere, God gave us Tiny Saints. Working on Tiny Saints has allowed me to immerse myself in the best stories of human history - the lives of the saints. We hired a creative director with a background in animation who started sharing fun animated videos of the saints on Instagram garnering hundreds of thousands of views. The saints were at work. From those first animations, our customers began asking and then demanding that we make a TV show.
And I realized that this is how Disney started. In the early days, Disney started small, it shared stories that people already knew. They just told them better. And I knew that our team could tell the stories of the saints like nobody else. So, I’m entering entertainment again but this time it's different.
(IMAGE: Brainstorming session and character modeling. It takes a lot of work to bring the intercession of the saints to life.)
We're setting out to do the opposite of what I saw during my days in the entertainment industry - we are going to lift up the innocence and joy of the saints and the love of family. We are going to tell the stories of the saints not just as living histories, but heroes and friends alive in Heaven who are here to help us today. And I’m not doing it for me. I’m doing it for my kids. For your children and grandchildren. I’m doing it for Jesus.
And I’d like you to be a part of it too.
This week we kicked off a crowdfunding campaign for the Tiny Saints Show pulling together the very best Catholic animators, writers, sound engineers and composers to do it at the level it deserves. The show centers around a family who faces the daily struggles every family faces - similar to the popular show Bluey. But we’ve got one big difference, this family prays. And as their prayers go up to Heaven, they end up in the Heavenly mailroom - a place we are calling ‘Intercession Station’ - where the saints go to work. Season one will follow St. Carlo Acutis as he gets his first assignment, a family on earth to pray for.
We’ve already received interest from some big platforms to fund the show but we turned them down to ensure we do this right. We aren’t making a show for them - we’re making it for you. So we need your help to make this happen. If you’d like to be a part of this project, I ask you to watch the trailer and give what you can to bring this show to life. You’ll find that at different giving levels we've created some limited edition collectible items you can only get through being part of this historic initiative. Most importantly please pray for us. If this is God’s will, it will happen and I sure feel like this is what he has been preparing me and my entire team to do.
God bless you!
Matt
