by John Wildman
AFI FEST Daily News

Writers and directors Daniel Jones and Dann Sytsma arrive at the world premiere of their film COMIC EVANGELISTS, November 5 at AFI FEST 2006 presented by Audi. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images)

Anyone with an extra $50 might think about a nice dinner, or a couple of new DVDs, or the benefits of saving the money.

But few might think they'd take that $50 and make a feature film for festival audiences in Hollywood.

The scenario didn't play out exactly that way for Daniel Jones and Dann Sytsma, but they did indeed end up with a feature film at AFI FEST 2006 presented by Audi.

And yes, they made it for $50.

COMIC EVANGELISTS follows the misguided hopes of an evangelical improvisation troupe, skewering fundamentalist intolerance.

AFI FEST Daily News: How did the two of you connect originally?

Dann Sytsma: He had moved back to Kalamazoo, Michigan - where I live - and he had heard that we were doing improv from Dan Sanford, who is one of our members, and said he wanted to come film some of our shows.

AFI FEST Daily News: How did the idea to make COMIC EVANGELISTS come about?

Daniel Jones: The improv comedy group Crawlspace Eviction got invited to perform at the Toronto International Improv Festival. We were talking about ideas for a road movie. And we thought we're going up to Toronto, it'll be fun, it'll be a distraction. But then we were sifting through some ideas for something more exciting to do and Adam Carter and Dann Sytsma had this awesome idea to invent this Fundamentalist Improv Troupe.

AFI FEST Daily News: What kind of projects had you been working on prior to COMIC EVANGELISTS?

Daniel Jones: I did a documentary called TWO ROADS TO JOHANNESBURG that took place at the United Nations. We followed three young people who were at this world seminar for sustainable development in Johannesburg, South Africa. Following that I got hired to shoot video for a documentary about a guy who was walking from Florida to Boston. So my experience has been pretty serious issue-based documentaries.

COMIC EVANGELISTS protest the screening of their own film, November 6 at AFI FEST 2006 presented by Audi. (Photo by Veronika Cernadas/American Film Institute)

AFI FEST Daily News: While you were working on those projects, were you secretly thinking, "this is great, but if I could do something funny...?"

Daniel Jones: I had always wanted to do some sort of comedy. I'm a great fan of comedy in all of its forms - especially mockumentary. Things like THE OFFICE or ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT - cinŽma vŽritŽ style of narrative humor. I was so inspired by that stuff because it fits so well with what I like to do in terms of documentaries. It's all about picking up a camera and shooting what happens.

AFI FEST Daily News: How did the dynamic work with you two, directing the film?

Daniel Jones: Dann and I have really good chemistry. We both find a lot of the same things funny. We're both very Midwestern white boys, so we have a lot in common. Beyond that, Sytsma's got this incredible theatre background so his thing was kind of guiding the cast and the acting.

Dann Sytsma: Dan is probably one of those most humble filmmakers you're ever going to run into. He's really able to put you at ease. He'd say, "Look, I know it's improvised, but we're going to do it again. Let's play with a different flavor." And the way that he would do it was always very flattering to the improviser. I credit Dan with how well it is put together.

AFI FEST Daily News: What does it mean that the film was made for $50?

Daniel Jones: It means exactly what it is. We spent $50 on this shoot. All the equipment, all the overhead costs were not there. The cast was doing it for free. And we were already going to Toronto so that was taken care of. The biggest expense was a $44 location fee which was for Noah's epilogue scene on a basketball court. We also spent six or seven dollars on props. We had to go to the Family Christian bookstore to buy posters, stickers and t-shirts since we didn't have those lying around. So when we say $50, we really mean $50.

AFI FEST Daily News: What was the biggest surprise for you once you became involved with making the film?

Daniel Jones: The biggest surprise to me was bringing the footage home and seeing that there actually was a way to weave this thing together. We were coming to this with a very YouTube style, like, "Let's make something that's 10 minutes and it'll be funny to show to friends or whatever." So coming home, we had 10 hours of footage. We shot like it was a documentary. We shot as much as we could, the cast would keep going and they kept coming up with good stuff. So, it was a big surprise to get it home and put it on the computer and see that we actually had the potential to put something together that was over 60 minutes.

Dann Sytsma: When we got back from Toronto we realized the value of these characters we created and the value of the story that unfolded while we were there. For an improv-generated film, it's impressive how tightly constructed the story is.

Daniel Jones: And that was definitely a challenge. You come home with 10 hours of footage, it really takes some time to look over all of that. It's exactly like doing a documentary. There was a lot of stuff that Dan and I had to figure out a way to develop afterwards, making up a story and doing things to fill in the blanks.

AFI FEST Daily News: Was that 10 hours of footage basically where the movie came from?

Dann Sytsma: No, we had to sit down and say, "This story line is strong, this story line is not strong enough to bother with. There were a lot of storylines that we thought were fun initially, but ended up just not panning out. Then we had to fill in a lot of the cracks with the monologues and the interviews that we filmed. A lot of that stuff was done after we got back from Toronto. Even the performance itself. We had the idea for it, but we weren't able to do it while we were in Toronto so we did that when we got back. That's actually the only scripted portion of the film.

AFI FEST Daily News: Are you a very religious person or were you? Did that aspect of it come naturally to you or did you have to do research?

Daniel Jones: Adam Carter and Dann Sytsma would tell you that a lot of the inspiration came from the fact that the majority of us came from Christian backgrounds. Not speaking for myself along those lines, but Adam had to come out to his church group and Dan Sytsma still goes to church. He comes from a Fundamentalist Christian background. The movie isn't so much about "look at these crazy Christians," although it is an incredibly funny device, it's more about the issues of tolerance within fundamentalism and the kind of behavior the conflicts there can breed. But when we were coming up for ideas for the improv scene in Toronto, I was totally out of my element on what to talk about. But they were able to be very specific with Biblical things they could mention.

Dann Sytsma: The Christian information in the movie I didn't have to research at all. I grew up in that atmosphere. I went through 13 years in an intensely conservative Christian elementary school and high school. The family I grew up in was very very focused on the more fundamentalist side of Christianity. So the information is all in my head and it was pretty easy to pull it from. It was cathartic in a way. The name of the character that I play, Rick, is from a character I did in a friend's play that was based on the really ugly side of fundamentalist Christianity. And I told him this and he said that when he wrote it, that character was based on this guy we knew who was just an ass. I mean, he just thought he was like the next John the Baptist and he was the biggest idiot you'd ever find.

AFI FEST Daily News: How did it feel when the film was accepted at AFI FEST?

Dann Sytsma: I was expecting a call for at least two weeks telling us that there was an error. I just kept waiting for the call, and then every time Dan would call he would have some new information about it but I kept expecting him to say, "Yeah, well, they actually watched the movie and um..." And then I got an email from someone saying how much they had heard about our movie CONVICT EVANGELISTS. So I thought, "Well, maybe CONVICT EVANGELISTS is supposed to be at the festival."

Daniel Jones: It was an absolute surprise. And I'll be absolutely candid. We entered the film in like, 13 festivals and got rejected by the lowliest of them. We became humbled very quickly. We had played a rough cut for a test audience in Kalamazoo and it really had bolstered our egos and got us excited. But we weren't really expecting it to have an audience outside of our little bubble in Kalamazoo. So to hear that it got into AFI is a huge, huge thing for us. We are absolutely thrilled.