LDSPMA

Empowering Latter-day Saints to spread light and truth by connecting them at the intersection of faith, creativity, and professional skill

Storytelling

LDSPMA Member Spotlight: Thomas Laughlin

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Thomas Laughlin lives in Clinton, Utah.

What are some names of the books or other media you have created?

In my over twenty-year career, I’ve been privileged to have worked with and mentored by several LDS filmmakers such as TC Christensen ASC (producer/cinematographer for Love Kennedy and 17 Miracles), Peter Czerny (film editor of the original Johnny Lingo and LDS film classics of the 1960s-1990s), Dennis Lisonbee (film director and composer), and so many who have worked for the BYU and LDS Motion Picture Studio. I’ve done several award-winning documentaries, including A Reel Legacy: The History of Judge Whitaker and the LDS Motion Picture Studio, Stripling, and more recently I was director and producer of Remembering Heaven.

What inspired you to become a creator of media?

I have always loved cinema. I was always enamored with the process from writing to editing. My parents encouraged me to follow my dream, so after a mission to Sao Paulo Brazil, I left my hometown of Wichita, Kansas, and headed to Provo, Utah, went to UVU, got married, and have been married for the past twenty years.

What has been the highlight of your career so far?

Before I came to live in Utah after my mission, I came out here to visit some mission friends and attended the first LDS Film Festival. It was a tiny festival back then, but I was amazed by all the filmmakers—I had found my people! This festival is what brought me to Utah. Twenty years later, we entered our documentary Remembering Heaven and won the Twentieth Annual LDS Film Festival, with my wife and kids looking on, as we took the stage and got the “Best Documentary” award. It felt amazing!

What was the best advice you’ve ever been given in your creative journey?

The best advice I ever got was to study storytelling. Every filmmaking process is tied to story. It’s the same whether it is a novel, book, short film, or whatever the medium. You have to have a strong beginning, middle, and ending. At the recommendation of a college film friend, I read Screenplay by Syd Field, and it changed everything for me. I wrote around fifteen feature film scripts in college—so do a lot of writing, shooting, and editing.

What advice do you have for someone just starting out in your field?

Whatever background or experience you have, learn as much as you can about the “film business.” If you have a great idea, manuscript, or a book (that you want to make into a film or a documentary), take the time to research and learn about filmmaking, scriptwriting, marketing, and distribution. Have a specific goal and run to that goal and don’t stop until that goal is achieved. Intern on a film set or work on a short film. This will add to your experiences and skills. Be tenacious and passionate!

What keeps you inspired in your daily creative work?

What inspires me is my inner drive to always tell a story with the most emotional or uplifting impact. Oftentimes, we don’t always get to work on big projects. Maybe they are small car commercials or corporate videos. But even still, you can always try and make the content inspiring or uplift your viewers. There are so many film pioneers before us, who had to work with more primitive filmmaking tools. We have digital tools like the iPhone, that can film anything. We have laptops that can edit. Tell those stories!

What would you like others to know about you or your creative process?

The creative process is like a muscle. The more you do it, the stronger and better you get. Like bodybuilding, you can target certain muscle groups or areas of focus. The creative process is a journey. Just keep going.

In what ways do you feel you have been able to be a voice for good in your creative pursuits?

Especially with my last two documentaries, Stripling and Remembering Heaven, I have tried to inform and truly inspire the members of our LDS youth and members to remember the gospel of Jesus Christ. In everything I try and do, I look at it as if the Lord is looking at the film and ask, would he accept this offering? As many artists know, we do our best and hope that what we do turns people’s hearts to (or back to) the Savior. (And, I hope to work on future projects with others in the LDSPMA!)

If you want your spotlight to link to your website or any of your social media platforms, include the URLs here.

https://www.facebook.com/tomyboy342000

The Arts as a Superpower

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By Shaun Stahle

“What is the most powerful weapon in the world?” I asked a class of fifth graders in Fielding Elementary School many years ago.

The Gulf War was raging at the time. Every news cast led with horrific scenes of destruction. “The Apache Helicopter with laser-guided smart bombs,” blurted one boy. “Nah,” said another. “Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from warships.” 

The boys grew animated with some coming out of their chairs in mock imitation. These sparkly-faced boys knew their weapons of mass destruction.

After the teacher restored order, I suggested that neither the laser-guided missiles nor the Apache Helicopter—as powerful as they were to level big buildings into little pieces of rubble—were the most power weapons in the world.

More guesses followed. “How about nuclear bombs?” asked another.

“No,” I said long and slow, squeezing every second to build tension. “The most powerful weapon in the world…is words.”

Three illustrated people with speech bubbles. Using words and conversation.
Words: the Most Powerful Weapon in the World

The class went thunderously quiet. Faces contorted. The mental torture of trying to figure how words trumped bombs in causing agony. “Words?” someone finally bellowed. “When did words ever win a war?”

“Think about it,” I suggested, trying to ease their pain before their faces froze in those positions. “When mean words are said, you get angry. When you get angry, you could throw a punch. If nations say enough mean words, people get angry and tempers flare. They sometimes hurl bombs. But do you feel like poking someone’s nose who has complimented you?”

I’m not sure the students understood my analogy. I’m not sure the teacher did either. But I still think the premise has merit. Words tell stories. Stories evoke emotions of virtue such as beauty and love. Such emotions build into peace and contentment and gracious living. Harmony and unity are the result.

Words can also fan the flames of hate and animosity. Words of deceit and injustice can enrage to violence. Instead of unity, we see others as a lower species.

Words Turn Enemies to Friends

President Dallin H. Oaks in his October general conference address recommended that we heed the counsel of a famous musical and make more effort to get to know each other.

He should know. As one who has stood in the heat of intense adversarial debate trying many cases—50, I think—before the US Supreme Court, and as a man deeply cultured in the affections of the Spirit, he knows how to turn enemies into friends.

That’s where we come in. Those who tell stories help society get to know each other. Words and images and sounds are our superpower. The more we use our powers to tell the plight of another, the more we defuse the ugly and demeaning and debase that confronts us.

Most of us will never be introduced in the Rose Garden. None of us will have a finger on the big red nuclear bomb button. But we still have power. “The kind words we give, shall in memory live.”

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Shaun Stahle was yanked from a comfortable bed early one morning at age five to cart newspapers off his grandfather’s printing press and has been cursed with ink in the blood ever since. He spent 17 years detailing the growth of the Church with the Church News. His retirement plan is to find a shoe box full of unmarked bills along the road someday. He says he has saved his wife of 33 years from a life of fame and prosperity.