(Newswire.net — April 7, 2015) Thomson, Illinois — Producer Bill Heid says society has removed God from the culture – specifically, textbooks – and he has a solution that is growing in popularity with families and children.
Heid produces audio theater dramas based on real heroes of history – heroes you normally wouldn’t think of as Christians but whose faith was rock-solid. His company, Heirloom Audio, has released two CDs, Under Drake’s Flag and In Freedom’s Cause and is scheduled to release a third one, With Lee In Virginia, this summer. They’re based on G.A. Henty books.
“A lot of the Christian history in the world and in our country has been surgically removed in the school books, in the media. We want to see Christianity restored to history,” Heid said on the radio program Rush To Reason, hosted by John Rush on KLZ in Denver, Colorado.
Rush had listened to In Freedom’s Causeprior to the program and called it “fantastic.” “This is not some two-bit deal,” he said.
In Freedom’s Cause stars Golden Globe winner Joanne Froggatt (Anna Bates of Downton Abbey), Billy Boyd (Pippin of The Lord Of The Rings), Skandar Keynes (Edmund of The Chronicles of Narnia series), James Cosmo (Campbell, Father Christmas of Braveheart and The Chronicles of Narnia, respectively) and Brian Blessed (Boss Nass and Clayton in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and Tarzan, respectively).
It tells the story of a boy, Ned, as he watches 13th-century Scottish hero William Wallace fight for his country’s independence from England.
Heid says it’s a new way for children to learn. Plus, it gets them away from the TV. Kids receive about 50 hours of screen time each week when including computers and tablets.
“The more visual stimulation that you have … the more you shut down a child’s imagination,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is allow the spoken word to spark a child’s imagination and bring that genre back. When I was little, my dad and I listened to Lone Ranger and The Shadow. The writing was so darn good. What we’ve done is taken a little bit of that and mixed it with these heroes and created – along with some great sound design – something that is like a movie, only it’s played in the theater of your mind. We think our kids, for the most part, have gotten plenty of screen time each week.”
In Freedom’s Cause includes actual audio from Scotland.
“We took the crew to walk where William Wallace walked and to the castles, to capture all of the sounds that were there. So if you actually listened to In Freedom’s Cause and heard a door open and close, that’s probably the real door in the real castle where that scene actually took place in the late 13th century. We’ve tried to capture the accuracy not only in the story but also in the sounds as well.”
Heirloom Audio’s third release, With Lee In Virginia, is scheduled to be released this summer and will feature Academy Award nominee Sean Astin (Rudy, The Lord Of The Rings, The Goonies), Kirk Cameron (Monumental, Fireproof), Chris Anthony (Adventures In Odyssey) and Kelsey Landsdowne (Curious George film).
The company’s first project, Under Drake’s Flag, was nominated for two Audie awards (best audio drama and best package design). The Audies are the “Academy Awards of audio.”
The projects have been especially popular among homeschooling families, who view them as a way of making history fun. The productions are now gaining wider audiences as a result of their pure entertainment value and all-star casts.
To schedule an interview with Heid, email press@heirloomaudio.com or call 815-259-0122.