A Reinvention is at Foot

As I'm sure you noticed, I had the page redid and refocused. I've been back from Russia for a good 5months now and maybe God will call me back there and maybe he won't. Either way this blog isn't about my time in Russia anymore! I'm refocusing it on the things I love in the world: films, traveling and God. Sure other things will probably pop up here and then, but narrowing it down to those three helps to make it a tad catchier. So here we go, we'll start this post off with a video you may or may not have seen. If you've hung around me much within the last two months or so I've probably made you sit down and watch it as I love it so.

And while on the topics of films: I've had quite a few conversation with friends about the presence of "christian" arts, publications, etc and how they, for the most part, seem sub par to their "secular" counterparts. As a filmmaker, my primary issue is with "christian" films ... the VAST majority of them all seem the same: protagonist is presented with a challenge and has two obvious choices, one right way and one wrong way. The protag chooses the wrong way and suffers for their poor choice, struggles, befriended, or refriended, by a leading christian figure who reminds the protag that God can solve all problems. Protag comes back to God, movie ends, everyone is happy.

For the longest time this has bugged me, but I haven't been able to put it into clear enough words to articulate why and then I started reading "Hollywood Worldview" by Brian Godawa and write in the intro are the words I have been struggling to find.

"Christian movies, though well intentioned and sincere, often suffer from heavy handedness in their desire to convert the unbeliever through art. Rather than being true to the ambiguities and difficulties of reality, rather than wooing the viewer with the right questions, an emphasis on answers often results in preachiness and a tendency toward platitudes ... Which is more to be avoided: a pagan movie that rings true or a "Christian" propaganda that rings false?"

-Brian Godawa

I really enjoyed reading this, especially as I start to get away from my documentary tendencies of filmmaking and plan some more short film type endeavors. I knew that I didn't want to make your stereotypical "Christian" films and now I know what exactly it is to steer clear. I want to make films that yes help glorify and pay tribute to my Creator, but also reflect the reality that everyone sees everyday. Life isn't simple, there is not a clear wrong or right in every situation. We see and live this everyday, christian or not. We shouldn't pretend, present things as they are.

And to end, I guess I'll leave you with my latest video. I filmed this for Northridge Church in Rochester, NY. We just finished the construction of our new sanctuary and, in what I call a dedication, we all went in and wrote prayers, verses and names on the floor so we can remember that the building is nothing without both a loving God and grateful people.

Video Time

So I've been back from Russia for just over a month now and things have been moving.

My time in Hershey was spent making video after video, I'm still catching up on all the editing!

And while I am catching up on the editing, I was able to finish a series of three promo videos that I was asked to make for a Confidence Conference that is being put on at the Hershey Evangelical Free Church this upcoming January (1/16/10 I believe). 

Check them out:

Promo 1

First of all, please ignore the countdown at the beginning of this video ... long story behind that one. 

I made this video with my homemade dolly, which runs on homemade PVC tracks. Overall, it cost about $60 to make, but it gets super sweet smooth shots so it is completely worth it!

After the filming I just had to spend a few hours editing to get the motion tracking of the text to work out to a acceptable standard. I did this in Final Cut Pro. I'm pretty sure most people would (and should) do this in Motion, but since I don't have Motion I make do here ... I happy with the results.

Promo 2

This one is all text animation, similar to the entry I made into World Vision's poverty competition ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M0gBddPuS4 ). I can't remember the total time spent on this, but it took a good few hours. Even with all the time these type of videos take, I love the way they look so it's worth it!

Promo 3

This video is the third and final promo video I made. We filmed it at the same time as the first video and it was a whole lot more uninvolved. Honestly, all it was was my camera on a tripod, pointed at my black backdrop and a few lights. I played a tad with the brightness, contrast and saturation of the video to make it look a little more interesting, but overall there was very little production that went into this video.