Edit of “Entrusted With Arrows”
We forgot to tell you that last week we got our edit down to 57 minutes! Exciting! (For us anyway :0) ) This took a lot of prayer and thought, as our “interviewees” gave us such wonderful material to work with. The difficulty was deciding what NOT to use. Very difficult! It’s a rather unique link we have built with each person we interviewed, as we daily watch and listen to what they had to say as we edit. It is painful each time we have to hit the delete button! We have decided that because there is so much helpful material, and that no audience wants to watch a three hour documentary, that in our special features we will have a mini-documentary for each family. Unfortunately, we are not able to use the children’s interviews in the main feature – we’re sad about that! But we will include them in the special features mini-docs. I feel badly when we have someone do an interview, then we don’t use it. It feels disrespectful to what they had to say. Hopefully people will watch the mini-docs and benefit from the wisdom and experience these people have to share!
We now well on our way to inserting “B-roll” over the interviews. Dallas has created a new “Documentary Snapshot” that has a bit of a different look than it did in November. This due to the new B-roll and the narration placeholders. (We have a still shot of our location covering a rough reading of each narration sequence.) Compare to November 23. Dallas says to tell you that if this one looks longer, it’s because it has a more frequent frame capture.
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Greg
Filming Narration
You may recall that after our trip, our camera started to literally fall apart. We are very thankful that we are able to borrow a Canon Vixia hv30 to film our narration sequences. Thanks to our friend, Sharon Krushel, for sending it down from the far north! Meanwhile, during our trip and since, we have been writing and rewriting the script for narrations. It feels a little better each time, but when is it truly finished? I guess the answer to that is – tomorrow, since that is when we begin filming. Our desire was to film outdoors before the snow started to fly, so we would have an autumn look. Two blizzards with four foot drifts and a -30º deep freeze have definitely eliminated all feelings of fall. It is definitely winter! The good news is that Monday’s -34º has given way to temperatures around the freezing mark, so it is much more manageable weather for us to film outdoors. We will try to minimize the snow in our shots and still go for the “autumn look” as much as our location will allow. We are also praying for sunny skies and minimal winds. We will film indoors, as well, to see which has the better look.
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Greg
Our New Title!
After much prayer, thought and consultation with you through our survey we have arrived at a title for our titleless film. It is “Homeschooling entrepreurial dads who want to be more active and available to their children in order to seriously disciple them as commanded in Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6.” Actually, that was our second choice. The title we will actually use is Entrusted With Arrows. In our survey it was the runaway favourite, which confirmed our conviction that this was God’s idea.
It was interesting how God answered this prayer. For months every time we thought of title ideas or key words, we wrote them down. After adding Psalm 127: 3-5* to our script, I wrote down “… Arrows” on the line after “Entrusted with …” When Dallas was reformatting the text of our brainstorming list “Entrusted with … Arrows” came up on the same line! When we thought of how our children are the arrows that God has entrusted to us, it made perfect sense. This is what our script had already said about arrows in the narration: “Our concern is not only for our children’s salvation, but also that they assume God’s character, becoming more and more like him as they grow – eventually maturing into warriors for God’s kingdom – attacking the gates of Hell as it shows itself in their generation. Psalm 127 says that our children are like arrows, which we can launch into the battle where we are unable to go.” God has indeed entrusted us with these arrows. Will they hit God’s target, drop to the floor or fly where we don’t want them to go?
*“Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
children a reward from him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their enemies in the gate..”
~Psalm 127:3-5 (NIV)
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Greg
Jurgen Beck – Composer
We are very pleased that today we made arrangements with Jurgen Beck to be the composer of our documentary. Jurgen has a passion for the message of our film, which makes him a real partner in what we hope to accomplish. This is a very exciting development for us, as well as an answer to prayer. We are looking forward to working with him. You can check samples of his work at his website – http://www.jurgenbeck.com/.
Change of dates for San Antonio Christian Film Festival
Josts and Lammimans in San Antonio at the 2009 FestivalOne goal for our documentary is to enter it in The San Antonio Christian Film Festival, which was to be held in February 2010. We expected an October submission deadline, so were on a tight time frame to complete this project. Yesterday the festival announced a change of dates, due to construction at the convention center. The festival will now take place in October 2010 and the submission deadline is now in June! The time pressure has now evaporated, but we still want to try to stick with our timeline so we can begin a new project in November. Now we are asking God whether we need a motorhome for this trip or not. We had planned on editing on the road in the motorhome. This still seems like a great idea, but not as urgent. We are looking for God’s provision and leading.
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Greg
The First Miracle
The first miracle of our trip happened on the first day we arrived in Milk River. We were planning on camping at Writing on Stone Provincial Park near the Josts. We hadn’t realized that this year the park began accepting reservations through a new online system. When we turned off Highway 4, the sign to the park, which was still a half hour away, said “Campground Full.” If we didn’t stay at that park we would be commuting long distances, so we decided to see if it was completely full, praying as we drove. It was getting late when we got to the next turn-off. Again the sign read “Campground Full.” We decided to continue the last ten minutes to see if there was one spot available and speculated how God might make it so. We saw RVs leaving and thought they may have been turned away. When we arrived at the gate, the sign read “Campground Full.” We drove into the park to the registration office. She said there was nothing available, but would check her computer for the following night. When she did, she said, “I don’t believe it, someone just cancelled! I just turned someone else away five minutes ago.” This little answer to prayer saved us hours of driving to and from our visits to the Josts home. Thank you, Lord!
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Greg