Cross-Country Production
Production can take you anywhere and everywhere, from a small swamp town in central Florida to the top of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Each and every place owns a unique culture, and a unique story, and of course stories upon stories upon stories. Each new location can present new challenges which pushes your creativity and comfort zones.
I have been reading None Like Him by Jen Wilkin. First, this is a fabulous book and please ignore the flowery cover, as it is not gender-specific by any means. This is a book that ALL should read. But one of the chapters discusses the omnipresent nature of God and how we as humans just cannot be in two places at once, only God can do this. However, she also talks about the marvel of what technology has allowed us to do in experiencing multiple places (however never actually being in two places at once) and even feel connected to multiple places at once through things like FaceTime. And she reminds us of how the ancient world would never have imagined how quickly we could get from one place to another with all the variety of transportation options. The ability to travel is amazing and how beautiful that we get to learn the stories of various cultures, and even capture them on video so the rest of the world can experience them too.
Recently I was working with Acts 29 US Southeast to produce a video promoting their Advance The Church 2017 Conference. The conference gathers church leaders from all over to speak and coach the churches that attend. We wanted to represent not just one place, but multiple in the video. We fortunately had a conference in February in New Orleans to gather the majority of interviews like Dwayne Bond, David Thew and Gib Gibson, but then also picked up JR Vassar's interview on another trip I had to Dallas. Tyler Jones is a key developer in the conference, so his team in Raleigh, North Carolina helped film his narration and send me the footage to edit. And with the conference being in Memphis, I enjoyed a cross-state road trip to grab some drone footage of the skyline and other b-roll of Living Hope Church.
Production can be quite the process and a lot of puzzle pieces, but the creative process, for me, is energizing. To be able to pull from people across the southern US region for this project, and utilize imagery gathered from Fayetteville to Memphis, it is fun to see it all come together, supporting the ultimate vision of the conference. I can't wait to see where the next project may take me!
If you are a church-planting church, you definitely need to check out the Advance the Church conference. From listening to these men in the interview seat, what is in the video is barely the tip of their icebergs. They have so much to share and give. Go and be challenged, inspired and encouraged.