We have begun filming our movie for our co-op class, and it is going well. I have five of the students doing acting, and one adult (we are using a pastor from our church-Keith-who was in our last movie).

Working through the details of a shot

We are filming a story which primarily takes place in offices, and have been fortunate to be able to use a building where it looks like the offices are located in different buildings.

Filming

Waiting, while shooting other actors

I have really appreciated the input from the students, although I would probably appreciate more. They are a good group, and I have only had a bit of a challenge getting them motivated. Once they get rolling, they are doing well with thoughts on camera angles, script continuity, and also I was impressed with one of the props especially. I had said, “I want it to look this way…” not knowing how it would come out (being that I didn’t know how well I had communicated it on my side), and the student came back with a fantastic prop! Very nice.

It has also been very encouraging to have the writers strive very hard to stick to a consistently Biblical storyline. There are some great touches added by the student writers, where there is an obvious connection to the parable’s point of how Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees. I was impressed with not only the desire of the students to reflect the truth of the parable, but with the creativity shown there.

We have been continuing to write and prepare for our project, which currently has the working title of “Callahan and Sons”. The students have done a good job with the story line, with us working as a team to hash out inconsistencies.  We will move into storyboarding soon, and set up to film-locations, props, and costumes.

We should be able to cast this, and begin filming in March.

As a class, we decided to go ahead and re-write a parable for our Spring Project. Inasmuch as I was hoping to have an original story from the students, I believe I have learned the lesson as the teacher to slot more time for this! We did have a working story in December, and I was very pleased with the students input and storylines, but I found the technical sides of it (location, time to film, the need for more actors than we had-even after a casting call to the co-op) to be too much of a challenge by mid-December. If I had the student working on the story earlier in the year, at the same time we had been studying films, then I think I would have been able to hash out these details better. Lesson learned for me, we will start earlier next year.

We chose the parable from Luke 20:9-18-the parable of the bad tenants. The students are doing a great job of pulling this into our century, and we are working out the dialog. More later on the script, story line, and film locations.

Above: Students listening in class

For this semester, when we are primarily studying film, culture, and Lordship (i.e. a Biblical view of film as art, and learning discernment), the basic assignments are to cover a few aspects of film making in class, and then have a movie assigned for the week. The students watch the movie, and answer questions for each one.

Our subject areas have included:

• Good stories/bad stories, and how to tell the difference
• the definition of art/film vocabulary
• comparisons in the area of movies and special effects
• script writing
• history in film
• science fiction
• how is culture reflected in film
• storyboarding
• and, reading a novel, and watching the movie version of it

Our movies we have used, or will use, are:

• All Quiet on the Western Front-1930
• Modern Times-1936
• You Can’t Take It With You-1938
• Citizen Kane-1941
• Bambi, Snow White, or Dumbo-pick one
• Rope-1948
• The Day The Earth Stood Still-1951
• The African Queen-1951
• Singin’ in the Rain-1952
• Rear Window-1954
• On The Waterfront-1954
• The Ten Commandments-1956
• Ben Hur-1959
• 12 Angry Men-1957
• The Magnificent Seven
  
• To Kill a Mockingbird-1962
• Star Wars-1977
• Raiders of the Lost Ark-1981
• Jurassic Park-1993
• Apollo 13-1995
• Sense and Sensibility-1995
• Pride and Prejudice-2005
• The Miracle Maker, the story of Jesus-2000
• Master and Commander-2003
• The Incredibles-2004

I gotta say it-as the teacher, I have had a ball with this class. It is material that has been great to teach, and the students are good. I am looking forward to our film making, which will begin in January or February.