Film Academy Day 2

Another amazing day at the film Academy, but I have to say I had a blessed time hanging out with the guys at the Grace House. It's an interesting house when you have 17 guys living there.

Had another fun day meeting some wonderful brothers and sisters. Met a guy, John-Clay Burnett, from OK who had worked on Ace Wonder and Pendragon. Nice guy I could see working with in the future.

The academy started the day with a great lesson from Geoffrey Botkin on avoiding directorial Mistakes. Again, I just enjoyed the Christ-centered nature of his advice, even down to the business plan. He gave us some great advice on why films don't succeed.

Botkin's second session of the day was just a technical lesson on structuring your story and character arcs. This layout and walk through will probably be the best technical advice I receive all week. He laid out what I need done at what page.

After lunch Geoffrey's son, Isaac, spoke on visual storytelling. He made 7 points to remember as you produce your films.
1) Editing
2) Composition
3) Color
4) Lighting
5) Symbol
6) Costume design
7) Set Decorations

One really cool moment was when they Skyped composer Bruce Broughton in for the academy. He was the composer for Silverado and many other productions. He has 24 Emmy nominations and 10 wins, the current record. He gave advice for the composers in the audience and how directors can work with composers. I'm such a schmuck though that most of it went over my head.

There was an afternoon symposium on documentaries that was inspiring. Two young men that have been working on a variety of documentaries spoke and that was quite encouraging. After hearing the reasons for making and starting as a filmmaker with a documentary I think I'll end up focusing my first project in that arena.

For the evening session Doug Phillips spoke on the poison of the environmental pantheistic promotion through movies. He spoke about hoe we've turned our worship from the creator God to Mother Earth (and Al Gore) and that whoever you worship is your sovereign. Along with The Cove and Avatar he also pointed out some of the dangerous evolution and Marxist elements of Food, Inc. (He did say it pointed out some real problems though).

I continue being amazed at the leadership of this group of people. I had dinner with a large group including John Moore (http://acewondermovie.com/) and Collin Gunn (http://indoctrinationmovie.com/). What a blessing it was not just to talk about films, but to talk about making the gospel central in our films. The discussion flowed freely and honored the Lord. No egos, no sense of pride in self, just brothers and sister is the Lord desiring to honor Him in all things. The LORD is good and mighty and more generous than I could ever imagine.