Christian Cinema ... An Adventure in Missing the Point.

“Are our churches and broadcasts and books and organizations merely creating religious consumers of religious products and programs? ... ”

- Tony Campolo & Brian D. McLaren, Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel

As a film lover and filmmaker, I am ever the student of the craft. As such, I try to invest time in continued education. So, I’ve been reading a particular book: Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics by Michael Rabiger. Let me tell you, it’s a fantastic book loaded with great information about the process of filmmaking and how to go about equipping yourself to best accomplish the work of making a movie. It’s not light reading, but very worthwhile!

Just recently, as I was reading from this book’s section on preproduction and rehearsing with actors, Rabiger divulged some ideas I thought were quite fascinating. He’s addressing the idea of discussing your film’s theme with your cast members early on in preproduction. But what he says has huge implications for the whole process of filmmaking, and specifically very important implications for the Christian filmmakers that have come from the tradition of making films as a means of evangelism.

Rabiger writes, “Telling a story is really a way of constructing a working model of one’s beliefs. If others are moved to conviction, the principles behind the model have been shared, acclaimed, and may be accepted as having merit. That is the best anyone can do.”*

Rabiger is not writing about Christian films here, for sure. But what he says in the above quoted text seems to indicate the potential validity of trying to make films that persuade someone to change their minds or hearts. However, Rabiger goes on to write this:

A thematic purpose for your work need not try to encompass universal truth (“in our Western way of life the rich get richer while the poor get poorer”) or be morally up lifting (“if people would just vent their real feelings, everyone could be free”). Audiences will feel they are being preached at especially when the scope of the film falls short of the global nature of its message.*

Rabiger goes on from there to express that, “Modest, solid, specific, and deeply felt aims are likely to have more impact.”* The point Rabiger seems to be making here, and I think it really applies quite well to Christian films, is that when we try to communicate something as esoteric, abstract, and huge as grace or redemption, a humble film can hardly get a grip on these things, let along wrap its arms around these ideas in an adequate way. And in the face of this recognition, the temptation of the Christian filmmaker is to then spell out what the audience is supposed to be getting from the film, the message or the point of the film. Doing so is just plain bad filmmaking.

What Rabiger suggest to all filmmakers here is that, “By taking a small truth and deeply investigating it, you can invest it with life and indicate larger truths of wider resonance. Put another way, a thoroughly absorbing and convincing microcosm will effectively create a macrocosm.”*

So, think of it this way: Say I want to make a film that tells a story about grace. Rather then get too caught up in all that grace means to me as a follower of Jesus, the better thing to do is to set about telling a very specific story of grace in action. So maybe I tell the story of a criminal who is shown grace by one of his victims. You can really come up with many ideas. The point is, now I have something specific to do. Take a look at the film Brokedown Palace, and you will see a powerful story of grace in action. And in this focused story, the universal implications can come about (if only we could all treat each other with this level of grace and forgiveness, what would the world be like?)

The important point that I think a lot of Christian films I’ve seen miss is that it is better to focus on a very specific story, and let the actions and characters progress naturally through the story. The story itself, if executed well, will generate a deep resounding connection to those things we already naturally long for as human beings. I’m not convinced that cinema is the proper place to proclaim the gospel, but rather a place to explore truth and it's impact on our lives. Obviously as Rabiger has indicated by his statement that a “story is really a way of constructing a working model of one’s beliefs,” the Christian filmmaker is already presenting his or her worldview through the construction of their story to start with. To try to go beyond this, attempting to merge the mediums of cinema and sermons, is to try to make a Frankenstein monster that is both clunky and unnatural in almost every example I’ve seen. Ultimately, to the non-church going audience that might happen upon such a movie (and the likelihood is extremely low, even for such supposedly successful film as Fireproof) this thing that is presented to them is so foreign and otherworldly, it stands no chance of connecting and making any impact. And as such, if the goal of such a film is to proselytize, it is in fact a wasted effort.

Rabiger says something interesting in a previous section just before the section of his book I have been quoting here. He has a section called “Directing by Asking Questions.” He’s specifically addressing how a director can best go about guiding his cast in discovering their characters and fleshing them out. However, what he says I think really is ultimately one of the best ways of directing as a whole, of making a film at all. He encourages the director to give guidance by engaging the cast in dialogue, by asking them questions. I think this is true too of the audience. One can have an amazing impact on an audience by guiding through asking questions, by showing the audience focused microcosms and then asking if this is true of life once they walk out of the movie theater.

Basically, to a great degree, I see this as a cinematic application of the Socratic Method. The reason I think this approach is so valuable is because of what Rabiger expresses in this particular section. He says that, “people seldom forget what they discover for themselves.”**

This is where I have seen so many Christian films fail. They do not provide the audience with an opportunity to discover anything for themselves. There is little or no room for this. The film is too busy blindly telling the audience what to think. Maybe if Christian filmmakers became less consumed with trying to make a point, and more consumed with making excellent films as an act of worship, more films made by Christians would have more of an impact on secular audiences by providing a common meeting ground of appreciation for the cinematic medium. Until then, however, I fear we may continue to make films that miss the point all together of what cinema is.

“Are our churches and broadcasts and books and organizations merely creating religious consumers of religious products and programs? Are we creating a self-isolating, self-serving, self-perpetuating, self-centered subculture instead of a world-penetrating (like salt and light), world-serving (focused on the ‘least and the lost,’ those Jesus came to seek and save), world transforming (like yeast in bread), God-centered (sharing God’s love for the whole world) counterculture? If so, even if we proudly carry the name evangelical (which means ‘having to do with the gospel’) we’re not behaving as friends to the gospel, but rather as its betrayers.”

- Tony Campolo & Brian D. McLaren, Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel (pg 12)

End notes:
* Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics by Michael Rabiger, (second edition) pg 287.
** Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics by Michael Rabiger, (second edition) pg 286.

Preproduction: A Neglected Art.

One often-underappreciated aspect of filmmaking is what is commonly referred to as preproduction. It really amounts to that planning phase of filmmaking, once the script is finished or selected and before principle photography begins. For those who might have been working in the film industry, this should be nothing new. However, I have noticed a disturbing trend among indie filmmakers. Preproduction often gets very little focus.

Talk about starting off on the wrong foot. Filmmaking is all about overcoming limitations. There are only so many hours in the day; your budget is only so big; your experience only so deep. Planning is possibly the most important part of making a film. The more prepared you are, the more creative freedom you allow yourself. And while this may seem quite obvious, I’ve been involved and observed too many projects that lack real planning. Often, preproduction is a rush-job done quickly in order to get to “the fun stuff.” As one crewmember on a project I worked on a while back put it, there is this tendency to end up with a reverse pyramid among many indie filmmakers.

Here’s what he means. Think of a pyramid, with its wide base and narrow top. Let the wide base represent the amount of time ideally spent in preproduction for a project and the top portion of the pyramid represent the amount of time spent in postproduction (editing and sound mixing, and so forth). The middle then is production, or the amount of time spent actually shooting the film. So the pyramid is dividied into three sections. This is just a visual guide for the relative amounts of time we might ideally invest in a project. Spend a good bit of time in preproduction planning your film’s shooting carefully, securing locations, finding actors, getting contracts signed, and working out all of the other detail needed to make your film. This way, you can spend a concentrated amount of time shooting, where you and your crew are able to make the most of the time you have to shoot the film because things have been carefully planned out ahead of time. Even when unexpected surprises pop up (and they most certainly will), because of your preparation, you will be ready to address these surprises and work through them. Then, once filming is done, because things have been planned out well in advance, you can go into the editing room and have the film cut in about half or a third of the time it took you to preproduce the film. Can you see the pyramid?

Now, I know, this is an ideal scenario. And of course, films with quite a few visual effects shots to be created in postproduction will not fit this pyramid scenario exactly (but that’s a different story). But I do think this pyramid servers to demonstrate my point here. What the crewmember I mentioned above meant by his reverse, or upside-down pyramid, is that too often inexperienced indie filmmakers invest very little time planning their production. Then shooting doesn’t go smoothly—big surprise—and production falls behind schedule. In the end, not knowing if what was shot is going to actually cut together as a coherent and effective film, the filmmakers spends quite a long time in postproduction trying to salvage the film in the editing room. This can often be three, four, or five times (if not more) the amount of time they spent in preproduction. There are plenty of nightmare stories of projects dragging on in postproduction for years as the filmmaker behind it tries to come up with a finished product that is coherrent and effective.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this sounds like a pretty self-refuting route to go, as well as being a great way to develop a heart problem from multiple stress attacks that could actually be avoided. Yet, for the new filmmaker the temptation is to shoot first and ask question later. This may be fine for film school, but is not acceptable when you have investors putting money into your project and have hired professional cast and crew.

The Advantages of Planning

Now, let me share with you from personal experience why I love preproduction. The most successful of the short films I have made have all had serious periods of preproduction leading up to a very concentrating production time, always mere days. The longest production period for any short film I’ve directed was five consecutive days. And even that short film would not have been accomplished without serious planning ahead of time. For all of my short films, we have always had months to plan ahead.

One of the things I love about having a lengthy preproduction period is that all of us involved are able to have a life outside of the film itself. More importantly, this also allows time for flaws in the script to come to light and affords us the opportunity to do re-writes because, well, golly-gee, we’ve got the time to do so. In the end, we’ve always arrived at a stronger film because of this.

Having time also allows for a chance to address other problems that may come up. Maybe a location falls through, maybe an actor backs out. Either way, having set aside time to prepare, you and your crew are better able to address these issues.

Planning leads to freedom. There are those out there, and I’ve met some of you, who think that planning stifles creativity. Not true. Not true at all. Quite the opposite. The more you plan, the better you see your options, consider all angles (literally). Let me give you an example.

I am a big proponent of detailed shot lists. I can’t draw very well, but I will even create storyboards for complex scenes, or scenes with a particular camera moves or special effects. The shot list is my guide on set. It allows me to communicate with my cinematographer about what needs to be shot, and how. It allows me to communicate with my actors about what the game plan for the day is. It allows me to communicate to the sound department about where they can best capture audio and what actor they should be covering. The shot list keeps us all on the same page. That’s why I distribute a shot list to all these departs on my films.

But do I always stick to the shot list? No. Filmmaking can be unpredictable. But because I have a game plan and know what I would like to shoot, I am better able to know what shots on my list I can cut to make up for lost time should we (more like, when we) fall behind schedule. At times, I have found that a particular shot we have just taken accomplishes all I wanted from two or three shots I had listed. Suddenly, I may realize I actaully don’t need quite as many camera set-ups as I had thought I would. This is a fine position to be in. Ultimately, my shot list is an ideal mental checklist of what I want to accomplish, but I am still free to deviate from it when schedule dictates or serendipity presents a better option.

I can see it already, those of you who don’t like all this planning business are thinking: but Mikel, if filmmaking can be unpredictable, why plan at all? Here’s why. I’ve been on sets before with directors that have not planned, who do not have a shot list. And this is what happens: they stand in the middle of the room, or pace about, scratching their heads or their chins, looking around from one spot to another, and finally thirty, forty, or fifty minutes later, we at last do the first camera set-up for the day. Then, we might do the next set-up the director came up with on the fly, maybe another ... then ... everything stops again while the director tries to think about what to do next and whether or not what was just shot accomplishes all he or she thinks is needed for good editing.

Don’t kid yourself. Unless you are a veteran director, you’re not going to show up on a set and just know what needs to be covered. You’ll either error on the side of thinking you’ve got enough when you don’t (and painfully discover this in the editing room), or error on the side of shooting far too many camera set-ups and fall way behind schedule, wear your actors and crew out, and have more footage than any sane editor wants to deal with. Thus, the best bet is to plan!

Again, I think it is wroth repeating that planning does not mean you are locked into a specific method of doing things. It just means that you have already thought through what you’d like to get out of a scene and how to go about getting this. If you show up on set and find something totally new, you at least have a shot list mark and “x” through, flip over to the blank back side, and start writing a new shot list. You can at least eliminte the previous means of shooting a scene and move on to a new means.

Another important part of preproduction is having time to think through the emotional beats of each scene in your script and how you plan on communicating with your actors when shooting. This is something almost totally overlooked by new directors. As Judith Weston points out in her book, Directing Actors: Creating Memorable Performances for Film & Television, planning how to shoot your film is so much more than just sitting alone in your living room reading the script and picturing the movie in your head. Big deal. So you can see the finished film in your mind. That’s doesn’t mean a damn thing to your cast and crew. Why? Because you haven’t thought about how to communicate this vision! You have the vision, and that’s great. But have you thought about how best to communicate this vision? Because until you have, you are not ready to direct. I believe this is one thing that separates the wanna-bes from the real directors.

I recommend picking up Weston’s book. She really dives into specific techniques like using metaphors to communicate with actors that open up so many possibilities for creating great performances. But again, seeing how best to go about this means dedicating time in preproduction to breaking the script apart, scene-by-scene, beat-by-beat, so that when shooting, you are prepared to actually give direction.

Finally, having ample preproduction time allows for less stress. Having time to rehearse with actors, to talk through the script with them, eases concerns and helps everyone know what needs to be done. Having more time to plan also means that the less-than-fun things like contracts, location releases, union paperwork, call sheets, and all the other managerial work involved in making a film can be accomplished in a timely manner without having to be crammed into a couple of long, stressful days right before the camera rolls. The last thing you should be doing as a director is showing up to the first day of shooting already stressed out and half awake.

As I have gained more experience, I have honestly come to really enjoy preproduction. It is a time where anything is possible. We haven’t started shooting yet, we’re not behind schedule, we’re not facing weather delays or equipment issues. We’re just laying the foundation on which to build a great film. But without that foundation, everything we build on top of it will be shaky, and could even all come tumbling down on top of us mid-process. Great preproduction allows for time to find the potentially unique pitfalls of a given project and gives you the chance to address them well before they cause real problems on set .