Frames from the film
Click on any thumbnail image for a larger photo.
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My pastor had been preaching a four-part sermon series with the theme "Can You Imagine?". For the third sermon, he was planning on focusing on the little boy who gave his lunch to Jesus, which turned into a miracle by feeding 5,000 men (not counting women and children). The Tuesday before the sermon was to be preached, I got the idea for a funny video skit. What if a news team showed up during this event, and interviewed various members of the large crowd? It would be interesting to see how different people viewed this miracle of the loaves and fishes in many different fashions.
Over the next few days, I hammered out a short seven minute sketch. I asked to borrow some costumes from a sister church, and was able to get two "Biblical" outfits. My daughter also provided a few costume touches as well. Now it was time to film. If we were to show this video on Sunday morning, we needed to knock it out in no more than two hours of filming on Saturday, in order to give me enough time to edit the footage into something useable. Fortunately, the weather wasn't that cold that day, even though it was the middle of December in Maryland. I called my friend Rachel up and asked if she was free to film the footage I needed. Due to the short notice, I knew I would be unable to get a full "cast" for the film; therefore, for added humour, I would play all the roles (including the interviewer).
We drove around in my car until we found a location that looked like a "wilderness". Unfortunately, the local BWI airport was just ten miles away, so we were plagued with numerous outtakes of planes flying loudly overhead! We also had the occasional noise of interstate traffic in the background as well. You'd be surprised at just how hard it is to find a nice quiet place to shoot a film! Anyway, we shot the scenes over and over until I got my lines right, and then we hurried back to my house to edit the raw footage. I added my voice-overs in post-production, and even spruced up the video with some graphic overlays. The editing software I use is Pinnacle Studio 9 Plus. As much as I'd like to use Adobe Premiere, I simply can't afford it right now.
All told, the entire video took about six hours from start to finish (not counting script-writing time). We knocked it out all in one day, and were able to show it at our church the following morning as a lead-in to the pastor's message. It was a lot of fun to film, and the congregation seemed to enjoy it as well. I wrote this page mainly to show churches that it is easier than you think to create original video content to be used in your service. If we could nail this seven minute video down in just one day, then so can you!
I have made the video available for download in two low-quality formats for your viewing pleasure. If you are interested in obtaining the video in a larger 720x480 MPEG-2 format, please contact me.
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