“A Day in the Life”, the first video I wrote and Directed after joining the video production team at Christ in Youth, recaps an entire day from a student’s point of view at MOVE, Christ in Youth’s high school intentional summer event.

Many of you have been with 36 Parables since 2005, when we released our first film, Found. The January 2010 release of 36 Parables’ Lime DVD marks the official halfway point of our original vision; 18 of the planned 36 Parables are completed. We are thrilled to see 36 Parables made it this far, and we could not have done it without your support along the way. The Lime DVD not only marks the half way point, John and I both agree it is our best DVD to date.

This is most likely the last newsletter you will receive until one of the following happens:

1. Our publisher decides to complete the last half of the series.

or

2. We obtain additional funding to complete the series independently.

John and I have not been paid for our work with 36 Parables, it has been a labor of love we desperately want to see through to completion. Most of you have been with us since the beginning so we thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask, are any of you willing to help us finance the completion of the series? It could be you, your church, ministry, company, or someone you know. Please contact me if you want to help us finish what we started 5 years ago with Found.

Thank you for all your support over the years, we endeavored to make the very best short films we knew how with every DVD. Please continue to use 36 Parables to illuminate understanding by pointing people back to Scripture and the lover of their souls, Jesus Christ the Lord.

Illuminating Understanding,

The Cinematographer
Stewart H. Redwine
C: 310-770-0448
E: sredwine@36parables.com

Synopsis: A young jazz saxophonist struggles to make a living as an artist.
Runtime: 5 minutes

Based on: The Parable of the Mustard Seed
Scripture: Luke 13:18–19, Mark 4:30–32, Matt 13:31-32

Directed by: John Schimke
Director of Photography: Stewart H. Redwine
Produced by: Stewart H. Redwine and John Schimke

Available: February 2010
Publisher: Zondervan/Youth Specialties

Technical Specs: RED ONE 4K & 2K, RED 18-50mm F2.8 CF LENS

By directly linking the word neighbor with a particular action that demands a recipient Jesus perfectly harmonizes His answer with one of the many beautiful melodies resonating throughout the Scriptures; you are not alone. From the Ten Commandments to the Beatitudes the Bible represents the human to God relationship in light of how we behave in community with others. As soon as you take away your fellow man from your Theology, your foot has set upon a very slippery slope that inevitably ends in the quagmire of Christian Nihilism.

We were created to live in community with God and our fellow man, not alone. And what determines whether or not our fellow man is our neighbor is not race, gender, culture, geography, or even religion. The single determining factor for whether or not someone is our neighbor is how we treat them. If I stand back and ask myself who qualifies as my neighbor, I am missing the point. The Parable of the Good Samaritan makes this point perfectly clear. We don’t get the luxury of deciding who is and who is not our neighbor before we decide to have mercy on them. The Samaritan was the man’s neighbor because he had mercy on him.

Go and do likewise.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Part VII
Written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge – 1798

Forward a friend this link to sign up for the
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“Buen Vecino” – Based on the Parable of the Good Samaritan
http://www.illuminatingunderstanding.com/?id=5167028

If you are reading this article and you are not on the video staff at a Church or ministry, make sure you tell the people who are, “Thank you for all you do.” The big Christmas programs are coming up and the production demands are high. Maybe your church is doing something for the community this year and my guess is someone had to put together the promotional video for the event. Also, be sure and tell the video staff at your Church thank you for what they do to get people motivated with moving images. Video producers want to know that the content they are creating is valuable to those watching their work. And a piece of advice, they don’t want to hear how much you liked the song or the great shots, they want to know what their video made you think about, and most of all, how their video made you feel.

Now for you video producers making it happen every week at Churches and ministries around the world… you’ve been putting in long hours learning programs you never imagined knowing how to use 12 months ago. You still have the same outdated camera from 2003 and the back up battery was lost sometime in 2004 when the Men’s Ministry took it on a retreat to Colorado. The wireless mic pack is a piece of junk, but it gets the job done, and the only set of head phones close enough to set are the pair that came with your iPod Nano. Yes, it can be daunting to be the video production hero. Time and time again saving the day in ways no one else can imagine. You’re up all Saturday night to make sure a video is ready to go only to see someone forgot to turn the house lights down until the video is half way over and for some reason only the left channel of the audio is coming through.

You’ve been doing so much for so long with so little, you don’t feel qualified to do anything anymore. I learned that maxim from the head cook at the college where I was working doing events, which mostly consisted of setting up and taking down tables and chairs. We all know how fixing everyone’s problem creates a bottleneck in production and ultimately wears even the most talented jack-of-all-trades down, especially during this season of giving. When the only thing you seem to be giving is a whole lot of your time. Still, we’re not saving lives here. It is not that the work we do is uniquely difficult. When it comes right down to it, a lot of what it takes to do video production is the steady investment of somebody’s time. And right now that body is you. In computer programming the sort of system that hinges on one critical path is called single threading. Do you feel like your single thread is about to snap? When one person keeps taking on challenges, the increasing demands can get to a point where it is no longer humanly possible to get it all done. Does this sound like 2009 for you?

If you feel like you are the go-to-person and you’re afraid you may be close to burning out, then I have some New Years resolutions for your video productions in 2010.

1. When Good Enough is Good Enough
Be willing to walk away from a video or project once it is good enough. And what is “good enough”? Sometimes that idiom sounds like blasphemy to video producers. It typically comes right after a statement about how some of the high school kids at the church are making videos on their laptops. Sometimes the truth is hard to hear, but it is still true. The hours you put into a project are not what matter most, communication is key (read more of what I have to say about this subject in the July 2009 Christian Video Magazine – http://www.christianvideomag.com/articles/articles.php?recordID=141).

2. Apprentice
Take some one under your wing who is hungry to learn this year. It may cost you time at first but in the long run you will be spreading the craft of moving images in the only way it has truly passed from one generation to another, via the hands on learning method of apprenticeship. Not only that, once you have trained someone else you will be able to get more done, and hopefully have more fun doing it!

3. Have Fun
My wife encourages me with this regularly. As video producers we get to do some pretty exciting and diverse work. It really is fun! What a uniquely rewarding challenge to string images and sounds in the best possibly order to produce the desired result in an audience member! Have fun in 2010 as you encounter each new challenge, tell each new story, and teach people new skills.

The bottom line is you’ve been doing a great job this year, I’m sure of it. But as this year comes to a close ask yourself, are you taking on too much? 2010 is a chance to change some things in the video productions at your Church or Ministry, but you have to be willing to give up some much-deserved pats on the back. It is hard to do, because it can become addictive to save the day time and time again. And some people, no matter how much you pile on them, keep taking it. The pitfalls and dangers of being the go-to-person are simple, you will burn out. And when you do, you’ll probably resent your co-workers or co-volunteers, and possibly the Lord, too. By recognizing when good enough is good enough, taking on an apprentice, and having fun you will set the ground work for rewarding, memorable, and sustainable video productions at your Church or Ministry in 2010 and for years to come.

(this article is also available in the December 2009 issue of Christian Video Magazine)

Seven hundred years before Jesus’ life on Earth the Book of Proverbs was compiled by King Hezekiah during a spiritual awakening in the Kingdom of Judah. At the time leading up to this awakening Isaiah the Prophet declared, “The Lord says: ‘These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men’” (Isaiah 29:13 ). Centuries later Jesus quoted this exact scripture to the Pharisees and teachers of the law. The Book of Proverbs, like Jesus, teaches wisdom is found in fearing the Lord.

There are 31 chapters in the Book of Proverbs and I challenge you to read one chapter a day, one for each day of the month, this December. As you do you’ll see the Old and New Testaments draw closer together before your very eyes. Wisdom is found in fearing the Lord, obeying Him, praying to Him, forgiving much, speaking little , loving always , and apologizing when we sin. Jesus Christ said everyone who hears His words and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on a rock (Matthew 7:24).

Four hundred years before Jesus another great teacher, Socrates, said he was the wisest man alive because he knew he knew nothing. How true, for when we can admit we know nothing we then have the ears to hear Christ’s words and put them into practice. Wisdom is not found in what we know, it is found in whom we listen to. Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice? Click here if you are ready to listen.

If you think what camera you shoot on is the answer to great videos, then I challenge you with this. Go make a big pile of money doing whatever you want. Maybe radio ad sales, or invent an alternative energy source for fossil fuels. Once you have the cash, you can buy the very best camera. Then you’ll be able to make the best videos, right? Wrong. Cameras don’t tell stories, people do. Since this is the case, there is really only one thing you need to tell great stories with the videos you produce, YOU.

However, none of us are born knowing anything about the tools of the trade needed to produce videos. In an effort to improve the one tool all video producers have in common, their mind, a must have addition to every video producer’s library is Joseph V. Mascelli’s The Five C’s of Cinematography. I picked this book up a few years ago and I have learned more from it than any other resource on the subject. I’ve been to courses, classes, looked to chat rooms online, and experimented by trial and error; but, none of those things have come close to the pure un-distilled story driven explanation of cinematography found in Mascelli’s classic book.

In his own words from the introduction:
“On many occasions during the years devoted to preparation and writing of this book, I have felt that defining, explaining, clarifying and graphically illustrating motion picture filming techniques in an easy-to-understand way – is impossible – but not quite. Most professionals instinctively know the right way to film the subject – but seem unable to explain just how they do it.”

Almost 50 years after the publishing of these words I want to re-assure Joseph V. Mascelli that he succeeded in explaining cinematography in an easy-to-understand way. He did this by explaining everything about cinematography in five categories that have one common thread – cinematography, like all other aspects of video production, functions at its peak performance when it serves the story.

So what are the Five C’s? They are camera angles, continuity, cutting, close-ups, and composition. I want to share with you some of my favorite quotes from each one of the Five C’s. Consider this article the cliff notes version of the book; and, just like your English teacher, I strongly encourage you to read The Five C’s of Cinematography in it’s entirety in addition to this summary (you can click here to get it at Amazon.com).

1. Camera Angles
“Camera placement is determined by narrative significance.”
This is very important. Why are you looking at what you are looking at? Is it because it looks good or because we need to see it to move the story along? It should always be to move the story along, sometimes both, never solely because it looks good.

2. Continuity
“Good continuity encourages the viewer to become absorbed in the story-telling, without bothersome distractions. The prime purpose of a motion picture, whether theatrical fiction feature or documentary fact film, is to capture and hold audience attention – from opening shot to final fade-out.” This entire chapter breaks down the nuts and bolts of photographing action in such a way that it makes sense on screen. I haven’t come across a better explanation of “the line” (action axis/maintaining dynamic and static screen direction) in any other book.

3. Cutting
“Always move players into and out of close-ups to allow cutting on action.” Cut on the action. This simple axiom of editing works every time. “It is possible to cut away to anything happening anywhere at any time.” Remember this. You are in the driver’s seat. You are the one putting one shot after the other. What do you want the specific series of sights and sounds you’re placing in order to mean? “Each shot should make a point. All scenes should be linked together so that their combined effect, rather than their individual contents, produces the desired audience reactions.”

4. Close-Ups
Close-ups should be made to count. The stronger the motive for using a close-up, the more the close-up can help make the story-telling truly effective! The consistent emphasis throughout the five sections of the book is this; every shot must serve the story.

5. Composition
“Good composition is arrangement of pictorial elements to form a unified harmonious whole.” Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, when you are making videos for others you are not the beholder. The most important set of eyes belong to the audience. Make sure you are making images that look good to your audience, and above all else, serve the story.

6. The Sixth C
In closing, there is a sixth C of Cinematography I would like to mention: Compliment. When you are in the process of shooting or have just finished watching a video you think looked great, make sure you tell the person or group of people who produced the video. After all, none of us video producers are making videos just for ourselves. As you continue to strive to be the best you can be take the time to compliment others on their own successes along the way. Oscar Wilde said it best, “Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend’s success”. The sixth C of Cinematography may just be the most important. Make sure you compliment others whenever you can. After all, we’re all creating videos for others and we want to know if we succeeded in communicating our story.

All quotations from The Five C’s of Cinematography by Joseph V. Mascelli – 1965 – Silman James Press

(this article is also available in the November 2009 issue of Christian Video Magazine)

Now don’t get defensive before you hear me out. The more snobbish, video producers are already in protest. They know the crème de la crème does not in fact always rise to the top. They have high quality products that have hardly paid for the ink and paper used to print their royalty checks. There are those video producers who take their job very seriously and would stand by their high quality HD videos to the day they die despite dismal sales. Because they believe they know better than the consumer and are just waiting for the day the pastors using SermonSpice.com will come around and demand higher quality content, like the videos they can’t seem to sell.

There are also those ad hoc video producers, known as pastors or accountants every other day of the week, who have gone out with little more than a sudden inspiration and a home video camera and ended up receiving thousands of dollars of royalties in return. They had “no idea what they were doing” and probably couldn’t tell you whether a 5600 Kelvin light source is Daylight or Tungsten balanced light. And they probably don’t care. What they did – they went out and made something and let the market decide.

If the snobby video producers are still reading, I do want to make a disclaimer. Just because a total green bean goes out and makes a video with a pure heart, unadulterated by the rigorous demands of professional video, does NOT mean they will always have a hit. In the same way, just because a serious video producer spends $30,000 on a set of seven animated videos does NOT mean he’ll make his money back (that would be me admitting one of my greatest video blunders). The success of a video on SermonSpice.com has very little to do with how much the video producer spends, since the end user has no way of knowing this budgetary tidbit. The pastors who propel videos to the #1 spot on SermonSpice.com do so because they like the videos they purchase.

Whether you are spending money on your videos or not, your idea of quality may be somewhat skewed. Let me make it very simple for you. Your best indicator for how good your videos are is the size of the royalty checks you receive every month from SermonSpice.com. That check is a representation of someone else’s money they deemed worth letting go of for the video you produced. Isn’t that amazing? Look at the shoes you are wearing. Mine are a $34 pair of leather kicks I picked up at Target. Last month my income from SermonSpice.com was more than fifteen times the cost of my shoes. The pastors who liked my videos and used them last month paid for the shoes I have on my feet and then some.

The money you are able to generate on SermonSpice.com can help put shoes on your feet and dinner on the table for your family. Or if you already have more then you need, you can help put shoes on someone else’s feet, dinner on someone else’s table, and maybe a glass of clean drinking water while you are at it. Isn’t that what God is all about? Giving things away? That is why I strongly urge you to tithe off of whatever you make from SermonSpice.com whether it’s twenty bucks a month or two thousand dollars. That’s the plan God put in place a long time ago. When we make money, we give it away.

There will be some product that becomes the number one downloaded Christmas video this year at SermonSpice.com. I don’t know what the video will be and neither do you. If the producer of this video is exclusive with SermonSpice.com, they will receive 55% of the money generated by the sale of their video simply by making it available. Will it be a video that is advertised for? Most likely… but possibly not. Will it be a comedy? Maybe… but maybe it will be a short documentary telling a story none of us has heard before. Will it be more than 1 minute long? Who knows… maybe it will be the first SermonSpice #1 video over 10 minutes in length.

After producing more than 50 products for SermonSpice.com only 2 have made it onto the top ten list. Maybe I’m the wrong guy to be writing this article. I don’t know what the formula for success is on SermonSpice.com. But I do know this. If you don’t put anything out there on SermonSpice.com this Holiday Season, you are guaranteeing two things:

1. Someone else will have the #1 video this Holiday Season.
2. You won’t make one thin dime.

If you are still reading after my blatant appeal to the enterprising capitalist inside of you, then let me issue you a challenge. This holiday season make your very best videos available on SermonSpice.com: what inspires you, what you consider high quality, or even something from years past. Why? Because the more you create, the greater the chance something you created will get rewarded with income.

SermonSpice.com provides you a way you can give to the community and the community can give back to you in return. You create great content for SermonSpice.com, the pastors that shop there like it, and they reward you with what could be a substantial amount of cash. What you do with the money is up to you. If you tithe off of the money you receive from SermonSpice.com, then you are giving back to the community again. The more we can all create and reward each other for our creativity the more income is circulating out there and the more money can be given away. The arts are a beautiful thing since they are an economy with a very low barrier of entry and an immediate indicator of success. If you still need inspiration just sing along with me a couple verses from the well-known Christmas tune “Deck the Halls”:

Deck the halls with boughs of holly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Tis the season to be jolly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Follow me in merry measure,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
While I tell of Yule tide treasure,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

(this article is also available in the October 2009 issue of Christian Video Magazine)

All too often I have heard those who don’t do video production refer to those who do as if they have a license to let common courtesy fall by the wayside as long as they are talented, creative, and put in long hours. There is a mystique that surrounds the work because it is so creative and when done properly arouses dangerous emotions. Due to the inherent power in the moving image business, a sort of veil can be raised between those who do the work and those who watch. Since the work video producers do can truly capture the imagination, the pressure to be creative and get the job done with excellence often results in short tempers and intense work environments. Whenever I walk onto a set and the crew is in such a hurry they can’t seem to say words like “Please” and “Thank You”, or even simply refer to others by their names, I see a perfect opportunity to exhibit Christ like patience and service.

A few years ago I arose at o’dark thirty in the morning to go work as a production assistant on a commercial shoot in Los Angeles. I was supposed to help out in the camera department and when the camera guy showed up late, he was quite upset and didn’t want anyone to know he missed the call time. His secret was safe with me. As I tried to help him out and learn a little along the way, my well-meaning questions and eagerness to help out tested his patience to the point he physically pushed me out of his way. When I confronted him a little later he said, “Man, it’s just this ‘expletive deleted’ job”. No, it wasn’t the job that pushed me, it was him. Whether he recognizes that or not, isn’t the point. The point is for you to never blame treating others poorly on your work in video production, because it is sooooo demanding. Give me a break. We’re not saving lives here.

Next time a young kid is trying to learn a thing or two from you on set at least give him the time of day. You were that young kid once too; eager to learn everything you could about the magic of moving images. And the sad truth is maybe nobody helped you out. Maybe you are a self-made man or woman and have learned everything you know about video production from your own research and the school of hard knocks. You still didn’t invent the video camera. You have interacted with other people and learned with them all along the way even if only through using their inventions. And beyond all my appeals to your compassion for others based on your own experience just remember, no one forgets the people who treat them poorly. Michael Jordan’s recent induction speech into the Basketball Hall of Fame is a perfect example. By listening to interviews with those who have made it, you find they almost all have a story about someone who didn’t give them the time of day.

A few years after my run in with the camera man in LA, another morning I came very close to doing the very thing I am warning you about. I had driven out to the country surrounding Kansas City to work on a commercial for a farm products company. I was a grip or electric on the shoot, I can’t remember for sure. My friend and long time 1st AC Tom Pease pulled up and we chatted it up a little. Production got there, the folks who run the show as well as fulfill the necessary task of providing coffee, and pretty soon the truck with all our gear showed up.

Being the youngest member of the grip/electric crew, I jumped up in the truck and starting loosening ratchet straps and rolling stuff onto the lift gate. Then this young guy walked up and introduced himself. And I remember thinking, “Is this some Production Assistant who they’ve sent over to work on the truck?” I shook his hand and then I noticed how he was talking with the other crew, and then he walked right onto the set like he owned the place. I thought he was some green bean production assistant and he turned out to be the Director of Photography.

You never know who it is you are dealing with, what they will accomplish, or what you will accomplish. It is best to be open handed in as many situations as possible and also courteous and polite. As much of a rush as the creative process is and how fun it can be to play dress up and put on a rock star persona, nothing replaces good old-fashioned courtesy. Proverbs 16:32 says, “Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city”.

I have been given great opportunities to learn this all-important lesson over and over again, and I am very thankful. When everything is working and the story I am telling is coming together, I feel just like I did playing G.I. Joes with my brothers years ago. We were put here to enjoy this stuff, and there is plenty to go around. I can think of no one better to illustrate the theme of serving and helping others on set like my good friend, Glenn Eddins. He helped me greatly while I was working in Kansas City by teaching me the ropes: set lighting, electricity, and the necessity for everyone on the set to be focused on the story. He could go about his day and order me around like the small chess piece that I am but instead he seized opportunities to teach me.

Jesus telling us to go and make disciples goes way beyond being dutiful to Jesus. Making a disciple is a pro-active involvement in someone else’s life. It is looking for opportunities to teach and instruct, not just going about our duty to the Boss. I look at Glenn, the Best Boy Electric, as a model for how to disciple. He is diligent in his responsibilities and proactive, going beyond his job performance to help a little guy like me learn a thing or two. I know Glenn wasn’t born with the knowledge he has, he must have learned it somewhere as well. Being a disciple should remind us of times when we needed help, and that at times we still do. Whenever you doubt what you should do on set… go and make disciples. We all need the encouragement.

(this article is also available in the September 2009 issue of Christian Video Magazine)