3.22.2011

Pay It Forward

Photo Credit: Courtney Dirks
This weekend, our friends invited us to participate in their second film festival--a celebration of complete amateurs gaining an appreciation for the art of filmmaking. ;-) (If you missed our first short film, you can see it here: When the Rain Comes.) This time, we had a very comfortable alotment of one whole weekend in which to create our film (last summer, we had a mere 12 hours). We received the word on Saturday morning: kindness. Brainstorming, planning, and decision-making took up our day, as well as the Saturday chores, sewing classes, and a baby shower. By Saturday night, we had the concept, the roles, and the scenes sketched out: we were ready to shoot!

Sunday afternoon we filmed, and we had lots of opportunities to practice kindness to each other! There is nothing like working under a deadline with six different opinions, ideas, strengths, and weaknesses to challenge one's expression of kindness and gentleness to others. While filming, however, we were blessed to have an audience in a young boy who couldn't have been more than ten. God provided me an opportunity to witness to him and present the Gospel to him (he knew about Jesus, but he didn't think he had sinned--nope, never lied...nope, never stole a cookie...but when I asked if he had ever disobeyed his parents, he had to admit that, yes, he had). This was definitely the highlight of the weekend for me. Please pray for Jacob!

Monday was editing--Melanie was our editor extraordinaire, and let me tell you--those people don't get enough credit! Everything was finished up and tied with a beautiful bow (figuratively speaking) by the time we arrived at our friend's house for a fun evening of pizza and movies. Ours won "Best Application of Biblical Principles," and we received a symbolic bag of lifesavers for our efforts.

So, without further ado, please enjoy Pay It Forward. We are by no means skilled at this craft, but we sure enjoyed trying our hand at it!



12 comments:

  1. This was a great video! You all did a wonderful job.

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  2. This was a great video! Thanks for sharing!

    I am a new reader at your blog here and have to tell you how I found you all. I was googling the name of my blog to see how quickly it popped up in search results and this blog was right under mine.

    Ironically, I am getting some design work done on my blog and by next week, the name will no longer be My Bright Corner.

    But, I just wanted to stop by and introduce myself!!

    Rebecca

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  3. Hooray! I think I liked you guys' (your guys'? your guyses? your guy's? :p) video the best - without, of course, meaning any disrespect to Z-man's stellar performance. :D

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  4. Rebecca,
    Thanks so much for taking the time to introduce yourself! What can I say? Great minds think alike. ;-)

    Sarah--aah...that's so very sweet of you! We showed your video to Papa tonight, and he loved it--definitely appreciated Z-man's Oscar-worthy acting chops. ;-) Guys' seems right to me, but now that you bring it up, I'm not so sure. How about we just avoid plural possessive uses of "guy"? ;-)

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  5. Great video, guys! I enjoyed it and was so blessed by the message. :)

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  6. Haven't stopped by in awhile...loving the renovation! It looks great and fresh and all that jazz. :)

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  7. This was so sweet! You all did such a nice job (and your little brother with the gas can was too adorable!). This kind of reminded me of a Biblical "Operation Beautiful" which is really a splendid idea.
    Congratulations on winning the award. ;)

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  8. Thanks Ruthie!

    Welcome back Elyse. ;-) I'm so glad you like the new look!

    Rebecca--ahh, thank you! Jonah knew the "perfect" stance and the "perfect" outfit to play a hero rescuing a damsel in distress. ;) We actually were inspired by Operation Beautiful for the first scene, so that was a very astute observation on your part. ;-)

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  9. We worked on those scenes...over, and over, and over... ;-) Thanks for appreciating them! :)

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  10. Whoa!!!! I love this video! Touching! :)

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