Modern Parables: An Educational Filmmaking Link
By S Simmons. Filed in Editing |
I recently had the pleasure of being involved in a unique project called Modern Parables. In a nutshell, it’s a series of short films based on the Parables. But it’s really a unique project in that it is more than just the shorts. From the Modern Parables web site:
Modern Parables is an original Bible study curriculum designed for people who like movies. It is the first in a planned series of film-driven studies on the parables. Films that drive the viewer back to the biblical text!
The 12-lesson study combines cinema and theology in short dramatic films that exegete (or explain) Jesus’ parables. In other words, just watching the films helps teach the historical, grammatical, contextual and interpretive elements in the parables.
Modern Parables lets people grasp the parables at an immediate, gut level. This emotional immediacy enables them to engage the Bible in a powerful and compelling new way.
The production is unique in that each of the films takes on a different style told with the inspiration of directors like Frank Capra, Ingmar Bergman and Woody Allen to name a few. One of the best things about this project was its approach to filmmaking in general. All the shoots were properly planned and scheduled with a full cast and crew with an eye toward the post-production process from day one. The films were shot in 720p DVCPRO HD, predominately using the Panasonic HDX-900. While the HDX-900 does record to tape the decision was made early on to also record to a Firestore hard drive. As an editor and a “technical adviser” I tried to be on-set during the first day or two of shooting of the different films to download files off of the Firestore and perform some early edits. We used 2 Firestore drives so we were able to switch drives and download footage without any waiting on the set. The drives performed well. Since the DP was shooting at a frame rate of 23.98 we removed the duplicate frames upon ingest into Final Cut Pro (all material goes to DVCPRO HD tape at 59.94). One thing that we struggled with was to have the Firestore drives remove the extra frames when going to the drive, like shooting in Native mode to a P2 card, as we could have gotten more footage on the drive. But at the time it technically wasn’t possible. We only had to go back to the tape a couple of times. Though we ultimately backed up the media onto 3 different drives, to me it was a nice to have these tapes as the ultimate fail safe if something catastrophic happened to all the drives. But let’s be honest, the chance of losing all 3 different backups (which were kept in different locations) was quite slim. The projects were edited on Final Cut Pro, output back to DVCPRO HD tape and color corrected on a daVinci. The end result is a very nice looking, high quality film-like image.
One of my favorites is The Widow and Judge. A great performance from the lead and the black and white look combine for a moving piece. Here’s the trailer:
Probably the most cinematic of the bunch is Prodigal Sons. The story and the locations really feel like big budget production. The trailer:
The Modern Parables website has devoted a page to the making of Samaritan. It’s a great filmmaking resource as the director has posted pdf files about a lot of steps in the filmmaking process. From the script and pre-production paperwork to storyboards and shot lists, it’s a nice look at how a film comes together. The entire curriculum is available as a box set right off of the Modern Parables website.
A lot of modern technology came together to make something like this possible. Affordable HD acquisition and post-production, the ubiquitous DVD format and web distribution all helped make a seed of an idea possible. And in addition to all of the technology it takes also some investors who believe in a project and fearless leader to see it all through to the end. That’s always the filmmaking process… in a nutshell.
Monday, November 12th 2007 at 11:08 pm
Interesting project, I’ve had a similar idea floating around in my head for a couple years (I’m sure lots of people have) but I would have never been able to execute it as well as it looks like your crew did. Congratulations, and glad to see some of you work after reading your blog for about 6 months.
Best of luck for your future as well!