From the land of film competitions and miracles

SOMETHING ABOUT JESS:

Jess Berry is a girl in my church here in Palo Alto. She suffers from Cerebral Palsy, but you would never guess it if you saw her from a distance. Alex wanted to share her story as part of the International Film Competition for Mormon Messages put on by our church. Now one month later, we have the finished product. It has been an intense process, but well worth the time and energy it took to put together. If it makes it through to the final round and wins, the film will be featured as a video on the Mormon Messages website. Voting doesn't take place until March, but you can view it here for now and spread the word for us! I'll let you know when the actual voting takes place. For now, enjoy and let me know your thoughts if you have time to respond.

SOMETHING ABOUT MAKING A FILM:

I've never been part of making a film/documentary and literally have zero experience in interviewing, shooting, sound systems, editing, etc. So, jumping into this project with Alex has been one exciting ride. Not only did I learn so much from a technical standpoint, but I learned from the process of putting everything together. Just listening to the people we interviewed tell their stories, experiences and testimony was rewarding enough for me. We were so blessed to see everything come together in such an amazing way and to have so many amazing people participate and contribute.

I learned that all the details matter. Everything from the colors in the background to how close the mic is to someone's mouth can make or break a shooting session. If something wasn't right, we probably would have to redo it or not use it at all. I learned the value of coordination and patience. Filming always takes longer than expected and if you want to get it right, you have to be patient, flexible and willing to retry or start over again. Coordinating with everyone involved takes a lot of work, especially when you don't really have an idea of how long something is going to take. I learned it takes more than just a good story to make a good film. It takes a lot of dedicated people willing to sacrifice time and energy for something worthwhile. The lighting, angles, interview questions, eloquence of the speakers, technical skills, background music, visual effects, and overall vision for the story came together better than I ever could have possibly imagined from the outset. Although it was just put out on YouTube and the competition hasn't really started yet, the film is already having a powerful influence for good on those who watch it. And that is why we made it.

SOMETHING OF A MIRACLE:

The deadline for the film was January 31. We finished most of the filming and basic editing with plenty of time and gave ourselves a week to make changes and additions. Some last minute interviews happened during that week to fill in what we thought was missing from the story. Alex's sister Kimi got back from Hawaii Sunday night and wanted to add a few thing on Monday to make it more aesthetically pleasing...:) Of course, things always take longer than expected and Alex got home about 9pm with the exported film ready to upload to YouTube.

Expected time to upload: anywhere from 1-4 hours. The film was due at 11:00pm our time. After a few unexpected set backs, we got the film uploading to YouTube at 9:20pm. The estimated time was 86 minutes, but it stayed this way for quite some time without ever lowering the estimated time. I kind of started to freak out. So much work had gone into the film and if we didn't get it uploaded in time, it would have been so sad for everyone involved. We sat watching my computer screen for a while and the only thing I could think to do to make it go faster was to pray. It sounds ridiculous, but we did just that and had faith that it would work out in time.

The next hour or so was pretty painful waiting and watching. We tried not to touch the computer out of fear that something wrong would get pushed and we'd have to start over. At 10:45pm, the file had 8 minutes to go for uploading and 17 minutes to go for processing. All we needed was the YouTube URL for the video to paste into our application and we could submit and be done. At 10:53, the uploading finished, but it wouldn't give us the URL until the processing was done. My heart sank as I realized it still indicated 7 more minutes of processing. This would put us right at 11:00pm and it would be too late.

But God is a God of miracles and he cares about even the smallest of things, like submitting a film for a competition. Once the uploading finished, the processing went through in less than a minute. It finished, provided the URL and we submitted the application at 10:54pm - a whole 6 minutes early! We were in shock that it worked, downloaded quickly enough and actually got submitted. Such a miracle. One of our friends commented that there was absolutely no reason for that file to upload as fast as it did. And that is why I believe in the power of prayer...and fast internet connections...:)