June 25: Community Loves

One of the best parts of working in any community, is that you can get a real, honest-to-goodness sense as to how supportive the people are when it comes to what you're doing. Any project, really. If you make any sort of splash at all, the community, in general, either supports you or it doesn't, and they usually tell you clearly. What I love about Fergus Falls is that the majority of individuals that reside there know how important the arts really are, and almost everyone...not just A Center for the Arts...will tell you that.

On June 25, we relied heavily on the goodwill of many of our Fergus Falls friends. First, shooting at Kennedy Secondary School was a challenge, but not because of the location. We had so many scenes to shoot, and only a few days to do it in, but the staff at Kennedy made the experience such a positive one! Jayna Johnson was so instrumental in helping us to prepare for those crazy days at the school. It was by far one of our favorite locations.

Tim Larson, DP, and Josh Overgaard ("Brandon Shaw") prep the equipment in the halls at Kennedy School in Fergus Falls. 

Coach Mitchell and his PE class.

On that particular day, we shot a few scenes outside on the football field. Because we were shooting a scene that takes place during a guys' PE class, we needed a PE teacher and a class of boys. Pastor Clay Mitchell from the Naz obliged us by not only being our PE teacher, complete with whistle, but by providing a wonderfully respectful and athletic class. To have the support of community churches, like the Naz and Stavanger Church (where we shot a few scenes earlier that week), is so important to us.

That afternoon, we headed over to Farmer's Field at De Lagoon, with permission from the Fergus Falls mayor and city council, and met up with the local American Legion summer team who provided the extras for our baseball scene. What a friendly and cooperative bunch! From the sound of it, they enjoy every opportunity to play. And even though filming a very small portion of an informal baseball game is not at all the same as actually playing one, these guys were incredibly patient and so pleasant to work with.

Fergus Falls American Legion Team 

with actors Josh Overgaard, Joe Larson, and Levi Preston.

Last, we spent the rest of the evening at Doctor Michael and Pauline Norgard's home, where all of us felt welcome and warmly invited into their space. It's a little daunting for anyone, I'm guessing, to have a production crew come into your personal home and create scenarios that don't usually exist there, but they were so accommodating and I know we made friends for life! The best part: including all of their children in the filming process. What a delight!

Luke Norgard, our stand-in loader. 

Thank you, Fergus Falls, for loving us the way you do. We'll see you June 2015! 

Why So Long?

One of the most common questions I hear about the production of Sacred is, "Why do we have to wait a whole year to see this thing?"

When I first started dabbling in film making, I was very hesitant to plan so far in advance. We auditioned for He Leadeth Me many months before production actually started. I didn't learn this anywhere, I just figured it would be safest. And I felt the same way as everybody else. We have to wait a whole year to film this movie? And then, we have to wait a whole year to see it?

As the production process advanced, however, I realized quickly that a year is very short. The amount of time it takes to plan a production of this size, and then the size of Sacred, and so on, is incredible. Not only do you need to know who will be committed to the project to start with, but you'll need the time to prepare them for their tasks. Ministry adds a whole different level of development, as well. Not only are we focused on producing a movie, but we're focused on producing ministers in the light of it---and that takes far more concentration and time than anything else.

So what do we do for the next 10 months?

This is our post-production schedule, a peak into the life of Sacred and His people....

July: rough cuts of the film are completed

August: a final cut is completed, final music samples are submitted to our Director of Sound & Audio

September: color correcting begins, we release the official production poster, audio editing begins, a musical plan is created and instrumentalists, permissions, etc. are scheduled

October: the final cut continues to undergo color correction, and ADR (automatic dialogue replacement) begins

November: additional ambiance and sound effects are selected

December: three 1-minute musical pieces for three trailers are selected

January: completed audio and video are submitted to director for final review, text and credits are created, three separate trailers are produced, production staff watches the entire film of Sacred, we begin a premiere countdown

February: completed trailers are submitted to the director for review, first trailer is launched February 14, a final cut of the film will be submitted to our Director of Sound & Audio for all music

March: our second trailer is launched

April: our third trailer is launched, the film continues to undergo musical editing

May: a complete final cut of the film with music will be submitted to the director for final review, all production staff will view the final cut, all necessary corrections and repairs will be made, a premiere DVD is created

June: all of YOU will join us in Fergus Falls for the premiere of Redeemer's Song Ministries' SACRED


Yes, it really does take years to produce a film. :-) Pray for us!

June 24: A Day Off To Think About Work

It's funny. Everybody likes a day off. Even if you like your job, rest is always a necessary treat, especially if you have the chance to enjoy your vacation doing something you love. But what if something you love is that job, and having a day off or even making yourself have a day off is torture?

We did that. We felt that. We survived.

As I sit here and catch up on this blog and remember everything I was thinking during those shoot days, I remember feeling very relieved on June 24. We were back to work shooting "Sacred" and this time at a brand new location. Everyone was exhausted and running on homemade muffins and adrenaline, and a little wary of the rain clouds (we had a lot to shoot outside that day), but we were so excited to be back together again. And we were relieved that our "days off" were over! Some of our actors were shooting dialogue scenes for the first time, and everyone was eager to do something new and different. Mostly, though, we just wanted to be in each others' presence.

During our time off, between shoot days, I enjoyed and related to comments like these made on Facebook and Twitter...

I'm so excited and ready to be back on set of Sacred tomorrow! Missing my #SacredFamily
Too many days off in a row... Must-get-back-on-set!! #SacredRSFilm

I felt that way, too.

I'm going through Sacred withdrawal today...can't wait to see you guys again! Resting has been wonderful, but seriously....can't we just rest together? #SacredRSFilm

For a director, the interaction is affirming. It is so much fun to watch my actors embrace the process, embrace the Message and goal of our project, and embrace each other. Everyone had a common purpose and everyone wanted to be doing it together. All the time. What a rewarding thing it is for a director to observe. Now, though, it's difficult setting all of that aside to get back into every-day life. It's been a "camp" or a mountain-top experience, to say the least, and what do we do with ourselves after it's done?

The wonder of it all is that ministry is never done. I encouraged some of my actors to remember this simple truth: even though you may be apart from these people, and you may never work together in the same way, or you may never see some of these people again, you are forever connected now because of the Spirit and what He's doing in this ministry. Eternity is a forever kind of deal.

Serving God together is a powerful thing. It connects people's hearts in the deepest way, and when the process takes you into a selfless place where your love for Jesus and what He's done for you is the fuel and driving force, you never want to leave it behind.

And yet, Jesus spoke about this. He spoke to the heartache we experience now, the kind of heartache that comes with coming to the end of something good. In the Gospel book of Matthew, Jesus had just been resurrected from the dead, and was speaking to His followers before His ascension into heaven. He said, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." (Matthew 28:19 to 20a) I can imagine that the disciples, in that moment, were living the greatest, truest "mountain-top experience" ever. Here was their Lord, their teacher, their Savior risen from the dead! And they couldn't wait to see what God wanted to do next! And now, they knew what He wanted them to do next. They knew it wasn't over. But...

Jesus was going to leave them to do it on the face of the earth by themselves.

Oh, not really by themselves. He promised to send the Counselor, the great Comforter, the Holy Spirit to dwell among them and to be with them until He, in body, returned at the end of all things. But His face was leaving them for quite awhile, and I can only imagine the feeling of "coming to the end of something good."

The "Sacred" cast and crew, and myself, will always remember moments and comments and joys and conversations we experienced in the making of the film. The disciples, I'm sure, days after Jesus' ascension into heaven remembered stories and healings and questions and love and love and love, and wished they could go back to those moments they lived with Jesus face-to-face. Who wouldn't? And yet, they were not left ill equipped. The job wasn't over. The mission had begun.  Jesus left them with something even better than what was temporarily good. He left them with a promise, and that promise looks like this even for us today:

Jesus said, "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:20b)

Those three significant, life-changing years of ministry with Jesus were over. Years and lives of ministry with the Holy Spirit were ahead of them. They'd been given a charge, and a promise of forever-companionship and guidance. And one of the greatest gifts Jesus could ever give them: the charge to do it together. 

Ministry is a very intimate thing. I praise Him that this intimate thing is never over.

He is never over.

June 19: A Place For Us

I don't think anyone anticipated how crazy and hectic everything would get when filming "Sacred." We started out fast, worked hard and fast, and slid to a grinding halt. Maybe too fast. We sort of all fell down when the race was over and collapsed, exhausted and overwhelmed. But, wow. What a marathon.

As I look back at all of the days this blog seemingly appeared silent, all of the days I was too tired and it was too late to blog our experiences, my brain now is still a hazy mess of memories, moments, and mountains of footage. I do know, on June 19, we had our second incredible shoot at Kennedy Secondary School. I can't say enough how awesomely accommodating the staff have been. Our friend and liaison Jayna Johnson coordinated the use of all of our needed space, handled forms and communication between us and facility use staff, and cleared us for entry for all of our early days. What a job she had keeping us organized! Jayna, thank you!!

One specific moment stands out from that day, and became a very real reminder that God was and is actively participating in this project. We were scheduled to film a scene in one of the gymnasiums, but ran late the previous day and didn't get to it. By the time we hit the scene, the gyms were full and we had to reschedule for the next day, June 19. We had two actors that had to take their lunch off from work to come back and shoot the scene, and it looked like the gyms would be full again. We decided that this meant that we needed to reorganize our situation, rethink the scene, and shoot outside on the Kennedy track. We headed out with all of our equipment, rewriting as we went. As the cameramen set up the shoot, and the actors rehearsed, one of the set moms and I prayed for the Lord to send the clouds away and to hold back the rain. As we prayed this, the wind picked up and the clouds rolled in even faster. The crew were set to shoot the scene, and the actors revitalized with our new plan, but the rain started to fall. I had to make an important call. I finally halted the setup and said, "Listen. For whatever reason, God wants us on the move... and we need to listen. Now."

Gosh, I had no idea what we'd do. I had actors and cameramen with expensive equipment hurrying up the hill behind me to the closest school doors, out of the rain that poured out of the sky only five minutes later. We wandered the halls, trying to come up with a plan while the minutes ticked away. We needed to get those actors through the scene and out the door, back to work. We first checked the gyms again. Full. We checked the weight room, prepared to rewrite again. Full and loud. And yet, our hero...a friendly Kennedy staff member, Paul Ratz, listened to our situation and volunteered to find a place for us. I was doubtful. I knew the gyms were full. But, as he led us back to the gym closest to our "escape" doors, closest to the soggy track, the Spirit started to shift my perspective. Here was a gym, he said, usable.

But there are kids in it.

And then the Holy Spirit said, "Yes."

Oh. I thought. That's it. 

And then our perspectives changed again. Here was a scene intended for a gym, not a single word out of order, not a single rewrite needed...surrounded by kids, and exactly where it needed to be. I don't want to give much away, but it was a very significant, interesting perspective, and I thanked the Lord for giving us a new vision!

Here's the funny part of this story. The following week, we decided to re shoot the scene because of some inconsistencies. We had the gym completely to ourselves, no rewrites involved, and exactly how it was scripted from the start.

I'm beginning to learn that it's not so much about the destination, but the road He gives us to get there. Sometimes it doesn't make sense at all. Not at all. But, He doesn't ask that we make sense of it...only to trust that it makes sense to Him.

June 23: The Little Things

I have a moment between waking and another busy day, and I wanted to thank a group of unsung heroes in this "Sacred" project. This project, any kind of project like this, just doesn't happen without those unsung heroes and we want them to know how much we appreciate them.

Home is where the heart is. And when you open your home to us, you share your heart, and this doesn't go unrecognized. Thank you to all of you who have contributed your homes for the purpose of "Sacred." Filming, workshops, social gatherings: having a "home" for "Sacred" has been critical in the development of our cast and crew family. Thank you for being faithful with the gifts God has given you!

A happy stomach makes a happy cast member which makes a happy director, and we have been overwhelmed by the awesome dedication our foods coordinator, and what she's managed to procure for us every day of shooting! This isn't an easy task, and she often takes the brunt of those days that haven't been catered by other people, and we can't thank her enough for the work she's done. We also thank those who have contributed financially to feed our "family." Without food, we'd be running on only adrenaline most of the time, and now all of my cast and crew are healthy and fed! Thank you for nourishing them so they can do their job!

THANK YOU!

Love, Sarah and the "Sacred" cast and crew

June 18: So Tired

I'm so tired. So very, very tired. Up at 5:00 this morning to kiss my sleeping babies, on location at 6:00 with the cameras rolling an hour later, and absolutely no appetite. After a twelve hour shoot today, we just now sit down at this table and prepare to watch ALL of the dailies. All 156 of them. It's just past 11:00 and our Director of Photography is going to spend the night on our floor. We're tired, so very, very tired. Nothing ever goes as expected, of course. We had a number of scenes to shoot today, being our first day on location, and we were behind schedule the entire time. We were exploring and investing, and no one really knew what to expect from one moment to the next. It was surprising, though, how incredibly calm everyone really was. Even though the first day of any project like this is a learning curve, and everyone is feeling anxious because we're afraid of defining what the entire project will look like from this point on, our first day with "Sacred" was a well-oiled, invested, focused experiment. So many of us commented on how smooth the process was, despite it being our first day doing any of this at all. We attribute that, of course, to the most focused, invested Friend we have. Oh, did we have fun! We invited two high school janitors at Kennedy School to join a scene as extras, and I think they were a little overwhelmed. And me? For the first time ever, I got to do what I've always wanted to do: sit and watch, and direct my actors while everybody orchestrated everything else. And at the same time, everyone made our location at the school our home. We all had a task, filled in the missing gaps, exuded patience, and were incredibly kind and encouraging and loving to all of the new faces that appeared on set as extras...and everyone was praying.One of the most difficult scenes to shoot, in fact, involved a lot of grief, and it turned into a scene with a lot of tears for many of us. It was exhausting, but it happened so naturally that we all felt a part of the real thing. I finally learned that one of our cast members and a group of others stood outside the door praying for everything that was happening in that room. The Holy Spirit moved as they requested, and we all will remember this precious moment because of Him.

We're tired, so very tired. But, wow...let's do this again.

"Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." (Isaiah 41:10)]

June 21: For Real

"The flowers are real."

I heard this statement a few times Saturday morning as we gathered at Stavanger Church outside of Fergus Falls. Walking into this beautiful, white-steepled country church was like walking into my own house. For well over 20 years I called this place my own, and for a handful of those years I worshiped without my immediate family who had moved into another location for ministry purposes. I tell you, I opened that door and I said, "It smells like Stavanger," and I didn't just mean the building. Stavanger smells like this: conversations after church around a cup of hot coffee, cake-walks and bake sales in the overflow. It smells like funerals and weddings and youth group lock-ins, and private conversations with teens in the front row of the sanctuary. It smells like childhood, adolescence, adulthood and ministry, and it smells like faces I'll never forget. So many of those faces aren't even there anymore. A flood of memories always washes over me when I visit this place, and especially so as we filmed one of the most important scenes of the movie in that beautiful little yard, and I cried with the love that I have for it. What an honor it was to be there that day.

The story of "Sacred" means so much for so many already, but this scene more than all the others I can relate to the best. Over the last few years I've laid to rest a sweet cousin and my best friend, and it baffles me that I haven't completely collapsed with grief. But, God's incredible that way. On a daily basis, he reminds us that he is not a God of death, but of life, and "the grave has been swallowed up in victory." I hate that sick feeling of loneliness, and the sadness I feel when I remind myself that neither Heidi nor Jessika will get to see my kids grow up. And then...the Holy Spirit reminds me that they will. Because he has promised us a future, through his son Jesus Christ. And God always keeps his promises.

As we prepped to get the shots we needed, and as I visited with friends, it made me sad to know that so many of my dear friends, and the people who watched me grow at Stavanger Church, are gone. Couples are missing partners now, the older are now the elderly. It makes me sad because it reminds me that time is passing so quickly, and I wish I could go back to the years when running down the aisle was something I did, and the kind, loving faces were the faces I looked up to from my little height, and not faces that aren't there anymore. And then I see all of the faces that are there, and I dream of all of the faces that will be there when I'm not there anymore, and I remember what's most important: eternity! Eternity is most important, and the home that we have apart from any gentle-loving church. Apart from any small or large congregation. Apart from any individuals and groups of people we get to know. Apart from any of this that doesn't last. And wow, it puts everything into marvelous, hopeful perspective.

On Saturday, we filmed a scene of death with a full casket and a crowd of invested individuals. That same day, I also had the privilege of ushering one of our cast members into the Forever Family of God. What an honor to do this for the very first time in a place that taught me how. What an honor to know that life doesn't end in this little country church, but that this church is a part of a far greater beginning. God has plans for this incredible family of God in this humble place, and he promises that he has plans for you.

And God always keeps his promises. His promises, for real.