There and Back Again

The good news is today's call time is 3:30 pm. And the even better news is the shooting today is all at night, 5pm-4am! And then we leave at 4:01 am to go to the airport, arriving in Seattle at 12:10 pm (3:10 pm EDT!), and then we drive to Bainbridge Island to perform at 6 pm. Sleep is a fleeting thought. Actually, we were told to stay up really late last night so we'd be able to sleep in this morning. :) So a bunch of us watched a couple of movies until 2:30 am...good times.

Once we're back in Oregon, we'll try to write some more stories and post more pictures. Then we'll be flying back next Saturday to stay for another couple of weeks. Yeah!!!

Poor people...it's going to be so boring without having us here....
-Christina

This is a Week 1 Production Clip off of the Advent Film Group Website. http://www.adventfilmgroup.com/media1.php

-Natalie

Howdy!

I wanted to write you all and update you with news. I have gobs of news. :-)

Today was an easy day for me. I only shot 2 scenes, and they were easy ones. There were just some problems today. Here's how it works: The "main" camera people(director, director of photography, gaffer, etc...) are working one set up. They have one-two cameras going. They shoot the bigger scenes. Then there is unit 2. Unit 2 takes the Assistant Director and the assistant sound tech, and about 2 other camera crew people. Unit 2 films montage footage and scenes that don't involve so many camera set ups and fancy lighting and gobs of people. I've been working with Unit 2 a lot and I love it. They are very cool people.

Christina is working out in the exercise room with Katherine the makeup artist right now. I would be there too, but I wanted to write y'all and get to bed early.

I was on standby for most of the day, which is fun. I get to hang out with people and talk. But I get really weird and crazy. And I really need to stop it. I guess that's what happens when you sit around too long with nothing to do and eating fruit snacks and crackers and cheese and stuff. Hmm...you see...I want jobs to do, but it seems no one lets me do them. They ask for a dolly handler and I offer to do it, but I'm told no because I might break a nail or fall down and hurt my face. Then, I was told to stop sleeping on the top bunk because I might fall out and hurt myself. I protested, and so then Chrissy was told to put her blankets and pillows around the bed in case I fell off. He was mostly joking, I think. :-)

I think I am losing the baby tooth that I've been trying to lose for years. Hmm...that will be interesting. Imagine that. Makeup will have fun trying to fix that smile. :-) No really...I hope it tightens back up again.

I forgot to have people take off my makeup...so I need to run...night y'all. Chat with you soon.

:-)


God bless,
Victoria

The Advent Film Group website has been updated with information, pictures, etc., about the movie.

http://www.adventfilmgroup.com/projects.php

-Natalie

BY SARAH PRIDE

July 11, 2007

Chancellor Michael Farris takes direction from Advent director George Escobar

Arriving on campus as a Literature major in fall of 2005, Patrick Henry College junior Peter Forbes had no idea that two years later he would be the Production Manager for an independent Christian film. Fascinated with moviemaking but aware that PHC didn’t yet offer a film program, Forbes assumed he would dabble in small student projects at his new school. And yet he felt God calling him to this small Christian liberal-arts college in northern Virginia.

Now, two years later, Forbes found himself crowded with more than thirty other Christians from across the nation into PHC’s Nash Auditorium for the first day of filming on a full-length feature.

“Quiet on the set!” calls PHC graduate Daniel Noa. Other graduates Ben Adams and Mike Holcomb are serving here as Associate Producers, while students Mari Davis, Daniel Silver, and Abby Cossette chart scenes or await further commands. Everyone waits for the word “Action” from the film’s director, George Escobar, founder of the new Advent Film Group (AFG).

The soft-spoken Escobar, a long-time PHC friend and patron, considered the College a promising setting from which to launch an independent Christian film program. Though no formal business relationship exists between PHC and Advent, the proximity of a pool of talented students with sights on impacting the culture for Christ, many already producing videos and films, seemed like a perfect fit.

“Why is it that major ‘Christian’ films in Hollywood such as Amazing Grace and The Chronicles of Narnia are done by secular directors?” he asks. “Because no Christians are qualified to direct with $100 million budgets.”

Since the Hollywood movie culture effectively excluded Christians., Escobar sought an alternative.

“Film school right now is a failure for Christians,” he adds. “My thought has been, let’s not just talk about movies or play around with poor-quality student films. Let’s go make movies!”

And Escobar knows how. Former Producing Fellow from the American Film Institute’s Center for Advanced Film and Television Studies, he spent many years in the Hollywood system before deciding that the nation’s entertainment media needed something very different. Christian films in particular, he felt, needed a facelift.

“We don’t want poor-quality movies that evangelize to Christians because nobody else can tolerate them,” he explained. “We want to make authentic movies about Christians facing tough moral, real-life issues; imperfect people who happen to hold a Christian worldview.”

Along those lines, AFG’s first project, which bears the working title of Moot Courting, follows the story of Caleb, a recent transfer to PHC, caught in a moral tug of war between his parents—a newly Christian father, and a feminist Supreme Court attorney mother. As the PHC moot court team and the Supreme Court simultaneously grapple with legal cases involving abortion, Caleb clashes with his mother and his own conscience over difficult issues of truth, compromise, and success in the intense world of collegiate moot court.

Escobar plans to film and produce five such movies over the next three years in collaboration with PHC, following the model of Facing the Giants, a “microbudget” Christian feature filmed for less than $100,000. He has raised all the money for “Moot Courting” from independent investors, and he expects that it will pay for AFG’s second movie from sales inside the homeschool community alone.

“We know this model works,” he says. “We don’t want to get ahead of the Lord.” But then he leans forward, eyes bright. “I have the audacious vision that Christians can overtake and match the quality and quantity of Hollywood productions over the next few decades. And we need to.”

PHC Trustee and AFG investor Paul de Pree agrees. “It also has always been a mission of PHC to get involved in cinema and change the way that industry presents reality. Our world is so in tune with video these days, that this is a great way to reach the common person. This also begins to share the story of PHC very effectively, in a way we had not been able to explore yet and may not be able to do otherwise.”

Escobar invites any Christian interested in participating in or donating to AFG to visit adventfilmgroup.com for more information.