We used to have a weekly brown-bag luncheon where a group of very creative people from both on and off-campus would get together to talk about film. For several weeks, Jay Fox, English professor, joined with us to discuss how Christ was depicted in various films. Afterwards, we had an “itching” to do something about it. So, Joy Gardner (Mary) and Dallyn Bayles, who were leads in the Church‘s “Savior of the World” at the Conference Center Theatre, graciously accepted our invitation to come down and be in a part of the production, using a story out of their script. It was a huge experiment. We asked a dance professor to be the cameraman because of his aesthetic motion sensitivities. The director of photography was a still photographer. We recorded sound directly into our mac laptop with our mic attached to an m-audio device (and afterwards painstakingly made it match the video–in the days before PluralEyes). We used a simple mini-DV camera. We tried Apple’s Motion to do the titling (which is a product by itself). If you would like to watch it with producers commentary, go to http://youtu.be/c213RsI8Rgk

It was freezing and raining during the two-day shoot, and we came within an inch of canceling it. The electricity kept going out, too. But I’m glad we persevered, and it gave us all a sense of wonder how a few students and faculty, using a simple camera with minimal lighting, were able to film a small part of the greatest story ever told.