It all started on the floor of an art class, with five friends, God, a camera, and fifty bucks.
I was just joking when I told the group that I had a camera and a tripod now. We could make a movie. But Victoria looked at me and said "When?"
"No, you don't understand," I tried to laugh. "We can't."
She just looked at me and said, "Why not?"
Oh. Wow.
Before I knew it I was sitting there, listening to every excuse I could find, every rationale, get knocked to pieces. Every reason I came up with not to do it was being pulverized by these awesome friends, till finally I said, "Hey, God? If this isn't what you want, stop me." He didn't. Instead, He started blessing me out of my mind.
People, locations, props, costumes...everything dropped into our laps. We still had under a hundred bucks, but money had ceased to be a concern.
We had a budget that couldn't pay one volunteer, a movie that was supposed to be maybe a dozen people and some church hallways that had exploded to at least thirty people, fifty to a hundred extras and more than ten locations, a high-rise building to film in, a local music producer who'd promised to do our soundtrack on the side, and cameos from people more professional than I'd dreamed of working with for another ten, twenty years. God said He'd give us an abundance for every good work. And He meant it.
There was just one major problem.
I had no idea what I was doing.
Our screenplay was skimpy. Our shoots were slap-dash and frustrating for everyone, because I had no idea how directing worked. If it edited together it was grace. Maybe we thought speed could heal the wounds, because we just rushed onwards. I was the blind girl trying to run air traffic control while doing Algebra and directing nuclear arms negotiations. And what we desperately needed was to take a step back, take a breath, listen to God, and learn a lot.
We got that on January 22, at 2 a.m., when a tornado took the roof off my family's house.
The people I'd known from art-class floor meetings and 1 am hamburger breaks during shoots were suddenly the people digging with us through sopping drywall, and packing up our kitchen stuff. The people who'd been the people we waved to at church became the people who showed up to salvage our posessions, bring us meals, come through when my dad had to be out of work. When the ceiling came off, it's like the walls came down too.
Would it be cliche to say I got a crash-course in what was really important?
There was a lot of recovery to do, on a lot of fronts, trying to piece our lives together. A lot of freaking out. Filming was delayed...indefinitely. It wasn't what I'd imagined an ideal filmmakers retreat would be.
It was exactly what we needed.
And I'm here to say, God was in control when the glass flew over my head. God was in control when I realized I'd been kidding myself about our script. God was in control when we found out that our handy-cam footage wasn't going to look like anything on anything but a laptop. God was in control when we resolved that if we wanted to kick it up, we needed a camera that was twice our budget. God was in control when the money came in.
God was in control when I got my first pro job on a screenwriting gig. And God was in control when it came crashing down in sparks and splinters. God has been in control when actors came and went, and everything that was important stayed the same. And God will be in control when we shoot the car chase. When we come together to rehearse. When it edits together. And when this comes together into a movie to glorify Him.
In the meantime? I really hope you'll join us.