Save The Wheel: Reinvented - The Dinner Table
Last week, Brett and I collaborated with our new friend here in Alabama, Colton Davie, winner of this year’s Best Young Filmmaker award at the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival with his film Blue State: Tolerance For All, to produce a short film for Save The Wheel dot Com. This we accomplished over the course of several hours on Saturday evening, and were quite pleased with the result. The short film is now available online, and we would encourage all of you to go watch it and give us your feedback.
For those who are unfamiliar with the Save The Wheel website, allow us to explain that the purpose of these short films is to exemplify the age old truth that some things shouldn’t be reinvented. Our goal was to create an entertaining and aesthetically excellent film (relative to the time available) and to prove, metaphorically, that just like the dinner table, God’s Truth, God’s Word, and the Gospel, don’t need to be reinvented.
Go watch the film now… Then come back and read the rest.
A Lesson To Be Learned:
This film is a great example of the value of collaboration among Christian young people (and among all Christians, for that matter). Quite simply, despite the fact that Brett and I have wanted to make a film for Save The Wheel for a long time, we could not have made one on our own. Not only did we not have the equipment we needed here in Alabama, but we also did not possess the amount of experience required to reach the level of audio and video quality we wanted. By working alongside Colton, we were able to pull all of our strengths, resources, and ideas together. All of us were surprised at how quickly we were able to put the movie together (just a few hours), and at the quality we were able to achieve in such a limited period of time. You can’t always be good at everything, but when you are willing to work with others, you acquire the strengths of the whole group.
November 16th, 2005 at 12:54 am
Yes, it’s good to collaborate, especially among Christians. Too often we work with those who don’t share our fundamental views for life, and it works its way into the film.
Sadly, I’m in a pretty bad position for collaboration. We have two types here: The city slickers, that know computers and technology, but are completely devoid of God’s word, and we have the ranchers, who thoroughly understand God’s word and are either working or reading the bible, but don’t have a clue what the internet is, other than it has something to do with bill gates.
That is, of course, an oversimplification, but it’s pretty much accurate.
Fortunately, we did meet some filmmakers at the 2004 festival, which live somewhat near our area, and at the 05 fest, we met even more filmmakers that lived much closer.
Still though, I’m just learning, and I think I’ll continue to improve on my own before I go into a much bigger production.
Oh yeah….
The Mom under the table scared me in that video…. No WONDER Father’s know everything….
Mom listens in on the conversation, repeats the information to Dad, and he interprets it.
It’s very strategic method…
;-)
God Bless!
In Christ, John.
November 16th, 2005 at 2:05 am
what’s up alex — great job on the flick. we were planning something similar…but a little different…
what’s new? you guys making any new films?
November 16th, 2005 at 3:18 am
Okay, this probably isn’t the best way to debut my comments on the Rebelution, but I’m going to start off by being a bit critical of the Dinner Table flick. First, and most important, what was the message of the clip? My impression is that it intends to satirically eliminate dinner-table conversation by putting everyone’s backs to one another, making fun of the tremendous lack of family mealtimes in America. However, that message is not obvious.
Second, from the perspective of a fat, lazy moviewatcher, it seems like some of the shots last longer than they should, giving the viewer too much time to think things like, “Why are they eating off the chairs?”
Having said all this (so rudely), I’ve never made a movie except with my cheap digital camera, and I’ve certainly never had actors or a story line. It sounds like you filmed and edited the whole flick in a relatively short amount of time, and you are certainly to be commended for that. Keep up the good work. This whole Christian filming movement is starting to take off, and everyone who contributes is essential.
November 16th, 2005 at 4:28 am
I apologize, Mr. Devine. I confess that I posted with the assumption that our readers were already familiar with the Save The Wheel website and its message. Allow me to clarify briefly:
The message of Save The Wheel dot Com is that some things simply do not need to be reinvented. The “wheel” is the paradigmatic example of such a thing, but in this case, serves only to symbolize something much more important. Some of the things our readers have theorized as being the “meaning behind the wheel” are “truth,” “the gospel,” etc… More recently, those behind the site have revealed the website’s ties to the New Attitude Conference, a Christian singles conference put on by Sovereign Grace Ministries.
Because of this, the message of the film was simply that reinventing some things is just a bad idea. The thing we chose to demonstrate this was the dinner table. Not only is eating food from the chair while sitting on the table awkward and messy, but it also detracts from fellowship among the family. Because it was posted in the context of a site that many of our readers are already familiar, perhaps we failed to make it as clear as was necessary.
Regarding the quality of the film. I agree with all your observations. Those things would most likely have been fixed with more than 45 minutes post-production, but your points remain valid.
Thank you for the constructive criticism. God bless!
November 17th, 2005 at 5:03 am
I see . . .
Thanks for the explanation of “Save the Wheel.” When I was there I didn’t see anything that explained the purpose of the site; but now I know. With that perspective your film fits nicely with the theme.
Take care,
Daniel
November 17th, 2005 at 6:46 am
Well done